- Hey Peter. - Hey Adam.
- Uh, I don't sound good.
- I don't agree with that. Your voice, or your--
- Just in general, you got any advice for that?
- Posture. - Oh, interesting.
- Yeah, posture. (upbeat piano music)
- I'm Adam Maness. - And I'm Peter Martin.
- You're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast.
- Daily jazz advice coming at you.
- Coming at you from the pod cave
at Open Studio headquarters,
because we are brought to you by Open Studio.
Go to openstudiojazz.com, check out our brand new platform.
You checked it out yet?
- I've seen it, I'm familiar with it and
I've checked it out, and I'm loving it.
As McDonald's would say, keep on frying.
Um, yeah. No, it's wonderful.
- Did you just tell McDonald's to keep on frying?
- I mean, that's what they do, right?
It's fried food man, french fries.
- Good gravy, good gravy.
- We have a little saying in the plant based community.
Don't be a, what do you call it? Junk food vegan.
Like you can go to McDonald's and eat french fries only
and be plant based, hashtag plant based
but don't do that, we don't recommend.
- We have a saying in the keto community
which is two more quarter pounders, no bun.
- Two more quarter [Laughs] due massa.
Good, so today we're going negative a little bit
but we're going to flip it into a positive
because we're going to tell you
seven things not to do for a good sound.
- Yeah, we were inspired by our friend
Christian McBride's video that he made for us
called "Your Sound Is Your Signature," Andrew can you put
a link to "Your Sound Is Your Signature" Two Minute Jazz?
- That's our award winning, multiple,
hundred thousand, no we might be up to millions of views
on Facebook and YouTube, people love it.
- It's got quite a following and it's really
just the coolest thing to see.
Christian, first of all he's playing while he's talking.
He's walking this killer bassline.
And he's talking about things not to do
on the bass to get a good sound.
Because the bass, notoriously people try all kinds of
things to get his sound specifically.
- [Peter] Exactly, he's known for this.
- Because he has such a beautiful, big sound.
- Right and they're always like, "Oh it must be the bass"
but I've heard him play on a lot of different basses.
I mean just like basses that were, we just did a gig
in St. Lucia and they had like a bass from the island there
that wasn't actually horrible but it was like,
he still sounded like the same, but the cool thing on that
too is he's talking about things not to do from a bass,
for bass players and even when he does them
he still kind of sounds good so he kind of
contradicts himself a little bit.
- Yeah someone in one of the comments was like,
step one, have massive hands, like Christian McBride
I think that helps, right? But I thought, you know
maybe this could be relevant to piano players as well.
I mean I know it is because I see, and I don't know
about you, but sometimes I'll see sort of
intermediate level pianists who are doing things
and I'm like, "Oh bro if you could just fix that,
tweak that one thing, you would have so much more
either control or just a better, rounder sound."
- Yeah, I love that. I'm so glad that you came up with
this topic today because I love the premise of it.
The premise is needed and look, we're talking about
mostly pianists, a few of these things
will apply to everybody though.
- Yeah, we are pianists.
- We are pianists, let's be honest.
- But, pianists do not think about, we don't think about,
practice, concentrate, talk about our sound nearly enough.
Like bass players are always talking about,
"man did you hear this sound?"
- Totally.
- Like we're always like, "man did you hear that voicing?
"Man did you hear that Herbie line, dude?" You know.
- You're right. It's underappreciated.
- Underappreciated. - In the community.
- So I think that just thinking about what
not to do is important because
and then we need to get on to some of the
what to do but like a lot of these sort of
technical challenges that have a direct
contribution and corollary to our musicianship.
Learning what not to do can really open up doors.
That's what I really learned from Christian
and that video 'cause it's like no tell me what to do.
As soon as you stop doing some of those things,
it's like wow you actually have a good sound there.
You're doing things that are keeping
your sound from coming out and as pianists because
it's such an easy instrument to like physically
just sit down and play a note or even play a triad.
