Groove! (how to get good at music)

so today we're going to be checking out some viewer submissions and we're going to be listening to them with a critical but compassionate ear so we're gonna try and figure out what's good about them but also what could be improved we're gonna try and figure out how to get good at music so our first submission comes from dick wilds a 22 year old bassist from Boston let's listen nice prelude to the first Bach cello suite a lot of fun to play this slow [Music] [Music] okay great job I like the tone I like the selection the box cello suites are some of my favorite pieces of music in the entire world to play on bass I do think you could take it a little bit faster though the Bach cello suites are dance suite so they're supposed to be this rhythmic energy to them including the preludes now I don't see any eggs or minuets or Sarah bonds going viral and tick tock any time soon but I like to think that they're supposed to be kind of a groove going on here you're a bass player right make a groove when playing the cello suites on bass guitar I also like to sometimes reference how classical guitarists play the cello suites they will often play this first buff cello suite in the key of D and then D tune their easter egg to drop D tuning and let that low D string ring out there's this idiomatic ringy resonant quality to those kinds of interpretations you aren't playing a cello you're playing a bass guitar and you want to take advantage of that fact so check this out [Music] you [Music] the beauty of this music is that you can actually interpret it one of many different kinds of ways and you can learn a lot from how different people interpret the same piece of music jealous guitarists other bass players vo lists even if you really want to go there so fun fact viola jokes have their own page on Wikipedia congratulations vo lists but anyway thank you so much for your submission I really truly love this piece of music so thank you for giving me the excuse to talk about it just a little bit we're off to a very good start here so our next submission comes from Timothy Nunes Ettie and he's playing the Miles Davis composition for with his band melanzana let's check it out okay real quick well Careless Whisper is objectively funny try and keep the pre performance noodling to a minimum it's rather unprofessional I've been guilty of it before I'm still guilty of it but just keep that in mind okay I like that you're doing the drum intro that for doing the right coordinators [Music] bass players town is a little broken okay great start with the Jazz Oh let's talk about the phrasing on the original recording of four and the first two little melodic cells the notes are long Budda Budda and on the second two cells they're short Budda check it out now that information is not found in the real book all of those notes in the melody here are short they don't tie over and that's the important thing about listening to the original recording it gives you information that wouldn't just be there in the sheet music listening to the original recording and being very detail-oriented in how you learn the music goes a long way into getting into the groove of whatever it is that you're doing I made the comment about the bass players tone and yes electric bass is not great for straight-ahead jazz but you can do certain things to improve the situation you can roll down the treble and you can also play with your right hand above the neck like right around this area which gives a much rounder warmer tone Anthony Jackson is a bass player that has an amazing sound within the context of straight-ahead jazz creation and also Steve swallow who plays with a pick and is still able to get a great tone for this kind of situation the key in my humble opinion is to be able to play in this area of the bass with your right hand [Music] something to that effect paying close attention to the sound of the original recording will go a long way in developing your own kind of musical expression so thank you so much for submitting the next submission comes from Siana Besant and she's doing an arrangement of Jasmina horns version of the peacocks which is a jazz standard let's check that out okay piano intro [Music] buf very sparse [Music] you say it's like Weber an or some kind of point allistic [Music] we're the peacocks all right very beautiful I'm not a singer so I can't offer you that much in the way of technical advice but I know somebody who can and that is of course my mom my mom is a voice teacher so let's check in with mama Neely and see what she says about your submission hey MA let's not talk about that example is that it's a beautiful voice and she clearly has the piano and vocal chops but the style is not so much jazz as I I wonder if she's had some classical training or some European Paul singing training the dead giveaway - if someone has had classical training and has not yet made the transition to Americana styles and this is simplistic but the vowels are longer and taller and in Americana singing bells are wider and brighter the person that she's listening to is jazz male horn you'll notice the Winchester horn census she plays with this tone and long and white and bright [Music] so the first thing I would suggest is that she starts to play around with mobility of the face to whiten and brighten until she can get a feel for what that is I'd love to see her fall in love with the visceral sensation of lips teeth and tongue on consonants which is sort of a young person's introduction to classical musical classical singing if it's really good is this balance between tall and long and wydad bright so does that give you enough yes that gives me plenty thank you mom all right ciao mamma Neely everybody thank you so much for submitting I love the peacocks it's honestly one of my favorite jazz standards it's off of Bill Evans you must believe in spring that's the first time I ever heard it it's really beautiful tuned so thank you this next one comes from cobby adieu let's check out cobby [Music] so you say that you want to be able to improvise at fast speeds this is a very good start there are a lot of really good ideas here but I feel like you could leave a little bit more space not only that but like I'm doing really strong conclusions with your phrases for example this phrase starts really nice I like it [Music] Dada good start call-and-response but then it gets a little wofully so like you could have ended that phrase a little earlier and come to a really strong conclusion I know you really want to get to the fast improvising stuff but I think you should slow down a little bit because your ideas are great you just really need to solidify them before you try and speed things I hear a lot of really nice things that when you're playing like the way that you play sustain high notes you're not screeching it like a lead trumpet player but there's this delicate quality to it like the way that Miles Davis might shape his notes and kind of massage the Tambor over time [Music] that's funny that's the tune speaking of Miles Davis I'm a blue and green you have a very Miles Davis kind of approach here he was not known for his fast shreddy trumpet licks he was known for note placement and tone color and I think you should play to those strengths so you're well on your way man very good job thank you so much for submitting our next submission