You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Make You a Better Musician

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

What are some indirect steps you can take that have the side effect of making you a better musician? Peter and Adam explainCheck out this helpful (and relevant) Instagram post by PeterHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipe: link.youllhearit.com/speakpipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested 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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey Adam. Yeah. Are you an introvert? I don't think so. I think I'm like a balance. How about you? Well, I'm trying to be, but I have a co-host on this show, so it's kind of hard to do it if you know what I mean.

I do. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Music, advice, discussion, inspiration, and listening tips. You always add like two things to that as we go. I've been workshoping. We're going to talk about that later.

By the time we get to our 1,000th episode, that's going to be about three minutes long. Music advice. It's going to be the show. Relationships. Tips, traffic, weather on the ones. Sports betting advice. Exactly. You'll hear it.

Cue the song. That'll literally be the whole show. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, if you need a bunch of advice. I'm going to fix that for you right now. Thanks, Harry. Yeah. Like, so I wanted to talk today about something that was on my mind.

I saw some post that you posted this past weekend. You participated in a half marathon in Columbus, Ohio. How did that go for you? It went pretty good. Actually, it went really well. It was a lot of fun. I combined sort of a business-like, business-like attitude with some fun,

which is possible. Yeah. And sort of took some of my experience from the music world just because I've done a lot of gigs and decided to treat the race like a gig. So it's fun, but it's also like, you've got to be professional about it.

Yeah, absolutely. They were not paying me for it, but that's okay. I went in with a pro attitude. Not yet. Not yet. They're not paying you. They almost paid me to leave, but that's a whole other story.

Well, so I saw your post and I saw you kind of talking about it like this, about treating it like a gig. And I thought, like, you know, every great musician that I know, they have these things in common. I mean, I know that's a trope, right? What are these five great CEOs have in common or whatever? But it's true. There are some lifestyle tweaks that we can all make and work on, actually,

some things that are completely outside of music. Yes. That not just might, but will help you to just put, able to put your energy and your time in the places that's going to further your music musical development, whatever that may be. So this has nothing to do with like, if you practice like this, you're going to get this or you keep a journal or whatever. Not really anything to do with music specifically, but just some five lifestyle things that I've noticed that I try to work on on the regular that I wish I would have known when I was 20. Yeah. Like I wish I would have

known everything on the list that how important it was. Well, maybe you knew, I'm sure you knew some, if not all, but you might be, it might have been for us and a lot of folks. the importance. Like life hadn't taught us yet at age 20, how important it is. That's so perfect because really I think learning that why these things are important is sort of part of the journey and part of what makes you better at it. But I think it's always good to kind of talk about and maybe just discuss like what are the things that for us help us to become better musicians that have nothing to do with music.

Right. And just to be clear, I think that we're not so much talking about like, okay, you know, lift, wait so that when you play piano, you can have stronger. shoulders. It's not that where it applies in a direct line, but it's not so esoteric or disconnected from our musical development that we can't. I see this as ways to take kind of like frameworks, ways of thinking, ways of feeling, ways of working through different situations that are not right at our instrument or right on the bandstand, but they can apply there. You know, it's like sometimes you have to take a problem and view it in another situation for it to make sense in that original

situation as opposed to always just staying in the situation. So it's like if you're in the practice room and you're having a challenge, a lot of times people will be like, well, just take a break before you're like hitting your head against the wall and go walk around. And, you know, most people don't necessarily do anything else. Or they check social media or something. And they come back and then they're like, oh, wait, I still don't have a solution to that. So these are kind of like other endeavors that can be really interesting and helpful anyway that will kind of, you will work through some of the same situations and start to make a connection. I think. think between music in ways that we can't tell you exactly how, but they will happen. And then it will be

those aha moments when you're back in music that your life has been more enriched because you've tweaked other parts of your life, thus making it easier possibly for you to tweak your musical life. Absolutely. You know, and a lot of what we're going to be talking about here, Peter, is physical, actually. A lot of the things that we're discussing here have to do with your body. Well, when you have a couple of Adonis is hosting a show. I mean, how else could we? That's the point. You don't have to be an Adonis to have a lifestyle that helps you to be a better musician. Big shout out to Adonis Rose, a longtime friend from New Orleans, who's an actual Adonis, and his name is Adonis.

Think about the pressure on Adonis Rose to keep a physique. You know what I mean? Right. So we'll get right to number one. And for me, this took a long time coming. But, you know, as you start to get older, you realize that really the most valuable resource that there is in the world that will never have enough of is time. Yes.

And for me, for years and years, the number way, one way to waste time was to basically lose a day or two every month from just being super groggy, from not sleeping enough. So my first, like, lifestyles week, the thing that I'm, I look to the first to get dialed in is, am I sleeping? Okay. Yes. How is my sleep schedule?

