You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Do Keith Jarrett & a Mediocre Music Student Have in Common?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey Adam. Yo. Does Keith Jarrett remind you of a mediocre jazz school student? In some ways, no. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily music advice coming at you.

Starting point is 00:00:31 Coming at you today, sponsored by OpenStudio. Go to open studio jazz.com to check out all of our lessons. You know, Peter, I've been doing this daily guided practice session. We have a whole piano guided practice course over there. The guided practice sessions are taken over. over. They are. Because they're so popular. These are sessions where you can actually practice with me and Peter Martin. We lead you through what to practice, how to practice it, how to think about it. And in the Daily Guy to Practice session, man, I was comparing this the other day what it must have

Starting point is 00:01:01 felt like when sort of HBO discovered sort of long form dramas that you can tell huge stories over the course of 10 years as opposed to, you know, a single video course, which can be very informative, but over these guided practice sessions, we can cover one very specific, nerdy topic over the course of a month and get super deep into it. And I can really explain what works about it, why it works, how it works in different situations. And then I can show you exactly how to practice it so it gets in your playing very fast. Go check out openstudiojazz.com slash guided practice for all our guided practice sessions. Yeah. And you know, the best way to get involved with that, I would say, if you're not a member already, is to jump in as.

Starting point is 00:01:43 as a piano access pass or all access pass member, right? That's kind of your way in. And does that get you access to the new app? I believe it does. It gets you access to the new guided practice app. Yeah, the piano access pass is one of our most popular products at Open Studio. It's all the piano courses we make, all the guided practice sessions, everything. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:01 So if you're not sure like what level you're coming in or you want to sample some different things, that's definitely way to go. And we got an amazing. We're on Twitter and we're taking questions. I love Twitter. I know. Sorry, we're on, I'm also on Twitter. We're on Instagram taking questions.

Starting point is 00:02:16 We're on Instagram every Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Come join us and give us your questions. But we got some good ones here. We have one particular good one that we're going to kick it off with. Well, let's do it. All right. This is from Jesse H. Jazz, which is, by the way, Jesse, thank you for that handle. What is the difference between the way Keith Jarrett plays solo piano versus a college student?

Starting point is 00:02:38 Mediocre. And he didn't even say like a college student that plays piano. He just said a college student. I'm assuming it's a college. Hold on, but you're missing a very important word there, Adam, unless we're looking at a different question. I might be. He might have done this twice.

Starting point is 00:02:51 What is the difference between... Oh, yeah, he did do it twice. So this is the one I like. What is the difference between the way Keith Jarrett plays solo piano and a mediocre college student? What is the difference between... This is such a... Okay.

Starting point is 00:03:06 Well... So are we going to assume that Jesse means a mediocre music college student? I assume. Yeah, not just like a mediocre lit major at Oberlin, but like... Ooh, shade at Oberlin. No, no, Oberlin's awesome. They accept mediocre students, don't they? Oh, there we go.

Starting point is 00:03:25 Maybe. Okay. So, yeah, okay, so let's talk about this. A mediocre college student. Well, no, you know what? Actually... Where do you even start with this, though? Yeah, no, you know what?

Starting point is 00:03:35 I would say there's not as big of a difference as we think. I mean, no more so than the difference between Keith Jarrett and every other piano player in a way. To me, I love Keith Jared. You know I love Keith Jared, Adam. And I know you love Keith, Keith, Keith, Jared. And I don't just mean, oh, we love him because he's great. No, I mean, I've for hours. And I mean, I love his music and I've studied it. And I geek out on him. But I also just love it on a visceral level of just the beauty of his piano playing and the ingenuity of what he does. And, I mean, I've followed him. I've heard him live and everything. But the thing is we have to remember. Keith Jarrett is just really good at being Keith Jarrett, you know? So that mediocre college student, the biggest difference is really just that they haven't figured out how to be not mediocre at what they're doing in music.

