You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What the Hell Do I Play Over a Secondary Dominant?

Episode Date: December 5, 2019

It's the debut of our "What the Hell..." series as Peter and Adam give you some ideas on things you can play over secondary dominants.To quote every Christmas ad ever, "give the gift of giving" this season with Open Studio's new gifting feature! Help spread the joy of this art form by giving a course or membership to the aspiring jazz musician in your life. For more info and a list of gift-able courses, go to: https://www.openstudiojazz.com/giftsThis episode of You'll Hear It is sponsored by Anytune. If you want to improve your jazz playing and transcription skills, Anytune is the #1 tool you need. Just load any track you want into the app, and Anytune allows you to change the speed, loop sections, change the pitch to a different key, and so much more. For more information, go to https://anytune.us/youllhearit/Want every Open Studio course for free? That's right - over 300 hours and 1200 lessons can be yours with free lifetime access! All you have to do is enter Open Studio's 2019 Holiday Giveaway. Go to https://learn.openstudiojazz.com/giveaway/, or watch this video of Peter for more info: https://youtu.be/KsdhVXE5ovILet 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, Adam. Yeah. Sorry to disturb your practicing. What are you playing there? I don't know. Some secondary dominance. Is that like playing second fiddle? It is on this podcast.

I'm Adam Anas. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily Jazz Advice, coming at you? Coming at you. Today, we are brought to you by our sponsor. Yes. Any tune.

Any tune. Now, is that, does you get like any tune ever? Yeah. Any tune. Any Tune has sponsored us. Every song ever written. No, Any Tune is an app. It's an app for your iPhone,

for your Mac, for your Android device. And, you know, we don't throw around the... Well, actually, we do throw around the word game changer a lot around here. We do. But on good stuff. I mean, some of the things we talk about game changing,

like learning solos, listen, we rank this up there. That's why we are confident in saying that any tune will be a game changer for serious musicians in your practice routine. That's right.

Yeah, it's got a bunch of amazing great features. So not only can you slow a track down without losing the pitch, not only can you loop, but you can set things like markers throughout the track so that you can easily go back. So this is like a game changer

for when you want to loop a section over and over again, or maybe you want to go through a couple different sections and like, oh, I wish I could start from the bridge again. You can do that. You can also do these loops where you start at half speed. It loops it like nine or ten times, and each time it gets a little bit faster. So great for picking up things at tempo. And then there's the game-changing feature of being able to isolate or subtract an instrument from a track. So like if you're listening to like, you know,

Miles Davis, you know, at the plug nickel or whatever, you can take out the drums and you can just hear the things without drums or you can just highlight the piano. It's pretty amazing. It is amazing. And the reason it's for serious musicians that, you know, it's a serious tool for serious musicians that want to improve is because, you know, as a listener, you don't need all that. You just want to listen to the track. Right. But as practitioners of this music, we want to study and, you know, number one listen, but then apply that.

So this is really, you know, we're not big preachers of shortcuts, but this does kind of give you a little bit of a shortcut. You still need to do the work and hear it. But it makes that the ability, especially for transcribing. Yeah. And getting into a routine by putting up the markers and just working on one section over and over again. It takes a lot of the drudgery and legwork of, like, you know,

jumping back and forth. Takes that out. Yeah, remember what we say about transcribing. have to transcribe the whole solo every time you go to transcribe. That's right. You can just transcribe chunks at a time. Right. That's right.

And so go to anytune.us slash you'll hear it, one word there. And you can see the special landing page and offers from them with our partnership that several of our professional transcribers at Open Studio, we were surprised didn't know about any tune and they're now using it just from hearing it on the podcast. We've had a lot of feedback about Anytune on YouTube, from emails. A lot of people are digging it. That's right. For sure.

Good. All right. So today, I got an email this morning from a, I don't think he's even a, you'll hear it listener, but an open studio customer. He was a bill collector. You got that wrong. I get those emails every day. But, no, asking about how to deal with a series of consecutive secondary dominance.