comes from Hannah Hoffman who did an arrangement of hava nagila inspired by Rhapsody in Blue let's check this out and melodica really does sound like a clarinet [Music] dotted quarter notes in three-four kind of interesting very nice I really like this combination of styles I can see the influence of rhapsody in blue with some of the piano voicings you're using I almost think you could kind of lean into the Latin jazz salsa to bow side of things you already are playing a conga some kind of djembe thing I always thought that klezmer textures would work pretty well in Latin contexts and Latin jazz is a big part of the Jazz tradition so you're already halfway there like instead of the bass playing on the beat every time maybe you play the Latin tianbao which is this figure which is a little bit more syncopated check it out [Music] I don't know just an idea I'm having fun with it and it's clear that you had fun with this arrangement it's a really nice arrangement so if I had to make any suggestion it would probably be incorporate more live percussion that Garage Band drum sound is doing this arrangement - no favors but anyway thank you so much for submitting let's check out the next one this is Kevin doing a saxophone quartet version of the coffin dance bring it Kevin first chords kind of sound like emotion sheets 5 and seek [Music] [Music] that melody works really well when soprano I love the arrangement I really like how the arrangement is shaped like just having the soprano sax and bari sax when the drop hits and then eventually adding the alto sax and the tenor sax as it builds unfortunately the app that you guys used introduced a little bit of recording latency which is okay for acapella arrangements which is normally what these kinds of apps are used for but with something like this even the tiniest bit of rhythmic discrepancy between two of the parts ends up adding up over time so really my advice here is probably more of a recording thing recording into a free app like GarageBand or Reaper lining up everything together with a click nice and steady and then putting all the videos together in iMovie or something like that it's a lot more time yeah and a lot less convenient than one of these apps but it does yield a better musical result and it showcases your guys talents a lot more because honestly it's a sick arrangement I like everything about the music and you're playing it just it doesn't sound like you're together because of the technology involved so thanks for your submission let's check out the next one this one is from Han let's check them out 2:3 polyrhythm [Music] pretty static [Music] nice contrast to these actually [Music] awesome okay I can really see this as a soundtrack to the beginning of like a 90s movie the kid is running outside and mom says like wait you forgot your backpack and the kid is already long gone is like running around I don't know it's the beginning of the Sandlot or something I think orchestrating this a lot more like adding some strings if it's a kind of strings or some extra textures beyond just piano because as it is it's very bare-bones so the national idea is very evocative and makes me think a much larger lusher orchestration it's cool add more to it you don't need to add more sections you need to add more color right now it's very black and white in a way that's kind of asking for a little bit of a shade of like cerulean it's a very cerulean piece wouldn't you say anyway thank you for your submission let's check out the next one this one is from Alex Payne oh ah insert joke about piano anyway let's have a listen I'm sure he's never heard that one before okay I got the drunkest groove [Music] Wow quick contrast septuplets [Music] lovely Singh septuplets playing here [Music] okay very cool that switch between the drunk groove and the 7s was quite abrupt I think if you went back and forth between those two it might be a nice contrast but if you're going into an entirely different section I think you're gonna need a little bit more of a bridge between that drunken hip-hop feel and the very fast piano septuplet thing I dig it though that frenetic piano style of the sub topless is reminiscent of a modern pianist like he's loose Molina you got chops but it's just about applying those chops in a way that doesn't feel quite as abrupt maybe at that moment you drop the drums in the bass out for a couple of measures and then they come in just something to show that we are now beginning a new section and it was intentional it wasn't like we're just going to a random section because we were bored with the old one arrangement details like that I feel like are the real heart of music they're the things that tell the story that the things that connect people with your musical ideas in a way that makes sense but you know I can't hate it sevens or summons are cool good job let's check out the next one which comes from all right so the one that we're gonna end with today is from Drew vanderwinkle the baritone sax player from the New York Philharmonic that big band that I occasionally play with us fronted by Sarah McDonald so I know this guy so I feel like there might be some insider trading that goes on here this is his submission he's playing tenor sax with the speak freely trio [Music] at mogh base SPD samples d'leh beat ish [Music] like the walking rhythms they're my snare so I wanted to play this last because all of those elements that I was calling out as we were listening to it they make up the New York City jazz sound this is something that you would definitely hear if you were ever to go into new blue and the Lower East Side on like a Monday night this is the sound of New York City circa 2020 or at least it was prior to the lockdown I've talked with other musicians a lot about the sounds of different cities yeah we're interconnected but at the same time there's something very much grounding us to the physical space that we're in what's exciting for me in this series how to get good at music is seeing how everybody plays from around the world we saw today a variety of different kinds of musicians playing different styles of music with a variety of different attitudes on their instrument and in their style and through that we get a brief glimpse of who they are where they're from and what they want to say with their music we need a brief glimpse of the rich tapestry of musical expression and that's awesome to see I am enormous ly inspired when I go through everybody's submissions for this thing I'm sorry if you didn't get chosen for this video there were almost 700 submissions but if you'd like to be considered for the next one please follow me over at Instagram it's underscore Adam Neely I'm gonna be announcing where the next one occurs over there if you enjoy this channel and what I do here please consider joining my patreon because its patrons over at my patreon that make content like this possible I'm enormous ly grateful to all of my patrons for their continued support and thank you so much everybody for submitting for watching and for enjoying this music and hopefully you learned a little bit more about how to get good at music please

Channel: Adam Neely

Views: 573,802

Rating: 4.9767671 out of 5

Keywords: adam, neely, jazz, fusion, bass, guitar, lesson, theory, music

Id: iAaeFe2Q4rU

Length: 20min 15sec (1215 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020