You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Why Don't "Pretty" Notes Work in Other Genres?

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions. On this edition, Peter and Adam discuss why "pretty" notes typically only show up in jazz.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.Thursday's Open Studio Live Events (All Times EST):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)4:00 PM - Open Studio Site Walkthrough + Q&A (register here)For 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.

Um, all right, we have a question from Noriko. This time I have chances to jazz up Christmas songs and have thoughts. How come those pretty notes don't fit for most rock songs? What's the difference musically or melodically, if you agree? Um, so I think, you know, Christmas songs, it comes in such a variety. I think you've got the ones that are like, you know, um, chestnuts. which to me is really just like a great standard. It's Mel Tourmet, right?

I mean, it's just a beautiful tune with really interesting harmony and stuff. So there's a lot there to pretty notes, pretty chords, cool harmonic, you know, just like any other kind of standard where you've got these great opportunities to play interesting things around something that's set there. Whereas a lot of rock songs, I mean, look, we talk about rock songs. That's a big range there. but a lot of that it's not giving you as much to to use the same kind of a musical imagination we're talking about right

there's like you have to work so much harder to find that and to me it's not even so much about the complexity of the tune if you were to do like um like there's a not a lot to that tune it's you know especially when you take away the lyrics it's just kind of you know but you check out you know Ella Fitzgerald or something singing it's like they're able to find the nuance in that. Okay, now play that again, but try to hear it.

I'm just kidding. Yeah, I'll just, I'll just add here to Noreka that for the sound of a lot of rock tunes, you know, ninth and 13th just don't fit with the sound of the tune. And that's totally cool. You know, if it's more of a triad based or even just seventh chords things, based, you know, that's, that's also a sound actually that you can, in a language amongst itself. I know, Peter, that, like, you've worked with our mutual friend Brian Owens a little bit. When I play, like, with his band, right?

When it's like his stuff and it's straight in that soul music pocket. Yeah. It's like he wants sevenths, but he doesn't want ninths. Exactly. You know what I mean? And so you have to be aware of where those are appropriate and not. It's a whole other thing. And so pay attention sometimes to, you know, how thick.

your chords can be. You know, if you're playing... Yeah. I mean, if you talk about like, and I think Stevie Wonder's a great when you get into like so-called pop music or rock music is a great reference because his music and the way he's played it

over the years, like really runs the gamut. So you've got like, you know... Oh no, that's Joe Zavinal. What am I thinking about? What's his bird and born in the heart of Mississippi? Yeah. Like, that's a lot of blues

in there, but there's not necessarily like Suss or Sharp 13 and all that kind of. So even 13, it's just like, but you've got that. And like you can hear the way he phrases and sings it. But then something like, you know, that's Stevie tune. The melody is a dominant 13. It starts on the 13. And it's a half step up. And then minor 11, sharp 11.

And this is all stuff that's like within the melody. there's just so much there you know yeah it's just so but you got to kind of pick pick where you know the style of what's happening within that so that's what to me makes stevie so unique because he really goes rock blues rmbiz jazz like all that is encompassed but not always at the same time i love for me i love to see what i can do with triads sometimes too i mean i think there's an art to that that uh you know even even on a tune like the christmas song like how how simple can I make things? Not all the time, but sometimes I feel like

it's a nice change of pace for me. So something to think about Nureko. Right. Is that too many tries? Sorry. Wow. Wow. Listen yesterday to an older podcast of yours about bebob and closures. Which blew me away.

Can you talk a bit more about that? What about the rhythmic aspect of it in particular? Thanks. Well, I got to tell you, my friend. that Amanda is a master of the bebop enclosure. It's not a great endorsement. It's not when you do it like that. Dobelebeo.

Wait, hold up a second. See, I got to hear myself. Well, yeah, Sarah, so I'm not really sure which pod. We've done a lot of podcasts on Bebop enclosure, so I don't know which one you're referring to, but the sort of basic rundown we get is, Peter, so we're playing, let's say we're playing a 251 to F, so G minor 7, C7, F, right? So the rhythmic aspect, I think, can be an important part of this, but it's really set up, with how many notes are in the enclosure.

So if on a G minor 7, Peter, you start by, we'll do our classic bebop thing. where we mix a broken seventh chord with an enclosure. So do from the top down, start on, do like a broken G minor seven chord F, D, B, flat, G going down. Yeah. And then we'll do this enclosure around G then of F sharp A, A flat, F sharp than G. F sharp. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Okay, so there it is.

