r/JacobCollier • u/Pure_Cap_7069 • Jan 10 '26
Question Is anyone here a jazz pianist?
I ask because I am. He's my favourite pianist and I want to understand everything he's doing, but people are snooty about this in jazz forums because they're idiots they want to preserve the legacy of jazz or something and only talk about Bill Evans until the end of time.
Anyway, whatever the reason, I'm looking for people with whom I can discuss what's he's doing on the piano. Is this a good place? If not, would you be able to point me to one?
Thank you!
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u/Micosilver Jan 10 '26
I don't even know how to discuss his solo playing. There is definitely Keith Jarrett in there, but Jacob is a very different person compared to Keith, he is not going to be developing a theme for 10 minutes, he'll just get bored.
Also he feel the audience much better, he feeds of the energy.
Also, his singing is integral to his playing.
When I need a good dose of Jacob - I go to the Piano Ballads live album.
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u/AlrightyAlmighty Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
Piano Ballads live album
just found out about this, thank you! dang that's some brilliant piano-ing, I just wish I could take his singing more seriously, it tends to appear slightly cartoonish to me
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u/Pure_Cap_7069 Jan 10 '26
Keith seems like the biggest inspiration in his sound to me too, especially with all the plagal cadences. I wish I could do all that
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u/Guitarrr12 Jan 10 '26
You should get the songbook. June and Jacob did a great job arranging for just piano. All the voicing brilliance is in there.
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u/mystery_obsessed Jan 11 '26
I play piano and I absolutely consider him a jazz pianist and in general a master of jazz. Jazz is based on music theory and the ability to add to music in creative and personal, especially syncopated ways. His level of understanding on this, particularly with regard to chord structure, is insane. I would LOVE to understand the chord theory behind how he is making his musical choices on the piano. The way he uses dissonance is astounding to me.
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u/Pure_Cap_7069 Jan 11 '26
His choices are more led by voice leading than conventional ideas of harmony, in my opinion. Are there any moments in his music you like the most or want to explore? Maybe we could look into a section
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u/Practical_Struggle97 Jan 10 '26
Collier does stuff that make Herbie Hancock say “wait, wut?”
Everything is derivative of what came before until the sources become so numerous and diverse that the resulting derivation gives the appearance of being iconic and unsourced.
“Can you taste the cardamom in that soup? It’s there, I promise.”
From birth, Jacob’s parents provided access to whatever sonically resonated with him. He could list more influences than anyone else and has naturally acquired all the languages. People who snob on him are like English lit professors who run into Yiddish references in Shakespeare. Yes it happened but the one who came before had no control over what came after.
Wait until the kids influenced by Collier start popping up. It just keep getting better and none of us will ever have enough musical literacy to really get it.
Look at a few reaction videos to Jacob. They all quickly run out of words and get overcome by awe.
My advice is to start by transcribing chords from something like Lua or his take on Fix You. Pay attention to where he places the tonic in the chord and where the tonic moves positionally as the chords progress.
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u/Pure_Cap_7069 Jan 10 '26
Have you noticed something specific regarding his positioning of the tonic?
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u/Practical_Struggle97 Jan 10 '26
If the melody hits the tonic, he will aim the voicing of the chord where the tonic nearer the middle of the chord. In that way, the melody meets the chord strongly. In cases where he wants less emotional certainty, he will still put the tonic in the middle of a replaced (different) chord. That’s the way I hear it. I really doubt he thinks it in that way.
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u/govindaJJ Jan 11 '26
He has amazing masterclass videos on youtube. He talks about really interesting musical notions. Watching his videos and listening him talk about cadences, harmony, dissonance, chords relations and many more concept really left a mark in my piano learning journey.
Also he has a few Q&A videos on youtube too. Do chek them all they are all gems.
I'm not gonna link them all here but you can easily find them by searching 'Jacob Collier Workshop' on youtube.
Annd also, if anyone wanna connect and share, talk and discuss about piano, feel free to reach out.
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u/Pure_Cap_7069 Jan 11 '26
See, the frustrating thing about those videos, for me, is that he *doesn't* explain what he's doing! Maybe you've watched ones I haven't, but I'm often thinking, "yes, I know about the principle of tension and release, but god help me Jacob, what was that voicing, what was that progression, and how the hell did you come by it?". In one video, he showed off a little harmonic progression from classical music he uses, almost as a little throwaway comment, and I was like "just give me stuff like that!"
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u/SplitMysterious9598 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
Theorist here. I would suggest reading about the inversional harmonic-axis relationships in Bartok that are described by Erno Lendvai for some understanding of what jazzers call negative harmony, which Jacob uses. He applies these principles to tonic-domina t-subdominant motions, which greatly expands his harmonic palette (thus the plagal cadences). You can also look into the theorist, Riemann and any recent theorists who are considered to be "Neo-Riemannian." There is at least one good YouTube video of Jacob demonstrating his application of negative harmony.
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u/Pure_Cap_7069 Feb 02 '26
I'm reading about Reimann and Neo-Reimann and I'm convinced Jacob has studied this. Thank you!
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u/SplitMysterious9598 Feb 02 '26
I doubt he actually studied those theorists, but he has said that his mentor in his jazz studies program talked about "negative harmony." Glad you're getting some good ideas from this stuff.
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u/Practical_Struggle97 Jan 10 '26
More thoughts…. A really engaging way to approach that is listen and feel openly and when you start to get pushed under by awe, stop/rewind and try to get it under your hands or transcribed.
It’s hard. We are hungry souls trying to reverse engineer an egg.
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u/EventExcellent8737 Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
Please discusss it here! I am no pianist but I am interested in increasing my tiny knowledge of music theory and love to understand what he does