Herbie Hancock on Music Theory

sometimes our creativity can be flowing but I'm sure that many of us have experienced periods when there has been some kind of blockage to our a mechanic imagination many many years ago I was challenged and frustrated with my own playing and as a result became a bit depressed it's disheartening right I seem to be playing the same stuff over and over again I was stuck in familiarity and somehow couldn't get out of the rut this happened one night at Lenny's on the Turnpike a well-known jazz club and Peabody about half an hour or so from here I was on stage with the Miles Davis quintet which included Ron Carter Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter I was really in a nut and a rep that night everything I played it sounded the same miles can sense my sense of frustration so he leaned over to me and said don't play to butter notes the butter notes what could he possibly mean but since it came from miles I knew it had to mean something so I figured that he'd meant don't play the obvious notes because I was thinking butter might mean fat and fat might mean obvious doesn't apply to the body so the most obvious notes might be the third and seventh of a chord because they define the nature of the court I realized if I left out the third and seventh notes I'd have a lot of other notes that could work without confining my solos to the obvious restricted interpretation this would allow the harmonies to be opened up to various views so I'm going to show you what I mean by that in a way music is like math so if you're playing a scale this is one that's three that's five and this is seven it's a major seventh that's a dominant seven so the third is whether it's minor or major and a seventh can tell you whether it might go here [Music] or it might be [Music] place where you might end up so in a song let's take something that might be in what we say D minor the old way of thinking that got me into a rut was thinking being used to having the third and the seventh [Music] okay now if you leave out the third this is no and the seventh you have these other notes that you can play [Music] you [Music] so it just gives you more possibilities of things you could play so that kind of freed me from just being kind of stuck in just playing now I didn't throw away playing that way but I included something brand-new for me at the time so even though when I played the next solo it felt cumbersome and sounded erratic to my surprise the audience responded positively and gave me excellent feedback I believe within this raw exploration they felt my openness and my desire to try something imaginative I used Mouse's suggestion as an exercise and this experience became groundbreaking for me and opened the doorway to the future of my performances not only did it affect my style of playing throughout the rest of my life it taught me the valuable essence of courage conviction confidence and trust ethics miles could feel my frustration and through his compassion for me and his respect for my feelings he made the wisest of comments only a great master can provide a path to finding your own true answers I was then able to translate miles as guidance to my future bandmates and students reach up while reaching down grow while helping others while we're in the process of moving forward bring others with you this mentor apprentice relationship runs freely through the jazz world we don't hide our discoveries from other musicians in fact it's quite the opposite it's not unusual to hear a musician say hey I found this scale that's really cool or check out the voicing for this chord that's the spirit and the wisdom of Miles Davis and the ethics of jazz so always remember don't play the notes

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Views: 206,142

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Keywords: #herbiehancock, #jazz, #musictheory

Id: AkUNbe9sDpw

Length: 7min 49sec (469 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2019