You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Warming Up With Intention

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Watchu know about warming up? Is it even necessary? If so...how do ya do it?Adam and Peter walk you through the power of the warm up, showing you how fine tuning this routine can take you to the vaulted "next level."Check out "Genius Chord Warmups" - Adam Maness expands on his wildly popular chord warmup videos with this deep dive Guided Practice: https://www.openstudiojazz.com/genius-chord-warmupsHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

yet that's on you I'm Adam Anas and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Here at podcast Music advice Coming at you Coming at you We're back

We're back We said we wouldn't be back And we're back And we're back You know Peter You know I love by this We've been doing this podcast now For I don't know

15 years 16 years How long we've been doing this for? Seems like that Four years Four to five Are you sure Three four

And you still After every intro When I start the theme music You look at me like Thumbs up Thumb down What should we do Because sometimes

You'll give like this you'll do this or you're like, and then we'll restart. Let's let's be, let's be transparent. Yeah. I wonder though, if you never, if you, no, we do, but I wonder if you never looked at me with the thumbs up. I think I might just fly ahead. You know what? I'm the consummate performer. Always looking for affirmation. Actually, we had a, we had a funny event. We played some really great gigs. Shout out to all of the greater St. Louis metropolitan area. The 442s were on a tour last week. I heard. We, we were playing Thursday through Saturday. Look out. It's the most that band ever plays together in a row,

which is really fun. But we played in beautiful... How those classical guys do? They were probably tired. Oh, they were exhausted. A union break, right? No, those, yeah, they were... They were not used to that much in a row.

No, but we played a beautiful gig out in Union, Missouri at the East Central Community College, which I know very well. They've got a great concert series out there. And we got a nice encore. Shout out to the piano there. Oh, it's a beautiful Steinway piano. Yeah. But we got a nice encore, and I told the audience,

I was like, you don't understand. We've all been trained since we were kids to respond to applause. So if you applaud for us, we'll pretty much do whatever you need us to do. Like if you need a light bulb changed in your bathroom and I get a room full of applause as a musician, I'll probably do it. Right. Yeah. We are thin-skinned affirmation needing performers at home. Totally. Yeah.

With a low level of self-awareness. No qualms about how much I need it in my life. So, yeah, no, really fun. Thanks to everybody for coming out for all those. And you had a nice week last week, apparently. I was not doing gigs every night. I was not even, I actually encountered a piece. piano kind of by accident. I was down in Mexico celebrating Mexican Independence Day, as it turns out.

That was not our main reason for going. Oh, you didn't go down just for that? No, but we were there for that. That was fun. Viva Mexico. Yeah. And I was down there with my wife, Kelly Martin, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. Oh, congrats. They said it wouldn't last. Well, how'd you pull that off? And by day, I mean Kelly. How'd you pull that off with a with a gem like Kelly Martin for 25 years? Well, that's impressive, man. Funny story. So I said, somebody actually asked us there about how, what's the secrets, 25 years? Yeah. And I always kind of demure at that kind of question because I'm certainly not an expert in relationships or anything. And I don't like giving any advice.

I just like to accept the good grace and luck that the world brings me occasionally and trying it to screw it up. Yeah. You know, but I said, I was like, well, the secret is that we basically have spent like 12 and a half years together. About half the time I've been gone on the road. Yeah. So I don't want to. How romantic, Pete. How romantic.

I know. I meant that to say like I was trying to be, you know, like self-effacing a little bit and not like. Yeah. Don't give me credit for 25 years. Just give us credit for 12 years. And what did Kelly say? And Kelly said, well, for me, actually, it's that the secret is that we're best friends. Yeah.

And so I was kind of like, yeah, that too. You don't like when you answer first, but then you like the next answer better. Yeah, that was. Yeah. So anyway, it's a combination. It's a combination. I should be telling you the story But you know how sometimes when something

embarrassing or shameful happens to you You don't want to hold it You got to share it sometimes We've all been there We've all been there Well man it's good to have you back It's good to be back We've had our work

Adam's like we've all been there I would never say that You stupid idiot We've Man we've had a crazy couple weeks here I feel like it's been a year Since we've been sitting here We're making podcast

Because you've made an album Live in front of the whole world to see Which is a huge success man, congrats on that. It was an amazing record. Well, you produced it. Well, congrats to me to you. So the Graham is coming to you as well. Actually shout out to Caleb and all our team here at Open Studio, Andy and Rachel and Dan and just everybody who

was involved in making the success. Did you see that? Yeah, there was a guy on a on a una... On a unta... A unitar. He was wearing a unitarred on a unicycle that just flew by. That was, he was going way too fast on the street. Yeah, that was... He's going to get hurt. But, no, we've been doing a lot of stuff in between podcasts here. So it's nice to be back in the Swig Things. What are we talking about today?

