You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - We Answer Your Most Pressing Questions

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

You asked and we answered - Peter and Adam take on even more listener questions today over a wide variety of topics (like what happened to Adam's beard?)Links From This Episode:For a comprehensive collection of piano lessons, save money by purchasing the Piano Access Pass - every piano course past, present, and future from Open Studio.Wednesday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Edu Ribeiro + Carl Allen: Drum Conversations and Q&A on YouTubeThursday's Open Studio Live Events:3:00 PM - Peter Martin's Piano Office Hours (for Members Only)8:00 PM - Hangin' With Anat Cohen on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, aren't I supposed to be on vacation right now? Yes, but first, I need you to answer some of my most pressing questions. I do love this podcast. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the O'Hare podcast. Advice and inspiration for music and life and daily music advice coming at you. Oh, I see what you did there.

You kind of combined the old with the new. The old with the new because we're still, we got one foot in, you know, the 2020s. And we still got one foot in the 2010. I feel like I got one foot in February 2020 I'm one foot right now Exactly We're kind of playing around with both of them I like I like I have to admit

I think I like the old one I do daily music advice Coming at you Come at you come at you You like to come at you That's right It's kind of up in your face It is a little bit

But so are we Yeah we are We're aggressive We're passive yet we're aggressive Oh no No we're not that No but the thing about it is too We mainly back away from that

Because we're not on a daily schedule anymore We're not. We're on a three-day-a-week schedule, but I think that's close enough, man. It is. That's true. Because even when we were daily, we weren't daily. We were five days a week. We're five days a week. You know what's a little bit sad? When we went from five days to three days, we were like really worried because we're like people love us so much. We heard no pushback at all, right? Nobody said anything. Did anybody notice? No one noticed. And you know what? When we went from seven to five, same thing. Nobody really cared, yeah. Maybe we'll try going from three to one and see. Then we'll just go one to nothing and see if anybody says. If we got a one, then we can do weekly music advice.

Coming at you. It's the coming at you. It really gets you, isn't it? It really is. Do we have a sponsor today? We don't have a sponsor. Well, we have a sponsor. It's always sponsoring.

Yeah. But we don't have an outside sponsor, as it were. We're open to it, though. Yeah. We've had some great ones lately. Muse score. Anything. I learned how to say it, any tune.

We love any tune. Sound Slice, remember them? Oh my gosh. I love soundslice. Maybe Sound Slice will drift back into our life. The Oxford American. That was my favorite. Oxford American.

Apple Computer. That was awesome with all the free gear we got. Shout out to Steve Jobs. Big shout out to Steve. Keep on innovating. So we keep getting these questions. We get so many questions.

We do get a lot of questions. But we thought, and we're so lazy. Apologies about answering the questions anyway. So we thought we get overwhelmed. We get them in so many different places. We do. I know. We have like 18 channels.

So we thought we would just tackle your burning questions on sort of like a speed round, a lightning round of questions. And then later on this week, we'll have some more, like, more long-form questions that we can kind of take our time with. But I think for this one, we can kind of knock these out, you know what I'm saying? That's right. And thank you guys for the questions. We got them from Instagram. We got them on YouTube comments.

Facebook. Facebook. Email. Yeah. Speak pipe, although we're not hitting any of the speak pipes today, but the speak pipe is open. We knocked out all our speak pipes last week. That was fun. But definitely hit us up at you'll hear at.com with any of your questions.

And we'll get around answering them. Yeah. And if you want to text a question. to Adam. His number is 314. All right. Hold on. I love the blues.

Hey, you know what else is cool about today before we get into these questions? Yes. It's a special birthday today. Is it? I think we got to acknowledge that. Let's not.

During the pandemic, there's no special birthdays. We just let them drift along. I think it counts, man. I think it counts. It's your birthday today. Is it my birthday? Oh, thank you.

It's a big one too. The big 4-0 plus 10. It's the big 4-0 plus 10. We like to call it the 4 plus 1. Forty 10. Congrats, man. Thank you. It's awesome.

