The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 103 Christopher Still: Tribe Q&A Session

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast, episode number 103. This is a live Mind Over Finger Tribe Q&A session. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice and building a purposeful career. And now your host, violinist, teacher and high performance coach, Dr. Renée Paul Gauthier. hi everyone i hope you're doing amazingly well as you tune into this episode this summer on the mind over finger podcast i'm having a fantastic time with wonderful guests every month i'm having a live q a session with amazing musicians in my facebook group the mind over finger tribe and

Starting point is 00:00:55 as to be expected, much wisdom is being shared. We started in April with pianist Konstantin Sukovitsky. We continue in May with violinist Callum Smart. In June, you'll hear from trumpet player Christopher Still from Honesty Pill. July will bring violinist Esther Abrami and we'll spend some time with guitarist Brandon Jack Acker in August. I hope you can join us live for the upcoming sessions. All of the details are in the Mind Over Finger tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger tribe. If you're enjoying today's content, take a screenshot as you're listening, share on social and tag me and my guests so we can thank you for tuning in. And without further ado, let's go to the show.

Starting point is 00:01:51 good morning we're good thanks john this is so helpful great oh my gosh you guys it's good to see you kate good morning kate susan hi this morning is another exciting conversation with someone extraordinary a good friend even though we've never met in person and someone i find extremely inspiring and just a genius at everything he does. It's Christopher Still, who's a trumpet player with the LA Phil and also the mastermind behind Honesty Pill. So Chris, without further ado, please tell us about yourself. Wow. Thanks for that lovely intro, Renee. And yeah, I think I was just talking to some friends this weekend about how weird it is that we have these relationships with people we've met and

Starting point is 00:02:51 known. And I've seen you every week for like a year and never met in person. So I think that's both crazy and awesome that that's the space that we're living in. So very happy to be here. And hello, Facebook. Hello, everybody. Nice to see you. What can I tell you? You want to kind of talk about musical background a little bit or what? Yes. Give us the whole story. Well, as Renee mentioned, I'm a trumpet player with the L.A. Phil, and I took sort of a typical pathway through the orchestral ladder of auditions, starting, went to conservatory, you know, started freelancing in Boston, and then got my first job. So just to back up a little bit, and this is always something I like to talk about because I think it's important, is I didn't set out to be an orchestral musician. I was going to be a band director and actually went to undergrad for music education.

Starting point is 00:03:42 I learned how to play the oboe, learned how to play the bassoon. I was a really, really terrible French horn player and all that stuff. And my junior year, I kind of had a moment where I thought, you know, maybe I would like to go into performance. So my background was in music education, and I think it's so important that performers teach and teachers perform, because I think the two things really hold each other up in a really great way. And that's always been something that I've been grateful for, for that music ed experience, especially because, Renee, I think I was the worst oboe player ever to come out of the Crane School of Music in SUNY Potsdam. and my teacher during my playing final uh which was really tough by the way like chromatic scales and sight reading and things and he said chris i can't possibly and he took his glasses off

Starting point is 00:04:32 pass you on that and i'm like oh great so if i don't pass this oboe test then i won't be able to student teach and i won't graduate so it's important to remember as teachers and as performers is what it felt like to try something for the first time and to be terrible at it because that's something that if you're at the top of your class as a musician, you don't remember what that feels like for the most part. Anyway, that's my pitch for music education. Went off, got my first job in Charleston, South Carolina,

Starting point is 00:05:04 and then went to Dallas Symphony after that, played in Grant Park a couple summers, Colorado Symphony, and then out here to L.A. So that's been the path. Hmm. That's a great path. You know, there's one story I remember you saying, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, about you working in the shoe store and then making a decision one day. You mind sharing that story again? Yeah. So here's a fun fact for all of you who are in school right now, like finishing up your master's degree at NEC in Boston is where I was. And I basically

Starting point is 00:05:40 graduated with three degrees. I did the double major undergrad music ed performance, and then a master's in orchestral performance. And I thought, I'm going to graduate, I'm going to get an orchestra job. That's how this is going to go down. And when I got out the door of the conservatory with diploma in hand, I noticed really quickly that nobody was clamoring for me to come play in the orchestra. You know, the New York Philharmonic wasn't banging my door down to get my resume. In fact, there weren't even any auditions available. And yet I had this crippling amount of student loan to pay back. And I'll never forget this number. My student loan payment, and I'm happy to share this with anybody, was $433.17 every month for a heck of a long time.

