You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Trouble With the Vocalist? We've Got You Covered!

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam give some advice on how they like to set up vocalists to make sure they come in with the right key.Make your practicing even happier with the official Open Studio Practice Journal! This is the perfect tool to improve your playing, and includes 52 weeks for a full year of notes. Learn more at https://store.openstudiojazz.com/product/practice-journal/28Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Yeah. I notice you're not at the Jacob Collier keyboard today. Can we be done with the Jacob Collier keyboard? Well, we are. You don't have your headphones on. You're not playing. Working on my no sound stuff.

I'm Adam Mace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast. Daily Jazz Advice. Coming at you today, brought to you by old granddad. No, not brought to you by old granddad. We just have it out. We're not even drinking it.

This is a high-ride. Well, because we finish our glasses. This is a high-ri-mash bill. What does that mean? I don't know, but Old Granddad, if you're listening, become a sponsor of the podcast. We are sponsored, though, by... Is Old Granddad still alive? It doesn't say Dead Granddance?

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Hey, do you know what we're talking about today? No. This was going to be a fun thing because I think we've never done an episode. I feel so free. I don't have my computer here. I don't have my phone. I don't have anything. We usually have copious notes. Copious in parentheses or air quotes. But I always know what I'm talking about or think I do or you know what you're talking about. But rarely, well, I think you still do.

I literally don't know the subject. Like you could say this is going to be anything and I'm going to have to roll with it. All right. I'm going to read you this. It's a question from an email. Okay. From Gerald. I'm going to read you the email and I want you to title it.

You do the subject. Okay. We're done. Okay. Let's see how close we get to what I came up with. Peter and Adam. The other day, we were. playing a tune with a vocalist.

The tune had a vocal pickup. The question was, how to get the vocalist in on pitch? There were two suggestions. Play a vamp, or have the keyboard just hit the tonic chord and let the vocalist take it from there. I considered the latter kind of courting. Someone else objected to the former. How about some ideas how to deal with this situation?

You were a fan Gerald. That's a good question. Thank you, Gerald. What are you titled? Okay, today's episode is going to be titled. Let's do a little stall music, a little stalled percussion. here. Here, I got you.

I don't know. I got you. I don't even need that. I got it. Marketing brilliant. Wait, what are we talking about again? I forgot. No, so this is going to be trouble with the vote.

Trouble accompanying the vocalist question mark. We got you covered. Write it down, Ryan. Paste it all over iTunes. Is that cool? Come up with a clickbaity thumbnail. Let's do this. Yeah, so that's kind of, but I mean, that's that's encapsulating what the question is.

Say it again? trouble with the vocalist, we got you covered. Okay. Trouble accompanying the vocal. I had setting up a vocalist, but yours is much more compelling. Yeah, it is. Not much. Mine is just say what you see at him.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's a good question, and you know what's funny? Is both examples... Did this happen to you this week? No, it didn't, but both examples that Gerald gave are two things I would totally just do. Yeah. Either or.

Either or. Kind of randomly, right? No, there might be some different situations. There's definitely different situations, and there's different things you can do. But those two are actually a really good option. I don't think it's corny at all to do a vamp. No. Or just lay down a chord.

Yeah. If you have to. And there's other things that we can probably get into as well, you know, typical and maybe atypical. But I think that, now, did he talk about like, well, obviously it's some kind of groove. If you're setting up a vamp, I think it's got to be good. So we're not talking necessarily a ballad here, which would definitely lend itself more to just like, although you can certainly vamp on a ballot. You could vamp on a ballot. But, I mean, that would lend itself more to just playing a chord or whatever.

Yeah. I think the difficulty, depending on what type of groove, and we may need to know a little bit more. Well, we'll just sort of talk about general situation, things that would apply, is that a vamp is, you know, of course, can be used in many different places. It can be typically at the end, at the beginning, as like a segue in between.