Half a century, man. Well, I'm so happy to be here separated by a large square flexglass. Look how far we've come. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. We are back in the pod cave, loving it.

It's very clean and very... Pot sweet. This is Podsweet. What's the pod cave? It was that musty-ass thing. That was a horrible place. Horrible place. Okay, so let's get to this.

We are going to answer your most pressing. Should we call this most pressing or burning questions? Pressing? Pressing? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Burning sounds like you got, you caught something you didn't want to catch.

That's right. Okay, so should we start with the first one? I'll read it, you answer it, or I'll read it. Yes, sir. If I know it, yeah. Okay. I was curious about how to use the Phrygian scale in my playing. I know it can be used over dominant chords for a Suss flat 9 kind of sound.

Ooh, is that correct? Suss flat 9. We'll get to that. But is it useful in other situations? And why is this mode of the major scale useful over dominant chords? Is it because it's a. fifth above the minor mode of the major scale and implies a resolution to a minor key. I don't understand any of this, Adam. That's my question to you.

So are they saying, like, if you have an E7, you can use an E-Frigion? Are you freaking kidding me? Are you frigging kidding me? You're frigging kidding me? I mean, you can do that if you want to get thrown off the jam session. Actually, that sounded pretty good. I see what they're saying, because it's, so, you know, this is actually, this is close to a secret scale that I came up with. I didn't actually come up with it, but. You add in that major third in there as well. No. Now we're talking.

I don't think you can... And then skip over the fourth or play the fourth? No, play the fourth. Because if we're doing like a 5-1 to A minor, right? Why you got to give away the A minor? I'm not giving it away, but if... So I actually use this scale in my... You like that?

Does that sound good to you? No, but there are instances, like, if you have to go, like... Where you're going to need that A, if you want to play melodically in the key. of A minor, even if you're on a five chord. Would that be a block chord basic? This is why I was using this scale in block chords basics. It's a perfect scale to do block chords with because you can't really use the altered scale

if you want to like voice some of these melodies to standards. Like if you're voicing softly as a morning sunrise, you know, and you're, you can't do that note with the altered scale. You can't do that natural second, right? So you have to have a different way to do it. So, but I've never heard of using the Frigian like this. Frigian, and maybe that's my own ignorance here. Have you, Peter, ever heard of using a Frigian over the dominant?

No, no. But let's talk about some ways to use it, though, because that was kind of the original question. Yeah, yeah. My favorite way to use it is over a three chord. So again, if we're on the E Frigian, this is like the three in a three-six-25. This is like the most basic way to do it. Instead of a Dorian, which sounds great, by the way.

Dorian on a three-core sounds great. Right, so if you have like a 3625 and C-M. is E minor 7, A7, D minor 7, G7, and then you're to the 1. So that 3 chord, E minor 7, instead of Dorian, which sounds great, by the way, you could use a Phrygian, and then it's like all C, right? Then you're still, you have such a strong C major, a strong C major sound. That's one way to do it. There's another way that's even hipper, though. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so this is really, this is, I'm going to answer the question. with the question. This is getting that Phrygian sound, right? Like with your vamping? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really kind of hear this. It's a Chick-Korea, Kenny Kirkland sound. Totally, but I kind of hear it as like a,

or conceptualize it as a D-Dorian in this case, but basically a whole step down over an E, right? And if you take, what I'm going here is kind of just going through the McCoy voicings or the so-what, you know, over D minor, but over an E. With an E in the bass. Huh? An E in the bass. The bass, exactly.

And, you know, like what you were doing, I really like that to the A7 or A minor, you know, is it a 36251. But you can kind of shift this in. I mean, of course, as a VAP, it's great. You can sit there for a while. But there's instances where you can use this as kind of a bridge or substitution into 251. So it would be like three, then to a G7, and then to a C7. and then you might be like D minor instead of D minor G7 to C

D minor E-frigian G7 to C major That is so crazy hip Do that again? Do that one more time? D minor And then E-frigeon And then I mean normally I'd actually even have more It'd be like D minor

E-fridgin A-flat major G flat Makes my fingernail-inch Yeah It's nice It's like we always think about substituting Like a tritone or a half step or something, which is fine.