Starting point is 00:06:25 I mean, that's a huge amount of money for somebody who just graduated with no job and debt. And now I have to spend money on auditions and plane tickets and hotels and lessons and equipment. It was like shocking, this realization. And I said, well, since I'm not getting an orchestra job this week, I probably need to get a job somewhere. So I looked around and got a job at a running store called Marathon Sports in Cambridge in Boston. And like, I'm a runner. It was something I loved anyway. And like, that's how I paid my bills, like selling shoes. which is kind of not living the dream, you know, that I thought it was going to do. Anyway, one day, I think he, I can't remember which position he played,

Starting point is 00:07:12 but one of the horn players in the Boston Symphony walked into the running shop to get fit for shoes. And I'm like, I'll help him. That's fun. And I'm fitting him with shoes. And I said, yeah, these are great for over-pronators and distance runners. There's a good torsional rigidity in these shoes. And they're also at a fourth tier upper register.

Starting point is 00:07:30 and he looked at me and he said what did you just say and I said yeah I'm making a joke I know you're a BSO horn player I'm a trumpet player and of course he didn't know who I was why would he but as the moment this is sort of like my Cinderella moment as I'm fitting the shoe onto this guy who's in the Boston Symphony I realized I want to be the guy in the Boston Symphony or the big orchestra getting the shoes or whatever I don't want to be the guy who's on the floor of you know helping other people with this so I like it really lit a fire under me and that's where I think I hit a major crossroads in what was going to happen for the rest of my life was I going to keep working in a shoe store and or is I going to make it happen and it was a big

Starting point is 00:08:12 pivotal moment and I sold them her shoes too so that was a win what I love I love many things about this story but it's also for me I think it demonstrates the power of what happens when you you really I mean you said light a fire under you know it's when you double down on yourself and really you know you do what it takes to get there and I feel like at times to get an audition to get a position in an orchestra like this it requires a lot of sacrifices and a lot of faith and a lot of trust. And I, at times we're very careful, we're afraid. So we try to have a lot of backup plans. And I think it's important to remember too, that it's important to jump all in and do, you know, if you want to win a job in a big orchestra, you might have to make some hard

Starting point is 00:09:07 choices in terms of how much you're going to practice, where are you going to spend money on lessons, on training, on coaching, all of these things. I have like mixed feelings about that. And if I can share something with you, there's a great quote from the book, Big Magic by Liz Gilbert. And she talks about, she says something like, creative people, please don't quit your day job. And she's like, no, really don't quit your day job. Because if you put all that pressure of paying off the student loans or paying the car payment or paying for groceries on your next screenplay or audition result, the amount of pressure that that puts on you is it's not healthy and it's not aligned with

Starting point is 00:09:54 anything positive. It's a sort of a negative focused thing. Whereas if you have a job at the running store or whatever, and hopefully that job that you find that supports you isn't a soul sucking endeavor. I actually loved working in that place. It was a positive place full of active people who weren't musicians. So it was kind of a refreshing place for me to be. And I mean, I worked there enough that I could pay off that student loan, which is my biggest expense. So I'm kind of mixed about having plan B. On the other hand, I think if you're going to go for it, and this is really what your life's going to be, whether it's an orchestra job or whatever, you have to commit like you really need to commit every ounce of your body for a period of time

Starting point is 00:10:38 um i think of this in terms of this this idea of like a rocket taking off um you know the amount of fuel for the for the initial liftoff these boosters just erupting with this incredible amount of power and burning through fuel like crazy and everything is shaking and you're not even sure if it's going to stay together and once you get past the pull of the gravity and you get into the orbit those boosters drop away yeah they're gone and then all you really need to do is just every now and then you kind of hit those little you know the little blasters that go back and forth but i think most musicians and i don't know if this is like a lack mindset or where this comes from but we put those boosters on if if you're lucky enough to even figure out that you

Starting point is 00:11:24 need to use that much fuel because some people sort of just spin around and never actually get there, but they get into orbit and then they just keep burning up. And I know I've been guilty of that. I still do that in some areas of my life. So it's a tricky thing, this goal setting thing with, with being a creative of how much energy and how you focus that energy. And if you can ever let go of it and find balance, because at the end of the day, we didn't get into this to be stress balls and be broke, right? No, we got into this because it's something that enlivens us and inspires so anyway that's yeah that's how I try and live I'm not a walking billboard for it but I love that analogy of the rocket ship and I think Stephen Covey uses it in his books the

