The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 029 Jamie Parker: Listening Right Here, Right Now

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 29. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi everyone. Last week, I spoke with Joshua Roman about practicing purposefully, building a meaningful career, and the impact and mission of his popular popular etude project and challenge. Today, I speak with renowned pianist Jamie Parker, and I need to warn you in advance, this one is filled with applicable tips, so get ready to take some notes. Jamie is described as an accomplished, versatile, and brilliant musician, and he is amongst the most sought-after artists on the scene. Winner of several competitions and recipient of multiple awards throughout his career, Jamie is recognized as a soloist, a chamber musician, and he is the pianist for Canada's foremost ensemble, the Griffin Trio.

Starting point is 00:01:20 Jamie performs throughout the world and is piano professor and chair of the piano area at the University of Toronto. In this episode, we discuss so many things. Among many of the topics we cover, you'll hear about his favorite practice tips, from how to mark your part clearly to his special crazy fast technique, why it's crucial to know yourself and know how to prioritize an instrumental practice, and the importance of listening right here, right now. As I said, there's so much wonderful information ahead, and I hope you enjoy this discussion with Jamie Parker. Let's go to the show. Jamie Parker, such an honor to have you on the show today. Thanks. It's great to be here. Jamie as I mentioned in the intro you're a very busy performer both as a soloist and a chamber musician and a really respected teacher and the Globe and Mail even says of you that you are one of the most searching musical intellects and 10 of the nimblest fingers in the business

Starting point is 00:02:36 so I cannot wait to talk about practicing with you because that's quite a winning combination right there. That's great thanks. Jamie I'd love to start with your story so can you please tell us about you and how you got started and how you got to where you are today? Okay well basically I grew up out west in Burnaby and I'm in a musical family so basically if you were a Parker kid you know you just kind of had to shut up and learn piano was sort of the way it went so you know my older brother's a concert pianist john camara parker my sister liz is a pianist and teaches piano and my father always listened to recordings so we had just stacks of records around the house and my mom's a retired piano teacher uh my uncle was a piano teacher uh one of my cousins ian is

Starting point is 00:03:27 a concert pianist so it was sort of um that's kind of the way it is and i've got two two young boys and so they both play violin and piano they don't practice as much as they should but that's okay. So as I said, yeah, we, there were always pianos in the house. We had four pianos. Uncle Edward had about seven pianos. So that was, you know, the thing is when you grow up, whatever you grow up with, that's sort of your normal. So, you know, just seeing, well, gee, doesn't everybody have a few pianos at home? I mean, that was just sort of the way it was. And, and, you know, somebody would always be practicing or my mom would be, you know, constantly teaching. So, so there were just, there was always students coming and going and pianos, you know, all the

Starting point is 00:04:07 time sounding. And so let's see. So I studied, started with the Kelly Kirby method with Jesse Morrison, and then lessons with my uncle, and my mom would practice with us. Then in high school, later high school, I went to the Vancouver Academy of Music, and I started studying with Kum Sing Lee. I continued with him at UBC, and just had a wonderful time doing my undergrad out there. And then after that, I went to Juilliard, did my master's and doctorate with Adol Marcus there. And all of the summers along the way through my university years, I was at the Banff Centre, studying with Marek Jablonski and chamber music with various people. I had a lot of chamber music years with Laurent Fenevich, the great Hungarian violin pedagogue, who was,

Starting point is 00:04:57 that was one of the things that really tickled me most about, you know, when I started teaching at University of Toronto about I guess about 16 years ago now was that I was going to be in the same faculty as Mr. Fenevesh and that um that that really I really felt like I had done something with my life you know when I was going to be in the same faculty as one of my mentors and so that was that was a big thrill but um anyways back to let's see back to the life story so after in New York, I was freelancing in Toronto for a few years. I did a winter cycle at the Banff Centre. Then, let's see, in 93, I started teaching out at Wolfer Laurier. And that was a really rare win-win-win scenario. Basically, what happened was they offered a retirement package to the

Starting point is 00:05:42 piano professors who had been there for, you know, about 20 years and really built up that department. So that was Garth Beckett, Boyd MacDonald and Ralph Alsasser. And what Laurier was able to do, and this is completely unheard of, they were able to advertise for two tenure track pianists at the same time. So they could pick people with complementary skill sets, personalities, repertoire, and they ended up hiring myself and Heather Taves. So I spent seven years there. It was a wonderful seven years. I've never had a bad thing to say about anything there. And then in the middle of that, in 96, Roman and Anna Lee, the Griffin Trio, they got in touch with me and said they had played in a trio with a student of Pressler at Indiana. And they really enjoyed that. They wanted to continue doing that professionally. And would I consider playing some trios with them? and so I said yeah sure you know we'll play a few concerts and see how it goes and that was um well that's 25 years ago now so let's see we started in about 96 and then about after seven years at Laurier a position came up at University of Toronto and I was very fortunate enough to win that position so I've been here ever since and that more or less takes us today we're just um we're just sort of wrapping up the school year we've had uh had a full day of juries today some

Starting point is 00:07:07 yesterday and a whole bunch in the next week coming up and i think that's that's sort of the basic i mean i guess there's other things like i you know i did some competitions because those are the things that you're supposed to do you know so i got um this was back when i guess back when i was a grad student at juilliard so um you know i did some concerto competitions with canadian orchestras so that was you know the first time i played with montreal and edmonton symphonies did a couple of international competitions and got, you know, got to the finals and won a prize. And that's sort of Gina Bachauer and Salt Lake City and Montreal International. And so, you know, that was sort of the path that you were supposed to take as a pianist. You know, you study at good

Starting point is 00:07:45 schools with good teachers, you enter competitions, and then, you know, hopefully you get, you know, so like I said, I made it to the finals and got a couple of prizes. And that was good enough for my manager, Andrew Kwan, to sort of put me forward to presenters and say, oh, well, you know, he's won a prize in this one, a prize in that. And it's kind of like your, you know, your grade A beef stamp of approval, you know, and that's, you know, that's how I started getting concerts on my own and then started playing chamber music with some friends, Martin Beaver, we did a lot of playing back in some of those early years. And then when the trio started, you know, for anybody who wants to start a chamber music group, it's a great idea. But you have to realize that you say,

Starting point is 00:08:24 hey, let's start a chamber group. That's great, except you're going to have maybe four concerts that year so so you're gonna have to find ways to subsidize your love of chamber music if that's something you want to do and as i said i i was i was fortunate i i've been a university professor which is a job i love very much and something i enjoy and something that definitely pays the bill so so things have worked out very well it's um being a university professor it's a hard job but i have a great salary great colleagues great students so i there's just no way i'm gonna you're going to get a complaint out of me about anything so yeah that's that's sort of the basic story i think that's great thank you so much for sharing and the way you talk about growing up in

