How Bill Evans Practiced Harmony

[Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] okay I'm Adam Manis and I'm pet and you're listening to the you'll here at podcast Jazz explained explained coming to you from openstudio jazz.com coming to you live Peter yes on April 12th 2024 we go live all the time well we certainly go live on April 12th in New York City April 12th yes you are correct a Friday April 12th uh we're going to be at the sheen Center in New York City that's 16 bleer Street ever heard of it in the heart of downtown Manhattan it's the sheen Center for sorry to interrupt it's the sheen Center for culture did you know that yeah I'm scared of that I don't know anything about we be bringing thought and we are definitely not definitely I think that our dear listeners will be though that get your free tickets you're going to want to reserve them because it's a small theater and it's going to fill up fast so make sure to get your tickets ASAP you can go to you'll hear it.com and reserve your seats New York City Friday April 12th come see us you'll hear it live and look if you reserve tickets this is another part of the Gala or the Gaya some controversy with the gala and the Gaya yeah have you you just went dark I know I know you went dark but you kept a smile going well because why do Americans do things because we don't know we're doing we don't know we we have bastardized this language called English and you know love it or leave it yeah you know what our language is money horrible um well are we going to be making it rain on the 12th from the state going to be making rain notes buddy yeah yeah we're going to probably be playing if we can get some instruments in there we're going to be talking is there a piano there do we got to get a piano a piano yeah it's gonna be fun but look part of the gala Gaya is that um if you reserve the tickets you got to show up they're they seem like they're free because you and there's no convenience charge or anything you literally can go on you can only get two at a time but you can get if you need to get more but do not Reserve you are agreeing to go to go yeah something comes up send them back cuz someone else is going to want to come don't be that person reserves your tickets and it doesn't show up exactly we wanted to make this accessible and free to all so that's part of the agreement is that it sounds like we're super worried about no shows I am well you know because if you give something for free you basically devalued it and we do feel like they we should make them pay if they if they don't come that's what I wanted to do $50 if you don't come to the show L Donaldson said how we charge people Lou Donaldson had had a great line um the Great the legend himself Mr Lou Donaldson he said he heard a certain saxophonist play at the Village Vanguard yeah and we asked him we said how how how did it sound he said Oh it sounded okay but I don't know this is back in this is back when the Great Line Gordon was still the proprietor there um I don't know about that proprietress is that what you call it that proprietor sounds like a kind of hot dog proprietress T like the little bread you get um no he said yeah well better idea instead of charging people let them in for free and then when they try to get out charge them to leave after they hear that guy he didn't he wasn't a fan that's a good L Donald let him in for free and charge him to get out that's amazing so yeah we could have done that but no we trust you guys look we look forward to seeing you guys in New York this is going to be so much fun um we're we're going to be you know doing our thing probably making an episode talking doing some Q&A for sure but mainly just getting a chance to meet you guys and it's going to be a show it's going to be a show you're going to enjoy yourselves we're going to have a lot of of fun a bespoke show well I got a bespoke episode I got a bespoke concept here I've been making bespoke arrangements how about that that's four bespok in 30 seconds yeah don't don't overuse that word please yeah okay I'll try not to uh no I've been doing a lot of uh I've been doing a lot of arranging for orchestra specifically and I've been working a lot on voice leading and I thought we could talk a little bit about concepts for how you can apply what's basically you know Coral writing for the piano and I I think about this all the time because when I was in high school I got a super thick intellectual book that I was not ready for and I'm still honestly not ready for called the harmony of Bill Evans by thought you going to say the Holy Bible no well uh by a Pianist and composer named Jack Riley and it's a great book I recommend checking it out even though it's it's very heady and can get into the weeds a little bit but there's some interesting things in this book and it's something that I work on always I've also heard people talk about this concept that we're about to to work on in other contexts um uh uh people like Russ fante we'll do voice leading exercises CLA Fisher has a great book on voice leading exercises and so I think it's always something this pianist it's something that we can do I mean as we start with b and two and three-part inventions when we're children you know and it's something that we are are always working on and it's something that we can do when we're working on standards and so I thought today we would talk about how we can create Harmony using four-part voices and you don't have to think about this too hard I think just diving in is kind of the first step right so I don't know is that something you might we going to the that's not would that be something you might be interested in question yeah are we going to the high diving board or the low diving board we're start out the we're going to start out with Stella By Starlight we're going to start out with one of the voices is the melody so one of the things that you can think of that I often like to think of is the range of your voices right so satb right soprano Alto SATA soprano Alto tener baritone yeah bass bass baritone bottom bottom that's it soprano Alto Middle no soprano Alto tener bottom so we're going to put the uh the easiest way to start is to put the melody in the soprano okay so it's easy to take a tune like Stella By Starlight and we're going to think about these four voices in the coral range so we're going to be thinking satb you know what satb stands for SATA SAA it's not an actual