Starting point is 00:12:06 seven habits of highly effective people and that works for so many things like changing a habit developing a new skill on your instrument it's that initial effort that's required to get the momentum if you can keep going oftentimes you'll get to that point where as you were saying you just need to you know tweak a little bit i'm seeing some comments here going back to teachers susan was saying teachers who perform have an understanding for their students i really feel that i have a frame right there with a picture of this quote from itzhak perlman that says the you know when you teach you learn and that's how i feel walking out of every lesson i always feel like I'm learning something every time I teach someone and Susan says I think everyone who

Starting point is 00:12:55 graduates in the arts be it musical visual or theatrical experience is shocked at the expense of loans and investing in your career yeah that's a great comment from Susan and I would say if there's one piece of advice I would love to you know what is it Tim Ferriss has that thing in his podcast where he says if you had a billboard that the whole world could see what would you put on it. I would just say walk into your life with your eyes wide open when it comes to going into debt for your education. Just be aware of what's going on. Is it worth it or is there another way around it? Because I think I certainly had no idea what I was getting into. And it's tough when you get out and then you've got this need to pay this loan. It changes everything. It just changes how

Starting point is 00:13:43 free you can be. And that's where the beginning of this money mindset problem that I spend most of my time in business coaching trying to undo is starts right here. This is where it starts to get all flipped upside down. I want to pick your brain a little bit about that business mindset that you just mentioned. But before that, there's a couple of questions about music and musicality. And I'm really curious to hear what your thoughts on it are. Someone was wondering how you practice expression and this is a question I get so much here in the tribe people responding to the podcast when it comes to musicality and expression how does one practice that oh that's an awesome question and uh you know I'm just a trumpet player so I don't know

Starting point is 00:14:31 if I'm in most qualified to answer this but um there was a a book that somebody put out I don't know good grief it's 25 years ago when they interviewed all these trumpet players and one of the questions in the back of this interview was what is your favorite recording to listen to and you know people were talking about Maurice Andres Haydn trumpet concerto Wynton Marsalis or you know all these like really standard classic trumpet recordings they were all quoting two of these trumpet players in this interview. One of them mentioned Cecilia Bartoli and the other one mentioned an oboist from, I think it might've been the principal of Chicago or something, had a solo CD. And they were talking about listening to the voice or other instruments

Starting point is 00:15:22 that really embody a vocal quality. Like I find great oboe playing to be, and great cello playing to be just sort of the pinnacle of that. And coincidentally, those two trumpet players were two of my favorite trumpet players out of that whole list of interviews. I love their playing the most. So there's a correlation that the answer to what you're looking for might not be exactly where you expect it to be. One of my teachers, Jim Pandolfi, used to say the measure of a person's enlightenment is their relationship to paradox the measure of a person's enlightenment is their relationship to paradox which basically says that it's a world of opposites if you um if you think you need to go in this direction you might be right but it oftentimes is the opposite like if

Starting point is 00:16:11 your upper register is a problem it's not the upper register that's a problem it's probably what you were doing in the measures preceding that that high note you know tension or whatever or manipulation. So when it comes to expression, I don't want to listen to trumpet players. Sorry, trumpet players, but I think I can tap to the root of what it is I'm trying to get to musically if I take what I know out of the equation. Because when I pick up a trumpet or I listen to a great trumpet player, I hear the tendencies of the instrument. I hear my own habits being reflected in that person's playing. I'm distracted by things that they can do that I can't do. Whereas if I'm just listening to a voice a human voice or an instrument that I'm not so familiar with then I can just

Starting point is 00:16:54 listen to the musicality and the expression component of it so that is a huge thing I have my students do is to sing their excerpts we sing my students when when I teach private trumpet lessons it's all about the singing you can learn so much more off of your instrument and you will not be encumbered by a tricky fingering or a note that's sort of in the crack of your range or whatever. So as far as tapping into it, that's a great place to go. And this is kind of a three part answer here, which I'll try and do a little quicker. The second thing is, am I actually doing it? Because we are not aware of what we sound like. I mean, I don't even know what my voice sounds like. Back in the days of answering machines with the little tape that spun around,

Starting point is 00:17:39 most of you guys don't know what that is probably, right? But you would go to your friend's house and you'd hear a message that you had left on their answering machine. And it was unrecognizable as your own voice because you don't often hear yourself recorded, especially when we were growing up. So this expression, this levels of awareness by listening to someone outside of your own comfort zone, then the recording aspect, what do I actually sound like? Am I getting that? Is it actually coming across or is it muted or rounded? And you're going to find that it's probably muted and rounded. You're probably not being as expressive as you think you are. And then the third thing is how to like capture that.

