You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Makes a Hip Voicing?

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

Peter and Adam kick off the week with a SpeakPipe on how to tell the difference between a hip voicing and a corny one. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Sign up for You'll Hear It Premium and get access to the SpeakPipe hotline. Just go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhiAre you going to the JEN Conference? If so, stop by and say hi to us! From January 7 - 10, Peter and Adam will be doing special live You'll Hear It's, giving away special prizes, and answering any jazz or music questions you want to ask them. Just look for the Open Studio booth (Booth 718) and get your daily jazz advice in person.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, what is hip? I'm not sure, but you know what two hips make? What? Oh, you don't know that joke? No. An ass. You really don't know that joke?

No. Dude. Okay, boomer. I don't even know what that means. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to You'll hear it. A podcast about listening and how to play music better.

I thought you were going to trip up on that. I was going to. I didn't have it in front of it. We're only on day two. man, come on. Day two of our new tagline. Let us know what you think. It's so catchy. Yeah, it's a podcast about listening and how to play better. And now some of you may be play music better, play music better. Now some of you might be wondering, why are we not saying play jazz better? And should we talk about that a little bit or just sort of sublimate that

and hide from it? No, we don't have to hide from it. Yeah, no, we, we're moving a little a bit away from the name jazz right now. And from and from the idea that we're just a jazz podcast, although we are certainly musicians who've played tons of jazz. Yeah, it's our first love. We get a lot of questions not about jazz and we want to be able to to like entertain the idea that we could have more to say on music in general. Yeah and I think you know I think most of our listeners we're finding are like us in that they appreciate and listen and are playing just great music. Now jazz is this style is certainly the big part of that but music is such a big world. I mean we talk about classical

music and we don't even want to restrict it there just kind of quality music. being too elitist. I guess when you say quality of music, that makes you an elitist, doesn't it? But I want to learn, I mean, I want to dive into like, you know, bluegrass and different things I don't know as much about. We don't only do that because we want to bring some level of expertise, but I think the umbrella of music and especially improvisation, if nothing else like that, and obviously piano. We talk a lot about piano because we're first and foremost pianists, but you're a bona fide multi-instrumentalist, professional multi-instrumentalist. I'm a very amateur multi-instrumentalist, but we do bring that kind of, I think, vision to music and what

we talk about, even though, you know, keyboards being our primary thing. For sure. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we're just kind of broadening our scope here. That's right, right. A.K.A. selling out. We got a speak pipe from our last round when it was open. It is now closed.

This is from John. Hey, Peter and Adam. This is John from California. I just had a question about what is it that makes voicing's hip. You know, I always hear you guys or other people talking about hip voicing or cool sounding voicings. There usually seems to be a consensus about which voicings are hip versus which voicings are not. And, you know, usually I kind of agree, but sometimes I hear voicings that other people say are not good or cool voicings, but they sound okay to me.

So I just want to know from your opinion, is there anything, any quality that makes certain voicings better than others? or is it all about the context? So thank you very much. Appreciate the podcast and talk to you later. Bye. So great question, John. And, you know, like anything, I think that we would talk about on this podcast, context always matters for sure.

But I do think that there are just, there are like voicing that just sound better than others objectively because of how music works. Now, what makes a voicing hip, that is more subjective and depends on. your expectations and how good the musician is at setting you up for comfort and then having a little novelty in there we've talked about that before

that's with anything though yeah I think it's pretty easy actually I see it is even simpler than that talk about what makes a... Did I go into hot? No, I know I would say you know what makes a voicing hip so you've got that is you know back in the day

that was a hip voicing that one too we went about seven years past 1600 with that No, I would say that this is how you can delineate between or just judge between good and bad voicing. If it sounds really hip, it's a great voicing. If it sounds corny, it's a bad voice. Does it sound good? Class dismissed.

I've had, I don't know about you. I've come back around on voices, you know, like there was a time where I thought this voicing was not hip. That's the old one two core. But then I learned how to play it and how to deal with it. And I know I think it sounds hip as hell, you know. So I think there, that's where the context to me really, I know where, I know, we're probably thinking context meaning like, what are you playing before and after it?

