You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 4 Tactics to Use When Things Go Wrong - #35

Episode Date: March 6, 2018

Peter and Adam give some practical advice for dealing with train wrecks on the bandstand. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Today we're going to talk about four tactics to use when things go wrong. Well, this is really topical because we've tried, I think, three times now to start this episode and things have gone wrong. This is literally the fourth time we've tried to do this episode and I've messed it up every time. So fourth is a charm and that's what we're going to give you four tactics. So let's jump right in. Well, first of all, we're talking about on stage, right?

Yeah, we're talking about, you know, if someone gets lost in a tube. if you get lost after a drum solo or maybe someone calls one tune and the bass player starts playing something else Maybe you start playing something that not everybody else is playing it happens to the best of us But there are some things you can do to kind of bring it back Yeah, and I mean this should be happening sometimes. I don't want this to happen to any of you But it should happen because we're improvising jazz musicians this is not a classical concert where the program is set a year in advance and everyone has a listing of it and you have a librarian putting the music out. And even in those situations, things go wrong sometimes. And you need to be able to deal with things. Yeah, totally. But I mean, when you're in a fluid situation, as it should be

on a fun jazz gig, stuff goes south sometimes. It's just the way of the world. So our number one thing to do is don't panic. This is good advice in life as well as in jazz. But I can't tell you how many times I've seen, you know, like in a jam session or something, a drummer might drop a beat during a drum solo or a four, and everybody loses their minds. Right, right. I mean, physically you can see it. Physically, you can see them turn white and start to sweat, and the audience knows something's wrong, but they don't know why, because no one is counting the drum solos.

Right. No one's even listening. No one really cares. No, but seriously, you, it's not as bad as you think it is outside of the bandstand. Now, you don't want to get lost to the drum, so obviously it's not a good thing, so you should feel a little alarm and be on alert. But the first thing is, don't panic, don't sweat it, don't make the audience realize that something tragic has just happened because really nothing tragic has happened. Right. You know what I mean?

Like, so the singer started singing autumn leaves in the wrong key. That will not be the last time. What is it, Wednesday night? Yeah, exactly. That will not be the last time that happens to you probably this month, so don't worry about it. Right. And I mean, when we think about panic and not panicking, what is the opposite of panic that's being cool, right? Yeah, yeah.

And when we think about, I mean, this is a little corny, but if we think about in the jazz world, the iconic most cool character around this music ever is probably Miles Davis, right? And, you know, he never panicked. Now, that's not to say that things didn't go wrong and that he didn't specifically play quote unquote wrong notes. And he even had a concept and a quote, and I'm going to screw it up a little bit, but the general thing of what he was saying is you can't play a wrong note. It all depends on what you play after. That's what decides if it was right or wrong. So if you're panicking, you're never going to be able to do that because you're staying,

you play something wrong, something happens wrong, and you go into panic. You should be going into, let me fix that, let me correct that, and that should be your whole persona. That's the way Miles was, and a lot of times when people would see him play, And we as musicians know, we're like, whoa, is that the right note? He wasn't panicking. He's like, that's the note it is. I'm going to play something now and make it right retroactively. I mean, it's almost, you know, people talk about Miles as like, you know, almost a Buddhist with this kind of thing.

Because he wasn't, I mean, judging when things were, he would shoot you a look if it was wrong. He was a little judging. He was a little judging. He was a little judge. No, but he wasn't judging the music. Right. You know, he would take the music as it came and then turn something beautiful out of that. And that's what your goal should be.

Even mistakes are going to happen. So even if they do, you know, you know, know, as you do with meditation and you, you, you, thoughts come in or whatever, just accept them and then, you know, gently nudge it the other way. Right. So number two, for our big tactics to use when things go south is to listen. So for some reason, the natural instinct, and I don't know if this goes back to like our caveman days or something in our DNA, but our instinct when there's like a problem or danger

or something is, well, I guess it does go back that because it's like make some noise. do something, wave your arms around, panic, basically. My wife always gives me a hard time because if anything is going wrong at our house, if the kids are screaming and the dogs outside and shouldn't be, and the spaghetti just fell everywhere, I just kind of get in a ready position and start trying to do things. And she's just like, just chill, all right, it'll be fun. Yeah, yeah.

