How Fast Can a Pro Jazz Pianist Learn Songs by Ear? (feat. @NoahKellman)

[Music] hi I'm bad snacks and today I have Noah kelman that's me and today we're going to be listening to a lot of music that Noah has maybe heard of but probably not cuz some of these are some deep cuts and because he claims to be so good at transcribing things and at jazz theory in general I guess music theory in general we're going to be looking into some of these tunes and seeing how fast he can transcribe them also I disagree with everything she just said today we thought it would be really fun to uh have him transcribe some deep cuts on the fly so basically what's going to happen here is I have a bunch of tracks lined up that are like tracks that I consider to have like juicy moments but like as somebody who doesn't have a super super strong grasp on music theory I've always wanted to know what is going on in these tracks so Noah is going to do my best we'll see how it goes yeah um and we're going to time him uh to see how fast he can do this forgot about that part yeah I have a bunch of tracks here um some are some like super deep cuts from like' 7s 80s some are more recent hits um I might even have you try to transcribe one of my tracks cuz I don't know what I did and we're going to learn some music theory um this one is a classic this one is Donnie hathways someday we'll all be free I'm going to play it through for context we shouldn't be timing that part so maybe maybe just don't play okay hands off the keyboard sound good until you're being timed okay cool all right here we [Music] go all right it's coming up it's coming up coming [Music] up soon be here take it from me someday we'll all be free wow like un unreal track unreal unreal that is ridiculous because the level of musicality with all that complexity yeah it's amazing to hear all of that together and just have it feel so completely like necessary yeah all right here we go timer's on ready go okay let's go [Music] quite soon be here [Music] take okay so ooo I think something like that yeah so so e flat minor to B flat minor F minor to C minor and then I forget exactly what this next chord is but then we end up back at a flat minor just kind of where we started okay do you want me to play it back or yeah let's let's do it one more time I feel like I didn't get it yet take me there we go oo oh okay that was like only like a minute sick wow that was crazy hold on can you run that play that back what what this one little tricky part is E flat minor 9 to F or B flat 7 B flat minor 7 oh my God all right E flat minor B flat minor F minor to G minor E flat minor to a flat minor so it's like we're basically doing like E flat minor minor and then we go down a fourth and then the pattern is we just take that whole thing and move it up a whole step sure and then and it gets us back to a flat minor cool I can't believe how fast you got that I'll say one more one thing um often times students I think can get discouraged when they hear someone able to do this very easily so first of all I want to state to everybody I do not have perfect pitch nothing even close to it right my pitch is 100% relative pitch that's why I've been secretly kind of hitting little little notes like that to check where I am right the other thing is that as a piano player I have played literally all the shapes of the voicings that are being played in these recordings like maybe thousands of times right so I just think of ear training like memorizing flashcards but with sound if anybody wants an app I'm not affiliated with them any way other than I just love using it it's called good ear Pro it's I think like $4 on the App Store I don't know if it's on Android also but even though like the interface is a little dated I just find it so easy to use for all of this type of ear training I know it sounds like a lot but like a year of like barely any daily time and your ears will just like explode open that sounds painful no no terrifying in a good way they'll explode open a good way yeah okay that's great um The Boys to Men deep cut classic I love this track are you ready I'm [Music] ready I love this song I'm a get for this FL and lose what's left of my mind that the rym take control love let your body go cuz I know you want to do it so when you hear a c you better know that time to [Music] your okay so let's stop it there um the chorus is mostly voices okay yeah so this might be where it starts to get a little bit kind of this is already sounding trickier to me okay yeah wow okay cool all right you ready so I'm going to hit the start button and then I'm going to just play it from the pre okay sounds great all right here we go for is B and lose what's left in my mind that the rhym take control love let your body go cuz I know you want to do it so when you cool you better know that it's time to make cool okay amazing then just keep running it yeah you can run it again for sure I don't think I got it yet okay and lose what left in my mind and the RM take control let yourbody to go cuz I know you want to do it so when you he a CO you better know that it's time to make your move just okay cool that's pretty good that's really fun that one you also got like in like