Starting point is 00:18:16 And that's part of using notation in a specific way that you come up with a language of symbols that works for you that reminds you of the first part, the singer or the oboe player, but not to get bogged down in the notation. And then for me, that becomes like a feedback loop where I go from inspiration to awareness to notation and back around and around. And then hopefully I'm delivering what I think I'm delivering in my head. This is amazing. This is great. And you know, I feel like, what's that? It doesn't always work, but that's the plan. In many ways, I feel like it embodies mind over finger is have the concept, the idea.

Starting point is 00:19:00 And of course, this is also, you know, emotionally how you respond to your concept and if you like it, but how does it go from a concept to execution? And as you were talking, I had to pull out this post that I have right next to me all the time that's related to the first thing that you talked about, which is, I don't know if people can see, but it's the reason not to do it is often the reason, oh no, you can't see. I'll read it. The reason not to do it is the reason to do it.

Starting point is 00:19:30 Not always, but oftentimes, you know, in so many situations, it's scary. it's out of my comfort zone or even the opposite i have to work well maybe not working would be the best thing maybe resting would be the best thing so um i i enjoy contemplating this paradox of time the reason not to do it is the reason to do it it's a lot of fun and the story i always tell and i'll tell it super short if you want to hear it is uh when we mandy and i first got married. We went to Hawaii like you do. And we had, we were going to go snorkeling and we went to the best place to get fitted perfectly for, for snorkel masks and to see these amazing fish that were just below the surface, right? I couldn't wait to see this. And Mandy just right

Starting point is 00:20:19 in the water, she's down there looking at the fish. And I, I put my mask on, I wear contact lenses. So I was really conscious about tightening it up so that water wouldn't get in there and knock my contact out. Would have ruined the whole afternoon. Put my face underwater, water starts rushing into the mask so i come up i shake it off i tighten the mask more i'm like this time it's going to be perfect i go down underwater more water is rushing in and on the third try i come up and maddie circles back she's like what's wrong i'm like this mask leaks i have cranked it down to the last notch and the water is just pouring in and she like she always does has the right answers for me and she loosened the thing completely so there was just completely like no straps at all

Starting point is 00:21:01 and just pushed it onto my face, and it just stuck there all by itself. And then she went, click, click, and that was all that was required. I mean, that's a weird example, but that was so clear that the tighter I went, the worse it got. And so it's a world of opposites. And now I remember that stupid snorkel, and I think, what else in my life around here am I tightening down or overworking or overthinking that I can just let go and stand back and just go click, and the thing will fall right into place? it happens every day. When I, when I let it, it happens every day.

Starting point is 00:21:36 I'm going to remember that too. Just go click. Yes. This is awesome. Christopher, you have lots of amazing content out there. You have courses on audition and you're also a businessman and this is really inspiring for so many people because I feel like as creatives, musicians, artists, we also often have this spirit of entrepreneurship and that can be a scary world for some of us. What would your advice be to some people who feel some sort of calling to start something in their musical life? Yeah, when you said you're a businessman, I had this like visual of like a tweed hat and a leather briefcase and getting into my Studebaker or something. And that's funny that that flashed into my head, because it's actually so the opposite

Starting point is 00:22:32 now, where I'm a business person, what does that even mean? I think, basically, here's a fun fact, if if you and musicians hate to hear this, but it's true. If you are a musician, if you are a performer, if you are a teacher, you are in sales, you're in sales. And what does that mean? I'm kind of being cheeky, but what it means is, why should anybody listen to you? Why should I buy tickets for your orchestra? Why should I buy your CD? Why should I enroll in your class? You got to convince me. And I don't really care about your resume or the pedigree or whatever. All I care about is what problem can you solve for me right now? And if that's an orchestra subscription, the problem I can solve for you is maybe I'm giving you a place where you can

Starting point is 00:23:23 unplug and get inspired in a new way. Or maybe I can enroll you in my course at my college or something that can give you the tools you need to do something. What problem can I solve? And I think that this is like a huge topic. Actually, I'm going to do a live event on this this summer. this is a huge topic about everybody has gotten like to the halfway mark like graduated with a degree become a great musician recorded a cd like here's a flute and piano cd i did right that's only half of the race it's only half of the marathon there's a whole other 50 over here that musicians don't know anything about public speaking marketing organization networking um And when I say you're in sales, that doesn't mean you have to be a cheesy used car salesperson.