I mean think about it, you could teach anybody with hands
to play a C triad in about 10 seconds.
What other, how long would that take on a bass,
to be able to play a C triad even, first of all
you can't really do it, well I mean you can
but it's very advanced so there's always
this assumption that it's easy to get a good sound.
So let's kick it off with number one.
Can I take this one? - [Adam] You got it.
- Okay. Number one is don't listen.
Okay? Now this is a little confusing,
so let me rephrase the topic here
'cause we're going double negative.
Seven things not to do for a good sound.
So don't don't listen, so basically listen, number one.
- Yeah, listen, if you're not listening to your sound
especially as you practice, it's not going to be good.
- I know and this seems easy and
simple and funny but it's true.
I mean you have to listen and I like
"practice," what you said.
We listen all the time but if you only wait until
you're performing on the greatest piano
at Carnegie Hall to start listening,
you're not going to be able to get a good sound.
So you better start listening at your
crappy little Chickering at home.
Yeah. And one thing we've been doing more of here
at Open Studio, openstudiojazz.com
is these guided practice routines.
And in them we kind of set them up by saying,
this is your opportunity to listen for your sound.
And really that's all you should be listening for
when you're doing the technical exercises.
- [Peter] That's right, simplify and isolate,
definitely applies here.
- If you're running scales after three or four times
you probably know all the notes
and you probably are close to having the fingering
pretty much by rote after three or four sessions let's say.
- You have it by rote because when you first started
learning it you wrote it down, right?
- Okay. - Okay.
- But if you're an experienced, especially if you're
an experienced player who maybe knows
already how to play scales
when you practice scales the real purpose of that practice
is to pay attention to your sound
you have to listen to how everything sounds.
How even you are, how in control of the dynamics you are,
how light is it, how heavy is it, how staccato, how legato
like you have to make these decisions
and that is the time to work on it.
- And when you talk about practicing skills
you want to make sure you are not,
you want to be doing enough so that you do not feel like
you're a fish out of water when you're practicing scales.
Fish-out-of, bada-bing, I got jet lag, sorry.
- [Adam] Oh my gosh, oh wow.
- It will get better, it will get better.
I'm trying to get Andrew, nope,
he's not laughing, not laughing.
Okay, so that was number one, what's--
- He's actively frowning, actually.
- He's just totally distraught and bored, okay number two.
- Okay number two is of things not to do for a good sound
and that is use a ton of sustain.
- Can I clap for this? - Yes.
- No, I'm not clapping for using a ton,
I'm clapping for not using.
- Not using. Yeah if you don't want to sound good
use a ton of sustain, I get this a lot
anytime I take on any live student which
actually isn't that much anymore but whenever I do
it's usually the first thing I have to say is like
why is your foot on the sustain pedal?
Why are you playing so much sustain on everything?
Why is every phrase sound like it's
under water, you know what I mean?
The sustain pedal is used as an accentuation and--
- [Peter] a crutch. - It can be a crutch.
No but I mean if you want to get a really great sound
you need to develop a legit legato
and to develop a legit legato you have to
learn how to keep your one finger down
while moving to another finger and to do that
you have to tie your foot to the piano bench.
If that's what you have to do, do it because I promise you
you will get a better sound in just a couple of weeks
if you practice without the sustain pedal.
- Things we have never said, "Wow,
"you have such a great sound and your overuse
"of the sustain pedal really contributed nicely to it."
- It's so true, if you are using the sustain pedal
pretty much at all while you're practicing it's not good.
- Things that I've never said also was like,
"wow I listened back to that recording of myself
"I wish I had used more sustain pedal."
- Never. - Never.
- Never - All right.
- All right number three, this is number three
of our list of things not to do for a good sound
and that is to get real excited and tighten up.
So yeah when we get excited or nervous or
anything that would cause tension, fearful
but I think you're talking about even in a positive way.