Yes. It's not something we've touched on very much here. So I'm talking about things like the tune, All of Me or. All of Me. Just take all of me That tune? Yeah Or the bridge

Most famously the bridge to It's putting the gain down on my mic I see it Sorry did I spark some excitement over in the engineering department The bridge on rhythm Thank you very much Sorry I don't even know what that is

I keep going on So tune like all of me I love a parade Sorry That just popped in my head See there you go You done? Yeah

Okay A tune like all All of me Yeah Or like the bridge for rhythm changes. Something where there's a bunch of dominant chords that seemingly don't go together. So I had the... Oh, you're modulating, bro. Pink-pong tremolo on.

Or like, you know, these are all going around in the circle of fourths, right? So back to the one. Okay. What do you, this person want to know, what the heck do I play? What do I practice on something like this? Um... Well, did they want to know what the heck? Or did they want to know what the hell? They want to know what the hell? Because I did notice you. You know, you know, titled at that. Yeah, I got a little controversial. Sorry.

Yeah. Sorry, if you have a problem with the word hell. Well, we're going to see who wins. Because I was saying maybe more what the heck. But you guys, look at the title,

because we don't know what the final title's going to be. We'll see who won. How many times do you say heck in the day? As many times as I say, gee, golly Willickers. That's what I'm saying? All right, fine.

What the hell? What the hell? So it's what the hell do I play over a secondary dominant. Hey, listen, we're talking about playing the bridge to some rhythm changes. If you're not a grown-up enough to use the word hell.

It's an adult shell. Hide your wives and cover your kids' ears. No, but so check this out. I was going to, you just answered the first question that I had. And this is going to be part of a series, I understand, right? The What the Hell series? Oh, yeah, we're doing this all week. What the hell?

Yeah, it's a slow spiral down into the 80s. But my question was going to be, what the hell is a secondary dominant? Maybe we should answer that first. That's a great idea, actually, to define what a secondary dominant is. So a secondary dominant is not in the tonic key of whatever tune you're in. So a primary dominant in the key of, say, B flat is F, right? The secondary dominant would be, say, in the key of B flat, a C-7. It's kind of a side hustle dominant.

It's a side-hustle dominant. It's a side-huffle that young folks would understand. And it's really just any dominant that could be part of, you know, that's really a progression. A progression that's not in the tonic key, right? So that's why this bridge for rhythm changes in B-flat starts on a D-7, goes to G7. These are all secondary dominance. If we were just ditonic, the D would be D minor. The G would be G-minor, and the C would be C-minor.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but often we wouldn't even know or the listener wouldn't hear that it's secondary. So play the first, the three-cord at the beginning of the bridge there, and now resolve that to where it would be expected to go. Right. So if it did that, it's actually not. It's almost like a deceptive second because it resolves where it expects to go to a minor or a major. Right, right.

So, yeah, could have done. So. Yeah. And then it's like a key change kind of. Right. But if it goes to here, that's what makes it secondary. And then that,

because these are all wanting to go somewhere. Maybe even tertiary, would we call that? Tercerary? Terserary. Well, that too. And you see this with the cycle of force, circle of force often because

you know, like the D is the five of, G, the G is the 5 of C, the C is the 5 of S. So really you're just putting like 5, 5, 5, 5, 5.5, 5. So we're all heading towards B flat. Yeah, you're delaying the inevitable. You could do this, you could keep going with this in forever. I mean, it just

could keep going, going going. We don't have time. We don't have time for that. But we could. But because of this sort of nebulous movement, right, and because there's no center to these, really, I think it is confusing for beginners and intermediate players, like, what do I do to make it sound good? What are the greats playing over this kind of stuff?

