You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Transatlantic Deep Dive

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

Peter and Adam answer questions from the OS community on practice techniques, bad pianos, and more...Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

How's it going, everybody? This is Caleb Kirby here, and I'm serving up a very special episode of You'll hear it coming right up next. Okay, what do I got for you today? I got a really interesting collage of questions that Adam and Peter took from their community members and subscribers on March 7th, 2022. And they did this conversation transatlantically. So you're going to hear some Zoom. ask quality on Adam's side especially, but all the info is there and the content is gold and the questions are poignant. So I hope you enjoy this and I'm going to serve it up to you right now. Here we go. Yeah, I would add to that and I love what you're saying here, Peter, because I think you and I have actually evolved quite a bit on this as we've had the podcast and been talking to people because I do think, Ed, there will be a time where you won't ask this question anymore.

because I don't think about this anymore. And Peter, I know you don't either because we understand that it's about showing up every day. There's plenty of to practice and there's always something to work on. But you get to a point where you know what those things are and you know yourself really, really well. So, Ed, if you're asking this question, it sounds like you don't, like you're unsure of, you have doubt about what you should be practicing. So my advice to you is to do what a lot of musicians do until they feel comfortable with themselves. and their practice routine, record yourself a lot.

Like record yourself performing, record yourself practicing, and be honest about that feedback. Give yourself some self-feedback. Don't be brutal about it. Don't be too harsh. Just be honest. And then you're going to know exactly what you should be working on. And just like Peter was saying, then just follow your gut or your heart or whatever it is and realize that you can't stick with something for a super extended long period because

you're going to get bored and burnt out on it. But also you can't hit it for an hour and feel like, oh, I've got left hand voicing's tucked in. Another thing to realize is that nobody stops working on this stuff. This is kind of a lifelong game. You start just broadening scope the better you get at these little technical things. But for now, man, like everybody I know who was learning how to play music did a lot of recording themselves early on with tape players back in the day or even just getting direct feedback from a teacher can be very good. But that way you kind of hear like, okay, this is really what I want to work on today because I can see that this is,

where that's what I don't want to play anymore. I don't want to sound like that. I want these voicings to be better in my left hand. It'll give you inspiration to like follow your heart about what you're interested in. And then a lot of listening to to your favorite players and really focusing on like who, who do I really love listening to? Like if you love listening to Errol Garner, but you're transcribing Herbie Hancock because Peter and I love Herbie Hancock, you should transcribe Errol Garner.

Like you should follow your heart in that in that sense, right? Like, be the musician that the artist that you want to be. I mean, it's also something that comes with experience as you learn to trust your own taste. Right. And I think it really dovetails nicely with what we were talking about on the earlier question in terms of one inch wide, a mile deep. You know, even if you hear Adam and I and Chris and Christian McBride and all the great open studio, I mean, just all the great jazz artists talk about great concepts or practice techniques. You don't, not only do you not have to do all of them, you can't do all of them anyway. And that's okay.

So like, that doesn't make one better or more valid than the other. It's like, it's a beautiful thing. It's like if you go to a garden and there's like all these beautiful fruits and vegetables and you're like, you know, if you eat them all, you might get sick. And it's okay to like to just pick some. It doesn't mean that they're your favorites or not. And you don't even have to worry about like, oh, am I picking the right one? No, no, no. Just pick one.

And what I was trying to introduce is just this idea that some days what we pick or what we feel like we need to practice is not working. And that's okay. So that's okay. Yeah. And I just meant to say that it's not an excuse to always like you can't be like, you know what? Scales aren't working for me today. In fact, scales aren't ever working for me. So I'm never going to practice them.

That's not okay. But you can, you know, push that to another day. Well, not only is it not okay is you realize after some experience that that's just how it is. like it's to be expected occasionally for you to have to switch gear not be into something for a while or to leave it for weeks or months even and come back to it that's what being the musician is coming back to it and then the yeah and the only other thing i would add in terms of amount of time just looking at your question again is now i i want you to you have to put in a a and i can't tell you exactly how much time this is you have to learn this yourself but there is a minimum

amount of time for any practice technique or concept that you need to put in. Don't be impatient and just push something back because you can get a lot of false signals and false flags in terms of like this stuff is difficult. You know, it can be and it can be painful, especially at the beginning, but to get to a breakthrough. So you have to be, you have to be attuned to getting to that point where you might get a breakthrough. So don't, don't just stop because it is hard.

It's more of a thing of like when things are flowing and you're progressing. Not when it's easy. It's like when it's just like everything is falling into place. Go with that. Don't feel like, oh, now I got to stop and move on to something else. Take advantage of that time. Absolutely. And one more thing for me on this, Ed, is that remember how your brain works, right?