wordo it's an acronym saino altisimo tenor yeah and bottom bottom yeah soprano Alto tenor and bass right bar Bas and baritone baritone yeah uh soprano Alto tener base is how we're baby what's that forart Harmony baby that's I was just I wasn't interrupting I was just interjecting he's so guys he is so in his head about interrupting right now last week's it's amazing it's been fun cuz you have conversations with Peter now and he's like he's like waiting for you to finish it's amazing right uh so let's back to our four-part Harmony Peter thanks for interrupting buddy this guy kale am I right okay so his head all right so let's do our four-part Harmony we've got our our soprano Alto tenor and bass we're going to put the melody the easiest way to do this is to first of all go very slow we're not going to put this in time we're going to be nice and robato we're going to figure out each chord and we're going to really try to make the voices move in ways that make sense so that if you were actually singing each voice you could sing it it's not like yeah yeah you know like all of these jumpy things or or things that it should sound like music the individual voice is on a horizontal level as much as you can as much as you can and the the better you get at this the more you can do that right so we'll start with a very rigid structure which is the melody and the soprano and then we're going to put in the alto and tener the middle voices we're going to put at first we'll just put the third or the seventh of the chord you know e on either one of those voices so here we have our E minor 7 flat 5 I realized this is not the original chord of Stella By Starlight we'll use the real book changes just to keep it simple for everybody what's the original one it's it's a B flat diminished oh that's right yeah but for this purposes we'll just use the the sort of like jam session changes Jazzy version uh so here we have the melody is a yep the uh Alto is D the seventh the tener is G and the Basse is e and we're going to put the Basse is always going to be the root for now but this is root and shell it's basically root shell and the melody on top yeah so woo even that resol it already that's the thing is it already sounds good and we're going to go slow here rato how do you feel about the ten are staying on the same note you're okay with that I am okay with that we don't have to do this always right once we get better at moving notes around we can realize that each degree if we're on the third of the two chord we can do things with that we can move things you know all around and we can do things with each degree El says entered the exactly but we'll start here with the basics so we'll go from our E minor 7 flat 5 to an A7 so the Basse is going to go to a the G stays the same because the seven or the third of E minor 7 flat 5 is the seventh of A7 the D is going to go down to C right and then we play the melody in our soprano we go to our C Minor 7 right C we've got the tenor is E flat the uh Alto is B flat and it's another two five movement so right the third stays the same as the seventh the C goes down to F the B flat goes down to a right the melody right you're already seeing some basic voice leading here right so however so here F minor 7 right F in the base just really keeping the structure very rigid the B flat 7 the E flat moves down to D the F goes up to B flat the a flat stays the same in the The Melody of course is in the soprano for our E flat major chord you can do a Triad do not sleep on Triads I was transcribing some Duke Ellington I was doing actually some score study on some Duke Ellington big band Arrangements the man uses so many Triads yes major chords dominant chords I mean like a like a five chord like a G7 to C yeah TR bones are playing a g Triad yeah straight up and it sounds awesome so instrumentation so important for that well and just like and just like what our ears like we fill in the gaps more than we think we do right and this is a good time to interject that where are you coming from down that Triad like and then Duke gallington of course is a master this is like coming from something with more tension like when you're studying these kind of things that that's an interesting thing to think about so like if we're on this 25 to E flat the end of the first phrase right F minor 7 B flat 7 here my B flat 7 you got too many notes okay there you go right I've got the the bass is B flat the tenor is D the alto is a flat the melody is up here on the G like the melody is going to co down to the B flat which is low yeah right so from here like if you try to cram in a big fancy E flat major 7 chord it's not really working like this D wants to resolve up right so it actually takes a little bit more maturity to hit this Triad and then where you going to go after that that's as important as where you're coming from right right you can do and if you want to move this down you certainly can yeah I always say like really good voice leading and that's what we're talking about I mean we're talking the verticality and how it creates The Voice great voice leading the better you get at it the less choices you have not the more choices I think there's just things that are are pulling you yes right when you when you study the the book you know what I mean f the hey it's not a curse word it's a man's name who wrote the the book on counterpoints right I'm probably not saying it's probably like f or something like that but uh it's fux is how you spell his name can we say this on the podcast of course say whatever you but if you study that you get pulled in these directions you start riding like hiding like you start sounding like these these people with the Counterpoint and it's a similar thing here everybody wants to hear uh stelli Starlight in a hiding desque style there's nothing better than that well okay so if we just take these first eight bars Peter with what we just had right so let's just listen to what we had yeah beautiful like that's really all you need but we can start already moving things around right so here if we have our E minor 7 pick one of our middle voices yeah right I'm going to take this D and instead of going right to the C maybe I like do a whole little phrase here around [Music] this right so I'm moving it up a half step just kind of rocking [Music] it where you do it where you place it rhythmically has a big difference in the feel of the line I can do the same thing on the