You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Vertical Harmony

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Peter's Back (in the podcave). Today, Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe about playing tunes with vertical harmony. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Today's episode is sponsored by Soundslice. Soundslice is a web-based music-learning software that is a hybrid audio player and notation viewer that syncs music notation with real audio. To find out more about them, visit www.soundslice.com. And check out our Slice of Emotion In Motion (the You'll Hear It Jingle)!Be one of the first 20 people to leave us a rating or review at https://www.youllhearit.com/sticker and you can score a FREE You'll Hear It sticker.The ending theme song for today's episode is "Overdue Library Book" by Luke Thering. To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail] 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. What's up? What do you like better? Vertical or horizontal? I prefer lateral. Ooh, you're entering the third dimension. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Two charming guys giving you some daily jazz advice. Coming at you. Let's not oversell it. Well, now that we're back together in the pod cave on the podcast, I'm feeling good. Dude, I can't see you at all. Andrew, we get a new microphone or what? This is crazy. Yeah, speaking of vertical, you've got quite a vertical. What's up with that? I don't like it. It's a great sounding. but it's not a great podcasting mic, I think.

But, you know, I'll deal. We'll have the Shore Black back soon, right? Hey, so exciting news. I heard. Yeah, we have a new sponsor at the You'll Hearer podcast. I'm very excited about this. It's something that we use every day. Every day.

Er day, as we say in St. Louis. And it's something that helps us present our lessons, something that's helped me learn about jazz by helping me transcribe. And it's called SoundSlice. And if you haven't heard of SoundSlice, you can go to SoundSlyce.com right now and check it out. Yeah.

It's pretty awesome. And I think actually there might be eventually our own page on SoundSlice that people can check out. Yeah. But so if you haven't seen SoundSlice before, we use it on almost all of our courses. Yes.

I mean, a lot of our courses now use SoundSlice to show the notation. We transcribe a lot of our lessons, and then we put the video in SoundSlice. And as you're watching the video, A notation of the transcription actually follows along in the video. So you're seeing what the player is playing as they're playing it. And then you can navigate within the notation. You could see exactly what's going on.

You could slow it down without losing pitch. You can loop things just by clicking and dragging. It's beautiful. No, it's amazing. I mean, it's next level for exactly what we're trying to do with Open Studio. And we're making it sound way more complicated than it is. You just have to go there. Go to SoundSlice.com or OpenStudio Network.com and see it in action

because it's exactly you have the notation and you have the video and they always stay together. Audio video and notation and it seems like it would be crazy and everything but it's just beautifully laid out. And, you know, Adrian and his team there are just geniuses. They're musicians and their coders as well. But they come from this place of, you know, the concept of a transcription can never communicate all the subtleties of music and everything. And just like we deal with transcribing, you know. and the notation, but when you link it up with video and audio, it gives you everything that you need to be able to check out behind the scenes,

learn what you want to do. And they have a great community. You're hip to their community over there. I am hit to their community. Yeah, we're so happy to have sounds like on board. It's a perfect fit. We've been using them for years. Yeah.

It's so awesome. And actually, we'll put a link. Andrew, put a link in the description. We're going to transcribe Emotion in Motion, which is the opening theme to this podcast. That's like the you'll hear a theme song. It's the you'll hear a theme song. Go follow that link.

and you can see the sound slice, the transcription, following this video of the intro of Emotion and Motion. Very cool. And thanks to everybody over there. Yeah. Okay, so today we have a speak pipe. Want to hear it? Here it goes.

Hi, Peter and Adam. I'm a huge fan, binge watcher of your YouTube stuff and all your podcasts and all. So I'm wondering if you could answer some of my questions about tunes with really vertical harmony, like a 262, a giant steps, or a countdown, and maybe address the particular issues that a piano player might have in working through these tunes. And so, yeah, I mean, one of the problems I have, or I don't know, one of the issues I find is that I can, I don't really play through the tune the same way I do a, you know, like,

like a bye-bye blackbird or a very standard tune that has, excuse me, that has, um, harmony that you can sort of alter easily and kind of even avoid at times to, you know, for the bigger picture. In the case of like a giant steps or whatever, I find it hard to like find that sort of underlying, uh, underlying thing that you could, you know, access to kind of make it easier to go through the tune and maybe even just do things that are a little more. creative than just sort of carving through the changes all the time. So yeah, I'm hoping that you could answer this for me and that would be just awesome. Cool. Great question, Paul. Yeah, thanks, Paul. Yeah. We are going to, not only are we going to answer this, we're going to answer all your prayers and your dreams and your aspirations about vertical harmony today. How about that? We're going next level. Okay, so we're not overselling. It's like overselling Wednesday here. I like it. It really is. Yeah.