We don't get to learn anything as human beings without putting the spotlight of our attention on the concept we're trying to learn for, like Peter said, an undependent. but certainly a substantial period of time. And it's different for everybody. And so just know that if you want to learn something, if you want to learn stride piano, you have to focus that spotlight on stride piano for a certain amount of time and just plan for that.

Like Ron Carter says, make a plan. All right, I just, I have the perfect prop for this. Vamp for a second. Okay. So Chip was what tips do you have for non-pianists getting familiar with jazz piano one for 101? Jess Piano Jumpstart. Yeah, we've got a course.

Yeah, that's a little thing that Adam and I did. And you could certainly do all that stuff without getting the course, too. I don't want to say that we have, but that's kind of an easy way in. But a lot of the stuff that we talk about in there is about, you know, sort of it's not skipping over the basic piano technique, but it's like it's not, it's a pathway to be able to play some of the really fundamental things like root shell you know root 7 3 and learn how to move around some basic uh progressions with that without feeling like you have to have like piano lessons

just to learn how to play the instrument of course if you learn a proper classical technique over many years and then move on to the yeah you're going to have better results but that's not what this is about you're talking about non pianists being able to sit down i mean we're at the sound check yesterday and almost every time we walk in like if the bass is like not together yet Christian will and I'm not at the piano already Christian McBride will like sit down at the piano and you talk about a non-pea I mean you've heard him when we did the chorus you know he sits down like he's the he's probably the top level of a non- pianist but where does the line go into you're actually a pianist when you can play beautiful stuff at the piano that makes you're a pianist but

I was going to say it was crazy about Christian McBride is he was just in the studio the other day and you know the first time he saw our bosomdorfer and he goes over and he starts playing it and not only does you have this big beautiful sound on the bass, he's got a big beautiful sound on the piano. I was like, I know. Yeah. Good sound and touch that you've got.

That's annoying, right. It is. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, he brings that, that musical concept and listening and ear training. You know, pretty much any instrument he can play.

But I think that he was very much, you know, progressive and additive in terms of, like, his development. I don't know. He probably did take, like, some piano lessons at some point,

but it was more about, like, really exploring and like having an open mindset because the piano is an instrument if it is not your main instrument and i mean you know for me it actually was not my first instrument although i was very young when i started to play it but it was not my first instrument so i can kind of identify with this in a little bit of a way in that like it's it gives you a type of possibility if you approach it from that standpoint that can be so you know illustrative and and just in a hands your other instrument in a way that I don't think any other instrument can.

Maybe the guitar, you could say. You know, and you could speak to this because you're a really good guitarist, and I know that wasn't your first instrument as well. But I think that, you know, when you just build up, and I think Christian is a great example of this, is like starting with very basic stuff, but then connecting that with listening, with recordings and trying to figure out some basic things,

and then just adding, like, one note at a time, like your great concept of the root shell pretty. It's like that's how you build up things. Rome wasn't built in the day, but you can have that vibe and that connection with the music, even on the root and shell. And then you add just one pretty note,

still got the rhythm happening, still got the form, start to get a little bit of independence in the hands. Like those are the things that can really, you know, make you to be a great non- pianist, but make it so that you sit down

and people like, whoa, that sounds good. It might not sound like Artatum, but it feels like Artatim in a weird, way, you know? Yeah, man. No, that's exactly right. Those, those basic building blocks, they go a long way. And you don't have to, you don't have to do much, Chip. You just have to learn, like Peter said, a few root shell pretty. Here, I'm going to find that, that, that, let's see here. Find that video. Oh, the root shell pretty, oh, yeah. Oh, that's a great

one. Great one. Here we go. Check out this. Oh, come on. Don't out there. Here, Chris. So you start with that. I'll give you some really basic chords. I thought you could play it. Oh, yeah. What do I do it, man? I'm going to piano right here. I could have played the video, but just this idea of, and there's a ton of ways to start your voicing journey. But the root shell pretty thing is, you know, if you want a C major seven, having the third and seventh, and then just one extra pretty note, like the 13th or the 9th or the 5th.

And you can do that. Check out that video for a deeper back. And the great thing about that concept, too, is like, it not only gives you some cool voicings, but it expands your ears and kind of your mindset about how to construct voicings in a really simple and additive way in that, like, what are, like, how does just one note? Because this is a thing. You can leapfrog.

I mean, you can leapfrog and, like, do, you know, six and seven no voicings, even at a pretty basic piano level and learn to play them, but you're not developing the actual skills that you need to be able to take and apply to your other instrument if you do that. If you just add one note at a time and really listen in and give your ears a chance to hear what that one note does add one note at the bottom. You've got the root in the shell. One pretty note.

What does that do? Like that, those are the types of things that you can take to your improvisation and then kind of horizontalize, you know, in a way that can be very exciting. So it's like take that, take it just slowly, let your ears adjust and it'll really enhance your playing. Okay, let's see if we can tackle this. Playing a song you don't really like.

