You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Voice Leaders

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Adam and Peter discuss the difference between hip voicings and great voice-leading. 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 Instagram

You know, Adam, this is very unusual for me. I am totally ill-prepared because I have no idea what we're talking about today. But I have a premonition. Okay. Does it have something to do with this? Exactly. Oh, great. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music advice coming at you. This is an Open Studio podcast. Go to Open StudioJazz.com for more information. I don't know. I'm just, I'm trying it out. I'm trying it's like a hat.

I'm like putting a hat on a hat on a hat. Yeah, I could be head on a hat for sure. We're going to have to do an episode one time. First of all, welcome in. Yeah. Welcome into all of our new listeners. This is April. Did you know that?

This is crazy, man. Can you believe it's April? I can't believe it's April. 2023. It's like a science fiction movie already. I can't believe it's not a, are you familiar with, I can't believe it's not a law firm law firm.

You ever heard that? No. That's in a mall in Springfield. It was used to be on the Simpsons. It was one of their brilliant names. I can't believe because it used to be like, I can't believe it's not yogurt. It was like a little bit of a mall

thing for a while. Did you ever watch that show Arrested Development? No, I haven't. So there was a lawyer on there called Bob Blah, Blah, and he had a blog that was all about being a lawyer, and it was called Bob La Blah's Law Blog, which I think is a very funny joke. Bob Bob's Law. Anyway, before we get too deep into... I can't believe it's not a jazz podcast.

Law puns. What are we talking about today? Oh, this is on me. So today, I wanted to talk about... And just to be clear from the intro, I really don't have any idea. You don't know. We were just having a coffee down the street and you said, oh, I got it.

I got it. You're going to love this. I'm not going to tell you until we get into the episode. Well, I wanted to talk about something that we've certainly hinted upon here, but I want to just reinforce a very important point that I think is enlightening. I think a lot of people don't even realize is important. And that is, Peter, when you hear someone who has really great courts, like who's really good at comping or harmony or.

really good arranger and can really harmonize things well. Your initial thought would be like, oh, I wish I knew those voicings or I wish I knew those chords. But what you're really hearing, when you're hearing someone who's good at chords or good at harmony, you're hearing good voice leading. Yes. It's not as much about the chords as it is about how they can link chords together. That's actually more important than hip voicings. Like you can play quote unquote hip voicings or good sounding voicings and it could still sound amateurish it could still sound sophomoric it could still sound uh fresh morric fresh moronic egregious agregious it could say no it could still sound bad basically like you could play these kind of voicings it's not pretty good actually it's fine right right but is it

as good as like you know these sort of voice leading tools that all the great compers and harmonists use to create, you know, basically a really beautiful flow between voices. So that's kind of like more important even than the voicing you play is, are you working on your voice leading? And how can we do that? So luckily, we have some ways to start. Well, it's like the, it's like the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to a voicing, but can you lead them to a progression?

Feed a... That's an old saying where? Feed a man, a fish. Feed him a cor, a comping voicing. He'll eat one time, but feed him how to do voice leading and he'll eat all night. Are you just making this up? No, you're, okay. I'm going to send you a Gideon's Bible.

You are making a lot of stuff. Okay. So, all right, a couple of things. So first of all, do you agree that voice leading is as important as I'm making it out to be? No, I feel like people overlook voice leading a lot when they're talking about harmony. I absolutely do it. I wrote down a couple of areas that might be analogous and helpful to our listeners.

clothing. In other words, think about chords or voicing as like pieces of clothing. Say you have a nice top and a bottom and a hat and a scarf. They might all individually be fantastic and then you put them together and you look like a clown because they don't fit together. That's like individual chord voicings without good voice leading without being part of a progression. That's right. And also ingredients to a fine meal. Nothing wrong with a little saffron. Nothing wrong with a little corn syrup. Well, actually there is something wrong with that. Nothing wrong with a, uh, nothing wrong with a, uh, you know, a duck loin. Nothing wrong with, you know, these different things. But if you don't put them together correctly, that's where the magic is, right? It's not about the ingredients. It's about the complete package. And I think it's a great way to look at chord voicings.

And it should preclude folks from being like, show me a good voicing over a blank cord. That drives me crazy because I'm like, no, show me, you know, where are you coming from and where are you going? And why does that matter? So how do you practice this? Like, how do you get started on this without it, into like I have to pay attention to all of the voices in the court and where each one is going.

And the rules and regulation. No, you can actually practice this in sort of this series. And it actually starts Peter at our, you know, one of the very first things we learn on our very first piano lessons. Do you remember this? Yep. One four five, four one. One four five dominant one.