Starting point is 00:04:24 They actually have something most likely in them that's better than mediocre. It's not Keith Jarrett, but that's okay. Because what would be worse than hearing a mediocre college student try to be Keith Jarrett, you know, or Keith Jarrett try to be a mediocre college student? Neither one of those is going to be that interest. So the differences that we have, I think ultimately, it's more of a matter of just like Keith Jarrett is at the level. And look, he's a lot older than a mediocre college student most likely. Although depending on how mediocre, they might be on their seventh, eighth, ninth year of undergrad. We don't know.

Starting point is 00:04:55 We don't know. Yeah. There's, I think for broad differences, most likely Keith Jarrett cares a lot more about performing on the piano than a mediocre college student. And that's evidenced by the time and passion that Keith Jarrett. has probably put into being a great pianist throughout the course of his life. He started young, very, very young. And he's done it at the highest level since he was a child. And he cares about it quite a bit and knows an awful lot about it. There are some practical things, though. If we want to just talk about Keith Jarrett versus like a regular ass intermediate piano player,

Starting point is 00:05:30 regular ass intermediate piano players tend to play a lot longer phrases than Keith Jarrett. Have you ever notice this Keith when you analyze Keith Jarrett's phrases they're short they're shorter than what I play they're short he plays short phrases that are strung together very fat like in in in ever kind of changing intervals yeah but he his phrases are shorter than you think they are you think that is like these long languid lines sometimes but mostly he's he's jabbing short phrases they all they seem languid because every one of them seems like it was a pre-written melody somehow that he you know from some standard you don't know and some of them maybe are but i guarantee you his his phrases keith's phrases are shorter than yours check that out and uh especially

Starting point is 00:06:19 for like an intermediate piano player who tends to just run their fingers over scales uh scale run as they as they improvise so yeah that's like a real practical difference and then other than that i i do think just like how much he cares how much he's probably more present as he's playing not second guessing himself or thinking about or being in his own head just letting go and trying to be in the moment he's talked about that that's an obvious thing yeah his knowledge i mean we're the knowledge of theory harmony yeah mechanics of the piano all of it yeah just a better human all around basically no no we're not saying that but yeah it's just a fully you know but i did the main distinctions i wanted to make was that the difference isn't that he can do keith jarrott so much

Starting point is 00:07:04 better than the mediocre college student. Because he can do Key Jared so much better than everybody, even, you know, Herbie Hancock or Chick or Rio, whatever. But this idea of like, I mean, obviously, Keith Jarrett's supremely gifted, but more importantly, well-practiced and deeply

Starting point is 00:07:20 dedicated and attuned pianist. You know, forget about jazz, classical, whatever. Have you ever heard his classical recordings of Bach and Mozart? Man, on the ECM is Mozart piano concertos, a major? Man, incredible. So, I mean, he's just, he's, he's a monster, he's a monster pianist that has, you know, with a gift. But, you know, whatever gift he has, if that was really ended up being 20% or 15%, and then the rest is just hard work, dedication and commitment over many, many years to his craft on, you know, on a very just dogmatic and committed level. I mean, just crazy off the charts.

Starting point is 00:07:59 And that's part of who he is. And that's what makes him. Whereas, you know, the, the, the. mediocre college student may be dedicated to ramen noodles and saving the environment i don't know there's many things they could be dedicated to but they they haven't dedicated to weed probably probably dedicated to weed could be weed could be weed you know that's another difference perhaps between you know good that's a great question could go into different directions and we did jesse hates jazz thank you so much that just made my day the whole the whole experience of you great stuff

Starting point is 00:08:26 can i throw one out there that i'm reading here yeah go ahead because i have no idea how i'm going to answer this so i'm going to need your help hey peter's you Peter, what's your favorite jazz mode and with what's its related chords? That's easy. Lidion and it's F major 7 sharp 11. Done. Next. Yeah, bam.

Starting point is 00:08:45 Okay. That's my favorite, right? You know, I don't think I, I don't, do you have a favorite mode? A favorite mode? No. Isn't that what the question was? Yeah. What's your favorite mode?

