Ep6 Power of musical Improv, glass staircases & Intentionality - Yoosuf Blake

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Luke 00:00:05  Welcome to episode six of the Impro Pod podcast. Today I'm talking to Yusef Blake in LA. How are you doing, Yusef?

Yoosuf 00:00:13  I'm good man. I'm good. No complaints. Nice early day in the group.

Luke 00:00:19  All right. Nice. So, as a songwriter and music producer, what's your process of improvisation?

Yoosuf 00:00:25  I think my whole process in terms of creating is pretty much improvised. Nothing is rehearsed in terms of creating music. Anytime I sit down to create, nothing is ever the same. The process could be I'm starting with drums. It could be. I'm starting with keys. It could be. I'm starting with just different melodic lines. Like it could be that it starts off with a voice note. Everything just takes shape.

Luke 00:00:54  Okay, so I'm going to play a piece of music, okay. And I want you to tell me what it makes you think of any kinds of thoughts and images that come to mind.

Yoosuf 00:01:02  Okay. That was beautiful. Okay, let me get off the slide high right quick of listening to that.

Yoosuf 00:01:53  It almost feels like you're walking, walking up a staircase of glass clouds and as you improvise across, Like the higher keys. It's almost like twinkles, like rain falling as you're walking up this staircase of this glass staircase. But it feels good. And it has moments of where the core may feel like it's going dark, but the preceding chord is light. So it stays in this space of dark but light. There's a delicate ness, but there's also a prestige about the core selection that you were playing. And just a note, there's a elegance to it as well, which is why I mentioned glass.

Luke 00:02:42  So you up for telling me a story? Preferably something simple, a short anecdote, something like that, and I'll improvise the soundtrack to it. Okay.

Yoosuf 00:02:51  Let me give me one second. I'm about to think about it. Okay? Okay. So the one that I can recall being at my grandmother's house and my uncle and I had to go to the shed or garage, as you say, to, to get something.

Yoosuf 00:03:06  So as I walk in, he walks. He walks out as he gets what he needs. And I'm thinking that he's leaving me in there intentionally. So I run out and I'm like, Uncle Paul, I'm gonna kick your ass. So because I'm thinking that he was intentionally trying to lock me inside the garage and I'm a little kid, and then my mom actually heard, you know, heard me saying this. So it was just funny, like this little kid, not too tall, like, saying this to this adult getting upset. So, yeah, he had no intention on locking me out or anything.

Luke 00:03:41  Okay, so if I break the narrative down a bit, you've got the moment where you go in the house and you're with your uncle, and then you go into the garage and then he leaves you there, and then there's this sense of fear and the sense of panic that you're trapped in there. And then it kind of gets resolved because you realize you can escape. All right, here we go.

Yoosuf 00:05:15  That was pretty good. Now I have a question for you. Do you remember everything you just played?

Luke 00:05:20  So not really. I imagine bits of the story as I play along. And if I was to play it back to you, I wouldn't be able to remember much of that at all. 1 or 2 phrases, maybe.

Yoosuf 00:05:30  It's like the first part reminded me of taking a walk, right? Like we're taking that walk out the house outside. And then the second part is like, we're in this creepy garage. And then it's like, oh, these notes are moving and fluctuating. It's like, oh, wow. Then the comedic effect came when it was like, oh, that's not actually what happened. So you did a wonderful job actually articulating that through your fingers just now.

Luke 00:05:57  thanks.

Yoosuf 00:05:58  It's almost like you're walking on this contemporary thing with a blend of classical. You're walking on, like, three different plateaus which you just put together. It's a little avant garde, but it's dope and I like it.

Luke 00:06:14  So are you up for telling me another story?

Yoosuf 00:06:17  Oh, okay. So another one of my uncles used to live in Marina del Rey, which is near the coast and everything. And he used to live in these high rise buildings, basically. And they have multiple apartments or townhouses or whatever you want to say, and they have a community pool and stuff like that. So I had this little ring toy that I could fill up with water, and he took me to the pool one day, and I was filling up this little toy with water in the pool, and I happened to lean in a little bit too far. And next thing I know, I'm in the water and I had swimming lessons and stuff when I was younger, but because this was so unexpected and I happened to be on the side where it was deep, I fell head first into the water. And my uncle, had he put his hand in and like, I pretty much grabbed his hand and he, like, pulled me out and whatnot.

Yoosuf 00:07:14  So it was just like one of those things where I was doing something kiddie and stuff. But I took it to a point of, I don't want to say not being aware of my surroundings, but not realizing that I'm on the deep end and I fall in. And it was nice to have my loved one there to actually be able to, like, rescue me per se, or help me out when I need it.

Luke 00:07:38  That's a good story. All right. Time for some music, then.

