You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Your Questions... Answered

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

Peter and Adam dust off the ol' Speakpipe today as they tackle 3 different listener questions. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Just go to https://youllhearit.com/podcast-contact/Links From This Episode:There's a brand new course from Open Studio - Block Chords Made Easy. Join Adam Maness as he teaches you a simple and clear way to understand the basics of locked hands and drop-2 voicings.Today's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)6:00 PM - Bob DeBoo's Bass Guided Practice Session on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested 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.Let 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.

Hey, Peter. Hey, I have questions. I might have a few answers. Ambiguous? Possibly. I'm Adam Mattis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Advice and inspiration for music and life.

Coming at you. My liege. You get so foppish now when you do the... Well, foppish. Today's episode is sponsored by Open Studio. You know, we have a brand new course out called BlockCords Made Easy. We've been asked for, like, years to do something on Drop 2 and locked hands, and I finally did it.

did it. And you really did make it easy. We were back and forth on what the title was going to be. And when I saw the way that you laid things out, I was like, wow, you've made block chords easy, which is something because we've talked about this. Like, I've been playing block chords, but theoretically, or not even theoretically, I never think that's as important. Conceptually, it's never been easy for me. And I can tell that about myself when I have trouble explaining it. And you have such a great concept on it, you know, kind of like reverse engineering from the end results of some really good block court playing, but a way to approach it,

and I mean, you're not going to, like, immediately be able to play Oscar Peterson black chords, but you're going to be able to understand the concept behind it and a pathway to get there. And that's what I think makes it easy. Oh, thank you, man. Well, and you know what's so cool about what I'm really proud of about this course is that we don't just, like, explain,

here's the block cord, and here's the scale or whatever. We take you through, like, jam session standards, how to play the melodies to tunes like Autumn Leaves, Blue Bossa, all the things you are. More and more, many more, with block chords and drop two, with locked hands and drop two. So go check it out. We'll put a link there in the description. Absolutely.

If you want to go check out our new course of the lock chords. It's really key, you know, being able to apply these concepts as you're teaching them to tunes that most folks will know or should know. For sure. Because that's how you kind of lock the little turn on a phrase there. That's how you lock in the concepts by being able to place it over an actual tune. That's how we drop to some knowledge. on you. Oh, hell.

I'll stop. I'll stop. My liege. So I'm excited, man, because we have three speak pipes. Now, new listeners. It's like it's that early 2000s again. Yeah. No, OGs know what a speak pipe is.

And actually a few. Do they, though? I don't even know if I know what it is. Two of our speak pipes are from some you'll hear at OGs. But maybe some new listeners might not know. If you go to you'll hear it.com, you could actually leave us a voicemail. You can still do that?

We could still do it. And I'm going to encourage you to go do that because it's really nice for us to get these kind of questions. We have three really good questions today from Zoom, Ethan, and Mr. Spaceman that we're going to tackle all here in one episode. We're just kind of go through and, oh, man, I'm loving this. I'm just giving you a little, a little speak pipe. Let's do. So the idea on this is, well, actually, to be honest, we weren't even sure for a while if the speak pipe survived the pandemic, right? It did, though. No, we've had it up for a while now,

But I'm so happy because then we get to hear from Zoom from Vancouver. I'm going to give you a little happy music. Let's check it. Here's Zoom from Vancouver on his speak pipe. Hey, guys, it's Zoom from Vancouver. A very common question I hear about jazz is musicians who have classical training and they want to start learning how to play jazz. And they often ask questions like, where do I get sheet music for jazz?

Where do I get books of transcriptions? What's the best fake book to use? I'm wondering if you'd like to weigh in on that and maybe do an episode on some advice for musicians who are experienced and trained in classical music, but just starting jazz. How should they start? And also maybe what are some pitfalls to avoid? And how can they really understand the jazz mindset, which is quite different from the classical mindset and maybe something really new and different to what they've been exposed to? Thanks a lot. And hopefully I'll hear it.

Let's, thank you, Zoom. Let's start with the pitfalls. Alcoholism, womanizing, drug addiction. What else? There's very little money in there. No, we joke because we're living it. No, so the mindset of playing jazz, you know, those are Hollywood versions of it. I don't think people really believe that anymore.