No, I actually, so I've worked quite a bit on both Giant Steps and Countdown. I've done 26-2 sporadically throughout my career, but it's not something that I pull out my own gigs, you know? It's not one of your jams. It's not one of my jams. I do love it. I love listening to Train play on it, for sure. But I've developed some strategies. I know you're great at Giant Steps.

So how do you approach tunes like this? Well, you know, actually, there's a couple of things we can talk about, but Paul and his question, I think it kind of got me to think just as, I was hearing it of one important thing. He was talking about something that maybe he was missing underlying theme or thing that would help him navigate, you know, the chords as a progression as opposed to just, you know, vertical, stagnant kind of things that we play over, which you don't really sit on long enough to get comfortable with. And, you know, the thing that jumps out to me is two things.

Well, it's really the same thing, is the melody. And we would think about, you know, obviously that's the melody. and but the other part of the melody, what I think of it as a melody, is the root movement. So if you learn both, and you know, same thing for kind of, if we think about that as the horizontal kind of underpinnings

of the vertical harmony, I think that's our gateway and entry point to being able to understand it over a longer kind of phrases. So we get out of that stuck just playing over each chord. You know, if we really think about the flow of the melody. And then further to that probably is...

Let's see. Oh, man, this keyboard is whack. Like really being able to hear... Whoa, I turned it up and went down. Oh, there we go. The relationship of the static melodies, and the root movement was just as important as the regular melody,

but also relationship of the intervals at any point. That's where the vertical comes back in. And so this is a little esoteric what I'm saying, but basically if you practice these individually, in time, out of time, and really learn them by phrase, that that becomes something that's kind of an underpinning

that you can use as opposed to even thinking about the chords. Yeah, we're going to learn the chords and feel what that is, but this is going to be our guideposts, like where you're referencing that melody and really hearing that baseline as sort of an entry point to each of the chords. Yeah, and I love that. And Paul, I think there's some things you can do that I like to think about this, you know,

speaking of this idea, is to simplify some of these things. Like he was talking about altering, you know, on a standard if it's in the same key. The thing about tunes like this is you don't really have to do that. You know, the nature of the tune itself

is going to give you this angular sound, right? Like you don't need to put all flat 13 sharp nines on every dominant chord because it's, and to that effect even, and you were talking about baselines, sometimes in the original recording, I know, PC would play down whole steps. Yeah.

You know, down a whole step. tone scale instead of, especially those first two phrases, instead of the major root movements. And I know some people put, you know, treat that as just like a Dorian sound. So they're not thinking about these big jumps, simplifying how you think about it can help. So instead of B, D7G, B flat seven, B, don't believe yet. You can think of, my mind is, it's getting confused hearing all those chords. B, A minor seven, G, F minor seven, E flat. And that's one way to kind of simplify it and think more. I like that instead of these

these huge leaps you can think of that and then again you don't need to alter anything you don't need to think about altering what you do and then

I mean for me man if I'm having trouble hearing things on these things which I still do sometimes I do I'll kind of spell out the harmony in my own way

the first few times around still trying to make an interesting and musical but like you could think about two notes per like do it do do do it do just whatever two thirds or two intervals it doesn't matter what it is per chord so that you're kind of getting this this this theme going and I think that's an important

part of tunes like this yeah is being able to take a theme even if it's a simple two-note theme like do from exactly around those changes oops that's your first entree into this world of getting around and then you can you know try then doing longer themes that sort of blames that sort of blest bend over the changes. But kind of pattern, well, not necessarily pattern as a jazz pattern, but pattern in that you're taking, you know, like a third or a second, then a third, and then diatonically fitting within what the chords are.

A thematic theme. Thematic thing. A thematic thing. Wait, a thematic pattern. That's a double entendre, isn't it? A theme that's also thematic is double positive. It's so funny, we didn't talk about this, but I was going to say the exact same thing in thirds.