I mean, really kind of anywhere, but the idea is that you're sitting in, yeah, we're vamping right now. Much as we vamp on this show a little bit, it's something repeating over and over again, right? over a similar groove, right? Even when you don't want it to keep, oh, thank you. No, no, no, but I mean, it's something repetitive, either harmonically, melodically,

and that was kind of melody of the bass note, harmony's thing, the same, rhythmic thing, repeating, something that gets you into some kind of drone-like continuation of a feel. So if you do it at the beginning to set up the vocalist, it's really no different than just setting up the tune. You want to either use it in two different primary ways, I would see, as an exact setup to what you're about to play, So like you're laying out the table, like you're telling people, come on into the dining room.

We are about to have, let me tell you about the menu tonight. And you actually tell them everything. Yeah. As opposed to maybe if you did a kind of vamp that was something's different. And it could just be one thing. In fact, I think one thing only changing from the vamp to the beginning of a tune can be very effective. And that's like, come right in. We don't know what we're having yet, but it's going to be vegetable.

Yeah. And bam, it's a carrot. You know, and then so then you expose it. So there's a little bit of mystery or drama to that. That might be like you're vamping over that, but then you go into another key when you start. Same feel, same key. I mean, not same key.

Different harmony. You know, and now the tune, yeah. So you set up the feel. It's not just like totally out of leg. You're playing off samba, and then all of a sudden you go to swing. But there's one element that's a little bit different. And I love doing that kind of thing.

That to me, because you want the intro on some level, an introduction and I know he was asking Gerald was asking more about like I think from the standpoint of like specifically with a singer and like making he or she comfortable maybe and you know making that work setting up the key for them

yeah so there's always the logistical side but it's really all about the audience and an introduction has to introduce the tune no matter what I mean the key though to what we were just talking about I think the key to taking the vamp away from sort of cheesy corny territory that we could be talking about is what just happened when we were

when we were demoing that which is like wait that wasn't cheesy I mean, it is for sure. Sorry. It is for sure. But, sorry, it's hard to talk and play. So it's not just... I can talk and play.

I have to talk like this. No, it's not just going straight into... You know what it? It's like actually setting up the singer... Oh, sorry. You know what I mean? Like giving them something to grasp onto you. Like, hear everybody, we're going from here to here.

Right, right. And you can do that. Don't think like... And even if you think that the singer, is a little bit weak or whatever. Like, don't, I mean, we want to be supportive. We have to be supportive. It's in our best interest for the performance to be supportive. So I think the biggest thing, like these are just sort of general ideas for doing the introduction.

How much you need to lead, as we say in the business, the vocalist and provide them with the note. Like, first of all, you got to know the melody. For sure. So you know where they're coming in. Because a lot of times I hear pianists, guitarists, or even just rhythm sections in general. They'll be like. They're like, that's the chord. That's the five, but they don't give them.

And the melodies here. Yeah, yeah. And that's the hardest thing, you know. Now, there's certain singers that can do that. You got to know that, though. Yeah. You know, and there's certain singers. I remember playing with Betty Carter.

She was like, she had very good ears. And it was only occasionally, well, first of all, according to her, she never needed, like, a note or whatever. But there were a couple places I noticed. So that's my job, though, to figure that out. She's not going to tell me. I have to know that. And I have to know when she doesn't need it so that I don't play it. Not necessarily play some of this clash, but,

to know that it, because a lot of singers get upset if you make it too obvious, like, ding, ding, ding, ding, now that's your note. And you look at them, yeah. I mean, that's bad. That's bad for it. It's not good, not good. No bueno, as you say. Gerald, your other option here of just setting up a chord

for whatever the singer, so my question is, why just set up one chord? I mean, you could set them up with the tonic, but you're the pianist, man. If the tonic is C, why would you just start on C, man? You could start here. Right. Oh, yeah, if you're at a smooth jazz club, you could do that, I guess.

Oh, come on, man. That's just my modern sound. I'm joking. But you know what I'm saying, though? It's like you can just take four bars of chords, whatever you want to do and set up that one chord. That's how you think about it. I'm setting up that tonic chord or the five chord, usually. And I think especially good times to do that are when you've got to think about where you're going.