Hopefully not. But there is a difference between jazz and classical, and it's not womanizing and alcoholism and drug addiction. It's really more along the mindset of how you're going to approach things musically. And it's not that different than classical music. So I would say that's your first thing. Before you even get into, say, if you're helping a classical friend, as it would be.

Classical. Classical. My liege. You might, before you even get to like fake books and sheet music and all that, that garbage, not garbage. But I mean, that's like it's always, you know, the equipment around it. But before that, it's just like, how do you, what's the easy? easiest way to kind of start to put on the mindset of a jazz musician. You're not going to put a hat on and then, well, if it's a beret, that's a good way to get it. That's a great way to start. That's going to get you halfway there. Yeah, halfway and then the piano tie will bring it home. A pork pie hat? Pork pie hat, possibly. No, but I mean, listening. I mean, that's like, that is the easiest way to start to get our classical friends into that mindset without having to worry about, oh, I'm nervous because I don't know how to improvise and I can't get away from the page and all that.

listening gets you away from the page because you're not going to be looking at a score as you listen to a john coltrane quartet recording you're just going to be immersing yourself in the beauty and the essence of what jazz is and you're not going to have to explain as much like what is this it's kind of like what is swing what is blues what is beauty what is nature like if i were to tell you what is you know adam you didn't know what nature was and i want to explain to you what how about if i just bring you somewhere that's beautiful and be a lot easier this is nature right you know what i the first thing that comes to mind for me with this is from a classical perspective. The biggest shift is that you really have to be a composer in the moment.

That's what being an improviser is. And so that's what you would have to get rid of is the mindset that you even need to go look at sheet music or even a real book. And Zoom, I know that you spend a lot of time working on jazz and thinking about it from all your great questions here. So I would suggest for your friend or whomever you're talking to about this to just really turn off their eyes, turn off the idea of sheet music, turn off the idea of getting something visually and use your ears. Listen, exactly what Peter said. Just experience the music and realize that's how you have to create it. The way you ingest it is the way you create it. I mean, it's kind of like that with classical music where, you know, you do have to listen to classical music, but certainly the way most of us learn how to play it, especially at first, is through scores, is through parts.

So that's the way you would also create, you know, modern orchestral or modern classical music, if you want to call it that. I mean, you know, the technology of the time that music, a genre of music or any kind of art is formed always informs how the music is constructed and the construct with which we view and learn that genre forever. So classical music, there was no way. recordings of it. You could hear it live, but you generally had to be rich. You know, it was like music for for people that, that, you know, for the one percenters. Yeah. And so like you had to be able to read music pretty much to be able to learn it and to be able to like become a part of like that tradition. Jazz music because it happened to be like really kind of codified and coming along at the time of, you know, recordings and recording technology became very much about while you could

tap into the Chicago sound with Lewis Armstrong who went up to Chicago recorded with the hot fives and hot sevens and like revolutionized the music. But you could do that kind of from anywhere. Not like today with the internet, but I mean, it was like those recordings went around and then musicians heard that and even with the traveling technology of musicians coming through St. Louis and ragtime and all these different things. But then when you get into recordings, so everything started to move along faster. So it very much informed and defined the music and the direction. So if we approach it from that way, and say to our classical brothers and sisters

and say, hey, okay, the biggest change from classical music is not going to be technique because a lot of times I think, oh, you have to have a whole other technique. That's not true. You know, there's certain parts that you need to bring in, but classical players are generally going to have a better foundation in that area.

But that's going to be a barrier to get over than no music. So, you know, let's turn lemons into lemonade. Let's just do a whole lot of fun listening, start getting into that mindset of playing by ear. I love it. Our next speak pipe comes from Ethan. Again, you can go to you'll heara.com and leave us to speakpipe. This is Ethan. Hey, guys, I appreciate all the knowledge you've shared. It's helped me tremendously.

I have one question that I don't think you guys have covered, although I'm not sure if this is the right place to submit a question, but it's about playing standards and solo piano. When I'm playing the melody in the underlying voices, I find myself playing it nearly the exact same way every time. I can figure out several interesting ways to play a standard, but I will never branch away from what I've had to meticulously plan out. What are some ways that I can avoid repeating my initial voicing decisions and force myself to think outside the box and create things slightly more spontaneously? Thanks. Okay. I'm going to grab this one because I have some insights beyond. Normally my musical insights are par excellence without without without we cannot be reproached as we would say my liege.