But a lot of times substitution, you can just think about not as much as substituting as altering your harmonic progression based upon things that you would do with the root movement. So you're going from here to here, but you can go...

Let's pick some chorus for those. It's a D-Dorian over E. Yeah, because you're coming from that, you might be... F-7, A-flat-major, a lot of places. But you do see, you would see something like E-Frigian marked in a chart

that was like a modal... chart. Yeah. And that's the sound they want. They want and here, this is about this voicing because this, I think this voicing here is crucial that kind of like, uh,

what your expectation for the sound is. So this voicing is F, A, B, E on top. That's the voicing. If I see E Frigian, that's the first thing I'm playing almost a way. Like I'm setting up the sound with that because that is, that rub is what I think is expected.

Yeah. And I love it because, you know, unlike, I mean, obviously there's a lot of tension. There's a lot of mystery. There's a lot of, you know, oh. Yeah. But it's also. Frigian, Frankie. Of all the different places we can go that have tension in them that want to resolve somewhere.

A Frigian, when it's played in the way you were just doing and where we're, you know, talking about sitting on it is really a stationary thing. It doesn't actually want to go anywhere. That's why I was a little. I mean, yeah, we could talk about the, you know, resolve. But it's not a, not like that. It needs to go somewhere else before it wants to go there. So you can sit on it, even though it's got mystery. It's more mystery than tension, the kind of tension that's itching to resolve. You know what I mean? Yeah, it isn't. You can sit on it. It isn't really itching to resolve. It's just kind of angrily sitting there. Yeah. It's tense. And it's really typified, I think, by the. It's an E minor, but it's got none of that optimism of the Doria. Yeah, because it does it, because to me it lacks that tension. I don't see it being a great dominant scale, like a dominant chord scale.

No, it's not, because it's a minor. It's minor. It's minor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, I hope that helps. Asked and answered. Asked and answered. I like this one.

Where did Adam put his beard? This is an outrage. Well, I guess that's a question. I shaved it. I did. In fact, I'm looking at you, even through the plexiglass, I can see it is, you are adorned, you are not shorn. I've already, I've already cut it back. Yeah.

I'm adorned, not shorn. Unsure. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's good. I've been locked down, y'all. I don't want to look at the same face the whole time. That's right. You know, we've got a couple faces to look at. I wanted to change it up.

That's right. This is a good one. Do you have hearing loss, tenitis, because you... Tenitis. Tinnitus. because you say tinnitus, I say tinnitus. Okay. That sounds nasty.

Do you do things to protect your hearing? Peter, I like this one. Hashtag old guys. That's from Felix. Rachel, I think, added in the hashtag old guys. Okay. Oh, she was saying I like this one at all. Got it.

Do you guys have hearing loss because it's too much? This is kind of a joke, right? Or is this for real? I think it's for real. I actually think I kind of do. do have, I know I have a little tinnitus or tinnitus. I have a slight ring in my right ear from, and I know when it happened. It happened in Rala, Missouri.

On a sound check. Oh, horrible things happen in that sound. On a sound check, it was at a live music venue, and I was plugging in my guitar. My head was two feet from a monitor, and whoever was running sound just decided to turn on the monitors. Oh, I know what, I remember this very clearly now. The singer I was playing with all of a sudden said, she was trying to check her mic and nothing was happening. And obviously the guy had cranked up the system.

And then she said, oh, this needs phantom power. And then five seconds later, I was blown. Like it was just like, oh, phantom power and didn't adjust any of the faders or any of the levels and just turned on the phantom power. And it was just the worst sound you've ever heard as loud as it could be right in my right ear. And I have a little bit.

It's actually not terrible. Like, when I hear other people describe theirs, it sounds really bad. Mine is not terrible. But it was an immediate, that's kind of different than what we typically think about the cause of this kind of hearing loss. It's usually like a long term or gradual thing. So it might be a gradual thing and that's just in my head from something. But I have to imagine that that caused some kind of damage. Because it was the loudest sound I've ever heard about it.