Okay, so I've done this a lot, actually. I feel like. But I don't think I do it any more than anybody else. So I feel like it's a common thing. You know, I don't feel like I have this like high standards on songs that I like. I mean, obviously there's some, I think we identify different levels. Like there's some songs we just hate, but you're saying don't really like. So like just something where it's like it doesn't give you that feeling of like, oh, I can't wait to play that.

You know, it's kind of like, oh, I got to play that. But I look at that, you know, as really is a challenge. So I kind of end up enjoying it for some reason because to me, me it's it's just harder and more challenging than playing something that you really like because when you like something you can kind of screw it up sometimes i think because you feel like it's going to be easy and you feel like oh i'm just going to play it and i like it sounds great so to me the prototype of that is lush life so like it's such a perfect song in a lot of ways that you can lull yourself into being like if you know it and you really can play it like just play it straight and you're

going to be fine that's fine but if you don't really concentrate you're as you're playing it and bring out the magic that's there and don't overplay parts and don't underplay. Like you can back yourself into the corner where it's like, wow, he screwed up LushLive, which many people have. But there's not a lot of people that don't love that song on some level. So that wouldn't fall into this. Something that you're like you don't really like. It's like how can't, I mean, think about what a beautiful thing it is with this music of jazz that we play

and that we can add things. We can even take things away. We can personalize it. Noriko, the way to think about this, too, is that you're not playing the song you don't like. You're playing this song that you don't like, but now it has you on it. And so now you can make it into something more that you like. You can add yourself to it, which you like, hopefully. And you can add the things you like about music to this song that you don't like.

It's like pizza, right? There's not a pizza you don't really. like you know it's all right still bad pizza still good is a good meal right that kind of yeah but adding yourself to whatever it is and and and that's the job you know that's what we're paid to do so i think that a great example of this if you want to just you know emulate and look at some specific techniques of how this is done the first person that comes to mind is ella fitzgerald because she sang so many songs and they were not all great yeah yeah yeah i don't think she liked all of them I don't like all of them.

But one thing that stay constant was her voice and her artistry. So for her, you know, it's a little bit of acting too, though, because I think for her, some of those songs were a drag, but because she kept like, I think somehow either consciously or unconsciously, she kept in mind that to the listener, we don't know that it's a drag to you unless you let us know that. You know what I mean? Like some of these actors that make. movies because they're under multiple movie contracts and they don't want to do it.

Yeah, you can tell if they don't want to do it if they're just phoning it in. But if they put everything into it's like, wow, they really love it. And then they elevate it to something else. And so like Mac the Knife, I don't really like that song. And every time I've played it, I'm like, I don't know what to do with it. And so I'd be like, that song sucks. That's why I don't sound good on it. Well, check out Elifist Gerald on it.

Like what's the magic that she can make out of that, that thing, you know. Johnny Rollins, I think of him when I think of that song. because I also don't like the, you know, ding a ding ding, ding version of it or whatever, but I do like some. But it's also, it's like,

it's like that thing of like, if I have to do something like that, that I think is corny or that I don't think is a high quality song or something that I'm having to play, which happens often, actually, then I do think of like, well,

I'm going to still enjoy, I mean, first of all, you're still playing music, right? It's still, it's still these sounds that we get to manipulate. And because we're doing it,

nor you can put the things we like in it. Yeah. I mean, you know, my, the only real success that I can point to, honestly on this, though, is St. Thomas. Full disclosure, I don't really like that song. I don't like playing it. Solo on that song, though. I know.

And so I do feel like a little bit of sense of pride in that, that I was able to pull off something that people like. I don't necessarily like that. And I certainly don't listen to that track. but the fact but I mean that's never been a I mean even sunny Rollins playing it I mean of course like sunny sounds great on it but that's not going to be the first Sunny Rollins track that I put on so you know I think it's just we I know I'm throwing a little controversy out there awesome do you like that song Adam I do I like when you play it yeah I love the island of St. Thomas I've actually spent a lot of time I love St. Thomas the island

this is awesome Yeah, I love a man, but you know what? Saxophone Colossus for me is up there. It's like a top 10 record for me. Like that's a desert island. If I ever get stranded on St. Thomas, I'm taking that album with me. You know what I mean? That would be dripping in irony if you, your desert island out.

Well, first of all, St. Thomas is like the least deserted island in the Caribbean. So that's going to be hard. I tried to jam that in there. That was good. That was good. All right. And we're back to say goodbye. I hope you really enjoyed that as much as I did.

Remember that if you like, you'll hear it, the podcast. You got to like and you got to subscribe. That shows love. And then we can keep going. And also, if you're more interested, you can check out the sponsor website of this podcast, openstitiojazz.com, which you can find a lot of content from amazing legendary jazz artists who are going to bring you and your instrument a lot closer. So until next time, happy practicing.