Okay. But in this case, I'm going to go straight psychological. Oh yeah. Okay. So Ethan asked that question. I'm going to go on a limb here and say, I think Ethan was reading that question just now. For sure.

I think Ethan's a planner. Ethan is a planner. Ethan is a planner and Ethan doesn't like to make mistakes. He does not. Okay? So that's great because, especially if you are a brain surgeon perhaps. I think Ethan sounds good.

I'm going to say Ethan probably sounds really good. Oh yeah. Ethan's got some skills, I'm thinking. Yeah. So, but, you know,

and he's also astute and good at self-examination. So he's hearing that he's playing standards. He didn't say he didn't like the way he played him. He said he plays him the same way every time. How do we break out from that? Well, it's a mindset thing. It's like the same reason you have to break out with your other community. I mean, solo piano is just another form of communication, right?

So just like you're reading that question, you know, how about call next week with a speak pipe and just speak your mind? It's not going to be as perfect as what you just laid out and you might not make it onto the program. Ethan's perfectly phrased question might be how we might not check it for another six months. Well, that's true. Well, we did reject something that didn't sound as good as Ethan's. No, but, you know, we joke because. we love Ethan. No, but the idea is that you're going to come to your solo piano, not with this, it has to be perfect. You're going to come to your practice with it has to be different.

Okay. So every time you're going to do some restrictive practicing, you have to play that standard in a different way solo piano. So you're going to take a tune that you really know well. And that doesn't mean the second A you're going to play different. From the beginning, you have to play it differently. Like you have to practice what you want to, what you, what you want to, what you want to become. And it's not going to sound good at first, you know. So it's just like you're going to have to ask your question without the script. You're going to kind of take that over into your piano practice. Yeah, just try switching it. I love the idea of restrictive practice here because you can put something on yourself. He was talking about voicing. So if you're doing something like,

you could do a restrictive practice where it's like, okay, I'm only going to have, instead of roots, I'm going to, I'm going to have the fifth as the root. Right. And see how far you can get. And don't plan it I said it wasn't going to sound good. No, don't plan it out. Here's the thing is, and don't go back to that, even if you like it. I mean, maybe if you want to go back to it. But then do another kind of restriction. Maybe you do the thirds on the bottom.

Maybe you do one where you just do, like, I'm only going to play random chords. You know, that random substitutions that don't make sense. Whatever you do restrictively, then end your practice session. Look at this guy. End your practice session by saying like, okay, everything is fair game and it's going to be completely new. And so maybe you combine these things, right? So then you combine doing things on the fifth with random chords. You know what I mean? Now you have a whole new arrangement. That's great. That's great. And I've done that many times. I still do that way of practicing and it's a great

way to get your imagination going, get you out of your comfort zone, get you into that improvisatory type of mindset that we need, especially for solo piano to be very inventive. One other little thing we're not going to have because we've got another question, I think, at least one more, that I would say is to get out of that rut standards solo piano the same way every time practicing different keys. Challenge yourself, you know.

For sure. If you're playing the standard chords, you're going to be playing different voicing. You're going to have to get out of your typical inversions. Take it up a fifth. Take it down a fourth. And if you're trying to be perfect, Ethan, you're going to have to get your metronome going. And don't stop to try to figure it out. Record yourself like a performance.

And if you mess up, just keep going. You know, that's your restriction. that. Well, let us know how it goes, Ethan. We'd love to hear your stuff too, man. So let us know

what you're thinking with that. All right. We have one more call. I was going to say one more question, but it's from Mr. Spaceman, Alex. Oh, what's up, Alex? Pickinstone.

He's got a lot of Cedar man. Is he in the witness protection program? Hey, Adam. Hey. It's been a while since I've done a speak pipe.

What's up, man? So I thought I would give another shot. He gives us a pauses. All right. So I got three asks of the melodically inclined. Melodically inclined, got it.

