You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 4 Ways to Stay Motivated During a Pandemic

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

During these trying times, it can be hard to find the will to keep practicing your instrument. That's why today, Peter and Adam have some tips to help you get back in the practice room.Today's episode is sponsored by Anytune (featuring an Anytune remix of the theme song!) Anytune is the perfect tool for anyone looking to improve their practice sessions. Learn, transcribe, and practice solos by slowing down the tempo, adjusting the pitch, and (for Pro+ users), isolating specific instruments in the mix. For more info, follow this link. And for access to the Android beta of Anytune, click this link.Today's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. So I'm like, done with Tiger King. I don't feel like practicing. What do I do now? Lacking some motivation? Yeah, I think so. Feel like you lost your mojo?

I might have. We're going to hook you up today on the You'll Hear at podcast. Okay. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Here at podcast. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you today.

We are sponsored by AnyTune. Peter, did you know that the AnyTune team is close to the NETUD on Android private beta? I had heard. They're getting closer and closer. It's very exciting. You know, they've been a desktop app for a while. They've been an iOS app for a while. And Android peeps are like, what, what about us? We want a little IDTune. Maybe I want to transcribe some John Coltrane on my Android. That's right. Guess what Android users. Go to anytune.com slash Android and sign up to try out the beta. You can be the first, you'll hear it listeners, are the first invitees over to the EniTune Android beta.

Yeah, and this is always a very special time because... It's a special time in a user's life. It's a special time. I don't know if you've ever been part of it. I was part of the original Sonos beta testers. No way. Yeah, back in the day.

No way. Back 16 years ago, yeah. And it's exciting because, well, I should say this, with a company like Anytune, a product like this, a beautiful piece of software, it's exciting because they're so thoughtful and purposeful in how they design their software

that even though it's beta, you know it's going to be useful and that, you know, you're going to get a chance to get feedback, maybe even be a part of the process. I mean, some of these jankety apps, you don't want to be on beta because it'll make your phone fall apart. Yeah, but not anything to know that. They got their stuff together. Oh, my gosh.

And it's such a great tool to use. If you haven't used it before, it's such an awesome way to transcribe music, slow stuff down. You can set markers. You can set loops. You can focus on individual instruments from classic tracks. You can take out the piano and just play along with like Paul Chambers. That's kind of my, I mentioned that the other day. It's kind of my favorite.

That's currently my favorite usage of the app. and that ability to just practice along with the greats. But, I mean, all the great features, putting in the markers for structured practice, more efficient practice, that actually can be some good motivation for your routine. Oh, for sure, man. It's just a really cool tool.

Go to anytune.us. You'll hear it to check it out for yourself. And, yeah, if you're an Android user, go to anytune. Dot app slash Android to check out the beta. Great stuff. So today, we are talking about four ways to stay motivated during a pandemic.

Yeah. You know, on our Open Studio private Facebook page, we got a post from one of our users, Nick. And I just like to read it to you. Please. Nick says, hi, everyone. I'd really welcome your advice on the subject of motivation. Pre-lockdown, I was highly motivated, using a journal to track my progress, et cetera. However, since lockdown, I've lost my mojo somewhat.

My job has been full on since then. In fact, the last few months have been one of the most intense of my career. come the end of the day, I've little energy and what energy I have, I don't want to be practicing scales and doing stuff which will make my brain hurt. I've enjoyed learning a Keith Jarrett tune, be my love from a transcription, but need some variety. I'm thinking of buying a keyboard with roads, et cetera, sounds, which I think will help. Grateful for others' thoughts, Nick. And then there's some really interesting comments, one from another user Sarah, who says a lot of my musician friends have lost their motivation during COVID. I think it's a psychological

phenomenon. Knowing all of our gigs have been canceled is certainly a part of it, Sarah. That's a great point. So I just wanted to talk a little bit today about keeping our motivation and four ways that we can really help stay motivated. And this could be for music, but it really could be for anything that we want to get done. Yeah. It's a weird time. This is certainly the weirdest time of my lifetime. Yes. I think everybody would agree that it's just such an odd time to a, to be existing. But we still wanted to... Remember that one time we both came to record the podcast

and we looked at each other at the same time with a weird look? That was a weird time too. That was a weird time, but that was very brief compared to the past three months. Very awkward. I'm glad we got out of the open now, though.

But what we want to do is like keep our humanity, right? Like, we want to keep moving forward. Like, we're not sharks in that we will die if we go backwards, but we're close to it. Like, humans got to go forward. That's right.