F right so I'm just taking the seventh of our two chords yeah and I think that one is like like that c c monitor like if you would do that's a little bit that's a little bit different it's not right or wrong but they but it's good to kind of hear that so that you'd have that choice that's right so you can already start moving voices you can do it right you can start picking your voice whatever that is you want to move around and just practice moving around and then I think probably the most impactful thing you can do and I tell a lot of our piano students here at Open studio to not sleep on the different inversions in the bass especially when you're doing this kind of work so if we start here we'll start in a root position but let's see if we can add some interesting things with our our root movement [Music] right so here I'm going to add add I'm going to do the A7 with the c in the Basse right mm and I'm just going to instead of adding so I have the I have the root here in the Melody I have the third in the bass I have the seventh in the tener I can the alto can really be whatever I'm choosing the five because the five is like a second it's like a second uh route and that's just great yeah and it's a it's a singable Melody I'm already thinking about where we go right and now thinking about where I'm going I'm going to do a different inversion here on the C right so I have E flat here yep B flat so the third and the seventh but I went from here to here and then for our F7 I'm going to keep the C as the Bas changing one note same foring that F like you were before right so for the f minor I have the base in the five a little pedal Point happening maybe we'll do our thing on the seventh and then for this again the five is in the base on the E flat yeah exactly something like that right so now this becomes [Music] this [Music] ah again just working through the tune and you can do this on any tune and go slow like really go slowly you can you can keep this going in any way you want working through root movements finding your [Music] way you can start adding a fifth voice to the equation which Bill Evans apparently did he would do a four voice satb thing then he would do a five voice and even sometimes a six voice treatment of whatever tune he was learning using different bass inversions really practicing your Coral writing but in real time and for me this is is like such it's like such wholesome work to do like it pays so many dividends in so many ways like oh ear training ear training is incredible finger independence hand Independence hearing inner voices arranging what's that voicings voicings so many great voicings and I this is a great way to be able to start to slip in and out of rooted and rootless voicings without worrying too much about like I'm staying rooted I'm not going rooted like because this kind of when you let your ears Guide You by how these uh The Voice leading goes you stop thinking about is there a root on the bottom more like what's going to sound good from where I'm coming from well you just did this great video about like baseless ballad playing right where you're not playing the root of the of whatever you're playing and it's a similar concept here once you start embracing that you realize how much your ear fills in for you and how it actually just creates like a different sort of a different sort of CounterPoint like it's a new voice when you can move the bass around a little bit and it's a great try it give it a go man I don't want to interrupt no no no go go go go so I'm going to I'm going to take the restriction and as you said later on moving away from the four voices but I think it's a great thing even if you feel like I've got the four voices I can do cool stuff restrict yourself to that because that's going to force your ears into really developing if you can do single moving lines in the middle start to do two or whatever but like having something restricted like that is important when you have even if you just do like the eight the first eight bars here like you work on an eight bar Passage and you come up with like a really nice little Coral arrangement of what you're doing yeah see if then and you talk about this but like a really interesting thing to do then is to sing each part yes can you sing each part and if there's too much that's not singable or doesn't sound like a melody you can start changing things around you can certainly start loosening sort of the inner voice movement of like it's got to be a third and the seventh that can go away very fast yeah because I always think there's two sides to like do you have a great Melody and that an inner voice Melody is just as much if not even sometimes more important to develop that as a great Melody because it has to be so strong to be able to work as a musical moment when it's not at the top well and then you get out of like if you w if you read any great Himel from the great Himel Traditions you know whe whether that's meod Methodist Baptist Lutheran has a great Himel right obviously Catholic has a great Himel but like you will see too the voices over the denominations by the way well no every a lot of a lot of the classic denominations actually have amazing music Traditions uh especially voice leading wise uh but you will see voices overlap a lot too and so don't be afraid of that if something is is is feeling like the line is drawing itself and it's going to overlap don't be scared oh no and that's some of the most interesting not only Coral things but that work pianistically and you can see Bill for sure was was a master that when three when four voicings all of a sudden for a chord become three and then split that's some interesting stuff yeah all right Peter give it a go okay now I feel little pressure with the restri take time man go [Music] slow [Music] niceoo this cat already has better in voice Melodies than me see there I cheat that's fine it's annoying it's hard not to cheat sometimes well and this is good for your ears too you need to write DC right right half the choir no but this is why it's important because then you got to [Music] yeah but I don't need that too I mean it's nice but it's like and then remember when I was saying before like this forces you into like some choices and they're good choices it's got to go there come on baby yeah chromatic weight that chromatic weight draws you down but it still wants to go there right yeah yeah yeah so this is an example of like once