You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Use of Space/Silence

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

Here's an out-of-this-world SpeakPipe where Peter and Adam talk about using space when improvising. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Want a FREE You'll Hear It sticker? Listeners in the United States can go to https://youllhearit.com/stickers/, and the first 20 to leave a review and/or comment will get an exclusive sticker mailed to them.Let 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 Pete. Hey, man. If the moon were made of cheese, would you eat it? This was a children's store that I've forgotten. My kids aren't as young as yours. It's a simple question. No. I'm Adam Mattis.

And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. I got Andrew. I got Andrew to laugh with our Saturday Live Harry Carey, Jeff Goldblum reference there. And it was totally whoosh above my head as are many things. So we're talking about the moon today here because we have a speak podcast. And we haven't done one of these all week,

but we have some on deck. Absolutely. And we just want to say at the end of the episode, I'm very excited to hear about this, but I'm also very excited that we will be doing a special offer, a giveaway. I don't think we've ever done a giveaway of some swag or some swag, or some swag, as they like to say?

We're not giving it, giving it away. We're asking something in return. Well, but it's, but not much. But check out at the end of the episode. We're asking a little, but we're giving a lot. An opportunity for something very, very much. at the end of the episode. Don't let us forget it.

So we have a speak pipe today about space from Alex, who I think might be in space himself. Let's check it out. Adam, Peter, as lives. So, I wanted y'all to talk about how do you use space effectively?

You know, like, space punctuates your lines, your phrases, solos in general. And the followers that know how to use space best for the most memorable solos. So yeah, talk about space. It's the place, man.

All right, Alex. Alex has been in space, I think, before. I think so. First of all, I just want to say a big shout out to the cannabis industry for sponsoring that. They're really helping our podcast to keep going, honestly. Okay. There you go.

Space is the place. You know what, though, as often with these kinds of conversations that you might find yourself in, this is a pretty decent topic to talk about. It's very good. It's something we haven't actually addressed specifically, but it is super, super important. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think about space when you improvise just generally?

You know, this is actually one of the things. I know I'm always talking about, like, oh, I'm so great. I don't think about anything. I just play. And I do try to not actually, I mean, I try to be unconscious or subconscious or something while I'm playing. I'm like, dang, I've been doing this long. enough I should be able to. But space, like this is one of those things that I do think about. I've kind of gotten the habit of thinking about because I've, I've never heard of recording

or seen a video of me playing live or even on record, even recently, and definitely when I was younger when I was like, wow, I left too much space. Me? Neither, man. Is that the crazy? I don't think I've ever met anyone that's ever said that before. I haven't either. Everybody was like, well, I'm not playing so much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's like the whole thing of like editing, making something simpler, you know, and then I think also as you become more accomplished at playing things that are interesting and intriguing and telling a story in a, in a clear way that space helps even more. When you don't have much to say, it doesn't matter as much because, you know, the thing about space, and I'm really interesting to hear

how you, because I don't know that we've talked just about this, but we've thrown it in, but the thing that comes to mind first, so many different angles for this, but the thing that comes in mind first in improvisation, the use of space, what it does is draws attention to what you just played. Yep. Not even so much what you're about to play. This music being so much in the moment that we're normally like, you know, time is moving along for our listener there, time is moving at an interesting space and pace, I would have to

say. But if you play something and then leave the right amount of space, you can kind of heighten the resonance of what you just played. So, and I mean, I always think of like. the idea of like, bupah bum, bupah boom, right? The iconic Beethoven Fifth Symphony.

I was that for a jazz musician making the biggest pop classical reference that you could. But I mean, you know, there's different ways that conductors read that piece, but I always like it when there's a, that the correct amount of space. I don't know what that amount is. Maybe what I just sang was the right amount.

But if you move too quickly to the next part, you don't get to have that, like, the weight of what just happened. Because later on, it's going to go into the There's already a less space later on. So it's like you got to dwell in that space for that right amount of time. And I think a lot of that's instinct.

But when you kind of thinking about it in terms of something that you just improvised, you do want to give the proper amount of space, which is usually more than you think you were going to after you played something really cool. Yeah. So that the listener can kind of be like, wow. Just like in a speech.