But other than that, I think my wife would attest that I do have some kind of. of she's always like why are you listening to the TV so loudly? Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm sure I have some. I do try to. It was not a great impression of Heather McCork. No, I mean, she's listening right now.

Like a grandma or something. Do you do things to protect your hearing? So I have some earplugs that I wear on live gigs, especially if I know that the monitor engineer or just the engineer in general. A couple of ones that I've traveled with house engineers and modern engineers like to push things a little bit. not even so much from an accidental surge like what you're describing but just from a just a higher you know a constant level that I think can cause that and it's hard because I don't have great ones I should get some better ones I know um a couple people get those molded ones the molded ones I think are good the ones I have block out a lot but they block out so much it's like it's hard to really hear so I like

kind of have them half in and half out um but I try to I mean I always have those like in my traveling bag so because that's generally time I'll I'll encounter it yeah I'll tell you if you are if you play a lot of live gigs, which who's doing that right now, but if you do, for me, the volume of my stage volume has gone down over the years, even though my hearing's probably got any worse, because I've just, I just have gotten to the point where I'm concerned about hearing loss. Well, maybe the volume's gone down in your ear. Maybe you're on 11.

Have you noticed everyone else is like, oh, my God. But also, if you do a lot of, if you do a lot of, if you're in the studio. Yeah. Like a lot of great engineers I know, they mix and they listen mostly at very, very low volumes. And when musicians get in the studio where I was like, turn it up. Turn it up. Turn my piano, me. I got up.

I got to hear it, man. I want to hear all the intricacies. No, you don't. Not for six hours straight. Just like keep it down. Yeah. Go high. That's a great idea.

I mean, a great concept. And the studio is probably, we don't think about the exposure there. That can be some of the highest. Oh, man. I remember early days of doing studio work and like of like producing an album or whatever. And you're in there listening all day long. and just cranking up the volume too much and you just get out and you're just,

it's just like there's no depth of field to your hearing, right? It's just like can't hear anything. Good. All right. Let's see. What do we have next? How to improve writing, I love the economy of this question.

How to improve writing music? I'm pretty advanced at playing, but still lack at writing even basics. This is from Damien. Thank you for that. You know, I think one thing that was kind of a, breakthrough for me with this was not thinking about playing and writing as being that different. Yeah. At least not sort of the the impetus for creativity behind it. And looking at us as jazz

musicians or just improvising musicians as being truly spontaneous compositions. So it's just like anything like, oh my gosh, how am I going to be able to become, you know, a vegan? That seems impossible. But if you're like, if you look at it, you're like, wow, well, 80% of what I'm eating is already vegetables, maybe it's not that hard. You know, this is an example. So if you're an improviser and you're good at playing, you're already composing. So you can pat yourself on the back for that. It becomes more just a matter of the organization of how you're getting it down. So, you know, any kind of writing, be it, I'm going to write a symphony or I'm going to write a blues or I'm going to compose whatever is upon my heart to compose. It's always there's a creative

impulse. So you can get that create, most people that have trouble composing, it's like the same people that have like any kind of writer's block. They're like, I don't have any ideas. We're improvisers. We've got too many ideas. So just take the best idea you have at a particular time. One idea and commit to developing

that into a composition. You might give yourself, you know, we love talking about restricted practice. I love restricted composition, at least until you get to the point where it can flow a little bit better. So you say, okay, I'm going to write one, 12 bar blues every day this week. every day I'm going to get one done. You know, it's going to be as good as it can be,

but it's going to be done each day. So that'll be seven. Maybe one out of a little seven you kind of like and you further develop and really put the time in beyond that. But that'll at least get you into that mode of writing because a lot of times it's just doing it. But I don't think that,

I think that we have all the advantages as, basically there's no excuse to be a jazz musician and you can't write. Yeah. Because we're already writing on the job. You're already composing. Yeah. And we could sit here and tell you,

you know, some steps to take to like, well, then you have to learn counterpoint and then four-part coral, whatever, you know. But really, your advice was spot on, which is just like, just like if you wanted to get better at playing, you would play every day. Just write every day. And like you said, write a little bit, write a blues,

or just write a figure, try to write a phrase every day to start. And what's going to happen is you were going to reveal something's going to be lacking and you're going to notice it, whether it's like, well, I don't know what to do with the chords. Well, then you're going to investigate what to do with the chords and you're going to figure that out. But you need to kind of self-directing. you're learning there.