Starting point is 00:09:06 the musical family that really speaks to me because it was a little bit like this at my house although we had only one piano and it's so true what you say too about chamber music it's very difficult in the beginning so for everyone listening out there to remember to don't give up if you only get four concerts in the first year absolutely you know and in some of the early years we were self-presenting so you're kind of asking your family and friends to come and of course they all want comps it's it's you know it's a tough go in the early years um certainly one of the things that was really wonderful that supported us in our early years was the cbc because back then they were still recording quite a lot of classical music concerts they still do a few but

Starting point is 00:09:51 but not, you know, really nothing like what they used to do. And so as we're starting out, you know, a few concerts get recorded, and so we start to build up an audience base across Canada. And then when we started making CDs back in, I guess, in the mid-'90s probably, and so we probably got about 20 CDs out now, and that's, you know, with CDs being played, that would keep, you know, listeners and fans across the country in touch with us. And then when we would go out touring, some of us, some of them would know us from hearing us on the radio, whether it was a recorded concert or a CD. So the CBC was really a wonderful partner in our developing our careers, really.

Starting point is 00:10:35 And that's something that we feel really, really, you know, really, really sad for the younger musicians. I mean, on the one hand, you've got the internet, which is remarkably democratic in the sense that anybody can get anything out there. But, of course, it is so vastly cluttered, it's hard to get any focus on what you're doing. And I think with the CBC and with many institutions, there was essentially a vetting process that happened. I mean, you know, for CBC to devote, you know, an hour or two to you playing music and to pay you for the broadcast of that performance, you know, you have to have a reputation. You have to have shown that you are going to good schools, you're studying with good people, you're winning scholarships, you've done competitions, you're making recordings. You're doing all of those, you know, professionally expected things. And so there was a vetting process. And I think one of the problems with the Internet is that there is no vetting process and that absolutely any idiot can put their stuff out there. And sometimes people pay attention to that because they just don't know any better.

Starting point is 00:11:41 So those are sort of, you know, the pros and cons of, you know, the CBC back then and the Internet today, I think. It's definitely a changing industry, that's for sure. Jamie, I'd love to hear your point of view on mindful, efficient practice. So in addition to a high musical intellect and nimble fingers, how can one become more efficient in the practice room? What are your tips and tricks and methods to practice better and progress? You know, I think, I mean, one of the most important things that I'll do in the early stages of learning a piece is to, you know, you probably need an hour to sort of go through a slowly and i just i just work out and map out the hard spots and what i do is in the margin

Starting point is 00:12:26 i put a little star in the outer margin if it's for the right hand it goes next to the right clef you know the treble clef something for the left hand goes by the you know the base clef in the margin or if it's something for both hands it goes in the middle and what i do is um i just i just go through a piece you know and just put stars wherever it looks like or when i try something out, it looks like that's going to be a problem. So a lot of my practice is actually at this point in my life, a lot of my practice now is isolated on passage work because, you know, I would say during, during my years with Mr. Lee out in Vancouver, I spent a lot, a lot of time working on quality of sound. And I think, I think I always had a big sound, but I didn't always have a nice

Starting point is 00:13:14 sound. So, so that was one of the things that, you know, he really opened up a world of subtlety to of quality of sound and of voicing, of voicing a chord where just the one note you want in that chord to shine out a bit more, you can do that. So I spent a lot of my time there and in New York working on those sorts of things and projection. And so since I'm in good concert shape, I mean, I'm playing more or less every weekend, I don't need to practice playing things through so much. I don't need to work on tone quality so much. So really a lot of my work is just working on the tricky spots, whether they're new pieces I'm learning,

Starting point is 00:13:58 commissioned works that we've got to get going, or bringing back some of the classic trio repertoire and just going to those tricky spots. So when I crack open a piece, I do not start at the beginning. I'll just flip the pages until I see a star, and then I'll practice that for a couple of minutes. The way my system has evolved, if one of these passages I screw up in a concert,

Starting point is 00:14:21 those stars get increasingly darker and darker circles around them. So if I only have, you know, if I get a text from a student, oh, sorry, I forgot a score at my dorm, I'll be like five minutes late. You know, if someone, if I've got five minutes, I can get through one or two movements of a piece,

Starting point is 00:14:38 just the really, you know, traditionally bad spots, you know and so so that's definitely one of the things i do and that um i think it just sort of comes under the category category of prioritization i mean we need to know you know you need to know what you do well so you so you keep that well but you don't waste time on that and more importantly you know you know what you need to work on um another thing for me is jumps i find that jumps are something that they're hard to just sort of feel a hundred percent on and if you're you know if you've had one of those really bad travel days and delays and bad weather and horrible you know border security I mean which is pretty much every flight today right so so you know when you go

Starting point is 00:15:24 through that and then you've got to play a concert that night you know sometimes you're just tired you got a little bit of the shakes or jitters and and I find that things like jumps are one of the first things to go. So, so I'll spend extra time on those. And I think one of the things that I've developed in my practice routine is just sort of the philosophy of just make everything harder. So, so if I have a jump, you know, like say, you know, you know, a two octave jump that I'm having problems with in the left hand, I'll just make it a three octave jump or a four octave jump. And I'll practice that a whole bunch. And then when I do the two octave jump, I go, oh, okay, that's not so bad. So the idea of, you know, challenging yourself to make things harder

Starting point is 00:16:08 in practice so they're easier in performance is a big thing that I'll do. I think one of the things that I'll do is what I call crazy fast practice. I mean, we all do slow practice and slow practice is really important to listen to quality of sound, for accuracy, for correct fingering, for all those kinds of things, for memory. But I think, you know, the reality is that we're pretty relaxed when we practice and then you walk out on stage and all of a sudden you know respirations up blood pressures up perspirations up you know everything starts you know you know not a lot but a little bit sometimes a lot it depends on the situation or the person and so i find one of the things you can do is if you really speed up some of

Starting point is 00:16:50 your passages and and and really try to get them i mean at just crazy crazy breakneck tempos what what you'll find is that you'll be much more relaxed when you're only playing it at the normal tempo and and what you need to do though is after you do some really fast practice there are definitely going to be wrong notes that creep in so after you do that you have to go back and do exceptionally accurate slow practice to just sort of remind yourself of everything that's correct but i do i do find that really useful i mean you know i talk to students a lot about you know we all know that feeling when you're when you're in the middle of a passage and and you have this this this random thought kind of floats through your brain which is this is faster than