And so I think, you know, on the gig, even in a solo, whatever, as soon as you recognize that things are going wrong, stop playing. Because in order to listen, you have to stop. Even if it's just for a quick second, but listen to what's going on around you so you can make an assessment as to how you're going to pull things together. Even if you're playing by yourself, a solo situation, you really have to like, you know, keep your ears open to see what the moment needs next. And you're not going to be able to do that. Now, you can't, I'm not saying freeze up and just like listen and turn white and like, you know, be scared. But listen to your surroundings.

Don't close up. That's right. That takes us to number three, which is to. serve the music first. Right. So a lot of times... Music is best served on a cold platter, I've heard. Okay.

No, so what I mean by this is, you know, when things go wrong, it's human nature to, to address our own egos first and start assigning blame. That could all be done later. It should be. It should be, right? You're going to want to blame the drummers and the singers, of course. Take names. Take names.

No, but before your ego gets into it, while the tune itself is actually still going on, while the chaos is happening, make sure that you're doing what's best for the music. And if that's, like you said, you know, not playing, if that is trying to help someone back in, you know, be humble with this and make sure that the audience and their experience that it comes before you trying to save face on something. You know what I mean? Like, this isn't about you. This is about a greater thing.

You're part of a team. You're a part of getting good art out there. So don't be a jerk and blame someone on stage in front of someone else. I mean, this pianist, we can get this sometimes. If someone comes in wrong or whatever, and they look at us and we're like, that's all right. We get all the glory when it goes right. That's true.

But always make sure that your first thought is what is best for the music in this situation. I like that. So we could actually add in, that makes me think of a little 3.5 before we get to 4, which is when in distress, assess. Do you like that? Good. Yeah, because, you know. On a bumper sticker.

That's right. So if you're like, I mean, what you're saying in terms of serving the music and what we talked about before in terms of listening, you know, you're in the distressful, stressful situation. You've got to first kind of assess where you are so that you can serve the music. You've got to assess, but you've got to be thinking of the right thing. It's not about you. Don't try to cover your ass.

Be confident. Totally. You know. But that brings us to the real number four. And I think we could do another little bumper sticker if I can put this together quickly. Sure. You got it. And that is.

When in doubt, lay out. That's right. We were just going to say lay out, but really when in doubt, layout. And so when you're in, when things are going wrong, you're in doubt. So layout, again, even if that's just for a second, but don't try to fix it. And now we are definitely to blame as pianists a lot of times because we've got the power to do that and kind of take over the whole band or the whole orchestra. But it's not even always right for us to do that. And a little bit of laying out by everyone can get your.

your bearings right and then see how you're going to hook back up you know and you know what i feel like people are scared to do this because they feel like it makes them look less confident but i actually whenever i see this i think oh that's a confident player because they know that they're they're off and they're trying to find themselves and they know the best thing to do for the music is to listen to stop to they're they're going to i mean if herbie hancock does this yeah it's okay to do i mean herbie in in his autobiography talked about about how he didn't you know at a certain point in Miles Davis' band, he didn't know what to play. And so Miles said, if you don't know, don't play anything. And he would. I mean, there's all those plug-knickle recordings.

He barely comps at all because he has no idea what to do with Wayne Shorters. Not no idea, but he's not confident about what to do with Wayne Shorters changes. And it makes this really beautiful thing. And I don't think Herbie Hancock's any less of a musician for that at all. Well, I think that speaks to point number three, tactic number three of serving the music. I think there's an element of that, too. I mean, think about, like, when we think about those recordings, what a big part of the sound and the openness by him laying out. Yeah, maybe it was because he was lost or didn't know what to play, but it's also a listening and let me serve the music.

It doesn't need comping here. Yeah, comping could work and that's my job. What is it if I lay out? Right. I think it's very important. And I mean, like all these things, it's use your ears. That's what's going to get you out of these stressful situations because you'll hear it. That's it for today's episode of You'll Hear It.

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