And so, like, the easy answer is probably what you would expect. It is just things like the Mixolydian or the Lydian dominant. Or even, you know, the diminished scale or the altered scale. It's really all the choices you have on a regular dominant chord, but I think how you handle it is what makes it a little bit different. Yeah, that's exactly right. I think that if you just stop at, oh, you can treat it just like any other five chord. Yeah, that's in terms of the note choices, the vocabulary.

that you have available. But if you kind of look a little bit bigger picture and understand the function and look at it as a longer harmonic sequence and an opportunity, we're always thinking about, we should always be thinking about or at least hearing,

telling a story with what we're playing. That's right. We're talking about improvising that, right? That's right, yeah, yeah. So, you know, what is it about the progression or lack of progression to a sequence of chords that, like, what does that do to our ability

to tell a story with primarily melody, you know, always melody, harmony, and rhythm, but we're talking about the melodies we put together. And so when you've got, for instance, on that bridge, you've got the four in a row, the way you would play over the final one where you know a resolution is coming, yeah, is going to be different.

And so it's almost like you look at that secondary dominant, or in this case the several secondary dominance, as a setup, you know, a chance to still be unresolved. you know it's not going to be resolved harmonically because any time you're on a five chord, unless you're really giving it like a bluesy one-type, one-cord type of feel, it's not going to be stationary.

It's already got some momentum. Now, can you make a dominance chord feel like stationary? Yes, of course. The blues is a perfect example. But the idea of how these are set up when they are secondary, it's going to have that forward momentum harmonically. So the easy answer, or the simple, simplistic way to look at it It's like, oh, okay, so then we're going to play kind of in a rambling way along the courts.

Well, maybe hold your horses there, buddy. Ghaler, boller, what the heck are you doing there, buddy? Oh, sorry, that was kind of old-timey. No, but, you know, what's fun sometimes is to play against what that harmony is with your melody. The main thing is you're aware of it. So, like, you're able to hear, and I know it's a little bit esoteric, but you're able to hear kind of what that general harmonic structure is, and that there's not a stability. there's a constant kind of wanting,

you know, there's a transition and there's a wanting to resolve, but you know you're not there yet. So you can use that to your advantage if you understand that and can hear it with how you craft your melodies. That's right, yeah. I mean, the first way that I think about doing that

is to understand, especially when it's going around in these force, like on the bridge to rhythm changes, right? Is you can establish this as like a one. As a one chord. but then before you go to the next chord you can turn this into more of a dominant seven sound so you kind of went blues

let me just do a little playbom play a little blue scale and then you went half hole that's right yeah yeah diminished or you could go altered which heightens the kind of transitional quality of the dominant chord right so even in that sense too I would say like your first step

in treating this circle of force like this is you can even think about the first measure as like an A minor 7 over D A little suss action and then do some kind of five thing to the G and you can think about this too

as like a like they can all be both tonics and dominance within this sequence you know it really depends or if you're Oscar Peterson you can they almost all have a blues tonic feel to it right

well that wasn't that yeah and that's actually very connected with your first example there right before that with the Oscar Peterson thing because you were using the blues usually as the thing that established it as a tonic. Yeah, that we're in a one zone. Yeah, and that's, I mean, for the listener, that's the main thing that makes a dominant chord.

I mean, I'm trying to think if there's other times. I'm sure there's other times, but it's a primary way to kind of connect with, like, we're here for now. Like, the blues pulls it to, makes it the one. Whereas most, like, kind of more bebop playing or, like, you were doing the suss and those different things, they have that kind of transitional thing or floating along, which is great. Yeah, you can, that's a cool thing about.

is you can do either or. Yeah. But you have to be, you have to be purposeful when you do this. You have to be very intentful. Yeah. And then as you're practicing it, and by purposeful and intentful,

we don't mean you have to do it the same way every time. Quite the opposite, but you have to understand. And it doesn't mean you have to plan it out either. I think a lot of people get confused with like, wow, okay, if I'm being more purposeful, I'm going to have more, you know, be more contrived in my improvising.