Starting point is 00:17:37 i've ever gone before you know and it's it's a horrible feeling because you know there's going to be a face plant any minute um so the idea of of having the confidence to know that i did this way faster last night or way faster this morning in warm-up. You're going to feel good. You're going to feel better about things. So that's another thing I'll do. For a pianist, I think one of the very important things is voicing of notes and chords, balance between the hands, and cross rhythms. All the things that happen when you've got two hands doing essentially the same thing. So one of the things, especially regarding rhythm, that's important for pianists you have to have, I mean, absolutely bulletproof two against three, three against four, because

Starting point is 00:18:21 when composers, I mean, Beethoven will, you know, fairly often have three against four passages. So triplets in one hand, sixteenths in the other. And the way you practice that is you've got to practice three against four scales. So two against three scales, three against four scales. And one of the things that I find when I coach various chamber duos and ensembles is that I think sometimes string players because you don't have to have you don't normally play two rhythms at the same time the way that pianists do sometimes string players don't develop the same kind of rhythmic chops that a pianist has to develop so i try to get i try to get string players to play a scale in triplets and just vocalize duples or stomp duples or if they're really

Starting point is 00:19:07 advanced you'll try to sing a duple scale while you're playing a triplet scale and and vice versa you know so that you get you get a sense of what it's like to be fully engaged in playing two different rhythms simultaneously because then when you only have to play one and listen to the other it'll be much easier and make uh make a lot of chamber music rehearsals smoother if you're you know and of course especially with new music uh you know we've had pieces where i've got fives against sevens against romans eights against annalee's nines you know and you know you just kind of go, what the hell, Maddie? It's like some, you know, some new music. It's like you feel like you're in rhythm jail. And the only way to get out is, you know, everybody's got to know where

Starting point is 00:19:48 the big beats are and, you know, fit your notes in those beats. But I think for piano, certainly practicing two against three, three against two, three against four, four against three scales is a really important skill to have. Absolutely. Oh, you know, one thing I can tell you, and it's based on a couple of experiences I had in close succession when I was a young professional and it had to do with you know and again you know way way before the interwebs I was playing a couple of a couple of relatively unknown little played violin piano sonatas one was by Amy Beach and so I show up at a summer festival and I'm you know I'm sort of a junior member at this festival and and the violinists had been there a bunch and and wanted the first

Starting point is 00:20:29 movement like like way faster than I was prepared to play it and it was you know it was a bit of a panic and so for the next you know the next couple days I mean all I did was you know I was in a guest shed just practicing and getting that up to tempo and the other piece was uh the il brando pizzetti uh violin sonata a terrific piece and again i you know i couldn't i barely found the music i couldn't find a recording and you know when i and i show up in the violinist and this was at a festival in hawaii so this was even worse because you know everybody's having a great time and i i'm like holy crap i gotta practice pizzetti all day so what was the like i said the one thing that was great about having those two really, really stressful experiences early on in my career

Starting point is 00:21:11 was it, I mean, not only did it, of course, encourage me to, you know, get on track with this sort of, you know, crazy fast practice, but it made me kind of make a vow to myself that for the rest of my life, I am not going to be the slowest one in the room. You know, it doesn't matter what the situation is. I am not going to be the slowest. And, you know, But to do that with compassion, I'm not going to ridicule the person who is the slowest in the room because I know how lousy that feels. But I don't want an interpretation to be held up because, oh, sorry, I can't go that fast. You know, I don't want that happening. So those two experiences taught me the importance of it's easier to sort of let's all take a bit of a slower tempo.

Starting point is 00:21:58 Okay, I can do that. But if people want to take a little faster tempo, I'm prepared to do that as well. And I find as a pianist, probably more so than most musicians, you know, pianists, we're always adjusting to the piano as well as the hall. And there are some halls where if I'm starting, you know, Beethoven's slow movement, and it's a really, you know, if it's a beautiful hall and a beautiful piano, I might go a little bit slower than normal. And, of course, Annalie is very good with tempo relations and knowing exactly what was faster and slower. And so she'll say, yeah, it was a little bit slow last night. And so, yeah, it was a nice piano. So, I mean, my standing rule is, look, if a tempo is not what you want or not what anybody's comfortable with, just move it a bit or pull it back. That's okay. I'll go with you.

Starting point is 00:22:42 You know, that's chamber music. That's for sure. Wow, Jamie, thank you so much. This is incredible information and I'm taking notes here for sure. You know, there's one thing you said that I love and I think is so important. I mean, so many things you said are so important, but when you were talking about getting to know yourself and this way you can prioritize and knowing what you need to practice and how you need to practice it, I think is so very important for us to spend time figuring

Starting point is 00:23:12 those things out. It's very, very important. It's true. You know, and just, you know, there's no point in trying to lie to yourself, you know. I mean, it's going to show up. So just know the things that you need to put daily work on and know the things that you can wait a little bit and they'll be fine. I mean, really, it's kind of like that in life, knowing when things are urgent and knowing when things are important and knowing how to just sort of put things, you know, in the right quadrant, you know, and just prioritize, you know.

Starting point is 00:23:46 And it's a constantly evolving thing. I think one of the things that can make you a little bit, well, not bitter, but one of the things that's sort of not fair is, you know, if a performance goes well, you won't know how much you've overpracticed. It's quite possible that you could have done a few hours less practice and still had as good a concert. the the problem is everybody will know if you haven't done enough practice so we always have to err on the side of doing maybe a bit more than we needed to and um and that's uh you know i think that's just the that's just the nature of it that's excellent advice and you mentioned that you perform so much you know you you have the trio and you have uh also some solo opportunities And I know that you perform a lot with colleagues around Canada and the States and also abroad.

Starting point is 00:24:45 And, you know, what is your insight and recommendations on juggling such a large amount of repertoire and maybe even more so for someone who's at the beginning of a career? I loved what you mentioned earlier about marking the part so that the next time you're playing this piece, you know where to go to and finding these little pockets of time between students. But someone who's at the beginning of a career and you have to learn all of this repertoire for the first time, what would you recommend? Well, I think when you're confronted with the prospect of learning a lot of rep, which actually happened to me because Roman and Annalie had played with their friend from Indiana for about seven years. So they had built up quite a bit of rep at that point. And I had sort of played, you know, two, two trios or something. And so in the early years, I was really swamped with rep. And I would say, luckily, at that point, I didn't have a university position. I was either, you know, sort of in my later student years or freelancing. so you know i might have been doing a little private teaching but i did have lots of hours to throw at practicing so i think getting getting a lay of the land i'm a big fan of marking my scores very carefully um and i think uh probably my favorite my favorite tool is the