If somebody says something, you're building up and then you drop that bomb. Mm-hmm. Ah, see, I left that space there. Pregnant pause. Pregnant pause, yeah. Pregnant pause is when you don't really drop a bomb and you just leave space, right? Yeah.

So I think I totally agree with that. And thinking about this can be a strategy for not just like a solo, but an entire set of how you use space and maybe even an entire gig, how you use space. A whole lifetime. A whole lifetime of how you use space. But there's two ways to think about this because we're talking about negative space here, but we could also talk about the positive space and how much negative space to leave is the duration of that space. and the number of times you have that space. Then we're talking about shorter phrases of what we're actually playing, of the positive space, right?

Right. I implore all the musicians who are listening to this to go check out any single Keith Jarrett solo and recognize how short of phrases Keith plays quite often. I think of Keith as not a busy player, but playing, for some reason, long languid lines, right? which he does occasionally, but he plays so many short phrases. Yeah.

I mean, it's really, really like a succession of brilliant, beautiful, quickly turning short phrases and then short amounts of space and then sometimes long amounts of space, sometimes a big, long phrase and it usually can develop. But in general, when you hear a great soloist like Keith Jarrett, I'm also thinking of like Miles played a lot more shorter phrases than you think he did. Yes. We all have this envision of just.

Miles holding these long notes or playing what but I mean really just think about just that like ba-bo-d-do-ba-do-ba-do-da these are short phrases compared to like instinctually I want to start just running my you know what I mean yeah well it changes the the you know what how impactful a smaller amount of space is after a short phrase yes you know and and there's no right or wrong answer this but it is something to kind of think about and listen to in these great recordings and then think about how you're going to apply it to your playing because if you play a succession, like maybe you were getting to this with the Keith Jarrett thing

of like a succession of short phrases. With short spaces. With short spaces can actually feel like very impactful and feel like big spaces. And the whole thing is you want it to be appropriate for what's being played. Same thing with like Miles, but then, you know, with the instruments,

how spaces use is very different. When a trumpet plays a note, like one note and holds it and then kind of comes with a diminuendo or whatever things that we can't necessarily control at the piano, that gives the feeling of space, depending on what's happening around it. It's not just a lack of music being played. Sometimes something is being held,

but that's still creating space. So that's why it's not binary, like either space or none. Well, I was going to say there's a third dimension of this. Like a drummer could be playing time, but leaving space. You know what I mean? Pianists, we have a bunch of ways to leave space while still be playing. Right. I could tie my left hand behind my back,

and it feels a lot more spacious. Yes. As what I'm playing. Even if you didn't leave any actual break in the music. But the sonority of the music is a lot more space. And to the same effect, I could play insanely busy with both hands and create all this tension and mass inside the space. Or think about if we're improvising in kind of a standard way,

sort of comping with our left hand, maybe with the rhythm section, you know, rootless type of, you know, just typical things. And we're playing. if all of a sudden we stop for one measure or even say four measures would be very dramatic with our improvising lines, but continue to play comping with our left hand. I mean, like nonstop playing in the same way, it's going to feel like a lot of space because the listeners focus in on those melodic lines. So the comping kind of continues. It's almost like the inverse of which you know what you know, I put your hand behind the back and just have the line.

You know, it'll maybe draw attention there, but it's going to seem spacious from a melodic standpoint. From the textural standpoint, it's still going to be thick, and that's where the fun is. We can draw attention. You know, I always think whenever I'm playing with a bass player and we're doing some kind of ostinato tune, like, something like that. Like, I'll take breaks in my soul

to go just play the line with the bass player to draw attention to that. Compositionally, I want to, like, let's refocus on the core of this feeling right now. You know what I mean? Yep. All these things can be these tools you can use to create space.

But then let's get back to your original point, is how much space do we leave? Yeah. You know, what's the duration of the space and how much is too much? I mean, that's a very easy. I can answer that with one word. What you got?

Number one, listen. That's so true. And now in this case, I would say the listening is, when we're improvising, is listen to the moment. And maybe this even applies, it's an interesting thing,

because we're always trying to, we love classical music, but we both always have kind of a side-handed approach to criticizing by saying, Yeah, everything is planned. The fingering, everything. But maybe this is for classical music, too. If you're a conductor and you do,

bupah, ba, ba, bum. Maybe you don't have a total plan as to when you start that next phrase. Maybe it's the moment. Like, what is the moment? What is the moment? What is that day, that audience, that barometric pressure, all those different kinds of things. What is it?