That's what I was thinking. And that's why having a good feel, should I go a little lower here? Is that legal? Okay, so if we go, if you've got that understanding of the root movement with the melody and then separate, like really from a structural standpoint, that's too low. Then the third's, ah, why don't I keep messing that up? I don't have a good understanding of it, apparently.

Yeah, if you don't know how to not do it, how are you going to learn to do it? And really, I only did one little alteration, and that was actually by accident. So that's, you know, to your point about not needing to alter things. I mean, look, train solo. You can do it. Yeah, train solo. He doesn't really... Yeah, actually, everything is...

I mean, a little flat, not. Once you get into it, you can certainly start doing that, but there's no need to go at it from that same perspective you would do if you were playing, you know, our love is here to stay or something where you can really mess

with little movements or whatever. The movements are the changes themselves. Yeah. Another thing you can maybe practice to some slow scale running. You know, where you're changing the scale mid... And continuing to go? And continuing to go.

And look, none of these things on their own make for great music, right? Especially not on the Key Station 49, MK3. Big shout out to M Audio. But you do need to kind of change the way you think about playing to play these kinds of tunes. I mean, it's a meme now, the Tommy Flanagan solo on this, right? Even though he, I think, for reading it, basically, he killed it. Oh, yeah.

I mean, really, it's hard if no one's ever saw that before. But he was thinking about music up until that point in a completely different way. Everybody was, I almost said we all were. like I was alive in 1959. Look good, man. Yeah, thanks. Benjamin Button. But you have to kind of shift into this section of your brain

that maybe is not the same as playing a Great American Songbook standard that's just in one or two keys that moves very logically. Like a by-by-blackbird, like you said. Right, exactly. Something where there's like a lot of five, one cadence that's in the same key, you know. Well, I think a fun thing too, and like you could even take this third thing. And I would recommend this pretty early on with the practice idea because you could kind of go, you know, where you're, you know,

you're really just sort of running through the intervals, running through the scales, but try to connect it with musical ideas as you're kind of learning it. Again, this is why it's good if you really know that root movement because it can get you out of that individual thing. But, you know, see, how was I going to do this?

I mean, it's hard to make it meet, but you try to kind of make it hip with some rhythms and stuff, just sticking to those thurge. You know, obviously it's going to... Because then when you add in that little, and this is really the way Trains soloed over this, a little bit of chromaticism.

I think he's like maybe the first time. which is really just a bebop scale. And when you, you know, this tune, you got to remember, half the tune is just two five ones. And yeah, they're going in a little bit of an unexpected sequence, but that definitely gives you more time

to kind of, you know, continue to play melodically, hopefully. You don't want to change up, play the first half different than the second half. Yeah, and, you know, that's true. This is, tunes like this, especially countdown,

this is a good opportunity to, Paul, to really work on something that we talk about a little bit on here, which is getting your chord voicing together in your right hand. This is when having, like, broken chord voicings together comes in super handy. Like, I mean, it's even in that train solo.

Yeah. Dabedda is really like a little, could be a voicing on the piano, you know. So I wonder, like, it almost seems like he, I'm sure he sat down, was like working this out with some, some, some, those same voicing and then you just put it right to, yeah.

Yeah. But like combining a scale, on the piano it lays so great to, you know, if you're on countdown or John, giant steps, especially the first part of giant steps, to, here I'll... Should I throw it? No, I can throw it over to you, man.

I was expecting to play countdown. What we're gonna do a turn table here at one time? Wicca, wika chica, chicka, giant steps. So like, something like if, on, in countdown, that kind of idea of, yeah, where you're doing like part, part of a scale, and then you do a broken chord, right? So this tune lends itself,

and this style of play lends itself to that so well. Like breaking the scale, your scale run up, I'll do it slower so I can actually do it. It's something we do all the time, but having these broken chords, four-note voicing, because they line up symmetrically, really come in handy on something like that. Oh, that's great.

In all kinds of ways, Paul, like, so up, down, up and down, it up, mix in your scale practice with your arpeggio practice. That kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, because I think that's where a lot of times the magic of this type of playing. Well, it's funny. This is one of those terms.

I didn't even really know what it meant. Even today, I was kind of like, oh, just figure it out as you're describing it in the question, vertical. I never really heard that term. I don't really know what it speaks either. Oh, but maybe he's asking about something else. I heard of say giant stuff Yeah, exactly

262 Yeah, I know that Is that vertical? But this concept of like how you actually combine the arpeggios, the intervalic playing and the scales

Like that's where the magic of it comes in And that's going to lead Well, at the end We're going to have our ultimate tip on this Which I really pull that together I don't want to give it away But that's coming.