First, it's been an ask of mine for a little bit. Could you both demonstrate how you use the melody to solo over a tune? Yes. Oh, we did demonstrate. Hold on. Let me see if he has anything more to say. He dropped his phone. Hey, Peter.

Hey, Adam. Oh, shoot. Is this a live call? What's going on? Melodically inclined. Could you both demonstrate how you use the melody to solo over a tune? Maybe it could be over something we might know. Maybe it could be over a nursery rhyme.

Number two. In your mind, what this is... Hold on. Let's just start with number one. That's right. We're simple people here. So what if we did something? I don't want to do a nursery rhyme.

All the things you are, I'll go first. I'll just get right into it. We got them going now. So I did the first chorus there. Peter did the second chorus, and you kind of hear the different ways that you could approach it. You know, I feel like from my course,

I stayed really, really firm on it. And Peter feels like you actually came back and forth towards it a lot more than I did. Yeah, I would say on both our parts, asked and answered. Okay. Number two. A Great Melody from a Great Solo.

And lastly, number three. What distinguishes a great melody from a great solo? That's going to take more work on our part. Let's see what number three is. Sorry, Alex. What can great melodies teach us about crafting or improvising our own solos? As an aside, I don't think that you can create a memorable jazz melody. without paying attention to rhythm.

Well, I don't think you can create a great melody at all without paying attention to rhythm. Exactly, yeah. And especially, I would say, in the jazz genre, that's sort of typified by that relationship of melody and rhythm and harmony as well, but especially melody and rhythm. For me, there are things that stand out with great melodies. We're so lucky in jazz that we're kind of forced to learn the basics

through these great American songbook standards, which are amazingly well-crafted melodies. And one thing that stands out to me is thematic, development and thematic repetition. So, I mean, what we were just playing is perfect, right? Right? The theme's there, and then you take it through a different key. So even if I were to just do that part again, but I can write a whole new melody with my

improvising, right? So I might do something like, and then maybe I do that differently. You know, not the same exactly, but it's definitely I'm taking that theme through the different chord changes. Yeah. And you notice when you went in kind of, you know, taking that melody and making the theme through the chord changes, you. kind of made the point of how important rhythm is in that

that's kind of what started to distinguish it. You know me, baby? And that's how, this is how we do it. That's right. Something like that. Celebratory. Celebratory. This is how we do it.

Yeah. Lounge style. Lounge lizard style. I love it. Yeah. I mean, but that's, to me, that really is. Just studying the mechanics of how. these great

crafters of melody did it. Even just down to like using intervals like, you know, like realizing that we don't have to stay just stepwise in scales, which we get into if we're practicing scales. You know, get away from that. Think melodically. That's right. I mean, it's like how do you

you know, it's the same thing with a solo. It really is just no different. It's just what like how far you can develop it and do it in an improvised setting. But like how are you going to construct a story out of just what really is nothing? Notes nothing. Notes are just like, you know, it's, it's like a beautiful garden, you know, a blade of grass, a tomato, a daisy, all this just random stuff. You saw it in like a, you know, what's the

thing the pigs come up to? The trough? A trough. My liege. I grew up in High Ridge. May I present you with you a trough of organic non-GMO slop? Mr. Fancy Pants, U.S. You city over here, never seen a trough in his life. So, um, oh, we got hipsters with chickens and troughs, neighbors, There's no work. You do now, but not back in the 80s. But I mean, you know, you can just have a bunch of slop in there. And but when it's placed correctly, you know, there's no magic these notes or these intervals. It's the construction of them.

It's the imagination. Yeah, it's the storytelling part of it. And so a melody and improvised line, you know, it's all cut from the same cloth, you know. Awesome stuff. Alex, thanks so much for the question. We got two or three. I feel like that's good. That's good value.

And we got three out of three. We did leave off some speak pipes. But that's, you know what? It's competitive up in here, man. This is a pandemic, man. The cream rises to the top. So leave us a speakpipe. You can go to you'll hear it.com.

And please do leave us to speakpipe. We love hearing from you. We love answering your questions. It's really, really fun. We just forgot about it for a while. That's all. No, but it's really, really nice. It's great to hear from y'all.

And go to open studio, jazz.com to check out all our courses. We got a brand new course called Blockcords Made Easy, which is easy. Yeah. And until next time, you'll hear it.