Like, so are you opening up to listen and wait to move on or wait to leave the amount of space that the moment needs? And I know it's just sounded mystical and esoteric, But it really is just a matter of like play what you hear and our whole concept of you'll hear it. Yeah, there's no wrong choices if you're doing that. That's right. I had a gig Tuesday. There's inferior choices, but not wrong.

I had a trio gig Tuesday and there's a moment that sticks out of my mind because it was something that I wouldn't typically do, but it just felt so right. We were, I was during the piano solo and we're building and Montez, who's usually very, not sparse, but he's very supportive. He's starting to play more and more as like we're climaxing and about to go to a new chorus, right? and which would normally be a time where maybe I pull out a herbie like, man, blah-da-da-da. Right.

And I just, like, let out. Right. Let him have it, right? Right. And he did some really slick stuff. I've heard you do this with actually with Hutch, where it's like, things are, it's a moment where instinctually you're like,

oh, I should fill this space because we're, because space is the place. Sometimes the right thing to do is just like, I mean, that's why we're playing with other people's like, let them have that space and fill that, you know. Yeah. Well, this is great.

I mean, there's so many different levels we're talking about within just the piano and then within an ensemble. and then there's so many and then the cool thing with that is like yeah let somebody else let the moment dictate let's do some collective listening to what what instrument needs to be played

because then when you get to that ultimate level of space of actual silence yeah because space is not the same as silence no but there is silence which is I would say the ultimate especially the larger the ensemble you have because it's so rare that nothing is going on I mean you think about a full orchestra it doesn't matter what the style or whatever

when is their total silence in between movements before it starts at the end unless it's one of these wacky pieces that's silent. You know, it's just a rest. Yeah. But, I mean, when that's the ultimate drama is nothing going on. Yeah. People think it's like 2D and everybody playing.

The ultimate is nothing because there's going to be times when there's a little bit, a lot, medium, whatever, but it's totally off when it's, you know, everything else is just. That's something that's underutilized by, like, intermediate musicians. Yeah. Yeah. Like, when we play solo piano, we can totally control that because we're the whole orchestra. Like, we can go to total silence. But when a trio does it or quintet or whatever, that's a cool thing, too.

And the audience loves that. Like, if you think. about the dramatic points like when something ends and we do our thing at the end and then you let it fade away what's the most dramatic point yeah when everybody releases that and then before the before the wild applause the inevitable wild applause or the confused awkward yeah if you're playing this weekend and you're putting together some arrangements or set let's like put in some silence some silence for your audiences you're gonna notice some drama yeah some drama well this is cool thank you now who was that i didn't catch the name of it was alex of our inebriated or i assume in coloradoes No, thank you for that. I mean, it's actually very rare that we get a question that's on such an interesting subject that we could go on for four or five episodes. But we won't because that's not how we roll. And we have something exciting we promised.

We have a very special free offer today. Free? Like totally free? Well, no, it's going to require some work on your part. Yeah, but no money. No money. No, right, right. Yeah, so what are we going to ask?

First of all, let's talk about what we're offering. Well, if you're on YouTube here, you can see this. beautiful orange you'll hear it sticker with you call it orange orange orange orange also known as orange orange orange with our with our exclusive logo yeah custom logo exclusive sticker our ugly mugs on there limited edition um never been offered anywhere for money or otherwise yeah outside of a i mean often asked for rarely accepted or given out but yeah it's a nice little what would you call this like a oh we're not supposed to say the size because it could be different, but it's going to be something suitable for your laptop, for your car, for anything.

But so you'll hear it sticker. Yeah, just like we have. And we want to give that to you for free. Yeah. And it's probably going to only be if you're in the U.S. We apologize at this time. We're not authorized due to a court order to ship out. EU shipping costs, yeah, outside the U.S. But for now, our U.S. friends, we want to send you one of these. So what do they have to do? And this is going to be to the first, how many people, how many do we have? Say 20. 20. Okay, we've got 20 for now. So to the first 20 people. that leave us a rating or review on iTunes, Google Play,

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How about seven stars? I like that even better. They all are all seven stars. So use space in your review. You space and your review. A keyword space. Yeah. And then we'll send you a sticker.

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