You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 4 Core Principles for Learning Jazz

Episode Date: July 2, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam get fundamental as they give their most important concepts for learning jazz.4 Core Principles for Learning Jazz:ListenPatienceRoutineFeedbackULTIMATE TIPWe're proud to present the new-and-improved platform for Open Studio: https://www.openstudiojazz.com! Head on over, check it out, and let us know what you like and what needs improvement. (We have over 1000 lessons to move to the new site, so check in over the following weeks as we update our courses)And if a new platform wasn't enough, we have a BRAND NEW course available: Jumpstart Jazz Piano! This is a course for very beginner-level pianists who want to learn the basic fundamentals of how to play jazz. And to celebrate, we're offering an early-bird discount of $10 off for THIS WEEK only! Just go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/jazz-piano-jumpstart and use the discount code JPJ10.Today's episode is sponsored by Soundslice. Soundslice is a web-based music-learning software that is a hybrid audio player and notation viewer that syncs music notation with real audio. To find out more about them, visit www.soundslice.com/transcribe. And check out our Slice of Emotion In Motion (the You'll Hear It Jingle)!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Yes. How's your core? Oh, it's good, strong. Been doing a lot of yoga lately. I've got four cores, actually. I'm Matt Amanus. And I'm Peter Martin.

You're listening to the You'll hear a podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. You're saying you got a four pack? Is that what you're saying? I got a four pack. Yeah, I'm working on a six pack and then an eight pack. What's the total pack? I've seen like eight, I think.

Yeah, yeah. We're going to be there. Not in person. Never in person. So today we're talking about our four core principles. Before we do, though, let's mention our sponsor. This one's sponsor is. the great sound slice.

It's one of my four principles. It's being my number one principle. Sound Slice. We use SoundSlice every day at the You'll Hear It Podcast and Open Studio. It's an incredible tool for transcribing and for linking up that transcription with videos. There's a great community where people have transcribed masters like Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. But Powell and anybody you could think of. Best Montgomery.

Go check it out. A lot of great stuff. Very useful tool. Thank you to SoundSlicse. SoundSlics.com. So today. we are talking about sit-ups. No, we are talking about

four core principles for learning jazz. Yes. Piano. Well, yeah, or any jazz. Or any jazz. But specifically here, piano, because we're talking about a brand new course that got released like today. Today. If we timed this out correctly, it's happening today.

It's called Jazz Piano Jump Start. It's for the novice jazz pianist. Right, the Neophyte. The Neophyte. And it's really a course designed to sort of get them up. we said like couch to the bandstand couch the stage exactly yeah yeah which might be overshooting it a little bit well no overshooting it would he say they go from couch to 5k with

this program because this has nothing to do with running but well what i wanted to call it what i wanted to say was seven weeks to jazz mastery but our lawyers said we could not say that because that's impossible no no but this will really get you to where you're starting to hear jazz you can play a little bit you're ready for jazz panel for beginners for example another course that we have. But if you have just the most basic of piano skills, we think we might have hit on something fun and nice. And it's very guided.

You know, like we're kind of holding your hands, both of us. We have actually one of the features of the course is guided practice routines where I will practice with you and tell you exactly what to practice to get you up. How are you going to go to all those people's houses? I'm not. It's a video, man. But anyway, go check out. We're going to put the link to the page there for Jazz Piano Jump Start.

Go check it out. But what we're talking about today is the four core principles that you and I came up with for this course. And we thought they were so compelling, so ridiculously brilliant. We didn't think they were so compelling. They are so compelling. Come on, man. That we decided to do a whole episode on them.

And these really, you know, this is a jazz piano course, obviously, but these apply to learning pretty much anything, not even just jazz, but just anything that you're going to learn. Right. You know, chess, French. Yes. These will help. So let's talk about number one.