All right before the ultimate tip though We'll get into that in a minute One last thing for me on this And we've talked about this When asked about tunes with weird changes Is also you can work on finding the common tones between those weird jumps. There's always something.

Right. So find something that you can lean on. Because ultimately we want to make music out of this, which means we want to make melodies ideally out of this. So you can't just do scales on arpeggios the whole time. I mean, you could, but you'd sound like a jerk. You need to be able to create some kind of allotic content. And so working on that with knowing what intervals you have to choose from

between those two chords in different keys can be a very effective way of getting there. Yeah, and I wonder even if like kind of... Well, I guess that's not common tones, but it's close. spy at least. Yeah. Neighboring to knowing what's different. Just being aware, just understanding what your options are. You know, that's how you find them.

Cool. Well, awesome. Nailed another one. Yeah. High five on that. Bam. Shout out to SoundSlice, our new sponsor of the podcast. Again, follow our link here to go to SoundSlice.com and check out the transcribed

soundslice version of our theme, Peter Martin's Emotion in Motion. Pete, thanks for letting us borrow your tune. Licensing it. I give a little self-license there. Yeah, and I would just say also check out. out the sounds like community. You can see it right there. It's really cool because it's a lot of, you know,

new licks and exercises and musical ideas. I go on there and see some great guitars. It's not, what you said? It used to be more guitar heavy. There's a lot of great guitars. A lot of great piano, all different instruments. But there's some really cool. It'll be like someone will transcribe like a Pat Martino line or something.

And I have a video, just like one little short line. I think they call them slices on there. They do know that. And little licks, little slices. And it just can give you a little inspiration. And you can actually see what's being played. I mean, if your guitarist, they show the fretboard view, the keyboard view and stuff. It's all there.

And super organic the way it's built in. So big fan of sound slice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, what's our ultimate tip? Well, we got, before we even get to the ultimate tip, we're really going to build this up. We got a couple other things. We've got, we're bringing back. You might not even know this, my friend, because you've been gone.

No, I've been gone. I was going to say. I was here the whole time. We're bringing back the you'll hear a discount. You know why? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we love our listeners. That's right, yeah, yeah.

Mama and dad, I love you. So what that is is a $77 discount off of Open Studios All Access Pass, which is everything we make. Why is it $77? Because we love the sevens. We want to all the sevens. We do the list of sevens. That's right. So why isn't it $7 off?

Why are you making us go broke here, buddy? Because we want to save our folks money here. Well, why is it not $77 then? Go to OpenStuio.com, put the all access pass in the cart, and then enter the offer code in the offer code field. You'll hear it. One word, no apostory. You'll hear it.

You'll hear it. And that's 77 off the AAP yearly, which is already our best deal. I mean, it's like $20 a month. So this is even going to be less than that when you get that discount. It gets you access to every course we have. Every course is coming up. We had a bunch of folks the last time we did this signed up and enjoyed it. So we're bringing it back.

This week only. This week only. Remember we launched AAP? We're like, is anybody going to like this? I know. Everybody wants it. It's great. People love it.

People love it. Okay, so what's the ultimate tip? Oh, I'm doing the ultimate tip because you don't know what it is. I don't remember what it is. Oh, no, I do remember. The ultimate tip. Transcribe. What?

Transcribe sold. This is back to the vertical playing because this is the way that you're going to develop your ears. And you're probably thinking, oh, yeah, I've already transcribed or that we already talked about that. Yeah, we did talk about it. But the idea is that it's transcription. Remember, is the journey. It's not the destination. Now, there's something nice at the destination, which is being able to play John Coltrane solo on countdown or whatever.

But it's the journey that you're really going to learn. So I want everyone really thinking about that as a sort of foundation for their shedding, no matter what your instrument is. And you can learn anybody solo, anything that you like over whatever you consider to be vertical changes for vertical playing. But remember that the journey is when you're acclimating and training your ears to be able to develop to the point where you can start to hear this stuff that we've been talking. about. Because this is all stuff to practice whatever, but ultimately you have to be able to hear it, which is why we call this podcast. You'll hear it.

But wait, there's more. We're going out today on a listener tune. This is Overdue Library Book by Luke Thuring. And now really, you'll hear it.