How can we do that during this time? You know, I don't know about you, Peter, But I've really been clawing at ways to keep my motivation. And it's really something that's very important to me. And so I think we have some good tips here for you. Yeah, actually, we were talking about four. I even had a couple more ideas. We'll throw, pepper them in as we go.

But yeah, I think the first thing, I think this, yeah, humanity. That's exactly that encapsules it. But I would just say everybody, let's go easy on each other and ourselves. You know what I mean? Take a breath. It's okay. like if there's any time where it's expected you're going to lose some motivation you're going to kind of lose your mind a little bit is now and what's hard is we'll say like well there's somebody

else that's worse off so i can't say anything that's fine that's that's very human of you to feel that way but to yourself you know this is a this is a hard time people are losing things for sure losing their lives yeah people are losing their jobs people are losing loved ones but then also people are just losing things like motivation and it's hard because it's like well that's like well that That's not the biggest thing. But if you are used to being motivated easily in your music and progressing, that's a big deal to you. And that's okay. So I think that the first thing is just take a breath, go easy on yourself.

I know we talk about, you know, habits and the grind and really working and stuff. But even what we're saying, like, only do that if it motivates you. Don't feel like this is a time when you have to. For some people, this is a time when they're extremely motivated. And that can be hard to see because you look at yourself and you're like, how are they able to do this? How are they able to make these? everybody's different. And you know what?

This is not over. That's right. So like we have to be thinking about whether it's over in six months or more likely a year. More likely two years. Two years. You know, who knows? Like we're in this for the long haul. So let's start to adjust to this new normal as we say.

The other thing is everybody's different anyway. So when you talk about going easy on yourself, at least maybe find some motivation to kind of get in touch with who you are. Like and I know that, you know, a lot of people have said to me it's just like, oh, it seems like you're doing all this stuff and you're doing and you're progressing and what but you got understand like I go through my own stuff too but I also like I'm a very introverted person which people always if they don't know me they're surprised I'm always surprised when you say that yeah but you know how you can tell like this is a experience you can definitely tell if you're happy with social

distancing and you're okay being on your own you know it doesn't mean you hate people there's nothing it being an introvert it just means that you can be with yourself and be totally satisfied that's right and get everything that you need and that's right and that's you need and that's just one type of person. It's just one part of my personality. It's just one part of everybody. Everybody has combinations. But if you're more towards the extrovert side, this is an especially difficult time, because you don't have a lot of that stimulation from people that you feed off of. So, and I love that idea of going easy on yourself. And I would just add to that too, you know, because Nick mentioned, you know, he gets off work and he's tired from work and I don't want to do

scales or anything like that. Well, one cool thing about working on music, if we consider at work is that we all got into this because it makes us really happy. Yeah. And it helps us in certain ways. So now is, you know, just like there's no better time to go easier on yourself and take a breath. But there's no other better time to use music as a, as a healing tool. Play what you want and only play what you want. Right. Play things that make you feel good and only play things that make you feel good. Yeah. If you don't feel like working on anything, don't work on anything. If you feel like playing some music to make you happy,

you know, that's what we've been working on this whole time. It's like Woodstock. Why else are we doing this? Summer love. Do whatever feels good. No, I mean, that's why we work hard on scales and things, right? Yeah. When we're feeling motivated, we work hard on that stuff so that when we want to express ourselves, right? When we want to really

to really put ourselves out there to really create something interesting to delight ourselves, we can do that on the instrument that we play. And we can hopefully do it with more and more ease as we work on stuff. And your motivation to work will come in because you'll be playing for yourself something lovely.

Yeah. And then you'll F something up and you'll be like, damn it! Then you'll be like, well, I guess I should work on scales actually. That's right. That's great. That's actually what I had down for my number two was I said find the easy but fulfilling stuff to practice and to play, you know?

Fulfilling, fulfillment comes in many different forms and that is the beauty about music is we can entertain ourselves. and we can fulfill ourselves. And yeah, good stuff. Okay, so number three, I know we're kind of jumping around a little bit, but these are all so connected, I think. This is, so we're talking about gigs and a lot of people losing their gigs, and we realize how much of a motivation for practice oftentimes having a gig is.

But sometimes that's just kind of busy work that happens to be musically fulfilling because it falls under the, you know, the umbrella of us being at the instrument. working and learning things that actually do help our playing. But that doesn't have to be the only motivation. And I know you and I have struggled with this during this period because we work in a lot of different situations. So, you know, we'll have a trio jazz gig. You know, we'll have, you know, these built-in things that keep us motivated.

