You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Tips on Playing the Changes - #16

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

Peter and Adam answer a Speakpipe about how to play chord changes without making it obvious. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. How do we do a podcast without sounding like we're doing a podcast? Well, we just act natural, act like we're ourselves, and pretend like we don't have these big microphones and headphones right in front of us. That's not possible. Okay. I'm Adam Ennis.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. He pointed to the cameras for our listeners here. We are on YouTube. Let's not forget. We're on YouTube. And this camera over here, I like to say, that's PM camera right there.

Where's the, there's the AM. That's AM. And that's PM and AM all day, right there, right in the middle. I don't even know if people can see all three, but. I don't think they can. Okay, well. So we have a speak pipe here, and this is about playing the changes without sounding like you're playing the changes.

This is from Mark. Let's check it out. Hi, guys. I really enjoy your podcast. I've had a question. I've been playing jazz for a while, but I feel like I'm kind of in a rut, and I just, just was wondering if you guys had any tips on playing through changes, even simple 251 changes, but playing the changes where they don't sound like you're playing the changes.

So like fluid, playing through changes in a fluid manner or maybe exercises that you guys tell your students or suggest your students that help them think about playing through changes but playing more melodically through changes, I guess. So I'm not sure if you guys have dealt with that question yet, but any advice you have would be really welcome. Thanks again. Take care. It was like a question without being a question. Yeah, yeah, it was.

It was a riddle wrapped in a conundrum. I think I get the gist of what he's trying to say. I'm going to take off these headphones. Yeah, me too. Let's get comfortable. Uncomfortable. Yeah, in the pod cave. Can't think about changes with Sony's on.

First of all, let's just say what changes are. We can't make the assumption that everybody knows what that is. Actually, I don't know. What are changes? They're the core changes to a particular tune or song that you're playing. It's the same as the progression, right? It's the chord progression, yeah. It's the map that jazz musicians follow, you know, as pianists when we comp or we solo.

And I believe what he's referring to is there's a way of playing jazz, you know, usually steeped in the bebop tradition or the hardbop tradition where you really are outlining the changes and it sounds like you're playing changes. Yeah. And then there's a more modern way and actually an older way on either sides of that

where you kind of play through the changes but the harmony is less defined. There's less of a cadence to it. And I think that should probably be where we start. We've talked about this a little bit before. I remember our buddy Rob Endicott asked a similar question about tunes that don't have

a lot of changes or tunes with changes making them sound like this what he's talking about. And from what I remember we've talked about this in the past, the first rule here is, you know, make the 5-1 cadences less obvious. Right. You know. Yeah, because that's, isn't that the strongest built-in harmonic drama that's already existing, that 5-1? That 5-1 will get you every time.

And it's a certain sound and it's a strong sound, which is why it sounds so good. And we like it so much. But if you're trying to be more melodic or play through, so it doesn't sound like you're playing changes, the first way to do that is to get rid of that 5-1 sound. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's just obvious and it's already there. And it's, we're always, I think, you know, from a technical standpoint in terms of like the architecture of these actual progressions, we're always wanting to balance and think about and hear melody, harmony and rhythm. And so, of course, we're going to talk about how do you put together a melody, that doesn't sound, I think that's the crux of the question, is from a melodic standpoint.

Right. But there's always the underlying harmony, like he's talking about two, five, one. Right. Which is really just a big five one, really. The two and the five. But I was just thinking that, you know, one of the, you said bebop and like that way of playing, but that can be a good example of where you think, oh, we're going to, it sounds like you're running the changes.

But the slick bebop players, you know, that actually invented it and even players today that are well versed in it, mess around with the timing a little bit. And by timing, I mean like if you have a two to five to a one, when the two is going, say, for four beats, you're playing the two, but maybe you start like halfway through the bar and then you get to the five and you're still playing the two. And then halfway through that bar, you start to play the five. And then you're on the one, but you're still playing the five. And then you resolve more like towards the end of it.

So you can play more like you still might use some alterations or whatever, but like you're clearly outlining the heart. harmony of the chords, but you're playing around with the time, delaying them, anticipating them, whatever. And that can make it feel like you're not so linked up with the changes. You actually are, but you're almost playing with the space time continuum. Ooh, I went deep. But I don't know.

Do you ever do that? All the time, yeah. And something that I learned when I learned bebop is that delay. You hear that so often. Delay and sometimes anticipation by some of the greats. I think if you want to see the best example of this better than us just talking about is check out the melody of Donnelly. Yeah.

And then like really analyze that with what the changes are. You'll see the shifts. And the whole thing is this is just like any kind of syncopation. This is like melodic syncopation. You got to always bring it back home at some point. It can't just be you're shifting, you're delaying, and whatever. And then you never line. It's got to line up at some point to give it that satisfied feeling.

So if you analyze that melody, I think that'll take you far in this kind of technique. Another thing you can do melodically is to find the common tones between chords, no matter what the changes are. If you find those common, you know, if we're doing again a 251 and C, you know, if you hang out around that D for the whole chord progression, it's not going to sound like you're outlining the changes.