And you're like, oh yeah, like I was five years old. But now that you are someone who is building harmony, reexamine what this is and why this is one of the first things you learn and why this is important. There's a lot of important things. So first of all, it starts with plago cadence. Yep. And then a perfect cadence. I always thought that was a fun fact.

I used to think that was a pagan cadence. A pagan cadence. I mean, that's, but let's just, let's just break it down here, this perfect cadence, right? The G7 to the C.

Yeah. So this series here is so important. There's a couple of things that I want you to notice, right? Where are these voices going? So the third of the dominant. So this is G7. to C. And I'm literally playing here in my right hand. The G7 is B, F, and G, three notes, to a C triad, C, E, and G.

So the B resolves a half step up to the C, and the F resolves a half step down to the E. And the G stays the same. Yep. You can now take this into other inversions. So check it out. If we were to take this G up, the same rules apply, right, for voice leading. if we were to take it up again. This G dominant triad, where you're thinking about, there is no fifth. The fifth has moved up to the dominant seven. That's a triad.

Is so important because of this surrounding thing. And we can take that to all the voicings that we use. So if you do, say, like a 5-1 in the key of B-flat, right, thinking about the voice leading so it's not this. Right, how- Me no liking. Right, let the natural voice leading happen, the half step, pull,

of the seventh from the dominant to the third of the one, and the third of the dominant to the tonic, or to something like staying on the seventh, works with great voice leading as well. So that's like one great way to work on this. The other way is to start doing it in root 357 and practicing things like drop voicings with this. So we do root 357, and we do, let's say we do a drop two, right?

Drop it like it's hot, drop it like it's hot, drop it like it's hot. Practicing this drop to root 3, 5, 7, and where things should resolve with good voice leading is super important. See, that was bad. See the difference between that? Yeah. Hearing that F go down here. And just to clarify, when you say that was bad, you mean that sounded bad. I mean, it doesn't sound bad, but it's not very strong.

Right. Because there's some voices moving that strong. that's strong, that's okay. Yeah. But that's stronger. Working on these basic voice leading principles will help you when you want to do some more advanced things to realize

that there are... Then you start getting into things like, you know, the difference between drop two and drop three, these kinds of things, like those kind of resolutions, some of things exactly. But those things are so crucial for making our chords sound good.

What doesn't sound great, in my opinion, is doing things where, like, if you were to play, like, have you met Miss Jones, right? I already hate that. No. No. But each one individually sounds fine. Each one is a great voicing on its own. But just sort of putting them in random places without considering where the voices are moving, knowing that there's some natural voice leading baked in, that the dominant chords have a natural partner to them. Right.

Right. So this... A place they're going. A place they're going. This dominant chord... has natural resolution points. This one has a different one. All of those things, and that was actually...

And it's not to say that once you get the sort of, you know, most logical or obvious place that it's going that will sound good, that you can't start to learn, you know, some other places that... Yeah, oh, yeah. It's a key 7 to C, right? Right. And look, in a way from your first example

with the different inversions, folks, you should sing these intervals. No, no, no. Like, I'm hearing those. That's the third and seventh of the dominant. Exactly. And they're spreading out in that instance. But it's like, that's G7 to E flat major to C major.

Like there's a lot of different things that can go, but you get those basic ones, not even basic, the most logical places first. But it starts here. It starts with this. All of those very basic. And these are basic, but they're very, like they can be the foundation. It's not like when you get more advanced,

because I know what people are thinking like, yeah, but that's not that kind of stuff you guys play. It is. How does it, exactly. Check this out. So you've got like the G7. So I just got the seventh, the fifth and the third without the fit with, I mean, sorry, the seventh, the root in the third, right?

F, G, B. You're omitting the fifth sometimes, right? So the foundation of that would be, oh, no. But check this out, G7. Now I've got an E try it on top. 100%. Those are good progressions, right? But the foundation is that.

Right? Those, look at what happens there. That's where all this can stem from. And watching notes split out, making sure that notes are, making sure that you have a lot of nice half-step gravity in your voice leading, but really just being conscious of what each chord is going to. And you can have, like, I would rather have weaker voicings and better voice leading than better voice voicings and weak voice leading. Yeah. Both are the sweet spot, right? That's what we're gaming for. Yeah. But like I don't. But that's part of the process of learning and then challenging yourself is you start to hear the interaction between those two. Like once you're leaning more towards really good voice leading or really good progressions,

but some of the voicings aren't as strong, you can get away with that. But as you attune your ear to these things, you don't want to get away from it. But you're learning. And like you never want to get so set in it where it's like these are the only, because you can come up with a great progression, but it's the only way you know how to do it. That gets boring. That's right. And even pianists that you might not think, like, when you hear McCoy, Tyner play, you know, all the stuff from the John Coltrane quartet, right?