And the only way to do that is to do it daily, just like you would if you're learning an instrument. That's all it is. Yep. A little trick, little hack that may help also is to get better with writing. And just to do it is get a really nice notebook. I love the archive ones, you know, brand. You can get them on Amazon or whatever.

But get a really nice notebook and a really nice pencil and leave it sitting on the piano. That's a great idea. Because it's just like learning, you know, getting in the habit of flossing or whatever. If you've got the tools already sitting there. Now, is that going to write itself? No, but it'll be a reminder for you and it'll make it easy for you, you know. You know what, too, along these lines is when you go to write, write something for you, write something for you to play. That's right.

You know what I mean? Don't write something that you have this grand idea. I'm going to write this orchestra score to start. Just write something that you can play and that you want to play, right? Imagine that you have a gig coming up and the venue requested that you play all new originals. Yep. write a new one every day and you got it absolutely it's just like people always asking like you know how do you how do you start running or you know what i was telling i'm no expert in it but i'm like

go out and go for a walk that's how you start don't go out and run a marathon tomorrow yeah or today just go to get on walk and then start going a little faster and then pick your feet up a little more and eventually you're running but i mean but the main thing is start i think you know you are running you i was running exactly hashtag force go so the other side of this i was going to say with oh so the the the converse or i guess the inverse to the having the no nice notebook sitting on the piano to me at this point is our favorite notation program that we love to beat up sebelius big bad not shout out to that company and the way that i mean the program is still pretty good and we use it a lot because we know it or whatever but the like the barrier to like

getting that thing open and then you got to get the avid link and then i got to use your email address. Oh my, what? I think. I don't know. And I mean, it's such a pain to get started. Like, that just frustrates me from wanting to write something. It is.

I had to write something out of that home the other day. I was just like, oh my guy. I know this is the worst, man. Sometimes you got to restart your computer just to get the thing going. I hate it. Yeah. So make it easy. I hate that I use it.

I know. I'm using it. I hate us for our freedoms. I hate us. For our freedom. It's both the best and the worst. It's, yeah. It's the worst.

It's the worst. I mean, now, once you get it going, 20 minutes later, it's amazing. It's so powerful. Okay, someone wants to know, how do I transcribe piano voicing's chord progressions? I always have trouble with that. Welcome to the club. Yeah, so those are two different things.

Piano voicings are, of course, like, literally voicings. But I'll say, honestly, I'll go with, like, kind of the same thing for both voicings and progressions, which is to start at the ends, right? Start at the highest note and the lowest note. Just knowing that this is a C here and a B here, I now know that I only have so many options.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's one of like three chords probably. And so much easier than starting in the middle and working your way out. Yeah, yeah, don't do that. I mean, really, start with the bottom. Yeah. And especially for the chord progression,

see if you can get the bass movement first, the root movement. In general, do you find that you can hear the root or the melody, like the bottom note or the top note easier? Or does it vary? For piano voicings? Yeah, like if someone would just play like

and you were, China. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I can hear that a lot, a lot better than the bottom. But the bottom is easier to hear than like the second for the bottom, which is like the hardest to hear, I think. So that's where I would start.

And then, you know, one of the things with the voicings that we always talk about is like learn voicings. Right. Like learn common voicings. We're all only playing certain kinds of voices. That's right. You know what I mean? So if you kind of learn the language of voicing, that really goes a lot. long way because then you're like oh it's that sound yeah and the great thing about that is it starts

to give you some variety within within those common voicing structures as you're going so like you know this is the common voicing but so is this and it sounds all i'm doing is leaving out the set the doubled seventh here which you kind of like you want to kind of be like wow maybe is that a stronger voicing actually but are we just playing that because we're used to it so like that starts to attune your ear to those kinds of things but it also's like well maybe i want to leave the bottom one out. So you, I mean, these are somewhat advanced, but you shouldn't wait until you're at that super advanced level

to at least try to hear these things as you're learning them. Totally. And it's a bit of a catch-22, because you've got to hear the voicings to learn them. And then, I mean, ideally. Well, it's like, how do you swim? Jump in the water. Don't die, though.