Yoosuf 00:09:17  That was dope, even though this story wasn't long. I love how the first section of it is like the curiosity of my character approaching this water and getting this toy. As you're going into this darker scale, Applegate it kind of thing, and I fall in and then it's almost like this Twilight Zone moment as you're playing these notes like a falling moment, and then it comes back up and it feels almost like a rescue, like a hero moment.

Luke 00:09:50  Yeah. I'm glad you picked up on the heroic moment.

Luke 00:09:52  I was sort of hitting a D major chord there, which is kind of a contrast to the rest of it, and I wanted to slow it down a bit because I felt that that made it easier for me to get my head around the change in emotion.

Yoosuf 00:10:04  Yeah, I felt the moment when you were Insinuating the uncle coming in as a savior. I felt all of those moments.

Luke 00:10:14  So as I'm playing, I'm sort of exaggerating the story. As you fall in the water. I'm thinking it's instead of being a swimming pool, it's like an ocean and there's sharks and there's fish and all sorts of stuff swimming around. And then there's this big heroic moment at the end with your uncle rescuing you from this peril. That's how I kind of imagined it, anyway.

Yoosuf 00:10:35  I have a question. Because you're able to come up with this stuff very fast. Have you considered, scoring?

Luke 00:10:41  Yeah, I have actually. I've been looking into that. Good.

Yoosuf 00:10:44  You have a good sense of story, too, of knowing how to create a sonically, knowing how to quickly to to match the feeling, the tone and also the emotion I'm listening to, like your chord selection and stuff like that.

Yoosuf 00:11:00  And it's like, oh wow, these are all the right components together. It's a skill. Not everybody has that skill. That's a dope skill.

Luke 00:11:07  Yeah, thanks.

Yoosuf 00:11:08  I think when I'm producing music. I go based off of what I'm feeling and stuff, but the intentionality of it all is what is what captivates me. I think because not only do you get to showcase your improvisation skills, but it also showcases your ability to create a story and to be able to, like, really channel someone's emotion.

Luke 00:11:33  Oh, great, that's good to hear.

Yoosuf 00:11:36  In a world where you must improvise to survive, there's all magic stories. Everything that's needed. Magic from the fingertips, bro. That should be your tagline right there.

Luke 00:11:49  Yeah, I like it. What about its piano licking? Good.

Yoosuf 00:11:54  No less cheesy.

Luke 00:11:59  All right, one more story then. just keep it super simple. You know.

Yoosuf 00:12:03  There's a story. I'll never forget this story. So my mom was dating this dude, and I didn't really care for the guy at or I was kid.

Yoosuf 00:12:12  No more than like nine years old. And I had never experienced what eggnog tastes like, right? I never experienced it, but I saw that it came in a milk carton and I thought it was milk. So the guy that my mom was dating, he had bought some eggnog, and I saw it in the fridge, and I went in and was drinking it, and I was like, this is good, right? This is really good. Like, I love eggnog to this day, but I didn't know at the time what it was. I just thought it was like some sweet milk. So I drink up all this eggnog like he must have bought, like, two of the half gallons, and I drink up all of it, dude. So he, like, gets upset and he yells at me. Right after that, I started realizing that this dude, because he had kids that were teenagers at the time, I started realizing that this dude's initiative was to take me out of the picture in a way to make his kids like a focus.

Yoosuf 00:13:07  And one day I was like, doing a puzzle. I was already pissed because of the eggnog thing and came and said something in my ear, and I got really upset and like, I just went off and I was like, get your shit, get out. I'm a kid, dude. And my mom was like, I've never seen him get like this, upset like that. So obviously she was like, you gotta go, bro. So I'll stop right there.

Speaker 3 00:13:34  All right.

Luke 00:13:35  Music time then. Here we go.

Yoosuf 00:15:49  I love the dramatization of that ending. It's like, okay, you're leaving. You're leaving. You're out. Three strikes bro. But I also like the beginning and stuff. I like how you progressed into everything that was. That was dope. What I got out of the podcast is I got to see your skill on a different level. I got to see how when your story is concise and broken down into acts, how for you as a creator, you are able to envision it and make the magic flow through your fingers to create that moment in that scene.

Yoosuf 00:16:31  And we got to witness the power of improvisation, sitting down, unrehearsed, without an idea and just creating from what you feel, from what you hear, using all your senses. Basically your ability to like, encapsulate in someone else's story, but create the perfect theme for those moments to match tonally, emotionally. You were walking in it with him. I think those are all like great attributes.

Luke 00:17:00  Oh, great. Well, thanks so much. This has been very insightful. I hope to collaborate with you on a new track soon.

Yoosuf 00:17:07  All right brother, it's always good to see you, man. I appreciate you all right by me.

Luke 00:17:12  Join us next week for another episode of Impro Pod. Thanks very much for listening.