a minute 10 yes I think the really juicy thing that's happening is we're kind of in like B minor yeah but then we're doing this 25 to G major in there um so we're kind of going you know we're hovering around E minor there's actually leading into that section there's a d flat half diminished nine which we talked about in another song that half diminished nine chord but so if we kind of look at this we're like all right B minor is our key Center so even this that would just be 251 and B minor right and that's in jazz we call that a minor 251 um because mainly cuz it lands on a minor chord instead of major and in a minor 251 we typically have the half diminish sound on the two to like a dominant sound on the five although sometimes it's got like a that sound which we call altered it's got that sharp nine mhm um and land on the B minor and then this is where I said we do a 25 to G so in a way I'm kind of like throwing away the whole like oh it's B minor and now I'm saying well if we're going to land on G major well we're going to do two of G which is a minor to five D7 to G major right and this I think it's kind of like a G major 9 sound so we have that a in there and then kind of E minor 9 and then back to like the five of B minor to get us back so that's more or less what's happening I don't know if I did it like perfectly but I was to say that like a lot to memorize like a minute so this one is one that I've been very excited to show you this is one of the doozy tracks this is Jane child's don't want to fall in love it's a banging track from like 1988 sorry 1989 um made by an eccentric Canadian woman all right I'm so [Music] excited [Music] I'm in trouble all right so here's what I'm going to do I'm going to get the Baseline first that's my first move all right I'm going to time you okay we ready let's do it all right first I'm going to see if I can get the the Bas [Music] notes okay so F major is where we start you so F minor [Music] 9 I think we're just doing like I think that's yeah okay so that's our Baseline so so what's our voicing craziness in there ey [Music] let [Music] I think we're getting like an F over E flat there wow [Music] yeah is now the question is is it just the baseline or are there other voicings in there yeah so I think that's kind of like where we land so we go so we get like the basine Am I Wrong there's there's also a Top Line okay okay you want me to get [Music] this cuz the synth is right under the [Music] voice all right does that sound like the top line of the synth I think I think it's literally I think you're still missing the [Music] um well so yeah we have that the on The Voice so um but so what's interesting here is that we have this kind of like it's like a F7 over E flat but we get this a flat on top I think I think the a flat I think it's an a natural oh is it yeah yeah yeah you're right yeah yeah of course I'm [Music] right that makes way more sense okay ooh okay basically wow I was like I was close for a while just wasn't quite getting the M 32 seconds that's that's pretty good that's I knew this one was going to trip you yeah you got me there that's pretty good though I think the interesting chord is like the third one so we have this this is a nice moment because we're really kind of like in a way I guess not reharmonizing because this is the song but like we're kind of taking this melody and we're like how do we make this interesting cuzz you could have just done you could have just like done any three chords whatever but so we kind of like I like that the chords kind of move with the Baseline yeah you know and this this sorry this one it's just like I did not see that coming you know and it's such an interesting chord it's basically like this uh F F7 over E flat it almost sounds like a classical decision right right right right um and what's so interesting about that I love I love when music does this we use like inversions instead so these are root position chords F Shar major in the bottom F minor 9 right but now we actually have F7 over E flat so that would be like like inversions of seventh chords this is like classical right one here's root first and inversion second inversion third inversion so this is like a third inversion chord right here and we get back to like the B flat minor 9 yeah super fun okay I'm going to mix it up here um this one is the one it's just a lick it's just the it's just a lick a lick all right so this is actually from one of this one is called Rush this is from the uh OST of cowboy bbop okay is one of my favorite animes of all time I think this track is actually super slept on usually people think of tank when they think of cowboy bbop which is like the opening theme anyway I love this track and I just I just think the first lick is fun let's do [Applause] [Music] it it had to be like five saxophones at the same time all right all all right I'm going to grab the timer [Music] I need to decide which one I'm going to hear the first the first one is G yeah okay so oh [Music] whoa all right I'm pretty sure I got this [Music] right something like that so [Music] close what do you mean h [Music] at middle part that's I'm [Music] getting I think it's yeah I think that's going to be my