Okay. Let me pull it up here. I should have known it. Oh, listen. Of course. Surprise, surprise. Surprise, surprise. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is, look, we joke about it because we love it. And this, you know, a lot of times when you're starting out something, when you're at that beginner level, for some reason, this is sort of a core principle that skipped over. And I think that that's so unfortunate because it's actually the most developed part of our musicality when we're at that beginner, neophyte, novice level already. Because we've been listening all our life. We might not have been playing piano all our life, but we've been listening to something, sounds, words, hopefully some good. music or whatever. So we always like that's one area that we have more developed than we think. So if we can kind of focus in on that, take advantage of that, leverage that for our learning, just like learning any other language, you know, listening. I mean, how much better if you're

starting to learn a foreign language and you've already been listening to it. Yeah. No, it's great. But I love what you just said. I was thinking the same thing. It's all about learning how to learn from listening. You know what I mean? It's how to take that tool of listening to music and how to learn things from it that we can apply to our music. And it's by far the most crucial. skill you can develop. I get a lot of emails about like, hey, could I get the sheet music for this, whatever? And it's like, just listen. Just listen to it. You're going to get so much more out of it. Yeah. And I mean, I think it's also, I mean, all these to me are fun, but some of these are going to people going to be like, ugh. But this one is like fun, always at all levels. And whether you're

listening to great recordings, listening to live music, listening to yourself, listening to your friends. And I mean, this can be applied in so many different situations. Everybody likes to talk, but what about a little listening? It's not going to kill you, is it, in a conversation? It is not. I'm talking to you. Oh, I would never listen to you, really. Number two, I think this is almost like one. This could be like tied for one. As far as the importance of actually being able to learn something like jazz piano and to be able to grow at any stage of your growth requires this. This is patience. And it's so important to remember. that if we're really in it, if we really love music,

if we really want to learn more and we really want to grow, if we want to have that growth, we have to develop a sense of patience. We have to develop the sense that we don't have to practice everything at one session, that we don't have to become Chick Korea or Brad Meldow by next week, that we have the rest of our lives to work on this, to fall in love with the process, to realize that the results are not as important as putting in the work.

Yeah, and I think that this, This area of patients is something that really ties together the jazz world and the medical world. Like when doctors and medicalists. You always go to the surgeon. Sorry. Yeah. Well, no, but when a good surgeon or a medical facility focuses on the patients instead of just on the doctors and the nurses, how much better does that operation? No.

It's not that kind. It's not that kind. Oh, patients. This kind. I should have been more patient. Wow. No. In all seriousness, this is truly, well, it comes back to the thing of, like,

like, you mentioned, you know, we can't be, we, it's not even that we can't be chikaria tomorrow. Like, if we could become chik, if we could give you a secret jump start to becoming chikorea in one day. Yeah. What does that mean about chikorea? It's worthless. Exactly. Absolutely worth. So like, not only be patient, but like revel in it and like enjoy the journey.

That's right. You know, and first of all, we're not even asking for that much patience with this seven weeks. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. But even if you don't have it in seven weeks, realize that it's like it's not a, it's not a sprint it's a marathon. Yeah, right.

But the journey of learning the music, and we talk to so many people, and that's so fun for us to see people as they go through our courses, that if you kind of put on the right mindset from the beginning, you can have a lot of fun as you move through this patiently. Totally.

You know, if you try to rush through, it's not as fun because this is a, I mean, this is a deep, valuable kind of skill that you're developing. And you don't want, you don't want to, even if you could rush through it, why would you do that?

Yeah, I hope at the end of seven weeks for this course that people aren't, you know, jazz piano masters, but that they've sort of laid, the foundation for those skills that can help them for the rest of their lives. Absolutely. In learning this great music. And then how are they going to do that?

That takes us to number three. Number three, a crucial part of this is routine. Developing a routine, whether that's a practice routine, whether that's a thought routine, whether that's a physical routine to get you ready. All of these things are something that world-class musicians have and use to their advantage. And so the quicker that you're able to develop a routine for your lifestyle, for how you want to learn, for the growth you want, the better you're going to get.

I've talked about this before. For me, I come in here about an hour and a half before I get here at Open Studio to start my workday. I go across the street to my studio. I practice the piano. It's my little routine.