But it's not at all because it's very purposeful as you go. Right. So, like, you understand, like, what these different, options are and then there's you know other things that going up chromatically and different things but you understand what the possibilities of those are not just theoretical that's because theoretical the audience doesn't care about that that's right but you understand what it sounds like like what does it do to the tension of the moment so that like as you're telling your story you almost like start to

instinctively go to the tool that maybe will add tension i mean just like a great filmmaker when it gets to a suspenseful part of the movie they want the music to sound a certain way they They want the color to look a sort of way. They want the editing to be along with the story, but the story drives that. And what's cool is sometimes the color is the opposite because the director has a vision of like, we're going to juxtapose this against that, you know, and we can do that with the dominant. The dominant chord is very flexible. And so the secondary is just even dopeio.

We're doping it up for you right there. You can also turn this into like a longer stretch of tonic in one. So I'm thinking of this thing where you do a Lydian dominant, right, on this D7. For the G, you turn that into altered. I've heard you do this before. Probably don't even know it. Then for the C, back to the Lillian dominant. And then for the F, back to the altered.

So what you're doing actually is doing the same... You know what? It goes chromatic down and fourth up. Well, and there I think you're able to... Like, you're setting up a pattern. Or you're actually... You're playing off the pattern that's already there because, like, we said at the beginning,

circle of fourth, cycle of fourth, cycle of force. Right. Which one is it? I don't know. That's cycle of fifth, circle of force, I think. Circle of Life.

Circle of Fifth? It's the Circle of Fifth. Someone comments. The Lion King? Yeah. I watched it on the plane back from Japan just recently. Nice.

The new one. Do you know who the... Oh, the new one? E. You know who's saying the original Circle of Life? Elton John. That's right.

Okay, so... But I digress. El John, he knows a little something about a secondary dominant. Does he know anything about the altered scale that? Daniel. What's that? My brother, Daniel.

There's some secondary dominance in that. I don't think he knows the altered scale, though. He has hits. Nothing that'll keep you away from a hit, like an altered scale. For sure. That'll knock you off the billboard charts faster. Or a Liddy and Dominant. Oh, yeah, actually, yeah.

Cool. Well, you know what? I'm excited about it. I was a little trepidition, trepidious going into the What the Hill series. Now I'm fully embracing our slow descent. into Hades now. It's going to only get better. That's right. What the hell do I play over a secondary dominant? We hope that we gave you a little ear food today and illuminated your, you know,

quest for knowledge on the secondary dominant. That's right. They can either be the tonic or the dominant, but it's up to you to decide and have some purpose with that. That's right. So we are sponsored by any tune, which we talked about. We're also sponsored by Open StudioJazz.com, our friends right next door, or really right on the other side of the pod cave. You know, we had a lot of fun over the Black Friday sales. What we really have now happening because it's holiday season for a lot of people, different phases and stuff, parts of the world. But we have a new robust gifting system.

I don't know if, I'm not suggesting you have to get me a gift from Open Studio. You can do it from wherever. But I'm putting it out there. You might have some other friends you want to get a gift from Open Studio. And you can do that. You know how mad you would be if I got you a gift from Open Studio? Not if it's that Jeff Kieser, of course. That's true.

The new Jeff Kieser call, I'd be all over that. That's true. I am all over that. So the cool thing is, too, like you can go get the gift sort of and if you're not sure about what course just choose whatever you think is best they can they can exchange it it's no problem you know we're very flexible with that but what you can do is with our gifting system is get the gift and then you give us the name and an email address to the person you want to give it and you can tell us on the form there what date you want

it delivered you know that's really nice and what's great we're not going to take the credit you're going to get all we're going to keep you the credit gift we're going to take you the credit card number but you're going to get you're going to get the credit for that beautiful gift and whoever gets the gift is going to get some quality jazz lessons yeah and this is something that i mean on our lifetime courses or the members i mean lifetime courses they can look at this forever all year for as long as they want so it's a fun one it's not going to be like that that that candy cane you're going to eat in one setting Ryan what do you want for christmas man Ryan what's a weighted keyboard wait that's the same thing we want yeah can you get this one for the pod game too while you're at it

oh well until tomorrow you'll hear it