Starting point is 00:08:59 I don't know if there is a, first of all, I don't know if there's a specific jazz mode and that I would consider a jazz mode. I think they're, you know, there are musical modes, but nothing super specific to the jazz idiom, I would think. Yeah. Maybe melodic minor, but even that has used a ton in like, you know, film scoring and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's all, I think it's all good. You know, it's all just a tool to get sounds that we can throw together and tell our story with. So whatever, my favorite mode is whatever is helping me tell my story at that particular time. That's exactly what I was thinking.

Starting point is 00:09:36 It's like, it's very situational. So when you're not in a musical situation or in the middle of something, you know, if you're playing a composition, be it yours or somebody else's, that you get to a situation where you have some choices, which is often happens, if not all the time, actually, unless it's really specific to what's going on. But you always have some choices in which modes to use or whether or not to use a mode not. Not everything has to be modal, you know, not even things that are typically thought to have to be modal. Yeah, think if you could do like pure melody without thinking about modes, just following your

Starting point is 00:10:12 ears and seeing if you can make anything sound good over whatever particular changes you are without thinking about modes, like just thinking about melodically where you're going. That's a whole other way to talk about it. Talk about Keith Jarrett, you know. Yeah, let's talk about it. Oh, we already talked about that was good. Well, thanks for all these questions. Yes. Man, these were awesome. I loved, I love these Instagram slash Twitter Q&As. Oh, I mean just Instagram. Go to Openstudiochast.com. Check out our piano access pass where you can get

Starting point is 00:10:39 literally every piano course we make. And every piano, if you get the annual piano access pass, which is, by the way, super affordable. Not only do you get everything we make, which is like a dozen piano courses so far. Everything we're going to make in the next year is yours as soon as, not even as soon as it comes out, but before it comes out to the general public,

Starting point is 00:10:58 we let you have it. Right. You know what I mean? So go get your piano access pass from open studio jazz.com now leaving us leaving us to be leaving us a rating and review. To be leaving us after we go to Moscow. Do you say to beaters back and look at this. This is a hot jazz. No, leave us a rating and review. We love that here on the You'll Hear at podcast. Seven stars only. Seven stars only. Can I read a seven star review? Because we just happen to get one today. Oh, really? Yes. Oh, yeah. Come on, homie. Okay. This is the title of this. this review. This comes from M. Goldson via Apple Podcasts, which is a great place to leave us a review. The title is Seven Stars, a must-listen podcast. As an aspiring pianist, listening to this podcast is part of my daily routine, both entertaining and educational.

Starting point is 00:11:46 I would definitely recommend this podcast to all jazz pianists. Hearing Pete and Adam, Pete, ooh, on a first name, first syllable, first syllable basis. I like it. Formal with you. Keep formal. Hearing Pete and Adam each day has also inspired me to delve into lessons at Open Studio, which has been a game changer, game changer for my playing. Thanks, guys. Keep dropping that knowledge. Yeah. Well, thank you for leaving that.

Starting point is 00:12:10 And yeah, you know, if you guys get a chance, everybody on Instagram or everybody who's listened to this podcast, you know you have time now. Okay, because you're probably not in your car. You probably are not driving around a lot. So this is a perfect opportunity to leave us that rating review that you've been thinking of. You're like, oh, I don't want to do it in the car. I don't know how to do it on my phone.

Starting point is 00:12:27 But especially if you're listening or you're at your desktop. or whatever. It's easy to do on a phone. Drop us that rating review because it really helps us spread the word. Most people hear about the podcast or the mouth, but also Apple kind of saying, oh, it's getting a little bit of attention. Let's put this in front of some folks that it might benefit. Yeah, and don't forget to go to Open StudioJJ.js.com slash live to get the lowdown on all of our weekly live events. I mean, we have live events at least one, usually two or three every day. So go check that out.

Starting point is 00:12:53 Absolutely. Until tomorrow. You'll hear it.

You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Do Keith Jarrett & a Mediocre Music Student Have in Common?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.