Starting point is 00:24:13 No. I mean, you can still be authentic and leading with service, but you have to convince somebody why they should come and engage with your art or your information or your whatever. And I think that's everybody. Everybody listening who has something in their head, you all have a book to write. You all have a podcast you could run. You all have an online course you could give, all of you, because you have spent the 10,000 hours in the practice room to develop mastery of this thing that you do. And with that came a whole other toolkit of time management and relationship management and determination and balance and yoga and stress and all the things that you need. And maybe, you know, it's like one of those sound boards like I have sitting here.

Starting point is 00:24:59 Maybe they're not all at 10. You know, some of them may be lower. So you kind of sort of have to embrace the things that you need to work on. Honestly, this is sort of the honesty pill tagline is it's time to face the music. Like figure out what you're not doing well in your musical life, in your personal life, in your professional life, and then spend time focusing on that. And you can take that knowledge and turn it into much bigger, impactful offerings and situations than just being a great trumpet player or just being a great trumpet teacher.

Starting point is 00:25:31 Yeah, this is really great information. And for those of you not familiar with Chris, he's the accelerator of all things, business accelerator, performance accelerator, audition accelerators. Now you also have, as I just said, online business accelerator, you help musicians with their creative endeavors, have these dreams that they have come true. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about that? yeah the accelerator thing by the way um I I'm not quite sure how that came about um honesty pill it's time to face the music you know face the things that you don't do well nobody likes to do what they don't sound good at and then the first course that I put out was this audition strategy program and the reason I called it the accelerator was you know I have I have taken and failed at a lot of auditions. I have a stack of rejection letters this thick. And I learned a lot by all that money I spent, time and energy, making all those mistakes. And I've won a couple of auditions too. So I figured, how can I take several decades? And I don't even want to think about how much

Starting point is 00:26:39 money I spent on mistakes and going down paths that didn't serve me. How can I take that and compress it into five or six months for someone so that that's where this accelerator thing came from and then i realized that you know other things i can do i probably could help condense people and steer the path and save them time so that's how this accelerator thing happened the online business accelerator which is my current group program which i it's the second iteration is halfway through right now and it's incredible all kinds of new businesses started skills and techniques and community being created. And it's basically comes down to, I have spent the last five years making mistakes. It's just like starting all over again with

Starting point is 00:27:26 auditions, making mistakes as a business owner. What should I spend money on? What shouldn't I spend money on? How long should I take on this? Is this ready? Does it have to be perfect before I throw it out there? And learning all those pitfalls, that's what OBA teaches you to kind of walk around those and you're going to fall into those pit holes anyway but there's a team there to pick you up and put you back on your feet when that happens like nola said this knowledge is 100 needed they don't teach this in school that's such awesome yes amen to that comment because um i i i mean if you want to talk about audition prep how many people graduate every year with a master's degree in orchestral performance having barely taken any mock auditions or they're not

Starting point is 00:28:13 prepared to get the job part what are we focused on in school it's it's all about musical mastery which is important you need to be able to play your instrument and be clear and have a voice but you also need that other 50 this is what i was just talking about the marathon you know when you run a marathon and at 13 miles like there's a big arc of balloons and half the population just peels off to the right and they have their Gatorade and bagels and they're done. And they, and those folks like kind of know that something else is going on for the next 13 miles, but they've never gotten in there and done that. That is where the long game of being a creative artist, a successful creative artist lives. It's in the second half of the marathon.

Starting point is 00:28:57 Not to say that the first half isn't great. And if you popped out a CD of, you know, whatever, good for you, but there's a whole other world waiting for you of what you can do with that. And how you can actually manifest that into something bigger than having a trunk full of CDs in your car that no one's ever going to buy. Yeah. And this makes me think of a topic that I have some thoughts on. And I see so many people blaming what they don't know on what they didn't learn in school. and my view on this is there's a certain degree of passivity at times in people and I strongly believe that we have to take ownership of our learning experience schools cannot teach you

Starting point is 00:29:47 anything and oh I see Fabiana is here and this is something she's heard me talk about before where school they have the obligation to provide you with what they have in the syllabus they must give you what you signed up for in a safe environment hopefully everything adequate to learn what they promised but they cannot give you everything otherwise the degree would last 10 years and no one wants that so they give you what they think is the most critical the most crucial for the skill you want to learn but then all of us we have the responsibility to know what we want dream big see where the gaps are and be proactive in filling those gaps there's so many amazing resources out there and actually you'll agree with me that most students don't use all of their

