You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Where Can I Learn Chords & Voicings?

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions - today, they'll tell a listener where to go to learn chords and voicings (hint: it's right here), how to practice ear training, and what pianists want from drummers.Interested 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.Monday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)4:00 PM - You'll Hear It LIVE on YouTube6:00 PM - Bass Guided Practice Session with Bob DeBoo on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet 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.

We just had a question working from the bottom. Where should a self-taught... I can't pronounce, but that looks like just random letters. Asked... Yeah. Where should a self-taught piano start to learn jazz chords and voicing? Any book recommendations? I've watched the two-minute jazz videos to great benefit,

but often I'm missing some foundational info. So... We do have a course, actually. We do have a course. Not to plug our own course, but I think it's actually perfect. Would you say jazz piano for beginners or jazz piano jump?

start. Well, I was going to say jazz chords for beginners is this specifically, yeah, is the course. Yep. So, but any of those three would actually be great. Yeah, you know, I think jazz jazz course for beginners is good. And the thing is about books. I put a link in the chat here. Yeah, I'm not necessarily anti-book, but I always feel like that's like learning a language from reading it as opposed to hearing it, you know, and what we try to do with the videos. And there's, look, there's some other great courses, artist works and many other good places to courses, but I love the video medium if you don't have access to an in-person teacher with most people don't right now.

But especially if you're self-taught and maybe not traditionally taught. I don't know. Like, I mean, the famous jazz piano book by Levine is very good, I think. I haven't gone deep into it. I know I've heard great things about it. But for a self-taught more beginner kind, I don't know if that that would be what you, I mean, it just gets so theoretical. It's fine.

But what we get to do, and really this is what we've discovered is so, can be so impactful about the video courses is, you know, in the jazz chords for beginners, it's all guided practice session. I'm literally telling you what to play, what practice. We set the metronome. There's no guesswork in like, well, how long should I stay with this or how should we, it's just we do what I, you know, what the instructor says. And it's almost like a guided meditation or like a spin class. Yes. Something like that. But it is like that. And friendly, jazzy spin class. For beginners, especially, they seem to respond really well to that. Where's a more advanced player who knows how to practice, knows how to grow,

has their own systems for doing that? Yeah, throw all the information at them, and they're going to sort that information out and put it in ways that they know can work. But for beginner, we recommend these videos because we are able to hold the students' hand in a way that really makes them sound good, I think, and I'm so proud of this that we do this, man,

as sound good as efficiently as possible. Yeah, and I think that the guided practice sessions, especially at this level, is a real game changer. I mean, that's just what people have been saying to us. And so it's a great program that you've developed because I used to think more like, oh, you should know how to practice. But that's kind of like, you know, oh, you should know what to do once you get to the gym. Yeah, if you're like a gym rat or you grew up with a parent that was a personal trainer,

you're going to know intuitively what to do when you get in there. It's not as easy as just grab a weight and start doing it. But to get what all the nuances and the types of things that you do in the guided practice session, it's not the only way, but it just, it gets. gives you a efficiency advantage by doing it in that way and gets you to the position where you can develop. Because you're, I mean, all this stuff is you're practicing on your own. Just like in the gym, you're the one who's asked to pump the iron.

But it puts you in an efficiency standpoint with the camaraderie of others doing the GPS too that really gives you a great advantage. It's true. We've got a couple of funny questions here. Ian says, what's the best music to listen to to get pumped up for running, asking for a friend? And that's funny because I know Ian is your. running guy, right?

Yes, and he's a mindfulness coach as well, and is very interested because you keep mentioning your expertise in meditation, and I've bragged about it, and he wants to be, he wants you to be in touch with him. Let's do it. That's totally a side note from the... Let's come up with a mindfulness for jazz piano course. That would be really fun to do.

There we go. So he wants to know, what was the question? Oh, what's the best music to listen to to get pumped for running? What do you listen to on your runs? Well, I don't really listen while I'm running, but to pump up before, I'm definitely not listening to like mellow jazz. Now, I used to do, I used to go on some long runs.