you you know like where you may want to avoid not for you're playing for all the time of course I would do this sort of thing you would do that that's fine but for vocal writing this is not the greatest thing to do it's tough all that parallel movement and it's not even about like yeah there's no octave or fifth or whatever but you're asking everybody to like it's going to be so such an affectation to hear a whole choir to do that it can be an it can be an effect yeah a great effect but for just voice leading principles I mean the thing is too with this is like you can do whatever you want but this is like the foundation right so like learning just basic voice leading and like I said you know get that that Johan fukes book and then check out you become like 11-year-old boy every time you say that your eyes mom is watching it I your beard dissolves away You're pre puent Pue B it but if you play if you play the games in the book yeah you start to really understand like very simple Counterpoint principles it's not that complicated and you can really like get something out of it fairly quickly like in in an afternoon you can get something out of it and I think that this way of practicing this wallart um combined with like a really strong understanding of root movement with the melody which seems more B and is more basic but you start listening you start hearing and filling it remember another thing that we should mention that Fred HS talks about who Fred H is of course a master at this sound is is uh and I've done this you buy a book of the bot corals yeah and then there's piano got my blue one there's yeah me too I got the blue one too and the piano Arrangements in there of the bot corals and you just sight read them and you don't even have to know the rules but you get the sound in your head and then you kind of know when you're faking it or not like if you can play the real deal and you hear the real deal for a couple of weeks couple of months you start to be like oh I know when I'm not doing this and when I and you also learn a bunch of like Cadence stuff of like how Bach uses these voices and resol and when he breaks the rules if you're not paying too much close attention that just sort of becomes part of because he does well he breaks your heart when he breaks the rules that's the thing is you're you're in this like mathematical equation and then all of a sudden like the heavens open up and you're like what is happening you know we're all humans my gosh it's amazing and um no that's great I used to do a thing where I would sing the tenor part yeah um and leave that out playing as and then move up to the alto move down to the base and see how much of that I could site read and especially the ones that I started to know it's like can you sing those yeah those parts and stay within that and that forces you you're reading horizontally and vertically at the same time and you're hearing starting to hear both ways as well see this guy some dance stuff right there no no I was I so lucky my dad was like he gave me that book when I mean he knew like I was playing classical and stuff too but he knew for J he's like man you're training absolutely voice check this out you know it's Bo like it's good for every like it's there's no it's good at for making you better at music right that's you know end all and be all and it's beautiful music too on top of that yeah oh and recommended for every especially the B CR you might be like Oh I'm not a classical musician I'm not even a Pianist that's some of the easier stuff to learn than even like the the well temp well for sure well temper CL even like the inventions people think that's basic if you're a non- Pianist that's not that basic yeah um but the B caral you can go through out of time and play and yeah it does it's easier than the inventions it's easier than the well tempered clavier like it's and if you can sing some of the parts too that's that would be a great thing and then you know if you're an Open studio member check out Fred hs's course thoughts and experiments in solo piano he has a lot of this on his course about voice leading and how he approaches it very very helpful Fred is a master at this and then if you his L on he gets into some of this stuff which is great so good so if you're an opena Studio member that should be like your first stop because it's it's there it's and we have the PDFs and the transcriptions and everything but then also check out uh Russ fron has I believe a book and maybe even a class on like my music master class on this kind of thing which is great yeah and then so awesome he's amazing the yellow Jacks Yellow Jackets pianist and then uh CLA Fisher amazing songwriter composer uh has uh I think at least one or two books that are just has like attitudes and exercises that are amazing I forget what it's called but someone will put in the chat here what it is because it's pretty famous so awesome man great episode uh a reminder about the gala you've got two Galas now please is it gay or is it Gala what it who cares I'm notan a fan of Gaya gay um if you're listening to this free podcast yes it's free but it's not free for you we freely give you freely receive and you have payment that needs to be made now which is going to the YouTube channel leave a comment well no they don't have to do that they just have to subscribe I thought it was part that they had to leave Gayla oh that that's that's next level that's optional okay and thank you guys for doing that we see everyone and we really appreciate that it warms our heart and um but yeah just subscribe to the channel That helps spread the word and come join us in New York City I got an extra Gala that they can do if you're listening this far then you're a true fan or your think you're stuck in your car if you have your tickets for April 12th yes put Gayla 4 12 4-2 now you're just confusing people Gayla 412 like Gayla f r no Gayla number four oh April like April 12 April 12th four and that's for for people who aren't in America that's how we do the month first and the day this is going to be interesting to see how people do this yeah but yeah I like it yeah 124 I guess go to youhear it.com and learn some more next get your tickets you'll hear [Music] it.com [Music] com

Channel: You'll Hear It

Views: 62,422

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Id: UcxWTpen30s

Length: 29min 13sec (1753 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 07 2024