Yeah, but you should transcribe voicing just as much as anything else if you're a pianist or guitarist because it really is. And look, at the beginning, it's going to be trial and error. Like, you're literally going to be like, and you're going to play it again, and you're going to be like,

nah, nah, no. I got it. That sounded good, didn't it? All right. Our next question, our next burning. Wait, can I interject here? I've been getting some nice. This will be good since you mentioned it was my 50th birth.

I just got a text message from, wait a second, Diane Reeves. Did she just drop that name? Did that drop that name? Personal friend. Happy 50th birthday. It's all about how you wear it and you wear it well. Truly 50 is the new 30 for you. Have an extraordinary day.

All right. Awesome, man. 5-0. Yep. 5-0. 5-0. I'm going to watch out for it. So someone asks how to become better at improvising melodic lines over odd time signatures.

We've talked about this. Oh, it's so melodic. We've talked about this a little bit in the not too distant past. Really the best way to get comfortable improvising any kind of lines over odd time signatures is to just practice odd time signatures. It's really just a familiarity thing, right? It's really just because you don't practice a lot in odd meters, and you just have to keep at it. Again, if you want to get good at anything, do it every day, right?

Leading up to you performing that tune at Shelter in Place that you're playing now, that's Josh Redmond's, what is it called? Beyond. It's the first tune on Beyond. Asyncrony, it's something. Courage. It's called Courage. I know you played at Shelter in Place 18 or 19, I think. Yeah.

And you were probably practicing that every day. Yeah. probably got pretty good at going between six and seven, I'm guessing, because that's what that tune does, right? And that's the kind of thing you got to do. You just have to include it every day. If you want to get better at anything, and this is kind of like blanket question, a blanket answer to a lot of these questions, put it in your daily practice. Yes. Practice it every day. Because there are certain things that we can't tell you that you don't know, that we don't know you don't know, that you don't even know.

You don't know. But they will be exposed in that practice. Very quickly. And so you just have to do it. You have to throw yourself again into the water. You will not drown. Yeah, and I think that, yeah, absolutely. Drowned.

Drowned. Drowned. Well, I know you're about to go on vacation to a lake area, so you're thinking about keeping your kids from drowning yourself, your wife. It's on your mind. Although those lakes, is there enough water in them to drown in? They're pretty shallow out there, aren't they? But I digress.

Anyway, you can actually drown in one inch of water, right? Well, thanks for bringing this up right before I go on my vacation, buddy. How fun. Woo, big shout out to the Ozarks. Okay. So this thing, okay, I totally agree with what you're saying, and that's like, it's such a great concept because you can port that out to so many different things like this that are like, how do you do something that applies to a lot of different tunes and situations like playing over odd time signatures. Improvising melodic lines specifically is the question. So as you're practicing this, it's going to be like probably at least 50% of your practice.

actually before you even get to working on improvising over odd time signatures, it's just going to be like just copy, not even, and hearing something above it. Hearing something above it. But what you just did there was really important. This is what I've been, I've been doing a little bit of this on the Daily Guy practice session. And not with odd time signatures, but with just better time in general. Vocalizing the time is huge for human beings. Have you seen this, I'm not going to say Adam Neely video about working on time with vocalization?

No. It's what we're best that keeping clocks with is one, two, three, four. We actually have amazing time humans do when we count. And so doing what you just did, which is like, not only does that help us find the beat, but it keeps us like our time steady. And so that can be some real game-changing work for not just like playing an odd time signatures, but really like having solid time.

Yeah. And most people can sing a beat or count a beat like. that with a much more innate sense of groove and accuracy of time than they can necessarily play on almost any instrument. For sure. And there's no way you're going to be able to play melodically over some odd meters if you can't sing the beat. And the odd time signature has to be something that becomes somewhat natural.