And so in terms of the gigs, those are largely gone, but you can create some things. Well, yeah. I mean, I think with you and I, it's pretty interesting. You and I are a case of like, maker is going to make. Because, like, I don't know if you noticed this, Peter, but, like, week one of the pandemic, you started your shelter-place concerts. Yeah. And I started a video collage series with the 442s because it's just like, well, we got to do something. I'm not going to sit here and not make anything. That's right. We're wired that way and we're used to doing that.

But to other folks, it's not always as, you know, I realize, too, and I don't want folks to be like, feel bad because they see us or anybody doing stuff and you're not feeling the motivation. I think you got to understand we have a lot of advantages. a lot of infrastructure, you know, like you had a band that was also all, you know, a group of people wanting to do that. I had the studio here with the infrastructure we have. So we have a lot of, you know, you try to find whatever it is that you have and try to make that happen. And then if you can't, that's okay. Just wait and try to build that up a little bit or find your path. But I think now is a great, now is a great opportunity for if you're relying on gigs to keep you motivated. Right. It's time to start looking for other outlets because that might not come back

like it was before for a very long time. So I would caution you from just relying on a steady gig or even just gigs in general to keep you motivated. Find another outlet for your creativity right now. They're there. They're there and you still have something to say. Yeah, and we're creative people as musicians. So we might have to create what that is.

And I can tell you even though I have a weekly gig, it's not the same. I mean, it's different. I have to find a different kind of motivation when you don't have an audience. and you know you're playing in the place that you practice normally and you're dealing with a lot of different things

it's different and we have to get used to as they say the new normal like I told you I made my first foray into a restaurant which is outdoor seating that we well I just stopped it we used to go there and they were open and I was driving by there the other night I didn't stay but I started to go but I realized too I'm like you know everybody's wearing masks

the servers and it's kind of relaxed but it's not I mean it's weird right it's weird So, like, we can't just think, oh, even when their gigs do happen, it's not going to be the same. So don't think that your motivation is going to be fulfilled necessarily as soon as somebody says, everything's open. It's not. Yeah, it's not. Yeah. But music is still music.

I mean, music and we're still, you know, who we are. So number four is, what's number four? Don't rely. This is yours, actually. Don't rely on willpower. Oh, this is a really important one. Yeah. So you won't be able to willpower your way into working on anything.

or staying motivated. That's just not how motivation works. Don't tough it out. Come on, tough it out. Yeah, you can't just like, be like, I'm just going to use my pure will and stay motivated. That's not how it works. What you need to do is really,

and we talked about this on the previous podcast, about aligning our values. Remember that exercise we did where we wrote out our top three musical values, what we value the most as musicians? And are we living that day-to-day? And then are those values turning into our identity, or musical identity.

So if you're motivated playing music every day, you need to kind of like check in with your values as a person and as a musician. And by the way, it doesn't mean you're a bad musician or, or, you know, not the person you think you are if your values shift during this time. That's actually pretty typical and pretty understandable.

If you shift your values from, I really need to grow as a musician, which could have been pre-pandemic to, I really just need to like stay in a healthy mental space and be relaxed for my family and whatever that is. You can shift your values right now. They don't have to be like I need to be John Coltrane by the time I'm 25. Right. That might have been your values pre-pandemic, but it's a different time.

And so you need to maybe this is actually a perfect time to do that exercise. Check in with what are your musical values. What is your musical identity? Are you living it day to day? and if it seems overwhelming or it seems like it's not something you want to do, shift your values. Don't tell yourself, here's where we can kind of get into some cognitive dissonance, right? Is if we tell ourselves, I'm this super burning musician who wants to work hard like this all the time, but then you're like, I just can't practice.

I can't do it. Okay, right now you are not that super burning musician who wants to just go at it all the time, and that's okay. You've got to let yourself off the hook on that. It doesn't mean you're not that forever. Right. Just shift your values right now to something that you can actually, that isn't dissident, right? that is consonant to what you are comfortable living right now.

And you will be so much happier. And actually, you'll probably be more productive than if you try to, like, bump your head up against this weird forced value from a different time. Like, it's not how it works, you know. Right. I mean, kind of goes along with your number one of be kind to yourself. And, you know, it's a similar thing. But really...