Starting point is 00:26:10 pencil you know i've got i mean you know when when my students haven't stolen them i i always have lots of pencils around and it's um you know if you want to go bold you just press a little harder if you want to write in two fingerings you can write one a little bit darker because that's probably the better one but you're not sure i mean it's it's it's such a spectacularly versatile tool you know and i there's a great anecdote of um you know when the soviet cosmonauts and the american astronauts were having you know the space race and all of that you know nasa spending millions of dollars inventing you know a ballpoint pen that will write upside down in zero gravity, you know, and, and the Russians, they just go, we use pencil. It's, it's the

Starting point is 00:26:51 ultimate low tech tool that can do anything. So, so I'm a big fan of the pencil. I have fingerings marked in because, you know, if you come back to a piece, if you work out a genius fingering for something and you come back to a piece, you might not play it for a month or a decade. You come back to it and if you haven't written that fingering in you'll forget it and so so i mean i like to um you know i've got fingerings marked in i'll do some score analysis you know basic structural things i'm a big fan of of form analysis i like to know where where themes are coming from we're in beethoven how does you know this interval develop into that which develops into this and so forth um i'll use i'll use a yellow highlighter to mark you know important entries um

Starting point is 00:27:42 in in some of my chamber music and i and i actually i'm i'm i'm kind of happy with the fact that i could pull a score out of my bookshelf that i haven't played you know in 15 years and it will look exactly like a score that i prepared last week and so i think um i think I guess it's being consistent in the preparation of your scores and learning how to write in the information that you need. And sometimes it's funny. I mean, I'm talking about lots of subtle, small details. But sometimes I affectionately call them the idiot letters. If it's like a big jump to an A, write A, a big, huge capital letter.

Starting point is 00:28:29 or or sometimes if there's a you know a rhythm or a time signature issue write in the idiot numbers there's no there's no shame only only your page turner will know um so so i'm a big fan of writing in just any information that's going to help you and so when you first approach a piece you want to get the you want to get the lay of the land you want to you know kind of read through bits of it slowly bits of it maybe up to tempo just to get a sense of what what what does it sound like you know and then put the stars in the margin and look at the spots that look hard one of the other things i'll make a note of is the spots that are really important to rehearse in chamber music now they will often coincide in passages where one or more more persons have very difficult passages

Starting point is 00:29:18 but not always sometimes there are very easy things like especially you know essentially every note in a slow movement where basically it's not hard getting from one note to the next but getting it together with one two three other people that's um that's where the challenge is so i like to i like to know and again i might just put an e in the margins where there's an ensemble thing that you know when the group is together those are the things that we need to hit and like i say sometimes there'll be passages that one or more people have difficult passage work but not always so there's a difference there i think as a pianist it's also good to know what passages depend on subtle pedaling because pedals are remarkably remarkably unstandard and i and i

Starting point is 00:30:06 and i sort of compare it to with with all the griffintree or road trips all the different rental cars we have you know you get ones with you know slightly squishy brakes or super super you know need you know like jerk your back brakes and um uh looser steering you know you you get a sense of how how different a car can drive and it's the same thing with the piano i mean some pedals you can find that sort of lovely little half pedal area very easily some of them you can't it's either full on or full off so i'll put a p in the margin for passages that i need to practice on my own with the piano and to see is this you know what what kind is this going to be an easy difficult cooperative uncooperative subtle uh unsubtle kind of piano so so certain mechanical

Starting point is 00:30:52 things like that i like to i like to try to be organized so that you know because as a pianist you know you spend your life going this is great but where's the next piano you know you're just always you're always wondering where the next piano is and since we often don't get much time on them before a concert you need to maximize and really really pay attention when you have dress rehearsal time yes and it's a really good thing for us to do it as you said there's passages that we need to rehearse as a group but once you get to a new hall there are probably some really good passages to try as an ensemble in the room yeah i would say very specifically you know how much time for a subito piano and beethoven do you need you know and you'll know you you know i mean

Starting point is 00:31:36 some halls some halls you know there's not it's a dry hall you don't need much time at all but some halls with a good reverb, you might need a half second or a second or else nobody's going to hear that subito piano or subito pianissimo because the fortissimo is still ringing in the hall. So those kinds of things are very important. Jamie, I wish that, you know, I think you need to write a book called The Big Book of Professor Parker's Tips. There's so much valuable information here. This is great. No, thanks. I hope people get something out of it. I'm hoping that it's okay with you if I just do a little bit of a pivot here, because I would really like to know what your thoughts are on developing sensitivity as a young musician. And earlier, you talked about

Starting point is 00:32:21 developing quality of sound and then the subtlety for someone who would like to really expand on this perception and the way they listen to themselves, quality of sound and these subtleties, where can they begin? One of the things that I did at UBC, I started doing in high school and then I continued through UBC and a bit of Juilliard was I practiced a lot in the dark. And what I found was once you take sight out of the equation, you just hear so much better. I mean, you know the stories of the blind person who was a great piano technician or is a great sommelier or you know that when you shut off such a primary sense of sight, you just start listening a lot better and and what i found was i heard things that didn't sound so nice

Starting point is 00:33:12 that i thought were were nice and i realized i was lacking there were things that i thought could have sounded better and weren't so so like i said as soon as um as soon as i got something memorized i just turn off the lights and and practice and and in fact out at upc what was what was kind of it was it was kind of silly but it was fun i got um i got sheets and sheets of glow-in-the-dark stars and i and i put them up on the ceiling of this little practice room and there were no windows so so once you turn the floors and lights off it was dark and so i look up and i sort of practice to the galaxy it was it was a lot of fun i i have i have great memories of that and uh and now you know there's these photos out today of the black hole i don't know if you've

Starting point is 00:33:58 seen that yet no i'm gonna check it out it was this it was this terrific uh you know scientists from i don't know six different countries sort of all pointed the telescopes so it was kind of like a telescope the size of earth pointing at you know some black hole 55 million light years i mean it's just it's astounding and they do have this sort of ring of light at the event horizon of a black hole it's astonishing wow but um but yeah so so practicing in the dark that's um i still think that's one of the best ways of just immediately listening to yourself better and how about doing that for ensemble playing because i mean unless you have a pretty unique solo career you'll will be playing with others at some point you know either in recitals or chamber music or

Starting point is 00:34:45 as a member of an orchestra or also soloist with an orchestra because um some people don't believe me some students don't believe me when i say this but when even if you're the soloist you do have to listen to the orchestra when you're playing with the orchestra absolutely how do you develop the sense of it sensitivity to listen to others and adapt and lead it's such an art you know what are some ways that young musicians can nurture and grow this ability i think a lot of it is i mean so many things i think renee are their their skills and not talents you know um i mean all of my degrees were solo degrees i didn't really play any chamber you know when you're a pianist it's a bit different we're not playing in string quartets we're not playing an orchestra