I mean, eventually you want it to be as natural, and it will as three or four. It'll just because you've done it enough, you know. But you want it to be natural enough that you can have the pious. possibility to be able to create a improvised melodic line without having to think about the time you're in so that you can start floating it above. So that takes

a lot, you're very front-loaded on the work in terms of just practicing the group of your piano, maybe just a simple bass line and chords and no melodic line. It's going to be one of those things that that's just kind of what you're practicing. Totally. Yeah. We got time for one more? We got time for one more. Okay, let's do it. How to make the piano

sound interesting and make up for stuff horn players can do. So this is from someone with the handled jazz piano guy. So it is a jazz pianist. That's a bold handle. Yeah, it's a bold hand. Yeah, I didn't know.

If I'd known that one was available, I would have grabbed it. That's great. I mean, I think we can steal a lot of stuff, borrow, insert ourselves into the lineage of a lot of great players. I mean, all the pianists we talk about are really good at doing this. Not necessarily trying to duplicate, but to bring the expressiveness out of the piano that's maybe not as innate or obvious as it is on a saxophone or a trumpet.

I got something for this actually. Okay. Have you seen this documentary Keep on Keeping on Clark Terry? No, I've got to see it. I feel horrible that I have. I know all about it though. Okay. So great.

Yeah. So this is pretty awesome. So Clark Terry, legendary trumpet player, obviously, the last years of his life, and actually this is like the last year of his life. And he's mentoring a young pianist Justin Coughlin. And he's like literally on his deathbed. like vocalizing language as a lesson to this young pianist, right?

And Clark Terry's not a pianist. He's a trumpeter. Right. And you get the real sense here that this is not about like what scale goes over what chord, right? This is literally just language from one person to the other.

And if you check this out, so I'll keep on, keep it on. It's on Netflix. You can't go wrong with it. It's just so cool to watch Clark teach someone. And this is a really good young pianist, actually. And watch him who humble, absorb the information.

Man, it's so awesome. And for me, this is how you would get to that point of how to make the piano sound interesting makeup stuff that horn players can do. Because it's literally a horn player explaining how he thinks about an improvisation to a young pianist who's really, really talented, and how it's not about the instrument you play or even the notes you play. It's about these phrases that we share with each other in this language that we share with each other.

It's awesome. It's awesome. Yeah, and I think that is going to come down then to. first understanding that then it becomes a necessity is the mother of all invention. It's like what do we have to do? Yeah, so we got to work a little harder in some ways on the piano

to be able to create that. But in some ways we have some advantages too. So like that's all about being able to manipulate the technique and what the piano gives us and not concentrating on like what it can't do. Yeah. But coaxing it into doing the things that we know it can do. Well don't you think you've gotten

some of the best stuff you in your playing from horn players and vocalists? Yeah. People who can do things we can't do. Exactly. It forces you to kind of like mimic that in a way, you know. But when you start to realize that like the timing and the, the how it layers into the groove and, you know, the inflection of the phrasing and the dynamics, all that actually you can get 90% 95, maybe even 99% of, you know, even though you can't, we can't affect a note after it started. But we can kind of repeat. I mean, there's all these little tricks that you can do to get, you know, you can't tongue like you could on trumpet.

But you can, you know. We have a. We have a tact tricks. Exactly. So don't concentrate on what we can't do, concentrate on what we can do with your can-do attitude. I love it, man. There's no I in team, but there is a me. Okay, so. Positive a tie.

Yeah. Well, you also can do go to openstudiojazz.com. You like that transition? I do. Go check out the piano access pass. It's all of Peter's courses, all of Jeffrey Kieser's courses. Alves is amazing Brazilian jazz piano course. As well as Elio Alvese. as well.

Elio. Alio, you say proximity, I say proximatei. All of Adam Manus doesn't include your courses? It includes my courses. It includes the daily guide of practice session.

We're practicing it every day over there. I know. Come check us out. Well, till tomorrow.