Compassion. Have some compassion. Yeah, Nick, have some compassion for yourself. And really, like, take a look at your musical values. Your values as someone who wants to be a musician and wants to grow as a musician. musician, that might shift right now, and that's totally cool. Yeah, and I think, you know, with this really being a global pause, as much as, you know, some people are going to say, oh, everything, pause is over, you know, and you know what, maybe they're right. I'm taking a more

cautious approach now. And you know, I'm normally one to charge right ahead. You are not cautious, generally. I'm not cautious. But I would just say that one advantage to there being a pause and it being of a global scale. And, you know, folks that have been through kind of crises before, I mean, everybody has been through a crisis. I mean, most people haven't been through a crisis this big. But if anybody's ever been through a earthquake or a hurricane or like a fire or, you know, seeing somebody murdered or any, I mean, I'm not trying to get dark.

Damn. No, I mean, you know, bad, you know, a lot of people go through things, hopefully never in your life, but sometimes once or twice. But when you've been through that, you have a different perspective on how these things work. and what you realize is, you know, a lot of the things that you would expect in terms of things that are really important and stuff like that. But during this period, because it's such a pausing, whether that's three months, six months, two years, who knows.

But the advantage to that is that you can kind of be like, you know what, I don't have any motivation. I don't have anything, but nobody, like, I'm not missing any gigs. I'm not, like, if you just pause during this period and don't, you know, just sort to do some maintenance or whatever, but you don't grow a lot, that's okay. or if you wait a couple months and then do it. The whole world is pausing right now. So the most important thing is like let's be safe, let's be compassionate to each other.

Let's try to, when we come out of this, be better. So yeah, ideally you're practicing 30 hours a day, but that's not realistic. No, not at all. Because there's 24 hours in a day. Yeah, that's you couldn't possibly get to 30. Yeah. The mathematical impossibility of it. Yeah.

So there you go, Nick. I hope that helps. Value bombs dropped. Boom! No, you know what? It is a weird time. And so again, I think really, if you could take anything away from this conversation, I think Peter had it spot on. I was just like, do what you think is right for you right now and let yourself off the hook of whatever expectations you put on yourself pre-pandemic.

It's a weird time and it's, we're going to come out, you know, the other side at some point. But until then, you know, be kind to yourself. Yeah. And I'm looking at Adam, you guys can't see because this is an audio only version of this podcast. But he has his shirt says, happy. practicing. Oh, yeah. And so let's remember that. Like practicing should be happy development when it's not, you know, back away. This is not like just grind it out and that kind of thing. It'll be back. Motivation will be back. For sure. And we will be back in a couple days. In a couple days because that's how we roll. We're being compassionate to ourselves. That's right. We actually a little pressure on.

You know what though? That's true though. We have recognized that we were maybe trying to burn too much in here on our daily podcast along with all the other live streaming events we do. Yeah. Which are constant. and fun, but like, you know what? You got to tell them about the Father's Day card. You can just give them a... Oh, yeah. So my daughter, she drew me a very large Father's Day card, and it was centered around me.

It just said, hi, I'm Adam Annas. Welcome to the daily guided practice session. Because that's my identity to her during this pandemic. It's me sitting at my desk with my MIDI keyboard. In the dining room. In the dining room, giving guided practice sessions. I love giving guided practice sessions, though. So I'm not going to change that value at all.

That's something that motivates me. Yeah, so we're not doing daily. We're becoming slovenly with our podcasting. No, we're upping the quality. And we're being compassionate with ourselves. And we're being compassionate with ourselves. And we hope that it's okay. We hope that translates through these microphones to you.

That's right. Beloved listeners. Thank you. Don't forget to go to anytune.us slash you'll hear it. Because that might give you a little, that might give you a little motivation. Sometimes, you know, we always say like do it for the right reasons, but it's such a great tool.

Oh, yeah. A nice little shiny new object is not wrong with it. You didn't hear it from me, and that's what this app is. But once you get back on the happy practicing bandwagon, you're going to have this app. It might just give you that a little bit of a nudge. Well, here's what it is. It's a great device, a tool to listen to music very deeply.

Yeah. And listening to music, that can get you some motivation right there. There's nothing more inspiring. And it makes it easier. Let's be honest. Yeah, for sure. It doesn't do the practice for you, so it's not going to totally wipe out any kind of lack of motivation, but it does make it easier.

So hopefully that'll be a tool that you can use. And you can get the free version. You're going to want to upgrade at some point, but there's no pressure. Got a lot of features on the free version. All right, folks. Thanks very much. Until next time. You'll hear it.