Are we talking about getting cold? What are we talking about? We're talking about getting warm, warming up. Oh, yeah, warm up. And this is your baby, but I've got some thoughts, but I also don't feel like, well, are there two different kinds of warm-ups? There's like the warm-ups that we do for musical development,

and then there's just like warming up to kind of get ready to do something for musical development or performance, right? Well, you know, it's a curious thing. So I'm always curious when a P.N. that I respect sits down at a piano for the first time. If you ever get a chance to be at like a sound check, or when someone is just approaching a new instrument

on a gig at a recording session or something like that, I'm always fascinated by what these great pianists will sit down and do. And it started off actually when Fred Hirsch made his course with Open Studio. I was on like a Zoom call for the first course, just kind of observing everything. And he sat down and Fred, who, as you all know, is, a genius piano player, said, to the entire room, I'm going to warm up and I'm going to do something that's going to seem very silly, but this is just what I do. And I can't remember exactly what he did. And I actually asked Brian Fielding about this, our friend Brian Fielding,

who's friends with Fred. But it was something very like, just like, it was something very rudimentary, harmonic-wise, and then he would start to move it around melodically. And next time we talk to Fred, I'm definitely going to ask him about this, because it just struck me as he's warming up his body for sure he's but not the way that I see a lot of younger players warm up which is a lot of like just play as fast as you can right or like you know just take it just like some kind of ridiculous technical feet but he was just very it was sounded like some kind of Bach corral but with like some changes right and then I saw a YouTube video of a masterclass that Brad Meldell gave way back in the early 2000s the aughts the aughts and he was

talking about how he, when he sits down to any piano for the first time, you know, he kind of does a similar thing where he'll, he was obviously just picking spots. So here I'm in the key of F. And he would just kind of, I'm going to, like, I'm just going to hit the big landmarks. We'll go to the four and then we're going to find our way back. And then maybe we'll go to the five and then find our way back in these various ways. So, and he was doing it even more like triadic than me. Maybe we'll find the two. We'll find the six. By find, I mean secondary, dominance, tritone substitutions, you know, voice leading to get you to the major landmarks of a key.

And then he even, in this video, you can see it on YouTube, Brad Mildol warming up, and he's like changing keys to different keys. And I'm not doing it justice here, but this is now what I've started doing when I sit down at the piano. I should be looking at your shoes right now. I should be gazing at my shoes. but it's it's this idea of like living and I know classical organists calling this too playing in a key right just like improvising in a key going to the major landmarks of the key the one the four the five

the relative minor you know and then all of these sort of medians like the three and the two and things like that just getting around in a key as opposed to like running scales or something and I have found this Peter and I don't know I'm really curious to know what you do on a gig. I've seen you in here, of course, but you're very intentional. But I found that it's not really about warming up physically. I mean, it is about warming up physically to a point,

but it's more, what they're doing is warming up their musical minds. Like, they're sort of, they're sort of like mowing, mowing the lawn around the intersections of music for them so that they can sort of see the pathways in front of them, right? Cultivating the pathways in a little warm up. I thought that was really interesting. Almost sounds like maybe like a musical, you know, walk around the garden where you're observing different things. That's kind of what, as even when you were doing that demonstration, I was thinking about it.

It's like you're maybe somewhere that you've seen before from afar, but now you're a little bit closer. It's like you're not going to just charge into that guard. It's like, let's walk around a little bit and see what's here. Let's get warmed up with my environment. And I think that there is an element certainly of getting acquainted with an instrument that's a little bit. difference to you. Because you can do this all throughout the ranges and you get to hit different inversions. Next time any of you sit down to a new instrument, just pick a key, pick E flat or something and see if you can practice, you know, some modal interchange going to E flat minor and then back

to E flat. See if you can practice secondary dominance. Going to all the major landmarks, sussing those out, doing little two-fives to those secondary dominance to the landmarks. Then you can play its secondary dominant to the two of five. Yeah, no, seriously. So this has then turned into an entire course we have here at Open Studio called Genius Chord warmups. And I've done like, I don't know, 50 shorts on these different ways that you might approach it. But really the main way is improvisation, is to sit down and just live within a key. But if you want to start out for Open Studio, if you're an Open Studio member,

the Genius Chord Warmups is on your dashboard. If not, you can check out everything I've done on YouTube or Instagram. or TikTok on these warm-ups. Yeah. And then we might even throw a little link in here too for a one-off thing for. I mean, I think that the idea that we're warming up our improvisational mind. Yeah. Our creative juices.