Blackouts. Yeah, right. I had kind of like a playlist that was just a lot of stuff that was sort of deep listening for me because of stuff I knew really well. But I find that like rhythmically and stuff, it gets a, I get a little bit thrown off

with music while I'm running because I do, we're talking about practicing different things and rhythmic things as well as, you know, melodic singing and stuff. but I kind of relate a lot of the running. I really get into a pace. Nice. I almost kind of work on my time in a weird way while I'm doing that.

So if the music is not at that tempo, as the running tempo, it gets a little bit jarring for me. But I think pumping up beforehand, that's like an important thing. Like, you know, and I would say, yeah, actually, Black Cubs, that would be great. Anything Kenny Kirkland's solo on. Come on. Tour Talk says, what's the best thing to drink when practicing? Well, this was not bad. Espresso. A little blueprint espresso.

I always go for coffee, especially in morning practice. Coffee is the best. I tend not to drink alcohol, well, much at all anymore. But practicing even at night, it just makes me less motivated to finish. It's time and chill. It's like chill time. Save the wine for like your treat after your reward for practicing. That's right.

Now I've been known to do a little, I haven't done it recently, but you know what? I think I do it more in the winter months now that I'm remembering. I'll do a little like bourbon or whiskey or even like a cognac or an arminac. Some little warm your throat. Yeah, at the piano. Now, of course, we're never setting it on the piano. A real pianist does not put beverages on the piano. That's right.

A real pianist put beverages in the belly, right? But no, just like a nice little reward. And that actually you can use as like a little sip every time, say if you're going through some scales or whatever. You don't want to turn it into a drinking game. That's not going to work because your mileage may vary YMMV, as we are always saying. so cool Afonzo asked what are some good

ear training exercises Peter what have you done ear training wise to like actually work on your ear training well I think you know two things that jump out

I mean it's been many things but probably the two most impactful things over the years for me was first really getting a deep understanding of intervals

like not only a deep understanding just like a recall on that and so just drill and those are really easy to drill and you can you know have a friend help you is kind of better where you're just playing i remember my my mom or my dad would play you know just play intervals and then different ways and identify them or whatever so that's just but i think that that's so fundamental to all the ear training you'll ever do is being able to

identify because you know when we start talking about any kind of harmonic conceptions being able to hear them not necessarily theoretically analyze them but being able to hear them it's always combination of intervals but also when you're learning solos and that's my number two big ear training thing is learning solos. Like all that time I spent floundering through and messing it, is this right? What is he playing? But then you're trying to match it up. I mean, that's just priceless.

That is the best training. And don't you think learning intervals, it's almost more important for most improvising musicians to learn intervals rather than even learn how to read music. Because if you know intervals and you can hear anything like that, like intervolically, you can pick out your own music from recordings, which then, as you just said, when you then have to match it up, right? That is some additional like ear strength. strength training, right, that is just essential for any great musician. I think learning solos,

even learning, just learning melodies, trying to pick out chords. I get a lot of people who are like, it's so frustrating to try to pick out voicings or chords. I'm like, well, yeah, because you don't do it. Like, just do it. If you just do it, you start to understand what's going on. You start to be able to hear things better. It's like anything else. The more you do it, the easier it gets. So you just have to throw yourself in there and do it, even though it's kind of a drag at first. Yeah, and it's, you know, it's a process. Like ear training is a process, even for people that have great ears.

It's so much more of a process than you realize, like the amount of time that you need to spend. But it's fun if you do it right. And so, you know, we're always talking about falling in love with the process. I mean, and that's a great thing about learning solos, picking things off of recordings that you like, is that it's very exciting as you start to do it.

And I mean, and the nice thing too is like, even as you're failing, you're actually developing your ears. It's one of those things like, and you're going to be failing 95, percent of the time in the beginning. So you just can't get discouraged, you know, grab onto the winds. Make sure you're always learning things that are relatively easy.