Starting point is 00:35:28 when you're a pianist shut up and go practice piano i mean that's sort of your life and and everybody knows that that's what you have to do so i mean i never started playing chamber music till i mean you know grade 12 so i mean it was really pretty late in the day but um so so i think you know learning how to listen it is a skill and if you're if you're not great at it now don't worry if you keep working at it, keep listening, keep paying attention, you will get better at it. So I think, I think that's the good news with a lot of things. I also tell students, you know, public speaking, nobody taught me how to speak publicly. I mean, that was a lot of people in my generation, we just learned from doing. And I still have sort of vague, painful memories of being, you know,

Starting point is 00:36:14 I don't know, an 18 year old or something, and, you know, beginning to start to play sort of sort of semi-professionally and, you know, and some lady backstage, you know, at five to eight saying, Oh, I'm just going to say a few things to the, to the audience. And then I'll, I'll invite you out and you'll be talking about your music, right? And I go, what? Well, what? You know? And so I was terrible. I mean, hi, hi, I'm Jamie. You know, I mean, it was, it was, it was, it was embarrassing. Because I, I, I would say I'm actually sort of a classic ambivert. I can be very introverted, very extroverted. And certainly when I was younger, I was more introverted. And so public speaking was, you know, kind of terrifying. So that was just, you know, being thrown into the

Starting point is 00:36:59 fire. We just sort of figured out how to come out of it. And now it's something I enjoy very much in establishing, you know, rapport with an audience. I enjoy that very much and talking to them about the pieces we're going to play, especially new music. You have to talk about new music if you don't talk about new music to an audience you know you're terrible so and i you know and i've heard composers more than once say something like you know they're invited and they're there to introduce their piece and so they walk out on stage in front of the orchestra in front of the hall and say oh well this piece is called such and such because of that and well well i prefer to let my music speak do you know speak for me and then they walk off stage and i go

Starting point is 00:37:39 That's not good enough. That is not good enough today. But public speaking is not a talent. I mean, certainly if you are more of a gregarious, outgoing, extrovert person, it will probably come easier. But anybody can learn to do it if you just keep doing it. So I think it's, you know, if there's anybody who is introverted out there, I would like to very much assure them that I was like that, and it was not comfortable for a while. Now it's become very comfortable, and it's something that I enjoy very much. So, actually, I think one of the funnest times I've had public speaking is, I don't know if you know, the Music in the Morning series out in Vancouver started by June Goldsmith and now Adrian Fung's running it. So, in the early days, I mean, you know, she would have in that hall at the Vancouver Academy, you know, you might play four days in a row, you know, and they're all morning concerts. So, that was the hardest thing about that, you know. So I think they started at 1030. And so the first day, you know, Tuesday, you get there at 930 and rehearse and practice. And the next day you get there a quarter to 10, the next day, quarter after 10 and so forth. But I would always say something different to the audience. And knowing that June, who was the founder and presenter, she was sitting right there in the front row. And she would just I would just crack her up because I'd say I'd say to the, you know, the Tuesday audience, our first concert there.

Starting point is 00:39:05 Say, you know what? You're the lucky audience. We are fresh. We are ready to go. You know, tomorrow we're going to be tired. And by the time Friday rolls around, we're just not even going to care how we play. And she'd just be bursting out laughing. Oh, my God. Stop it. And then, of course, you know, for the Friday audience, you say, you know what? You're the lucky audience. Tuesday, we were so jet lagged, it was terrible. Then the next day, we were kind of still tired. And now we've got all the mistakes out of our system. This is going to be the best one.

Starting point is 00:39:32 You know, so, you know, you can learn to really have fun with your audience. And that's something that they enjoy, you know. It's so true what you say, to have fun with the audience and really create a rapport with them. It is. And that's, you know, just on another sort of tangent, I do think there are three people within all of us. And they are, and we have them. there's sort of like those circular venn diagrams and they're overlapping and to lesser or greater degree in all of us but there's instrumentalist musician and performer and so you know especially

Starting point is 00:40:07 when we're young we're spending most of our time working on being the best instrumentalist we can be and then once you know once you've accomplished or reached a certain level of that then you're looking for more. And certainly, you want to become the best musician you can be. That's just one of those lifelong goals. That's not something you're going to say, okay, I'm a perfect musician now. That doesn't happen. That's a long-term goal. But then there's also the idea of being a performer. And there are certain pieces, certain situations where it's not even how important you are as a musician. You've got to be a performer to pull off some of these things, to really get people in the moment i you know i never i never heard rubenstein live and he was always my dad's

Starting point is 00:40:52 favorite and he would just go on about how just everybody felt so special when rubenstein walked out and you just felt you just felt so close and so intimate and and cared for you know as an audience member and there's there's something to be learned from seeing great performers now what's interesting is fairly often the greatest performers are not the greatest musicians sometimes they are and that is wonderful when that happens but it's not always the case and we could all think of people that we've heard who are who are fantastic at their instrument they're great performers there may be good musicians you know and then there are some people who are you know great musicians or artists you know but but they're they have a

Starting point is 00:41:38 boring onstage persona they're not good performers you do want to be aware that there are all three of those within all of us. And there are various pieces, various situations that you want to bring out more of one than the other. I mean, obviously, you're going to be yourself. But in being yourself here and there, you want to pay attention to one of these, maybe a bit more than the other. Jamie, this is so great. I wish we could keep going forever. But I know you have a lot of Students, are there any final remarks you would like to make before we launch into the not so rapid fire questions? You know, probably just, you know, getting back to the idea of listening, it's to make sure that you're listening right here, right now. And I think one of the things that happens, and again, I'm thinking obviously more from a pianist point of view, but there are times when, I mean, when you think, you know, for a pianist,

Starting point is 00:42:36 like if I were to tell you you know how many pianos do I feel really close to you know so I would say one of the pianos that I grew up on a kawaii baby grand that I have at home I would say my brother Steinway when we lived together in New York there was one practice piano out at UBC I would say my pianos both of my pianos here at school I'm sort of equally comfortable with basically you know it works out to be about there's about five so about one per decade you know, that you really feel close with. And so what happens is, you know, you get really good at doing something at home on your piano, and then you go out, you know, to a colleague's studio, a teacher's studio, a concert, you know, a new piano in a concert hall, and you just can't do the same