- No I think like a lot of people
try to put energy in by tightening up
or get eugh, you know stank face or whatever.
- [Laughs] "Stank face." - You know what I'm saying?
- Well stank face leads to good sound occasionally.
- I don't know (mimicking)
- [Laughs] Yeah yeah - You know what I mean?
- Yeah, exactly, so we want to really, and I think
this is about you know, I mean look, when you get in to
the flow of a gig and stuff who knows
what's going to happen but especially
for when you're practicing it's a really good time
to make sure that our physical skills are developed
and those good habits are in place
so that we're putting ourselves in the best position
to make a great sound because it's a technical challenge
like once you really start listening
and stop using the pedal I mean if you do number one and two
number three you're going to have to do
because when you listen and let go of that pedal
then you're going to start to be exposed.
You're going to be like, 'Woah,"
and so if you tighten up and stuff
that's going to come out even more like,
with the sustain pedal a lot of this can be covered up
and you can be stank face and then tighten up
and it's going to sound --
- Well you're not going to sound great though.
- No, you're not going to sound great.
- And you know what if you're out there
and you're saying, "Well what about Keith Jarrett?
"What about Oscar Peterson?" They are relaxed
from about the shoulder down and you know how I can tell?
Because they sound great. - Exactly.
- Like if Oscar Peterson is doing his like, "ugh ugh ugh"
thing that he kind of gets in to, whatever
I guarantee you that his hands and his wrists
and his elbows and his shoulders are relaxed.
He wouldn't be able to do it without it, there's no way.
He would sound, he would tighten up.
- I wonder if we should change this to
Seven Things Not To Do For a Great Sound
- Oh I don't know - No no, I'm not trying to --
- No I'm doing it, right now.
- Well the other thing about that --
- I'm capitalizing every letter
- Keith Jarrett and Oscar Peterson, the other thing
is like if you think that they're tightened up and stuff
when they're playing and you want to do that, that's fine.
As soon as you sound as good as them in your own way
then you can tighten up, no problem.
- Item number four is don't use voicing.
Not voicings, you want to use voicings.
- Yeah and again, we're double negativing here
so I'm confusing myself here --
- Don't don't use voicings. - Yeah yeah.
The Seven Things Not To Do For a Great Sound.
Yeah, so by this we mean like, and I think that there's
a lot of different things there's voicings,
there's the voicing, voice leading and all this stuff
but in terms of voicing is like playing several notes
at the same time and playing them all the same
would be not using voicings, we want to voice out
the certain melodies and really next level on this
is to be able to play each of the different notes
with the different fingers in a different way.
Different volume, different kind of sound,
that's what gives the piano just a beautiful complex sound
and we typically look at classical pianists and Horowitz,
Vladimir, I be referring to, the Russian brother,
you know, he, I think one of his great abilities,
and look they're playing classical music that's written
so they can kind of plan this out and practice it
but his ability to voice out with all of his
different fingers, these beautiful lines
all the same time, it's basically sounded like
however many melodies and chords were going on
separate people playing it in their own way
but beautifully each one of them.
- Absolutely. - That's next level.
- Absolutely, and the easy way to practice this
is let's say you're playing some kind of
solo piano arrangement of whatever standard you want,
just make the melody note that's on top of your chords
louder than what's underneath them,
that's like level one and then you can try to
make that the loudest thing and maybe the bassline,
the lowest note, the root, second loudest
and then the chord in the middle third loudest.
Then we're getting in to more things
but man I'll tell you what, if I'm on a really nice piano
and I'm playing a D minor 11 chord
and it's kind of clustered in the middle
I'm bringing out that G all day long.
- That's right, well plus when we want to voice,
talking about voicing out the melody which is often
at the top, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the bottom
but if it's at the top and you're getting like a big thick
D minor 11 or whatever is happening if you're not
voicing out that melody and sublimating those other
with a different kind of sound then that melody's
not going to be able to be heard and voiced out especially
if you start you know clobbering the poor old sustain pedal.