And then also I think it's good to take some traditional. I think this is definitely not necessary. But if you want to do some more traditional ear training, sight singing, that kind of thing, or even just like get yourself a Methodist or Baptist hymnal. And, you know, and then this is a little bit more reading base, but the ideas that you're playing. you know, just sing your part. If your soprano sing that and then leave out the other parts

and you'll start to, you know... But if you already know how to read music, this is really helpful for your training. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So Ian asked, same Ian, asked, as a drummer, I would love to hear you both discuss what you like to hear from a drummer in a trio context and then interplay...

Oh, he wants us to play some one. Are you sure? Yeah, you want us play some more drums? Interplay between drummer piano you strive for him. Thanks. So this is, I think, the drummer pianist relationship can be one of the more rewarding. I mean, it's all good, but there's something really special about finding a drummer that you vibe with and that you can react to and you're having

a conversation with. And so, but I think like every other instrument for me, and we've talked about this lots before, but the drummers that I vibe with the most are super clear with the form. that's like first and foremost, time and form, they're really great at marking the landscape of the tune, right? Definitely. And that gives everybody in the band freedom. And that also should be your job, too, as a pianist or a bassist. It's like marking the form,

no matter what kind of music you're playing, is part of our job in the rhythm section. And so a good drummer who you start to have a relationship with and understand how they mark the form and how they can play off of that, that's when it gets really, really good for me. Yeah, I mean, I think, what is that saying? Discipline equals freedom.

Yeah. You know, so you take the discipline of somebody marking the form. I mean, the key I think is that, you know, everybody internally is marking the form. Like, that's the top level. Like when there's this innate sense of what the form is. But I think that when there's that kind of almost unspoken trust that the drummer, and I know I'm old school, if I have any fault, it's that I'm too. too old school with my thought process here.

I know it's supposed to be free and gazing at your shoes only, introspection and flannel shirts. You always mention these any faults, but there seem to be a lot of them. I have a lot of faults. If I have any faults, it's that I have a lot of faults.

If I have any fault, it's that I have several faults. I'm like a California fault line. No, but the thing is, so the drummer, I look at it as a traditional thing. I'm like, yeah, everyone's supposed to have a good time

and know the form, but the drummer's really supposed to know it. So what happens is the discipline equals freedom, the drummer's discipline of like really nailing the form. And I don't mean like, bang, like on one every chorus in an annoying way. I mean like they're always playing the form. They're not counting bars.

Like they're playing the song all the time. So they're supporting you. So it gives you a freedom and in fact gives them a freedom in the whole rhythm section and the whole band. But it especially gives the, you know, if you're solo and whatever, the freedom to know that you can do whatever you want. And then that helps you to learn.

Like, you know, part of the thing, and whatever people compliment me about like, oh, wow, you play the forum so well, your time is so good. I'm always quick to, like, give credit work credit to do. And that is not only the whoever I'm playing with at that time, but the years of playing with these master drummers. You're talking about Greg Hutchinson, Brian Blade, Hurlin Riley, Montez Coleman. I mean, these are some of the musicians I play with more than anybody. So it's like, I'm actually, when you consider the company I've kept drummer-wise, Carl Allen, Ulysses Owens. You know, the company I've kept, I'm actually not that good at my time

now that I think about it. If I have any fault, it's that I didn't heed all this expertise. But, you know, also just Elvin Jones. I feel like I played with Elvin Jones because I used to play along with his recordings and imagine playing with him. You know, you got to draw on all the different elements.

Max Roach, everything. I would say, too, an important characteristic for a great drummer is the same as any other musician, which is that they put a real priority on listening to the rest of the bands and their place in it. Because it can be an instrument that can just kill everybody else.

It can sonically destroy. It could take us all out if it wanted to. It is the veritable sonic boom. It could be. So a drummer that is sensitive enough to be able to keep an intense groove in a quiet dynamic and then know when to take it up.

And I don't want a drummer to be quiet the whole time either. Like I want them to elevate the room. Like only they have the power to do. Oh, Jeff Watts. That's another good one. Like he's, I mean, like, how do you, how do you become, you know, a little bit aggressive? Not a little bit, but like aggressive at the right times with your ideas.

For sure. Yeah.