Starting point is 00:43:21 things that you could do on your piano. So in sort of a slightly ironic way, all of the practice you do on your home piano slightly sabotages you for everything you do in the rest of your life on piano and that's um so that's why it's really important for pianists to be super adaptable if you are a really sort of fixed earth sign in the zodiac you're going to have some problems because i think being being highly adaptable and quick to just adapt to all the different variables that pianists get hit with i mean we all get hit with different acoustics but with us it's you know that combination of acoustic and piano that you need to realize that you need to not just listen but listen here right now because this might be completely different from what you're used to at

Starting point is 00:44:12 home and and you know i think pianists you know occasionally i'll have a student that not not very often but occasionally they'll say you know i could do this at home or i could do this in my practice room and you know so it must be a problem with my piano but the thing is i i know that expression because I know I don't think I've ever done the best playing in my life for my teachers I would say probably the best playing in my life luckily has thankfully has mostly been on stage and I would say some of my best playing in my life has been for dogs sleeping under my piano and you know what I when I look back on that I'm actually totally good with that because dogs are a great thing and I'm I'm very happy to you know that they love sleeping under the piano when I

Starting point is 00:44:52 practice so but uh but listening here and now is an important thing okay this is so important for all of us to hear so jamie for the people who are considering pursuing a career that resemble yours can you tell us a little bit about what your life looks like and because i know you a little bit i know that some of it includes huntering and gathering treats while on tour but outside of Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you know, my life is, I would say that possibly my greatest, my greatest professional achievement is that I don't have to get up early every day. And for me, that's a big deal. I mean, I had a, I had a meeting yesterday at 830. And it's just brutal. It just morning has always been my worst time. so so my typical day is i will get up you know sort of get up around nine or ten i will you know have have an espresso bowl of cereal and then and then come just come to school and i just sort of will teach you know from 11 or 12 till it depends you know you know roughly

Starting point is 00:46:01 five something like that and i don't i don't take a meal break i just have like a handful of cashews between lessons and, uh, lots of coffee. And then I go home and hang out with my family and, you know, make dinner and sort of listen a little bit to my kids practicing piano. And then we'll, you know, we'll, we'll have dinner. We might watch an episode of something. And then once they, once they go down for, after stories around 930, then I have another one or two double espressos and then i'll practice you know do do email admin stuff but mostly practice from about 9 30 10 until about 2 30 so that's that's my typical day at home so it's you know it it's it's a bit unusual but it's it's sort of worked i mean i've always like i said i've always done

Starting point is 00:46:57 my best practice at night sort of between that you know 10 till 2 roughly and and i'm able i'm able to do that and i'm very grateful that you know my wife gets up for the kids in the morning and you know lets me sleep because uh i'm always up till you know like i say 2 33 is usually when i go to bed uh when i'm on the road um you know being on the road is it's it's kind of luxurious in a sense because when you're when you know you might be giving a guest class or doing some some kids concerts actually we were in san francisco a few weeks ago and they scheduled kids concerts at eight in the morning it's like are you trying to kill me um so that was that was just brutal but um but generally speaking when you're on the road you know you really have to

Starting point is 00:47:45 be on for your concert you know and that's you know roughly between seven to nine eight to ten p.m and that's you know that's that's my favorite time so so that's that's fine i mean then that that leaves me a little time you know it depends on how tired i've been and how much traveling i've been doing and how much admin work and things I have to take care of. But, um, but usually, you know, there's time for me to hit a Trader Joe's or to find like the best chocolate here in town to bring back a couple of amazing IPAs, you know, so I, I do enjoy, you know, you know, finding nice things to bring home for, um, you know, I've got a lot of, there's, I've got my people, right. I've got, I got my family. So my wife, my two boys, I got my sister. There's a lot

Starting point is 00:48:25 of the staff here at U of T. So I, you know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people i got to bring stuff for and so um we we all treat each other well so it's uh it's it's a good arrangement but um but on the road whenever possible i'd love to you know check out check out an art gallery museum or you know you know go for a walk things like that but it's um like i say it depends on on the schedule and you know is it a comfortable program or are we changing programs every night and so it depends on things like that but um but there's certainly certainly a lot of variety in my life and it's um it's it's great i i you know i really i really enjoy being home i really enjoy traveling and it's um you know i'm like i'm very lucky i get to i get to do both i

Starting point is 00:49:12 mean there are there are times when i i you know i miss my family and that's um and that's a tricky thing you know and and getting back to you know young groups thinking of forming an ensemble you know you know there's a few pieces of advice that i think are important um one is you know you've got to have a certain shared philosophy of things you know like for instance there's no way i could ever be in a successful group with a trump supporter like that just you know that's that's just the line that that that couldn't be crossed you know but um but the thing i think sometimes people they just want to pick people that are like them they want to be comfortable right and and it reminds me of um you know not not not to put you know

Starting point is 00:49:59 dating sites down because i i've known some great couples that have got together but but you know you see these ads for you know for whatever dating site is like you know we compare you on two dozen personality traits you know and so i just imagine well how does how does that date go you know like you know a couple meet and and they say what's your favorite color blue me too you who's your favorite composer beethoven me too what's your favorite you know it's like you're just going to spend all night agreeing and and and that's i mean ultimately that's that's going to get a little boring i think so so when you're when you're starting off with a chamber group you don't necessarily want people just like you yes you want friends you want people you're going to

Starting point is 00:50:40 want to spend time with because you know there are some months i spend more time with the griffin trio than i do with my family so so you've got it you've got to have people you you enjoy spending time with but you don't need to be totally similar you don't need to have all of the same interests you don't need to like all of the same things you know it's um that kind of diversity will give you different ideas and interpretation and and and will will will challenge you well if you don't you know if you if you don't agree with the way i like it well convince me convince me your way makes sense why does your way make sense you know it'll it'll make you really sort of figure out what you believe in and make you sort of really really solidify your own opinions on

Starting point is 00:51:21 things so i think that's that's one thing to think about and then and then the other thing that happens with ensembles that have been around for a while and it's the real tricky thing is when there are relationships and marriages and families and and job moves and relocations and those kinds of things are really really tricky to deal with and um you know so for us i'm i'm with i'm in a trio with a couple you know so so they're a couple and so you know not only do we not have to worry about you know somebody going to settle down somewhere else with somebody else uh you know that that's that's that's never been that's never been an issue for us um plus they sometimes have their bowings worked up before they come to rehearsal, which is great.