- Totally, you know what sound we're talking about
it just sounds like there's so many notes happening
- Sounds like hot doo-doo
on a hot summer St. Louis sidewalk.
- But when you hear a great pianist who's
experienced at doing this it sounds like ice cream cone,
that hot doo-doo has been turned in to a
beautiful Ted Drewes frozen custard
- Ooh I like it, we call it Doo-Doo Custard.
- No we don't. [Both Laughing]
- Okay okay number five.
- But yet we digress.
- Number five, if you want to sound like total doo-doo
then you should be moving your wrists
slash elbows, slash shoulders, a whole bunch.
- Right, right, right, lots of random and you know,
the corollary for this with
Christian Mcbride was, what do he call it, the --
- The chicken wing. - The chicken wing.
He's like, "Don't be doing the chicken wing
when you're all in and out, you know."
But it's like economy of motion, not tight,
but economy of motion so that all of the energy
can be put in to the instrument to produce
the great sound that we're trying to do.
- Go look up, who am I thinking of?
Oh, Peter Martin. Go look up YouTube videos of Peter Martin
playing some fast eighth note passages and you'll see
just this beautiful, very still,
hand wrist combination, really you're not pronating,
you're not uh, what's the other one?
- Prenating.
- [Laughs] Prenating.
- There's a lot of prenatal care
in my playing I can tell you.
- No but it's all very even, all very relaxed
and that is, I think that will tell you all you need to know
That you can get this big snap of a sound
without having to really like lean in or roll or whatever
kind of B-S that you might be doing
- So if you want to think about like, a chicken
running across, like a chicken, with the wings
running across randomly, we don't want that
but maybe a kitty cat, you know they have those
great cat YouTube videos, just prancing elegantly.
No? Okay, we don't want that either, okay let's move on.
- Okay, number six. - Number six.
Um, okay, don't do this if you want to have a great sound.
Practice at the same dynamic level all the time.
Don't do it, play, we need to --
- Nah man, I just like to stay at a nice mezzo forte.
- Oh god, mezzo forte, you're killing me.
So yeah, just because you can play with a great sound
at mezzo forte, what happens when you need to like,
you know, play with some phrasing, and bring out a line,
go up and down, play quietly --
- Sounds like doo-doo on the ground.
- That's right, and the technique that is required to play
with a great sound at different volume levels
at the piano is not just as easy as pushing harder,
that's like basic level, so they have to all be practiced
they have to be controlled, and it's just as important as,
think about trumpet players, think about saxophone players,
or vocalists, how much time they spend
at different volume levels trying to develop their sound
and how different their technique is.
It's the same thing with the piano, different technique,
but it's actually just as challenging you know.
- And just as important. And again I think
because there's this myth that playing the piano
is just like button pushing you know, that we think
we can get away with this, that if we know enough --
- [Electronic voice] I am a computer.
- Right, that if we gather enough information
we'll be good but that's not how it works,
at all, like you have to work on --
- [Electronic voice] Info in, equals sound out.
- And we get a lot of emails just like that
about like if I just acquire enough information,
how I play it isn't as important but it's actually
way more important than you're giving credit for.
- Hells yeah.
- Learn how to play with dynamics and practice them,
when you're practicing scales,
practice your scales at pianissimo,
practice them as softly as you can get them,
practice them as loudly as you can make them.
- That's right. - All that's important.
- All right why don't you give us number seven
and then we actually do, I think we do have
a bonus for the end of the episode but go ahead.
- Number seven is to comp for yourself without dynamics
so still in the same dynamic kick, kind of in the same realm
as you were talking about voicing
but when you are comping for yourself,
when you're solo-ing or maybe even playing a melody
and you're comping for yourself at, I hear this all the time
at a very loud level, you know what I mean?