Starting point is 00:30:46 resources available at their schools right now there are so many offices of all sorts of things so yes there are some lacks in the educational system for sure we can't fix that in a day in a year maybe probably not in a hundred years but the thing is I do see a little bit of passivity in some people in not taking action in blaming what they didn't learn so I would say if you're in school, check out what's available, take advantage of all of it, and just think about what you want, what's missing in your education, and seek out help. Get a coach, sign up for a program, watch a YouTube video, just be really in control of your learning experience and very proactive in acquiring whatever you don't have right now. So to not feel deterred by what you

Starting point is 00:31:43 don't learn, what you don't know already, but know that it's out there for you to go get. And you can totally, I mean, now I'm starting to sound preachy a little bit, but you can accomplish anything, but don't be limited by what you feel you don't know yet. Just take ownership and go get it. You know, can I, can I pile onto that real quick? I don't know how much time we have today, but I just have to say this, which is, this is one of the kind of goes back to the first thing we talked about, about how teachers need to keep performing and performers should be teaching as well. Have you ever, do you know how to whistle? How many of you guys? Not like this, but the other way, yes. But I know how to whistle and, you know, I have kids, so my kids want to

Starting point is 00:32:29 learn how to whistle at some point, right? Have you ever taught somebody else how to whistle who's never whistled before in their life? It is very difficult. Like, how do you, how do you describe to someone you know well your tongue kind of goes let's see the tip of it goes it's really weird it's like teaching somebody to articulate on the trumpet or do a trill or whatever um and i can give you um great visualizations i can show you pictures i can whistle for you we can watch youtube videos of whistlers we can we can watch you know what clint eastwood films all day long the only way you are going to learn how to whistle is by taking the information that i gave you and experimenting and not being afraid of what if it doesn't work what if i just go for six months

Starting point is 00:33:14 that is the whole crux of the whole educational system right there you have to have the intellectual curiosity and i don't want to sound preachy either but um if you're somebody who's already mastered or on your way to mastering playing your instrument you can learn all kinds of other things you can learn how to be a live stream expert you can learn how to run a group program, you can learn how to, you know, change oil in your car, you can figure out whatever you want, because you have this ridiculous toolbox that you have built for the past however many years you've been practicing some of you from since you were four years old. So that's a huge and I think human beings in general don't take the help that's right in front of them. And there's a

Starting point is 00:33:53 whole other conversation we can have about why that is what causes you to be afraid of that or to feel like you know you're less than if you ask for help but the bottom line on that is you know professional athletes actors all sorts of people operating an extremely high level have coaches have teachers have helped have mentors have support so I I wish that that was more of a part of music school from the get-go but I think that times are changing of where people are finding their education so yes melanie has a good observation she says schools can only provide so much the extreme cost associated with going to school makes many believe that we shouldn't have to continue investing in our education post degree that's really true and yeah you know and also on

Starting point is 00:34:46 that topic school is so expensive if you're going to go forty thousand dollars into debt to get a master's at a conservatory wouldn't you kind of just show up like okay tell me what to do you you have a lot of my money i'm ready tell me the things like that that doesn't work like you you have to be a collaborator with your with your educators um and you're also going to have to pay an insane amount of money if you go to conservatory and i'm really mixed on that you know i mean my life worked out. But what if I hadn't gone to into debt and had gone to, you know, school in the middle of Nebraska instead, would I have ever found the pieces that I needed? I don't know. But it's definitely on me. It's not on anybody else. At the end of the day, I'm responsible.

Starting point is 00:35:35 Yeah, that's the beauty of life. Anything can happen. Chris, I want to keep you here all day. but someone had also manifested that they really liked the rapid fire questions and while having with me an incredible musician incredibly smart i'm also i'm gonna i'm really curious about the answers to these questions so now i'm sorry so for the people who are dreaming of a career that resemble yours it's very multifaceted can you tell us a little bit about what your life looks like? Well, I can tell you what it doesn't look like. Go for it. And I can talk about it in terms of LA Phil and also Honesty Pill work. My LA Phil job is not an endless stress of worry and preparation and nervousness and fear.