And we're big proponents of that. Or where are you playing it, too? You know, if you're at a Methodist church in Minnesota on a Sunday morning, on a cold Sunday in winter, you better not, well, no,

but are you going to be pulling out a sharp nine, sharp 11 voicing? You know what I'm saying? That's dark, man, you might be ended up in a basement prison in Minneapolis. You probably pull that bad boy out. No, but it's,

so there's that context. but I think the context of who's playing it and how they're playing it. So you started with those triads. We always joke about, you know, Keith Jarrett can make a double triad. Yeah, yeah. Keith Jarrett can make a double triad hip. Right?

Because he plays it so well. I don't know if he can make it hip on the key station. I don't know if anybody could. You're doing pretty good on that. No, triads are, I think, can be super hip. You're right, anything can be hip is how you play it, right? We talked about yesterday about phrasing and how that's all about how you play it. And I think it's like that with any element of music,

especially like that with voicings. You know, we talk about how context matters. Like, if you're doing a bunch of like, and then I pull out a double. Yeah. Like in the right spot. Exactly. Like, it could, like, legitimately cause stank face.

Oh, I thought you meant it was not appropriate. No, no. No, I mean, but like say you're, you know, and everybody's like smoking. And then all of a sudden you come out with like, I don't know about that. I can make it work. I can make it work.

All right. Yeah, anything can work I think that's the context Like there's no Absolutely wrong Now I think there are weaker voicings And sometimes they're based upon You know pretty well established sound principles

Depending on the instrument and that kind of thing No I did a double triad for a reason Because it's hard to make those sound good Yeah You know Yeah so any I mean really doubling Like if we're looking on a static vertical Place which you know we normally don't do that

But I agree certain voices are just great on their own They only get better if you resolve them or develop them in another way, but you can take some snapshots in time that are just extraordinary. And, you know, like, if you play like this, the typical, okay, all right.

I mean, you look like you want to play. I don't want to play this thing, but no. So if you talk about, this is your standard, what I call fourth voicing. Is that correct? All force with the, with the,

augmenting fourth on the bottom. I mean, that's a nice, it's overplayed because it sounds good, but that's just a great sort of vertical voice. That was one that you didn't want to play for a while, right? I didn't. I shied away from it because it seems so standard. And then I mastered it.

That one? Yeah. Yeah. Do you like that? I do like that. Yeah. Yeah, I'll play that. I see, you had to try to hip it up there.

Well, I see, but you can hit anything. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. It's a context thing, right? Yeah. So I think that, you know, placed at the right context, any voicing theoretically can be. It gets harder when you get a lot of doubling going on, I find. You want to avoid, I agree.

It can weaken it. Until you become, like, kind of expert level. on it, you need to stay away from doubling. You know, so I've talked about the system that I developed a couple of years ago for any note on top of any kind of chord quality that has no doubling. And that was an important step for me and my growth

as a pianist to be able to comp any melodic way I want to without any doubling. I could never get away from the doubling. And so I would try to comp a melody on top behind someone, and then I would hit something that would be, you know, like a doubling thing. And I would just look at you know, And I would just lose an overtone.

You know what I mean? You'd have anti-stank face. I would just really destroy me. So really try to- That's your drop four voicing concept, right? Or is that somebody else? Oh, my gosh. No.

No. So, you know, John, if you really want to get some solid hip voicings that you know are like at least going to be good, right? If not hip every time. Really try to find these fourth voicings, these non-doubled two-handed voicings. Another go-to for me, if I want to sound hip, quote-unquote, This is just of our generation.

You seem so excited about signing quote unquote. Yeah, I just feel so not hit by saying this. But I think just for even our generation of pianists and musicians. Okay, boomer. Any kind of cluster will always kind of cluster on the bottom. Now define cluster what you're saying just so because I know that I'm a little misunderstood on what that means. I know what it sounds like, but is there, what would you call cluster? You know, a cluster and a voicing is, is, is,

could be in any kind of voicing, but it's really just either half step, sometimes a whole step, depending on how you use it. But these three-note clusters, especially where you have a cluster of a second, either minor or major, and then you can do thirds or fourths

or fifths above that cluster, and you can just move those around. And we're almost always rootless on those, right? Yeah, there's not, yeah. I mean, maybe you can even do a root, but it doesn't really matter. It's kind of more like just a color than... Yeah.

you know but these kind of cluster voicing I mean have herbie Hancock and Chick-Korean done more for the cluster voicing than anybody probably that's what I was saying it's like our generation of pianists love these because of Herbie and Chick or whatever so they might even be a little dated maybe like now the main thing is double triads You know what this is sorry yeah right

I diverge only slightly Could you imagine someone going to like a Chick-Korea or Herbie Hancock gig and being like hey boomer I'd love to see that That would be great I will slap that kid in their face By the way it's not Hey, boomer.