Because I literally spent my 20s thinking like, oh, you can totally burn the candle on both ends. Yes. I'll stay out till three in the morning and then I'll wake up and go to the practice room or whatever. And yeah, it's easier to do in your 20s because, you know, you're physically, you can kind of take it. Yeah. But there would always be a burnout after that. Right. I never got past that to where I didn't, then wouldn't lose a day or two where I would

just have to spend all day in bed because I was so exhausted from burning out. I don't do that as much anymore, if at all. Yeah. Because I've put such an importance on sleep. And that's really helped me to stay super consistent and super like with it on my practice routine, on my gigs, the work I, the teaching I do here at Open Studio. It's so crucial that I have my sleep scheduled down. I mean, it's fantastic.

I love that we have this number one because I think it probably, is of all these the most impactful. Absolutely. Like this can be a game chain. I mean, I think, you know, look, we're not the only. I mean, these people have studied this. They've showed it in so many ways. But in terms of being a musician, I think it's important because we always think, well,

well, our lifestyle, the lifestyle of an artist or a musician or any kind of artist is very different and contrary to what society tells you is the normal, what you're supposed to do, you know, get a job and be productive and all this. Although I would say we do that as musicians. I think it's a very important job. I think we're very important job. I think we're very productive. Absolutely.

But I mean, it can be very easy to kind of go against the grain. And we need to. I mean, that's part of being an artist. Like we're supposed to hold a mirror up to society, but also to be like, no, we're not just going to do what we're told to do. We're going to push the envelope. That's our job. Yeah.

But so sometimes you hear like, you know, get it up sleep, go to bed. You know, the early bird gets the worm. And we're like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to stay up late and we're going to be creative souls and all this. But the whole thing is, I think, and to your point about like when we're in our 20s, you know, we don't quite understand this. because I think the we don't understand we're thinking of time is like we got to spend so much time experiencing life playing music doing this and so like we would sacrifice a good night's sleep

for a good time there's phomo in your 20s like you know what I mean yeah totally and then you feel like you just have to be hustling all the time yeah the thing is like the thing with the with with with the time that I think this actually saves when you spend more time sleeping a higher quality sleep is it makes your other time higher quality your musical your practice time Your hang time. Your hang time. Absolutely. Yeah.

And so I think sometimes it's like, yeah, you know, when you're younger, you can tolerate less sleep. I just think, I don't even think that's true. I think it's more of like you just don't know how to appreciate the quality of time. You know, like when we talk about your practicing or you're sometimes even playing a gig where they're like, it felt like time slowed down. And I've experienced that. Like I used to think that that was BS. I was like, yeah, right. Time is always, it's a constant.

But I mean, when you can get to that point where you're so dialed in, you're such flow state, whatever you want to call it, that time slows down. You can't do that if you're sleep deprived, not on a regular basis at any age. Yeah. That's so true. When you're young, it's like you think,

well, I don't need the sleep, but really because you think you're doing it, but you're not really doing it as good as you think you are, you know, when you're super exhausted. And that's why when you're younger,

it's all about like how many hours did you practice. I mean, I remember when I went up to Juilliard, it was like, people are, how many, I mean, like in the,

like, oh, hi, I'm Peter, good to meet. I mean, because I was kind of already, I had practiced a lot, but I was never like... How many hours are you practicing? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But I mean, later on, it's more like, what's the quality of your practice? And, you know, with the sleep thing, I know you and I are both morning people, I get up super early, you get up super early, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. I think it's more about the quality and finding the schedule that works for you.

If you're playing late every night until 3 a.m., then, of course, you shouldn't be up at 5 a.m. You should sleep till noon. Yeah, totally. That's totally cool. We've all been through parts of that in our life where that was our schedule, as long as you find something that works for your life

that really gets you into like quality practice time. Notice I didn't say quantity, quality practice time. That's right. Quality performance, quality time with your friends and family. Like, that's what sleep is all about. Absolutely. All right. Number two is to develop a physical hobby.

And this is really, you know, we're talking about your running this week and this really was what sparked this idea of this episode. I really think that, like, you don't have to be Adonis Rose. You don't have to be just ripped and look like Brad Pitt or whatever. But some kind of regular hobby

where you're moving... Is it Brad Pitt like 71 now? Yeah, but he looks like he's 40. I thought he does. Good jeans. Or good something. Well, Dockers, whatever he's wearing. Whatever he's wearing, they look good.

Benjamin Button. Yeah. No, but to have... Even if it's walking, or running or lifting weights, or yoga, or you play basketball or baseball or whatever it is, some kind of regular physical hobby.