final answer that seems close enough for now that's fck up that was only 3 minutes is that good that's crazy and you did that at full speed yeah normally I would definitely like slow it down and it would be like 10 times easier for sure and I think also when you have all these different instruments with a very similar tamber playing at the same time that's definitely tricky that said like I know there are people who could probably do that in one try you know especially people who can just like listen into an arrangement but again I think that all comes down to practice right like I'm not used to transcribing an arrangement of saxophones that often it's just not something I do whereas I have some friends who are arrangers and they probably sit down and do this all the time to learn about arranging or they are really used to the sound of those saxophones together so like at the end of the day all this ear training stuff it's just familiarity you know that's all it really is sure okay there's no way there's no way like I I like I I learned this like cuz the whole track is actually really really fun so I learned this on violin like way back in the day and that like took me forever it's so hard so this is this is a newer track this one is I I want to be um and I did like a super Spacey bridge on this and um I don't know what I did so here it is [Music] [Applause] [Music] o yeahoo yeah did you play all that on violin uh no so it's synth chords and then violin layers okay okay cool that's awesome okay but it's really cool there's some um I think there's a spot where the melody creates like a straight Clash that's really interesting oh and it kind of creates this interesting chord that I really like yeah okay cool I'm going to I'm going to time you all right [Applause] okay [Music] cool okay [Music] I think there's kind of an F in there [Music] yeah oh okay yeah cool you think you got it I think I mostly got it um the chord thats really interesting so we kind of start like B major but um then the melody creates this we keep getting this C so we're actually getting like a flat that should be down a half stab the Baseline yeah oh really yeah that's the second chord can you can you play one more time yeah yeah yeah [Music] yeah so so yeah so I see what you're saying but it still hits during to B major so we uh oh yeah oh it's like this tension oh so that's a flat nine on like the B major chord okay so you might actually call that like a flat major over B that might be like the way to to call that you know yeah but then we have that you know we have this uh defat let's see what is yeah like my app can't even look at it has no idea what to even call it um but like I would probably just call it you know a flat over B for Simplicity sake um but what's cool about it is you go yeah and then that Melody note that's like tense releases same note but then it works with the B flat minor 9 or whatever the melody [Applause] is I think I think it did like uh this was one spot where I was kind of confused but it was almost like it wasn't that it wasn't this like really simple F7 chord but I think we went to F almost wonder if there was like a third flat third and a major third let's check that [Music] [Applause] spot this one yeah I think I I want to say I'm not 100% sure but I want to say we're getting like this sound which is The Clash of a minor third in a major third sick which I think I think is very cool and then also one other thing I'll throw at you that you did there was when the melody hits the F we got that sharp 11 again of course got that nice lydian B major sound that's so interesting like it's like just very interesting to hear somebody else like be like so here's what you did and I'm just over here being like oh oh is that what that was oh is that what that is that's really interesting I think it's awesome yeah and clearly you you love those sharp 11s I love sharp 11s that's today's big Discovery that's what we've learned yeah okay all right well I think that's probably a good place to stop I'm sufficiently tired yeah yeah yeah also that took you a minute 27 to get the idea of I wonder I I can't remember which one took you the longest probably I want to say Rush yeah that one probably took you the longest yeah I think so but that was that was pretty good but also the one before that took a while with the with all the um stacked thirds and everything yeah okay cool well good job I still I have plenty more where that came from awesome we can just keep doing it if you want to follow no you can check him out at Noah kelman on YouTube and on Instagram all the socials and uh don't forget to smash that like And subscribe button for him he needs it and for her of course your face is not an oh cool that's fine so if you would like 349 Jazz YouTube videos go follow Noah Noah kelman on YouTube and Instagram not Twitter that last track is a brand new track called I I want to be it's coming soon um yeah new single go check it out okay all right we did it Woo you're just you're just done

Channel: bad snacks

Views: 344,667

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Id: yP3HPAbzTIQ

Length: 24min 13sec (1453 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 18 2023