Starting point is 00:52:09 So that's important because, you know, sometimes the pianist just sits there and listens, should we hook it? Let's go up, up, down, and then as it comes, okay. You know, and we just sit there bored out of our minds, but so, so you, you know, you, you want to, it's, it's, it's a delicate thing, you know, with I would say, especially when you get around the, you know, maybe around the 10 year, the 10 year sort of mark with, a trio or a quartet, then it's tricky because then people are getting older. And if they were

Starting point is 00:52:42 single, they might be in a relationship. And, you know, does a future spouse have work in town? Are they going to be moving? You know, those become issues that you all have to deal with. I do think another thing you know for for younger groups to consider is you have to you have to figure out what your commitment to an ensemble is what what are you willing to give up um are you willing to give up a few paying gigs so you can practice your part more or rehearse more get ready for a competition or an audition um is it always coming down to one person having to give up paying gigs and then and then maybe feeling a bit of resentment or you know does it make sense that the other two because they're they're maybe they can subsidize the third person or three people

Starting point is 00:53:36 can subsidize the fourth you know there's those those are those are sometimes awkward and difficult but important considerations and conversations to have i think um so that's you know that that's groups are in sort of um some of the middle years issues so much so much great information there jamie what skills do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments you know i think one of my one of my pet peeves and it comes up a lot is um i think um you know when when when we were younger we we all listened we all had great sound systems you know i mean you know when i think back to dorm days um you know save a dorm of like you know 30 people probably 25 of us had a stereo system you know and so that meant two big

Starting point is 00:54:29 speakers you know turntable receiver amplifier cassette deck so that you know way way before cds came out right and and one of the things that we got with good speakers is we got you got a sense of great audio. We got a sense of a great piano sound in recording. And I really honestly think that younger musicians today, and I'll, you know, sticking to what I know, you know, younger pianists today don't have as great an imagination for piano sound as my generation, because they don't listen. Nobody has sound systems anymore. And I'll admit fully, I'm as guilty of it as anyone today, I mean, most of the listening I do will be on a phone, a tablet or a laptop, which is all crap audio. I mean, it's all terrible, right? Um, it'll sound better when you

Starting point is 00:55:27 put headphones on, but, um, but the audio is just terrible compared to what you got with a good sound system. And so I think, um, I, I would urge anybody to, you know, listen, listen to good sound whenever possible um i've got i got a pair of speakers at home and i i just i i've got to i've got to bring them in here and set up something so that so that you know i can i can i can share some of this because i think that's something that's been lost to a lot of younger generation people is listening to really good audio and and and the difference in audio like when you heard like sort of the clangorous horowitz sound or when you heard you know you know some beautiful thing that gillel's did or when you heard you know richter almost breaking a microphone because

Starting point is 00:56:14 he's so powerful this kind of stuff i think people are missing so i would say i would say listening listening to recordings uh certainly certainly for a pianist listening to orchestras yeah listening to orchestral recordings because there's another there's another sort of group of three people that i tell pianists you have to be and the first is a pianist and so again we know what that's about you just got to shut up and go practice so that's that's step one the the other person we need to be is a singer because as a pianist you play a percussion instrument and so you have to you have to spend a lot of time working on a beautiful singing tone a projection a sound that will last from one long note to the next and and to learn about that and then the third

Starting point is 00:57:01 person equally important and more important in certain some composers is you've got to be a conductor you've got to be able to you know bring this voice out over that voice um and in fact i i'm almost tempted to just play something at the piano uh just just to give you an idea of of voicing of of how important this is so what i mean i mean i'll just i'll just play a five note chord and i'll play it evenly and then i'll play it bringing out one note at a time so so hopefully you can hear i mean i'm just a couple steps away so this is even and then voicing out different notes so the idea that that you can bring out any note you want i don't know if that that that transferred at all if you could hear that at all absolutely yes but it's such an important skill

Starting point is 00:58:09 as a pianist and i spent hours and hours you know practicing how to voice the chord and the way you do that is you play you play the note you want to voice out louder and first and then you play the other notes quietly together afterwards and so you do that and then you eventually get it quicker so that it's louts off louts off then almost like a grace note but louts off louts off and then you try to play all the notes simultaneously and see if that note that you're playing a little bit louder is still louder and then you're you know but it's it's it's sort of a painstaking process it's not it's not the funnest way to spend you know an afternoon but but boy i think it's one of the most important things certainly a pianist can do is really learn how to voice so clearly

Starting point is 00:58:56 that you're the conductor and you can say you know what i want a little bit more second clarinet there and you can do it with your third finger you know so i think that's um that's that's the kind of work that i think pays dividends in everything you play i mean really yeah all the composers we play as pianists chopin's the only one who just couldn't care less about the orchestra i mean is you know the concertos i mean his orchestral writing is terrible i mean it's really basic um but everybody else i mean you look at what they wrote and piano music is only a fraction Only one area. I mean, the string quartets, the symphonies, the masses, oratorios or operas, it's, you know, this is where you get a sense of what the composers are hearing. And it's so true for all of us to listen to repertoire from the composers that we perform that is not necessarily the piece that we're playing, but to really expand more.

Starting point is 00:59:53 Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. Jamie, is there a performance that stayed with you throughout the years and why? Let's see. There have been a few here and there. You know, I've got to say the greatest sense of event that I ever had was when Horowitz came back from one of his 10-year sabbaticals. And he was playing and a few of us were sitting in the dress circle at Carnegie Hall. and and you know you know so basically he hadn't played in public for a you know a whole bunch of years and he walked out on stage and it was a standing ovation and you know he hadn't played

Starting point is 01:00:37 a note yet and it was just we were just everybody was so thrilled to be there and and i would say look all you know ultimately harwood's he probably isn't my favorite musician he's one of my favorite performers but um uh in terms of favorite musicians i i mean i love i love people like gillel's richter zimmerman uh argarich good people like that but um but but that harwoods concert that was the greatest sense of event that i think i've ever had in my life and and i think anybody there would would remember us you know standing and cheering you know imagine that walking out on stage you haven't played a note and an audience is going wild it was it was it was crazy it's just crazy so that that one's that one has always stayed with me do you have a favorite tool in

Starting point is 01:01:30 the practice room um well yeah probably my pencil you know that's um and uh you know usually usually statler pencils um to be um i hate h pencils and i hate mechanical pencils if anybody gives me those in a lesson i literally throw them across the room they're useless you can't you can't write with any emotion you know if you press if you press with any any passion you will break a mechanical lead they're just completely useless i mean unless you've got like a an architect or draftsperson's pencil then those that's the real deal and then of course you want you want to be or maybe 3b because you can get darker and and uh you know thicker thicker lead ink or lead lead on the page and remember these genius fingerings 10 years later that's right that's

Starting point is 01:02:25 right jamie what's a piece of advice that was given to you and that you would like to pass on to our listeners i think probably i think probably that the really common common advice advice of just you know listen and it's so easy to say that but it's it's hard to really do it so so attentively and so consistently that you don't need to think about it that that it becomes who you are as a musician and a person that you're that listening is just your default way of being until that point you really have to be quite active about it and i think that's why that's why it's important uh for us to to record ourselves and especially when you're younger to really get a sense of objectively what do you sound like when you are not