You're going to be making this melody around a specific tone that is relative to all the chords available. And the more you can do that, especially when you get more complex chord changes, the more it's going to sound like you're just playing a succinct melody and less like, you know, G, B, D,

of ye, like, you know, less of that. Right, right. And I think in doing that and finding those common tones, common tones, that's what we call it, right? Common tones between the chords, that's going to keep you from running, like playing melodically in a way where you're just outlining the harmony individually. That's going to afford, because, I mean, if you can find a strong melody that, you know, even if it didn't, if it included, you know, common tones, but even left the harmony of where you're at, you're going to pull it away

from what the actual underlying harmony is. And that's sort of the end result that you want. If your melody sound like they're only outlining harmony, you're bringing more attention to the progression of the chords. And that's something that we want more in the background. Yeah, I mean, that's an example. That's what you don't want.

Exactly. But something more like, yeah. That doesn't define it as much, but all those tones are common. Absolutely. Yeah. Good stuff. Kranick and Bach is not doing well.

Probably not going to last the winter. Good. And then just the concept, I think, you know, to not sound like you're playing the changes, is to choose really strong melodic content and stretch that out over the chords. I mean, if you do that, you can kind of get away with almost anything. Playing the key. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the stronger your melodic stuff is you can leave any of the chords.

It's not even about finding a common. It's finding a common melody. And then stretch that out over the changes and then just resolve it at some point. So you're totally leaving it. How many times in a gig do you make a melodic choice? that you know is not going to fit inside the chord, but you're doing it because that's the right choice. I do it 10 times per gig.

Oh, is that a rhetorical question? Is that your cut off? You're like, all right, that's my 10th time. Yeah, I'm very strategic about it. No, but that's more coming from the heart, right? That's the melody from the heart. That's not being intellectual about it. And that's a key to this, too.

Yeah, and I think, you know, that leads to really a concept and sort of that you can work on to get better at this. And that is to learn the changes, learn the progression of action. tunes that are going to be made up of two five ones of course three six you know all these one four movements but learn the progression so well that you can forget about them and start to create these kind of melody because it's like you know some people listen are gonna be like oh yeah that's easy create a great melody that's

not about how do you do that yeah the first thing is you gotta know you have to be able to actually play the changes in a way that sounds like you're playing yeah before you can leave it like so some people want to skip over that step you got to do a lot of practice where you're just outlining the chords yeah there's getting around that part of it yeah yeah and I think that the more you you do that because the whole thing is like it's funny because I never used to understand it because I just didn't think it was possible and then all of a sudden it it did start happening I just didn't recognize exactly when I crossed over but the concept of like playing a

tune when you're not thinking at all about where you are in the tune in terms of the chronology of it what the chord what the key anything yeah yeah I mean the big danger with that is you start thinking about man what am I going to do after the gig and what's going on or I got to do this because you know it's so well you know you're just playing yeah yeah yeah yeah So what it is is you take what you used to have to focus on knowing the tune, but you know it so well that you can just literally do it in your sleep. And now you're putting your focus on just creating great melodies and then seeing where they lead to next. Yeah.

As opposed to like where do they fit into the course? That's the most exciting part about being a jazz musician, really. That's right. That part of it is the most exciting part. I thought it was the fame and money. So that's two and three. That's just for famous jazz congressmen like yourself. Yes, that's right.

So I'm, you're getting the session to order. Yeah, this is the last of the ribbing of the jazz congress. That's good. I hope that. I hope that. Well, good. Well, we hope we answered who. I'm sorry, who's question.

Mark. Mark, thank you, Mark, for the question. And, you know, for the, for the voicemail speak pipe. We love these. That's his old school. Where can folks leave us a voice mail? Well, you could go anywhere, but your best place for us to hear it would be you'll hear it.com.

And that's also a good place for what? Ratings and reviews. No. Actually, we don't do those there. Oh. No, you can leave us a written message as well. A written message? Like a comment.

A typed message. Have you been to You'll hearat.com? No, I'm going to send you the link. You've never been? I've never been, man. Oh, man, it's cool. But those things you can't do that. You don't leave a rating.

Well, you could. You can leave a rating and review at You'll hear.com, right? No. You got to go to Apple Podcast for that, man. Oh, I'm glad I asked. Or Stitcher. Let me ask you this, though. Or YouTube.

Can you get some kind of T-shirt at You'll hear? That you can do. Okay, that's good. After you name three things that you can't do at you'll hear. Let's talk about things you can do. Yeah. You cannot do that. You'll hear it.

Yeah, so, no, leave us a rating review when you get a chance for the new year. Give us a little love on Apple Podcasts. Meet us in the YouTube comments. Adam has finally got on board with this. I don't want to be there. He got the URL straight. His computer's working.

He's got it plugged in. But it's a great place for us to have, what really, what I'm interested is just kind of hearing about what you guys want to hear and what you think of the episodes and a little bit of feedback. And, I mean, like, for instance, this one, playing changes without sound like you're playing.

the change. Give us some ideas. Yeah. You know, don't just be taken from us and we give, give, give, give, give, give back to us. Give me some ideas. Now, in the 10 seconds, I'm sounding lame lately. In the 10 seconds, I spent in the YouTube comments, I saw that it was such a great place to leave us a request. So, yeah. Good. Well, until tomorrow. You'll hear it.