Right. Right. So it's not just the first chord. Yeah, you've got to think about harmonics. and rhythmically what the groove is. But what happens then? Like, is it a very sort of static, harmonic

situation when the melody starts? If it is, like, say, the first four bars are all sitting on a one chord. That, to me, would be a great opportunity to do something exploratory with the harmony before. They give it a little bit of a little dramatic flare with that, and then bam, set it up.

If you do all that right before, the melody's already going to go a lot of places... You're doing giant steps. You're doing giant steps. Yeah, giant steps. doesn't need a big complicated thing as an intro. As we say,

it might be putting a hat on a hat if we did that. Perhaps. I wouldn't want to put that in all week. There we go. We've also talked about putting a bonnet on a Yamaka, but that's for another show.

But yeah, I think that that's the main thing, and when this gets fun, when you can kind of just improvise this is, of course, if you know the vocalist, you have to be like a little bit sort of down the middle

in terms of how much you're giving and not giving if you don't know them because you don't want to insult them. Right. But you've got to give them that support, but that's usually not that hard to kind of find that middle ground. It's like if you're meeting somebody for the first time, you can't be like, hey, how are you doing

and pat him on the back and hug him? They might not be a toucher. That's right. So you got to kind of, but you can use the body language and that kind of a thing. A good vocalist will kind of turn to you if they need a little bit more. And that's not, it's usually a note or a harmonic thing, but it could be sort of whatever feel, watch how they're using their arms and all that kind of stuff. Body language is very important in this situation. Another great thing you could do is without chords or a vamp, I use the actual melody itself. Ooh, now we're, now, now we're, I love it, I love it. And you're kind of combining that with a little bit of a vamp.

A little bit of a vamp. I didn't even have to do the vamp, though. No, you didn't. I did that for my own pleasure. That was a bonnet on top of the top, on top of a cap and the hat. I could have done a vamp. You know what I should do is set up that here, here's, here's, Gerald, here's the ultimate. And then VAMP.

That's, that's the chersonary hat. That's a yarmaca on. top of a of a of a pope hat on top of a yeah a bonnet let's go with the bonnet that's been working for us that's the least offensive option that bonnet actually could work with the others because isn't that like on the side kind it is on the side yeah we're like a top hat on a bonnet wait that's actually not a bad look so that actually the the top hat on top of the bonnet would be when you did the melody and it went to the vamp because that actually sounded good and the cool thing with that is like now you set up the vocalist and the groove.

Yeah, you can extend it as much as you want, and you know that he or she's going to know because it stays in there. Oh, bam. And you don't have to give anything that. So you're giving yourself some flexibility. They hear it. Well, this is a great question, Gerald,

and thanks for answering it. Let's talk about something real quick that's very dear to my heart. We don't have much time. We don't have much time. Like and subscribe to this bad boy. If you watch it on the YouTube, we got lurkers out there.

We got a team of analysts back there that are looking at YouTube analytics every day. They watch what you're watching when you watch it, and they know if you're pressing that like button. Actually, that's not true. Don't be an old granddad. Don't be an old granddad. Don't be this guy.

Old granddad don't know what the like button is. Okay, my dad is an old granddad. Very sharp guy, though. He sends me YouTube links sometimes. By links, he does not actually, he emails them to me, even text them to me, but they come as search parameters. By that, I mean, he'll say,

go to YouTube, and search for Yasha Haifitz violin. And then he says, click the top one and watch it. It's like four instructions, right? Don't be that. Don't be that guy. Okay, press the, no. Actually, he subscribes to stuff on YouTube.

Yeah, yeah, what's up, Bill? No, but I mean, like, like this, because that kind of keeps the love going with YouTube. For sure. And if you're on iTunes podcast, Apple Music, well, we just went off with that. That's okay. Oh, we lose it.

And you'll hear it.