It keeps me fresh. It keeps me able to work. You know what I mean? Yeah. That kind of thing works for me just in my current life setup. You have a different routine. Like, everybody has their own thing.

The key, though, is to find the routine. Because if you don't have it, you're going to be scrambling to try to get that time in. Yeah, I agree. Ditto all that and actually stick around for our ultimate tip. Hey, now. On the four core, related to the four core principles for learning jazz because it's actually

going to be very much related to this routine. So stay till the end for that one. It's a fun one. Okay, so what's our fourth core, our fourth pillar of learning jazz piano? The fourth core of our eight, eight pack of our stomach core is feedback. Now, feedback, exactly. We chose this because there was feedback. coming through our headphones as we wrote the core.

No, we both agreed on this. And look, we had a bunch of other, and we're not saying these are the only important things. But these are the core ones. These are the ones that we felt like if you wrap these around everything that you do, you could really make sustained and deep growth every day. If you get only these four things together, you got a lot. Exactly.

And a lot, I mean, a lifetime to be able to apply these to places. But number four is feedback. And the reason we thought this was so, we know that this is so important is because, it can be applied in so many different ways, and it aids in all the other ones in our development in general. So we've got the feedback that we can give ourselves,

which is probably the most important because we're going to be spending the most time with ourselves in our life, as in all the time. As in all the time. When you're learning, when you're working on this stuff, when you're trying to grow, make sure to record yourself and then have an honest,

yeah, on your phone, whatever you got, have an honest feedback session listening to yourself. I like to wait a day after. that it's not fresh, so that I'm hearing it with kind of new ears. Yeah, fresh ears. And don't beat yourself up and then don't congratulate yourself. Just be totally honest. Whatever you hear that you do.

Stoic. Adopted a stoic mentality. Have your, have your notepad there with you. Whatever you don't like that you hear. Make a note of. And that's something that you can then practice in your next session. There's no better way to get better. Also, get a good teacher.

Someone that can be honest with you. For me, I like a teacher who's direct. Yeah. and not patting me on the back, but I want someone who's like, you shouldn't be doing that. Right. You know what I mean?

Right, right. And then, you know, for some of us, we get direct feedback from an audience, and that's always fun as well. Yeah, yeah. But that's as important as anything else, I think. I mean, I think actually everybody gets that

if you're playing for your spouse, for your friend or whatever, and you should do that. It's not just about, yeah, if you have access to a teacher that knows jazz piano, jazz, you know, whatever is you're studying, that's always great.

But we all have an opportunity and we all should remain humble to get feedback from non-musicians and non-specials because we are playing music for, we're not only playing for ourselves and for other musicians, hopefully. So the feedback that you get, it actually is a different kind of feedback.

Yeah, you're not going to go to a non-pianist and say, give me some feedback on how my fingering is because they're not going to know what they're talking about. But give me a, how about, like, give me some feedback, like guide them a little bit. Give me some feedback on what this emotionally felt like when I played this solo. Give me some feedback on the feeling of the groove

when I played solo piano. Give me the feedback on, am I playing my drums too loud? Give me the feedback on, does it sound in tune? I don't know what that is. Well, no, does it sound, you know? Yeah. I mean, the layman or laywoman's opinion is not only matters, it's important.

Yeah. It's important. So there's a great opportunity for feedback there. And don't just treat the feedback as noise. Yeah. You ask for it and then ignore it. Exactly. That's fine.

But you can use. that information to make yourself better. Yeah, don't just use it to validate what you already think. You know, it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to, don't cherry pick. And sometimes feedback isn't someone telling you, hey, that sounds good or that doesn't. Sometimes it's like, okay, well, nobody's calling me for any gigs.

Right, right. You know what I mean? That's feedback on something, either how you're playing or acting or something. So, maybe time to self-evaluate on those kinds of things. Or, wow, when I do this, everybody goes crazy. Right. Sorry, I just, I just made a note for a future episode. I had an idea.