Starting point is 01:03:17 subjectively in the throes of actually playing you know so when you when you record yourself you kind of go you know that passage that i thought i messed up that that boy that just blew by in a second and that really nice retard you did into the recap ah i didn't take any time at all you know so so it's what's what's interesting is that when you record yourself you get a very objective uh you know retelling of what just happened so so so you know so until until you're at a point where really listening here listening now becomes second nature and just an absolute integral part of who you are, I think, uh, pay attention to that more because that's, um, like I said, back in, it probably wasn't until my undergrad years when I really started

Starting point is 01:04:07 to pay attention to that much more carefully and attentively. And, um, and again, you know, it's something that, you know, you're not going to get, you know, by Friday, this is something that, that will, you know, will take months or, you know, maybe years, but like I say, once, once it's there, then that's your that that will be your default way and you'll be you'll be in a good place this is truly great do you have a quick actionable tip for the listeners that they could implement today in their musical lives you could just quickly go through the first moon of a sonata or you know first piece in a box suite and just just put an asterisk you know little star or asterisk or whatever whatever makes sense to you in the margin by the hard bits

Starting point is 01:04:47 i mean that'll be really easy i like that very actionable and quick and useful what are some fun project you have coming up in the next coming months well let's see i'm actually just sort of um you know i've got this big uh it's actually a reusable kind of hard plastic grocery basket and so that that's where that's where the current and um upcoming music goes so I've got, um, it's actually one of the only areas of my life that's organized is my, my music shelves. So I've got, um, I've got a double bookshelf with piano and a double bookshelf with chamber and it's all alphabetized and because I need to, you know, I need to find a piece of music when I need to find it. So, so basically at this point, um, I'm just getting

Starting point is 01:05:37 ready to sort of put all the pieces in the bucket for the summer festivals so prairie sound and ottawa um a couple places in the u.s so i'm just sort of getting all that rep together um the griffin trio we're going to be doing our first our first boat cruise in october so we're we're spending about something like 10 days on the rhine river and a couple concerts before and after so there's uh we're doing that with uh jim and graham campbell so we've got we've got we've got most of that rep solidified so i've got to make sure i pull those off the shelf there's a couple pieces i haven't played so i got to make sure i get those um my brother and i are going to do a duo concert in september

Starting point is 01:06:23 uh which is which is great because basically we love playing together but we all we're just busy with our lives and so it usually takes a presenter that says hey you guys let's work out a date where you two can play together and so andrew now basically the new orphan string quartet who are running the prince edward county uh series uh they they are the ones that uh that got on the phone and got emailing so so we've got some rep for that concert and and then i'd say actually the biggest uh in some ways the biggest and most exciting challenge and kind of daunting thing in front of us is that we've uh the griffin trio have been announced as uh sort of artistic directors designates so for not for this coming summer but for summer 2020 uh we will be the directors of

Starting point is 01:07:17 summer classical music in banff um at the banff center and that's um it's really kind of a dream job in the sense that a lot of our formative years were in Banff and um I mean you know I probably I probably you know to be honest and fair I probably picked up my best and worst habits in Banff but uh um you know it's it is a wonderful place and and a very special place and to have the opportunity to introduce and reintroduce this place through some interesting programming concepts to a lot of musicians sort of on the cusp of careers is it's it's really exciting renee and it's um so basically in all our we had a we played in niagara last weekend so you know sort of on the road trip there and back you know we're using a lot of time now for conversations about the kinds

Starting point is 01:08:11 of programs we want to bring in and i think one of the most important ideas is that um is the idea of going going sort of beyond the master class model and trying to give more professional more professional world tools that musicians are going to need so so we're talking a lot about a signature program sort of a three-week program uh where you know there will be master class opportunities to perform and get you know get some some feedback from from us and from guest musicians but also So, you know, to bring in some visual artists, to bring in, you know, people from the dance world, to bring in some business people, to bring in managers, to bring in, you know, just a lot of people that are involved in music in different ways and to sort of, you know, just open people's eyes up to these things. And look, the fact of the matter is, I mean, you know, musicians often take on different roles in their lives. And, you know, I mean, when, you know, when you were, you know, playing violin, you know, a dozen years ago, I mean, you probably weren't thinking, I can't wait to get this podcast going. You know, these are things that develop. You realize you have a love for doing this. You've got, you know, an ability and a talent for, you know, drawing on people and getting conversations going. You know, this is something that is complementary to your performance career and your teaching career.

Starting point is 01:09:41 so i think um so it's it's that kind of idea of bringing bringing musicians who have you know reached a certain level and put in a lot of years studying and now just want some more tools to put some really interesting things together you know so so we've been reaching out to a few people here and there and just having some conversations and um and just uh just just having fun i mean it's going to be hectic we're not under the illusion that this is this is going to be an easy job but but it is exciting and it's something that we're very committed to because we know from direct experience how special Banff has been and and continues to be for a lot of people that's wonderful congratulations thanks thanks Jamie thank you so much for taking the time to

Starting point is 01:10:32 speak with me today and taking the time to share your knowledge and experience and insight then i'm telling you what did i call it the big the big book of professor parker's tips i think i'll make some videos we should think about it seriously it's been a pleasure thank you very much thank you so much, Jamie. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this chat with Jamie Parker. As always, you can find the show notes for this episode and more information about Jamie, as well as resources on mindful and deliberate practice at mindoverfinger.com. I would love to connect with you and know what your favorite takeaway from today's show is. So join the conversation on social media.

Starting point is 01:11:23 Let me know what inspires you, what specific questions you have about mindful practice, and what other topics and guests you would like to hear about in future episodes. I am Mind Over Finger on all platforms. And if you're looking for a community of mindful practice enthusiasts, join the Mind Over Finger tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger tribe. There you'll find inspiration, motivation and support, as well as information and discussions on how to take your practice to the next level and enjoy the process. Next week, believe it or not, is the last episode of the first season of the Mind Over Finger podcast. And for this,

Starting point is 01:12:05 I have a wonderful guest for you. Canadian Violent Sensation, Kirsten Leong, will be on the show. I will also let you in on some of the guests you can expect next season, and I'll have information about some very special bonus episodes coming up in the next few weeks. A huge thank you to my extraordinary producer, Bella Kelly, and a big thank you to all of you. À bientôt!

Starting point is 01:12:35 Thank you for watching.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 029 Jamie Parker: Listening Right Here, Right Now

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