All that stuff. Yeah. Like, but he's just like plunk in. Yeah. But he has, that's, first of all, he's a master at that level. When you hear him play, you know, the ballads album or Johnny Hartman, his voice leading on those standards is incredible. Incredible. Someone like Monk, too, is maybe someone who you don't think of who has great voice.

voice leading. Yeah. But he does. He has exceptional voice leading. In fact, a lot of his most creative chord voicing stem because it's, there are individual voices that move in interesting ways. Right. Well, I'm so glad you said that. And it's about thinking, now this gets into some more advanced stuff, but the foundational principles are the same as this. But you take the beginning of Ruby, my dear. Absolutely. That's a weird monk, beautiful kind of like, not austere a little bit, a little bit of like beauty and tension in a way that like monk was sort of a master of. But look at the voice leading. So it's really going.

So we go. Yeah. And then. Yeah. It's so good. So I mean, it's like you hear the whole thing. Each of the individual voicing and I hear people do this too much. They like take these monk voicing.

And first of all, they usually screw them up and put too many notes in it. that aren't there, but they also want to individualize them, you know, horizontalize them. Hashtag horizontalize. Is that a word? I doubt it. Yeah.

As opposed to really getting the beauty of like the whole thing. Yeah. Like those voicing to give it, like if he had done. It's fine. Like I hear a lot of people. It's fine. Yeah, but like the adjustments, this is all chromatic and then shifts and then shifts again.

Yeah. Very subtle, but good voicing. So now we can talk a little bit more about maybe the advanced principles of some of these voicing. Obviously, this isn't the deepest dive, but we have open studio courses on this kind of stuff. Gentleman's agreement to come. That's right.

But let's look at a more advanced version and what sort of some good principles of voice leading are. So first of all, there are three different ways that your voices can move against each other. You can move in parallel motion. You can move in contrary motion. Move in oblique motion. Never knew that's what it was called.

Where one note states, same and others move around it. So we look at like a 251. This is an example we've been using it over Open Studio Pro to sort of demonstrate this stuff. Like all of these, something like that, right? So here we have a 251. It's a C minor 7. We're going to do a tritone sub. We're going to play the C and then sub it out halfway through G flat 7, sharp 11, F7c S, F7 flat 9 to a B flat. over D. We'll say that. Actually, I'm going to change that last note.

We're going to keep the nine on top both time. So we're going to keep a note on top the whole time. That gives us our oblique motion. Yeah. Do we have any parallel motion? Absolutely. So just right here, right, our C and our E flat,

turn into a G flat and an E. Parallel motion, both moving up the scale. Also, that moves with it to also, So E flat becomes F flat there, right? Do we have any contrary motion here? Oblique motion, and then we have some contrary motion here at the end, here at the end where the B flat moves up, or so the A moves up to B flat and the F moves down to D.

All three of those movements are present in this very simple. But then you get the melodic movement at several different places, you get the tension and release not just on the macro level, but between each of those different cores. You get the opportunity with a great progression and I'm kind of using that interchangeably with with voice leading but you have the opportunity for like the listener that doesn't understand all this to like be able to follow these things along and like that's the beauty of harmony that can be revealed just with simple kind of

I mean relatively simple starting for sure and then getting into some really beautiful more complex advanced stuff but where you can bring the listen it's almost like really good voice leading really good progressions is a way to take the kind of uninitiated listener on a journey that can be so interesting and beautiful without like just overwhelming them with a bunch of complexity you know what I mean yeah like it's it's like it's like there's guideposts for the listener that doesn't have the technical ability to understand this which they shouldn't that's right it's like making something you know what it is it's making complicated shit sounds simple that's right beautiful the sea on top with the oblique motion it helps

draw the listeners ear in all of these half-step movements that are happening those are all little connection points for the listener. So that you can, I mean, you could sing. Like, if I were to, let's pick the second note from the top. Yeah. That's all it is. That's a, and that's a good way to practice is to sing along. Damn, every single one.

With it, and then leave that note out as you're playing it and continue to sing it. That's a great way. I learned that from doing the bar corrals back in the day. The third note down. That's all of the tone. Yeah, and then it starts to tell you, no, different places to go. Anyway, I think it's really fun. Yeah.

Yeah. Cord nerd. Exactly. I don't like that last court. That last... You had an unsettled look on your face. Please resolve. That's what I was doing.

Sorry. That's how we resolve it. What about? Mo. Peter on the moo train now. Gentlemen's agreement's agreement.