Learn how to comp at a different dynamic than what your
melodic content is, if you are comping for someone,
hopefully you're not just throwing your hands
at the keyboard as hard as you can like a brick
and playing as loudly as you can,
you have to learn how to control your left hand and make it
a different dynamic level than what you're trying to
bring out, which is the melody.
And it doesn't always have to be like that,
if you're wanting to bring it out
but make sure that's your decision,
that you have control over that
and you're not just doing it because you're excited,
or you know and especially like if you're building tension
or building dynamically with your right hand
it doesn't mean that your left hand has to go with you
in that regard. - No, absolutely not.
Um, great, well we hope you enjoyed that, that was our
Seven Things Not to Do for a Great Sound,
so don't get it twisted and do these seven things,
do not do these things, am I getting that correctly?
- You are totally correct in that, sir.
- Okay, am I not not correct?
- You are, yes you are not incorrect.
- Good, got it, got it. [Laughs]
All right, well what do we have to talk about today?
Oh you know what I was thinking during this,
actually would be nice, our sponsor, our official sponsor's
Open Studio and we have a new course actually for beginning,
we say novice pianists but it's really just for all,
what we would say is kind of like
an ultra beginner beginner beginner, to jazz --
- An ultra beginner beginner beginner?
- Yeah yeah maybe you, you know, have some good,
great classical chops but you're interested in jazz
we want to invite you over because this month
we just launched it and we've had so many great folks
from around the world, hundreds have signed up already
and are enjoying Jump-Start Jazz which is kind of
your, well our baby, but you --
- No it's definitely, yeah.
- You know and the guided practice which could work out
very nicely as you alluded to for
working on your sound as well.
- Yeah, we do the guided practice, we talk a lot
about working on your sound in the guided practice
and those are practice routines, video practice routines
where you're practicing with me four times a week
for seven weeks, and it sounds awful but it's going to
get you playing great and we go over scales and tunes
and voicings and all sorts of things
in those practice routines then you have no excuse as to,
"I don't know what to practice"
because I'm telling you, literally, "play this," --
- Well they could have some excuses let's not be so dogmatic
- I mean, we're trying to take all the excuses away
but check it out, it's been really popular man,
we've sold a lot of these things, should have made it better
- [Laughs] - No I'm just kidding.
No it's great, and the cool thing about
the Jazz Piano Jump-Start too is that we made it
kind of You'll Hear It style, like we're just kind of uh,
doing it like this, but at the piano
and with a little more intent behind it and a workbook
and transcriptions and practice routines and quizzes and
a whole bunch of other features, go to Jazz Piano Jump-Start
wait, go to -- - Open Studio Jazz --
- Wait, go to Amazon.com, no...
Where are they going? - They're going to, um --
- openstudiojazz.com - Yep, openstudiojazz.com
Just go there and go to piano courses, you'll see it,
Jump-Start, Jazz Piano Jump-Start.
- Until tomorrow. - Wait, we have our bonus.
- Oh we got to give our bonus that's right, what do we got?
- So the bonus is, this is something to do,
if you want a great sound, something that you can do today
to work on that is to, whenever you're practicing,
whether that's scales or tunes, or anything, practice
getting an even sound across all your fingers
on both of your hands, I don't want to hear your thumb
is way heavier, I don't want to hear your fourth finger
in your left hand is way weaker --
- We will take a ruler to that hand if we hear that.
- The way to do this is simple: listen.
Play a C major scale, and then listen to where the notes
are weaker than the others and where they might be stronger
than the others and then adjust, and be honest with yourself
- Evenness is so important to a great sound
- Evenness is the most important.
The control of the evenness is important.
Play the C major scale, see what you can hear
then play the B major scale, see what you can hear.
- Right, play the C major scale, see what you can hear, play
the B major scale, be what you can hear, how about that?
- And until tomorrow. - You'll hear it.
(upbeat piano music)