Oh, it's okay boomer. Okay, boomer. Yeah, see. I will slap them hard. We got to come up with some kind of Gen X one. Like, whatever Gen X. Right, right. Wait, that's me in it.

Yeah, so I'm saying. Whatever Gen X. So. Get in the game, Gen X. It's tough. You're up to bad. You're eight years past being up to bad. Everybody talks about boomers and millennials.

Where you been? That's what is. Save it for the B side. Where you been, Gen X. Okay, save it for the B side. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Okay, so that's kind of quality, context. I think that shows sort of how they're related. Complexity, I don't think equals hipness at all. Like, you don't think you have to have, you know, flat 9, sharp 11 on every voicing, and that makes it hip. That's not exactly, that's not at all. And I think when you get into the more complex voicing, be it more, well, first of all, a lot of very complex sounding voicings don't have as many notes as most people think. Agreed. Because there's, you know, really good quality in general.

There's so many exceptions. When you get into voicing, lots of exceptions, even like with doubling notes, because sometimes I can work great. I mean, you talk about, you know, block chord voicings, you know, within the, you can have some doubling in there, and it can sound beautiful. But the complicated voicing that, you know, the context of how you play in becomes, I think, even more important. Agreed. Because you're, especially if it's like a dominant chord complex voicing like you just hit, you're going to have a lot of tension there. So if it's a time that it needs it, a lot of tension, it's going to be great, you know. That's true, but it doesn't necessarily automatically make it.

One of my favorite voicing is this. I like that. And I consider this like an F add to over A, right? But it works in great context going from... Right. Now you're going into a church that's not in Minnesota. It's a different neighborhood. But isn't that, that's wonderful, right?

That's such a hit movement. Well, that's a true example of context. Because if you sat on that first, like, that's the thing about triads. It sounds fine on its own. Yeah, it's almost like when you have straight triads, They can work so great because there's nothing stronger in kind of Western tonality than a triad, right? Yeah. Especially after all this. Yeah, yeah.

But it's almost like the opposite. If you think about, like, you know, Bach might go into some very complex for the time, certainly, harmonic area. And then you finish on a triad. Right. It's just sort of a typical way. Now, it may not be this expected try, but you finish there. Whereas in this kind of playing in like more, you know, modern contemporary music, you can start on a triad and then start to move away from it. And maybe you come back or not.

But it's almost like you hark, like that second chord you did made the triad hip, even though it happened afterwards. Right. Totally. Totally. Yeah. That B flat triad now.

That's the contextual aspect of any kind of. And that's why I still believe that like it's very hard to isolate any of these. That's why I was come back to like voicing's chords, voice leading. So important. Like thinking about this music horizontally as opposed to vertically, when you get into chords is always. going to benefit you for sure so true yeah cool um i would just doing one last little thing and that is uh for pianists especially maybe not on the key station but on a real piano uh voicing of the

voicing yeah so that's a huge thing especially if you're going to get this too that's going to be when we get the other room though oh man we're going to be voicing we're going to be dopio voices can you hear this g flying v so i'm trying to bring out the g right yeah it's easy because so my voice what i mean is um you know bring out certain notes as adam's demonstrating here. And that can be the difference between the success or failure of a voicing. So it's not always what you see on paper.

That's a good voicing. That's a bad. How are you going to play it? Yeah, nice, man. You're taking us to church. It's a church. Nice. I like it.

Church indeed. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, John, for the question. Yes, sir. Thanks, John, in California. Hope you're warm out there. Yeah, it's not warm in here.

We're going to finish it up in the pod cave here and then move to our new digs. Yeah, this is one of our last episodes here. I don't know. It's going to be so much better. the stretch we're looking forward to it and until then you'll hear you