Starting point is 00:36:37 And when I first started my first job playing principal trumpet in Charleston, South Carolina, and I had like this folder of music in front of me for the whole season, I was like, I've never flown this helicopter before. This is really scary. These skills are cumulative, and there's only so many challenges that there are. And after a while, you kind of figure them out and you learn how to kind of flex and float with it. Not to say that sometimes work doesn't get overwhelming or stressful because we do crazy things at the LA Phil sometimes. But it's a good thing. It's not a striving life. There's a point where you are in orbit and you can just hit those little boosters. So that's the L.A. Phil piece. The making an income as a coach and as a business coach, here's what my life doesn't look like. I don't write a course and throw it online and then go to sleep and all of a sudden I wake up in the morning and there's $100,000 in my bank account. like there's no such thing as passive income when it comes to this whole new hybrid space which I think we're all living in and you it just takes work and takes effort and diligence just like at the beginning of your music career this new thing that you could be doing takes an engagement

Starting point is 00:37:56 from you having said that it's really fun and and it taps into the creative part of my brain that like you know maybe I was first tapping into when I was figuring out how auditions worked so that's I guess that's what my life looks like such a great answer what's a habit that you have and that you think contributed to your success self-recording in all levels uh playing watching videos of myself speak uh when I first started recording videos of myself in my garage for my first course I had all these weird habits I noticed uh on camera like just strange tongue clicks and things and I had a list of that I wrote and then I taped right to the camera so what I'm really saying is self-awareness levels of self-awareness that is the quickest

Starting point is 00:38:49 way to improve it to improvement whether it's your playing or your on-camera presence or your writing skills or parenting skills god man any parents out there just record yourself for an hour the way you speak to your kids and it's like oh my god I can't believe I just said that and how I so that that habit of being um willing to have self-reflection every day is awesome just the idea of recording my self-parenting my stress level went up thanks for this what skills do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments how to talk about it how to talk about what they're doing to anybody who listen and why like that is if i could not only teach my kids to talk about what what they're

Starting point is 00:39:36 doing and i don't mean that like an 11 year old should be you know giving a dissertation on on bach cello suites but just get start talking about what you're doing soon because the future of this industry is is is connection it's always been that but if we don't keep connecting uh it kind of loses something. And in this new age of the way we're talking right now, Renee, you can connect with someone even from another part of the world at any time. So those skills are critical. Yes. I love that. How about a favorite tool in the practice room? I think it's my phone. I hate to say it, but I hate it that I'm tethered to it. But every tool that I need, like everything is in that phone. And I'm talking about apps like

Starting point is 00:40:26 tonal energy and drum beats and all these other, my iTunes playlist, everything is there for me that I need to practice. Yeah. It's so easy now to have access to, I mean, even watching a YouTube video of the piece you're working on, you know, it's everywhere. You can, you can look at a recording of the last page of Rite of Spring and watch some of the greatest conductors in the world beat it out so you know exactly what's going on i mean that's a pretty good tool yeah great one how do you maintain peak form while juggling you know you have a family these days maybe not so much travel but you also have all of your work as a business coach yeah i don't maintain peak form it goes all over the place it's it's it isn't we are dealing with very inconsistent

Starting point is 00:41:15 and instruments. And by that, I mean the human body and I can't maintain peak form. I can be aware of where I'm at from day to day and try and meet myself there. And some days it's great. And some days it's less than great. And I think I'm just kind of okay with that now. Thanks for sharing that. Cause I feel like a lot of people feel this pressure. I might have this misconception that the ebbs and flows of life don't affect the playing, but it does. But what you just said about having the awareness of where you are that day, that's the key. Yeah, great answer. How about a piece of advice that was given to you that you would like to pass on to the listeners? Well, the one I already said was one of my favorite things that's ever been said to me

Starting point is 00:42:09 about the relationship to paradox so we already you already used that one up um i don't know i can give you i can give you specific advice to those of you who want to get and keep an orchestra job and i'm going to give you the rated g version of it i usually say this a little bit differently in my trumpet studio um play your face off play your butt off um and don't be a jerk that is that's a nice way to put it it's like play great and be a great colleague if you do that you will get a job and you will keep it and you will also flourish in that job you'll have colleagues who like being around you if you're a kind thoughtful non-insane person and and deal with your stuff too like deal with your stuff and leave it at the stage door so that you when you come on stage and there's

Starting point is 00:42:59 there's some kind of challenge and there's a there's so many challenges that you are meeting those challenges calmly and professionally. And that is the type of person I want to sit next to. So if you're auditioning for my orchestra, that's what I'm looking for. Great player, nice person. Excellent. Finally, how about a quick actionable tip that the listeners could implement today in their musical life? Sure. I'll give you a standard one that I've done in challenges in my socials, which is a practice shakeup challenge. If all musicians listening, you can do this for the next three days, which is to sit down, take out a piece of music without any preconceived ideas of what it is you want to work on, record a one or two minute excerpt of it, an etude,