Not even to the point of like, oh, I've got to get to this certain point so I can react to this sound or chord. It's like, no, the same way like a great athlete will warm up. They're not jumping right into the hardest part. that they're gonna have to do, like if they're a sprinter, like that top speed. In fact, they're never gonna hit that until they're in the actual race.

But what are the things that they're doing? How is that related to preparing, not just their body? Because I mean, look, just like an athlete, if you're not prepared to do 100 meters in under 10 seconds, there's nothing you're gonna do in the five minutes before that's gonna really get you ready. But like, how are you preparing your mind? Yeah.

How are you getting your body to the point where you can start to do that? Absolutely. Well, high level athletes, don't forget, you know, they talk about their preparation, right before a game or a match or a meet or whatever, there's a lot of visualization of what's about to take place where they're walking through.

And I think that's what these kinds of warm-ups do. Is you're walking through scenarios that are going to happen. Right. You know? Right. They're not the actual, like, tune you're going to play. Right. They're the musical area.

But there is a certain amount of actualization of, you know, putting your hand on the keys and, like, moving around. And, but also with your mind in terms of, like, some bass. connections five to one, two to five to one, or just try it or whatever and starting, like, warming up the musical mind. I love that concept because I thought we were going to be talking mostly about like, how do you warm up your hands? And I'm always like, I don't even always do that. And when I do it, I don't necessarily play any better on the gig. Every time, so here's what I've noticed about you. And I wonder if you even have a definite philosophy. You don't

have to have a definite philosophy. By the way, you could be playing outside and it's a little cooler outside. And maybe you should run scales really fast to warm up your hands so that you can just get loose or whatever. Like this could change from scenario to scenario. But what I've noticed about you, Peter, I wonder what your plan is on this, or if you even have a plan, is usually sit down with a tune.

Like, I hear you, the first thing you play in an instrument is usually a tune. You'll sit down with a song and start playing something. Right. Is that usually what you do on a new instrument? Yeah, or like some changes, some chord changes. Maybe not as methodical as what you were just doing. It might be something like a blues or something.

Just kind of whatever pops in my head. Like I don't really look at it as super important. Like, okay, I always play this one tune so I can compare. Like I do whatever sort of happens to be on my mind or just stream of consciousness. But that's more like getting used to a new instrument kind of a thing. You know, if it's an instrument, if it's like one of our instruments here that we really know that I'm familiar with, I do like to kind of go through some explorative types of things to, you know, to kind of open things up with my mind. I always think about like not like this didn't start out as a conscious thing, but I'm kind of glad I did it over the years.

I always sort of avoided a very specific warm-up routine that I had to do because I very quickly realized in different performance situations that you're not always going to have a chance to do that. That's right. Sometimes you don't get a chance to warm up. Right. And so I was afraid like, well, if I, because I mean that becomes very much a habit thing, right? You're training yourself. I mean, there might be certain things that you're actually able to open up your hands

with whatever, but then what do you do if you don't have? I was always afraid of that because I was like, it's going to happen a lot. Like, if you play violin and you always keep your violin, you can always find like a bathroom to go in or whatever to warm up, you know. But it's like with piano, sometimes you're, you know, bam, you just drop there and playing it for the first time. Yeah.

So the thing of like warming up, I mean, talking about cold hands or something, I've got a great warm up for cold hands, though. It's called gloves. Gloves are great. You know, But really, it was just like, you don't want to go in with cold hands. And definitely I see people like, oh, I'm cold. And they're like, you know, just like, you start to flop.

Yeah. I'm like, no, don't do that. That's going to like you're going to tense up and stuff. Yeah, that's a good point. So, yeah, you want to get the temperature of your hands and your body. It's not just the same way we make sound with everything from the shoulder. Really, the whole body, the torso, your butt is on the seat. Like, all that energy has to go in.

You've got to warm up your whole body. And if you're on a gig where there is going to be a lot of blowing and, you know, you're going to need to know how the piano responds. I'm not saying don't, you know, play fast lines. Definitely do. Like, see where the action is. See where the throwback is. See how it, a lot of times piano's changed in the upper register. So see how that feels. You know, run some arpeggios. Just to see where it is that day. A little casino lick. Do some, do some casino licks just to see where everything's throwing. You know how it goes. But that could be very, but all. But all, you know, Also, you know, what I love to about just the sort of like slow chords and you're opening up your musical mind.

But you're also like you should be sort of like registering the piano. Like where is the break? Like how softly can I play? Yeah. You know, what's the dynamic range of this instrument? What are the limitations? What are the limitations? How loud are we going to get here?