There's our enclosure, right? Yeah. So with that, depending on, like, so if Peter switches, that G minor 7 chord, if he switches it to just like a G triad, now that enclosure is starting in a completely different place, right? And so now it's going to have a completely different feel against the time. Right? And look, he's doing different stuff off of it because he's, he's feeling it in a different way. So that's kind of the first thing, is you can really get a lot of mileage out of the same enclosures just by where you stop and start them. And it's really, really helpful to stop and start

the four-note or three-note or two-note enclosures in different spots and know how those feel. Like, It's a whole other feeling. So it's helpful to practice. And this is where you can get a lot of mileage. You can get a whole practice session on a one enclosure and one key, just practicing it in different ways, different timings, you know. So, Adam, you're saying this is a lot of mileage situation, not a YMMV situation. Interesting.

I mean, your mileage is not going to vary. It's going to be extensive. We're going to let your car on this bad boy. My little fit that I've had since I was in my early 30s just hit. 100,000 miles as we were going to get our Christmas tree the other day. Awesome. Awesome. I love that little car, man.

It's best car ever. Fun fact about Adam, in case those of you that are always yearning for more insider information, I don't think he'll mind me divulging this. Right before he got his My Little Fit, he used to play with My Little Pony. I mean, not my little pony with a My Little Pony. Uh-oh, he's gone. He's gone. I'm out.

I'm out. I'm out. Every 30 minutes he leaves. My little fit. He used to play with his My Little Pony, which is fun. Yeah, and you know, on the enclosures thing, one thing to think about two is, I don't know, to me, that one that you gave.

So when they're kind of lopsided, like they're enclosing one note on the bottom and two on the top or vice versa. Like, it's always been more interesting to me than just, you know, than just one note below. Like, one above and now we target. We are robots. To me, it's more like,

I don't know. There's always rhythmic things and different ways to play with it, but to me it's more interesting when it's a little bit lopsided. It leads to more interesting syncopations when you link it up with rhythms. Does that make sense?

It does make sense, yes. Yeah, but there's several versions and you can link them all up. It's great. Yeah. Is this still like an enclosure if you did like, wait a lot.

How much can you enclose it? Help, I'm trapped. What? Jeff Kieser's thing. Where's your friggin' target note, man? Yeah, right. Can I ever get to Target?

Clean up on aisle 7. Bad use to the enclosures. Can I take my my little fit to Target and buy my little pony? Get you my little pony, that's right. We are right up against our deadline, which is not a hard deadline. You know, we would like to be flexible with this.

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Plus, I forgot to record this one, by the way. It's just a good time to tell you. Excellent. So we're going to be going live for a while. Woo. Sorry. I didn't want to tell you earlier because you'd go dark then. Let's see.

Andrew, use the YouTube video for the audio, please. Right. Peter, can you please give us a your fired story for a thumbs up? I get didn't I give it your fired story? Oh they want they want like specific You want to who fired you yeah like they want to hear like Peter got fired By like you know uh Joe Henderson in 1985 when he was a pop hey hey how old you think I am man day

I was saying I said a pup huh I said a pup yeah yeah um I don't actually remember i definitely have been fired but i'm serious i must have it must have been so traumatic that I blocked it out. So you're going to have to turn on the notification so you can hear it on the next episode. How about that? That's good. Oh, that's one more thing that we didn't do that we started to work into our things,

which is wins of the week. Give me your win of the week. Oh, my win of the week. Yeah. This is, okay, it is a little bit on the spot. Let me think about here. The win of the week. And define the win of the week?

Because I feel like it could be anything. And you were like, I didn't even think about it. But I'll get more organized for next time. But actually, I'll throw mine out there, give you a chance to think about it. Okay. My first, I used to be a basketball coach. I don't know if you knew about this. I had a career as a youth basketball coach.

I mean, I was sanctioned by the state of Missouri. Well, I passed a background check because you're required to do that if you're coaching little kids. So as far as that's concerned, I was sanctioned by the state of Missouri. And I had a nice little team. I actually coached two teams. And from they were in first grade all the way up through middle school. I coached them. So they went to like a proper coach and a proper team.

And my, these kids have grown up now. My first basketball coached kid just signed a verbal intent to play at McAllister College in Minnesota basketball hoops next year. So that's going to be my, that's like my first B ball sticks. I don't just coach music and piano. I coach basketball too. You did that, dude. What?

You did that. I did. Yeah. I feel like you should take credit for that. I'm taking credit for it. Big, big congrats to Marcus and all that good stuff. Bo, boom, boom, boom.

Oh, that's funny. Peter was a basketball coach and Adam used to be a jockey. Hey now. Hey now. Oh, all right. Well, thank you guys for being here. We invite you here every Monday. 3 p.m.

East Coast time right here at the Open. YouTube channel. You got anything else, Adam? I'm all good, man. Thanks, everybody. Great to see y'all. All right, riff for a second so I can load up this movie here, my friend. Oh, here we go. You'll hear it.