I was giving myself some feedback. That's perfect. Exactly what we're talking about. Okay. So before we get to our ultimate tip, don't forget to go to soundslice.com slash transcribe. Yes. Man, I love these four core principles.

They're great, man. So before we do the ultimate tip, let's just recap here. Listen is number one. Patience is number two. Routine is number three. And feedback is number four. Yeah, and we think they're all important.

But this order is kind of for a reason. And I think that you'll see, it's almost like chronological, you know. But we're applying these all kind of continually to all the different things, and they all work together. They do. And what we really wanted to do, especially at that beginner level, but hopefully we have this mindset for all the different levels that we're at,

is take these core principles and really simplify. Like, these are supposed to be very simplified so that you can apply them just kind of on the fly to everything you're doing and be like, okay, hold on a second, let me, how to, which one do I need to apply in this situation? I'm a little bit frustrated here. It's not coming the way I want to do. So that would be sort of patience. but then what can we do with our routine to kind of, you know, to kind of fix that.

And you know what? If you want to check out this course, the Jazz Piano Jump Start with all these seven weeks, it's fairly reasonably priced. It's very reasonably priced. I think we're going to do a special for the you'll hear our listeners for this week. Maybe later. But right now we're going to just launch, man. Come on. Okay, okay.

We're just launching. But you can go to the Jazz Piano Jump Start page there. Andrew's going to put a link to that page here in the description. So you can go check that out. We got a ton of stuff. Got practice routine. got a ton of stuff on it. And it's on the new platform. Oh, we didn't even talk about that. This is kind of a major

announcement. It's kind of a major. We're not going to go deep until you're going to have to just discover it. Just enjoy the speed of the link of this course. Yeah, this is the beginning of a great new day for OpenCute at the new platform. But you can check it out there. And you know what? I think now that I mentioned it, we have to do a little bit of a special. We got to treat our listeners right, man. Come on. You want to do $7

off? Oh, wow. Well, it's so well, it's so well, priced already. Yeah, so it's $77. How about $10? How about $10? Let's do $7? $17? That's a number we've never once said on this podcast. Well, why don't we do $10 off, but only for the rest of this week? Okay. This week, $67, jazz piano jumpstart. If you're a bass player, if you're a saxophone player, you want to learn a little bit about jazz piano.

Here's where you start. Yeah, so we're going to call that JPJ10. How about that? JPJ10. Jazz Piano Jumpstart $10. So JPJ10 put offer code on the checkout page in and you'll get $10 off. Love it. Do we ready for the ultimate tip?

What is it? I don't know. What did I say it was going to be? Oh, I know what this was. Okay, so number three. I love how prepared we are. What I mean? I got it here, but I got off on a tangent of giving $10 around.

You get $10. You get $10. You get $10. Throwing $10. Okay. So the ultimate tip about these things, I was focusing in on routine, right? Number three. And I think if you think about routine, I mean, we all know what a routine is.

But it's not always as easy as like what you said. You're like, you go over here, you practice, then you come over. The reason that that's a routine for you is you've developed a habit. That's really what a routine is. And, you know, we've talked before. I think we had some things about habits on here. We can go deep on another episode. But the idea that you need to repeat, you know, a routine, we're talking about a positive behavior.

So we all have habits, good, bad, or indifferent. We're talking about some positive routines that we get in that are really habitual. Yeah. You know, so once you develop a routine, don't just think, oh, I've got the routine. now it's magically happened. You need to repeat that. You need to turn it into a habit. So you need to do all the things that you would do for a good or a bad habit

and kind of rewards and all the different structures that are associated with those habits. I love it. Yeah. I love it too, man. So jazz piano jumpstarts. Congrats, man. It's a nice little thing. I think we came up.

Excited to see what everyone thinks. So remember, $10 off. Go this week to... JPJ10. See the link below. We can say the new platform. Now let's do it. Let's announce it right now.

Can we do it? Do it. Openstudiojazz.com. Go check it out. So check it out. Until tomorrow, you'll hear it.