You know, like all of these things can be very handy. And then while you're doing that, you're also like sort of practicing these different pathways. that you know you're gonna have to approach, or you at least wanna have opened up for you as you're warming up. Absolutely. You know, one thing that may be helpful for folks, I'll add in, and I don't think this is,

this is not equally applicable to all instruments, so we'll just talk about piano for this mostly, but in terms of warming up in your daily practice routine, I think that this is an area, and look, this works for me, so your mileage may vary, YMV, we know that, and take it for what it's worth. Maybe it works for you. But you don't have to warm up the same every day.

And in fact, for myself, I find that it's not valuable to be into a fixed routine. Oh, totally. Now, there are very much habitual and, like, routine-based things I do in my practice, but the warm-up is not one of them. I do warm up sometimes with scales, with arpeggio, with just, like, triads. I don't normally do it, you know, the improvisational thing right at the beginning, but I love that. That's super valuable.

But what I find is that in terms of warming up the musical mind and then also sort of the tactical, what am I going to get accomplished in my practice, that varies every day. Some days, like, I'm ready to dig right into writing something. Right, yeah. And so don't get so fixated on, you know, well, maybe if you're the kind that needs sort of a trigger

to segue into your practice, then have a short thing. But be ready to extend it some days when you need it. But also you can get a little whizabeth. a little wisdom and learn what works for you. Like for me, man, if I'm away from the keyboard for a couple of days and then I have to play a gig, my warm-up is definitely going to include some arpeggios. Because that's the easiest way for me to really feel the space of the piano.

Right. To get home again. Connect. Close my eyes, use my peripheral, whatever it is so that I'm feeling my way on the keyboard, connecting to the full keyboard up and down as opposed to just doing, you know, the chord thing. I can really like get a nice breath. and also practice some technical hitches that I have getting my thumb crossed under

chromatic scales are great for that. We always preach chromatic scales around here at Open Studio. Just practice getting your thumb under can be great. And that's a specific situation. I haven't played the piano in a couple days. Maybe I got this gig. I'm on a new piano.

I really want to get locked in on this keyboard. Yeah. So that could be a good way. Yeah. And I mean, the more we can develop that kind of self-awareness in terms of what we need and think about it.

Like it's not a, bug but it's a feature when we need more of something or we're deficient in something from day to day as long as we're aware of that because then we can plug that into our warm up routine so you know like last week I was doing I was not at the piano at all the whole week but I was doing yoga every day way more attention than I normally do it that's nice man yeah and so it was just a great reminder to me that like every day is I was at the same place well it was sort of different class but some of the same teachers but your body's different every day and it's the same for us at the piano, like a physically demanding instrument, but then also most of what we're

talking about a musically demand. I mean, every instrument is potentially musically demanding. Piano is highly musically demanding. Yeah. And so it's like, it's okay some days to be like, wow, I need more warmth in this area. Don't get down on yourself about that. Develop that kind of self-awareness. Like, and our bodies are not perfectly in balance all the time, even if we're doing the things that need to be. I mean, piano smell this. I bet yours is this now after a week of yoga every day. Well, yeah, but I mean, it's just like, you know, breathing, like, and we talk about breathing, and we can do a whole other episode.

We will do that. But, yeah, but breathing, the importance of that in playing the piano, when you're doing it away, you take away the element of all those things and you really start to think about breathing. It's not equal every day. Whether you've got allergies or not, it changes from left side to right side. We know about left side and right side being different at the piano. That's a big part of our battle.

So, like, a lot of times we're looking for solutions to these challenges, and we can think about a big part of that solution as just being awareness to how you're interacting with those challenges on a day by day basis. That's already part of the solution as opposed to being like, oh, I'm still struggling with this. It's like, no, what am I struggling with today? What am I not? Let's focus our attention on that and make that part of our daily development.

That's right. Yeah, there's no magic bullet warm up here. It's really just about paying attention and keep on trying different things and having fun with it. So let's call this episode the Magic Bullet warm up. And then you get right to the end here. 100%. No, we are going to put, though,

we'll put a link here in the description to the Genius Chord warm-ups course. I think this is like one of the only things you can get a la carte here at Open Studio. It's a great entree to Open Studio if you've never bought an Open Studio, anything. It's a great appetizer as well.

I meant entree as an entrance point. No, it's super confusing to me. Why isn't an entree mean the entry, but it's the main course? Never understood that. Anyway, we'll put a link here. I think it's like less than 20 bucks. You want to dig into that question?

I really don't. Until next time. You'll hear it.