Starting point is 00:43:45 piece of music, whatever, and then listen back right away. Like listen back before you forget what it felt like. So record yourself with no expectations, listen back right away, then pick one thing, one goal, one specific goal to work on and work on that for 15 minutes. And that's it. You're done. Your 15 minute practice session is over. That will give you the fastest improvement of anything I could imagine in a practice room. So pick a piece, record it, listen back, pick one thing, 15 minutes, you're done. Do that for a couple of weeks. Your playing will get better. This is awesome. I love that. Hillary says, I like the deal with your stuff part of that I think it's important in ensembles.

Starting point is 00:44:28 Oh, heck yeah. They're a marriage, right? You know, it's a relationship and you're literally, back from before COVID, you're literally sitting like knee to knee with these people for decades and getting really inside of their minds and how, especially I'm a section player.

Starting point is 00:44:43 So I lead sometimes, but I also, my job is to be aware of nuance and what's happening next to me. And that type of relationship can only happen when people are um not there's no blockage of some kind and that that exists unfortunately too but yeah I mean speaking of things we wish schools taught us I remember thinking they should give every musician psychology classes before they graduate oh better than that everybody should be in therapy everybody for at least one year everyone should have therapy just to know what

Starting point is 00:45:19 dislike because if you can't like deal with yourself how can anybody else deal with you so uh yeah and musicians are special right we we have this is a whole another conversation but there's like expectations especially when you've spent money on a degree you're like well where's my job that was me when I graduated from NEC where's that job and so then it that's the moment where this mindset stuff starts to fall apart if you're not aware of it yes yeah that's so true chris i can't thank you enough for being here today as always i am blown away by your wisdom and your brilliance and it's always such a treat for me to be face to face with you and soak in all of this information so thank you so much thanks for having me and thank you for giving me the

Starting point is 00:46:12 opportunity to see you and visit with you we haven't seen each other face to face in a while um and to talk to your your folks out there because it's all we're all part of the same community it's nice to connect where can they find you tell us everything where are you yeah um the best way to get in the loop on everything that's happening over here honestypill.com and just join my so just get on my mailing list that's where all the free offers and announcements and more of my random thoughts will be posted there all the time. I've got a couple of things coming up this summer, but my next live event is first week of August. And it's going to be dealing with that topic of how do you level past the middle, that 50% mark,

Starting point is 00:46:58 that half marathon mark, and what happens over here and what could happen over here. So there's no landing page or anything up for that yet, but honestypill.com is the best place. And of course, you know, I'm on all the socials, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, although I have ignored my Twitter for a while. Honesty Pill is the best place. Yeah, and the website is full of such great information and same thing with Facebook page and Instagram. So highly recommend everyone check out Honesty Pill everywhere. If you want one thing to do on my website right now, other than subscribe, go to the website, go to the free resource library. and there's a bunch of free videos there and there's one one called the mindset shift game

Starting point is 00:47:40 and it's a game you can play with a stack of index cards and that i would suggest everybody who can hear this go check that video out it's one of the funnest things on my website to do and it could literally like be a game changer with a two dollar stack of index cards nice thanks for reminding me because i had seen that and made a mental note and never went back so okay you're on how much set thanks so much chris and um yeah thanks what else can i say i can't wait to see you in person some at some point i know right yes so have a great day everyone and see you soon thank you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed this tribe qna session

Starting point is 00:48:37 my guest and i would love to know what your favorite takeaways from today's conversation were so get in touch with us and share your thoughts on those topics as always i'll have all the information related to this episode in the show notes, including everything about my guest. You can find them via your podcast app or by visiting mindoverfinger.com, where you can also find more information about mindful and efficient practice, performance preparation, and how to work with me. While you're there, sign up for my newsletter and receive your free guide to a highly productive and mindful practice using the metronome. Depending on when you're listening to this episode, I hope you can join us for the upcoming sessions. As I said in the intro,

Starting point is 00:49:24 all the information is in the tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash mind over finger tribe. So send in your questions and tune in to be part of the live conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend that you think could benefit from the wisdom of my guest, And also, why not share on social media? Don't forget to tag me, I'm Mind Over Finger, on both Facebook and Instagram. So that's it for today. Again, thank you and à bientôt.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 103 Christopher Still: Tribe Q&A Session

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