And especially like the idea of what you were talking about, something that you can kind of work on. You know what I mean? Something that you can, like, I've learned so much from things like running and things like yoga and how to learn those things, right,

that apply directly to playing the piano and directly to getting better. It's a physical activity. So is playing music. Yeah. So, like, learning how to do that in a way that is both, like, healthy and that you can stay consistent

and not get injured, that can transfer to the instrument. Absolutely. Like, pretty directly. Yeah. And I mean, this one, I would just say, yeah, developing a physical hobby, you know, forces you into, you know, being an athlete on some level. You know, you're doing something athletic, which is like using your body for that, that hobby or endeavor.

And because playing music, any instrument and some instruments require quite a bit of athlete or benefit from a lot of athleticism, you can take that. I mean, athleticism is all about like really being connected physically, you know, with your body. and you know not necessarily your physique but just your athletic your movements and all that and how much do we use that at the piano and the trumpet and the drums and all those kinds of things so but then this also helps like with sleep you know like if you're working out it helps with your general health so this is a good one I think that kind of helps all these different areas as well that's great number three is is sort of the flip side of this coin and that's to develop an intellectual hobby listen nobody wants to be hanging with you and all you're talking about is giant steps exactly Exactly. That's not. No one likes a dumb jazz musician. But no, there aren't really anything. You got to step away from it.

Yeah. For, and I, and I say a hobby because I think it's important, again, that this is something that is sort of outside of the scope of your life as a musician and your life trying to get better as a musician, whether that's, you know, learning how to code or maybe reading novels or even watching baseball or playing video games or something that's completely different. But again. Intellectual hobby, watching baseball?

Absolutely. Well, like, if you have the scorecard for sure. No. With those symbols? Just watching baseball is an intellectual hobby. I would consider it for sure. Fandom is an intellectual hobby. Anything that's not music.

Yeah. And I think you can look at this as the flip side. Like physical hobby, athletic, like that's developing your, working on your athleticism of your body. This is the athleticism of your mind, totally. Something that's working out your mind. Totally. All right. For number four, we have, of our five lifestyle tweaks, we have a bonus, by the way.

Did you know that? I love it when we did on it. I'm going to fix that for you right now. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. But number four of our lifestyle tweaks is to tweak your diet, your consumption, what it is that you are fueling your body with. Not fueling your mind. We're not talking about your mind.

We're talking about your body now, right? Listen, we're talking about practice. No, we're not talking about practice. We're talking about your diet. That's right. And thinking about it in terms of like not just like how do you feel as you're eating it in the joy. I mean, we're both foodies. We're all about that too.

That's almost like a whole other thing. That's like entertainment. Yeah, that's almost spiritual. Yeah, I mean, that's super important. It's like listening to music as opposed to playing music. Absolutely. But this is like tweaking your diet, you know, for the energy that you can get, clarity of mind, consistency. This is another one that can help your sleep.

It can help your practice. It can help your athletic endeavors. Certainly can help your intellectual endeavors. That's so true. It's like when you're, again, going back to when you're kind of young and you think you can eat anything, but then you wake up and you just feel like crap, like a dumpster fire. Exactly. Because you had like, you know, five.

pizzas before you went to bed or whatever and stop it for it's a ton of better and a ton of beer no and then you wake up and you're like well do I feel bad well I guess I won't practice today and then right just go and you're salt you're literally salty from all the salt that you've had yeah yeah no I mean this is something that again you don't have to eat like you know like a plant based vegan what is it what is ritual yeah you have plant based plant based endurance athlete you do not have to eat like a plant based endurance that you do yes you do I think there is something actually there's something really fun

with tweaking your regular daily diet. Yeah. To be like, well, what is going to get me like the most like consistent energy? Yeah. You know, like so that I'm not super tired

so that I don't go through big ups and downs that I can like hang consistently. I love that. Yeah. And I think it's just, that's our tweaking diet music. I'll blend and tell you what it is later. That's right.

But I mean, I think I love that we're thinking about it as fuel. You know, the same way you would think about what are you listening to. Like, yeah, you can listen to anything. Yeah.

And people, you know, would, would say key chair was a diva because he never wanted music play like he would leave a concert off there was like music playing back in the background or something yeah like backstage but we got there he's like I have to have because because he took it seriously it's like what you consume in that's your fuel you know and like yeah we might be resilient and we might be able to take a lot of crap or whatever but why you know when when you start to see the benefits of this so yeah it doesn't have to be any keto or yeah no diet like

you got to find the thing that works for you that gives you that energy and stuff but also balances with the joy that you get from food. Because just like with music, you can't just listen to stuff that you know is good for you. You got to listen to stuff that you love. Absolutely. And you can find that.

There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. Yeah, it's great stuff. All right, number five, Peter. Okay, number five is to, you know, tweak how you look at relationships in your life. I think everybody has relationship, even the biggest loner or introvert, so-called,

you know, has some relationships with people, be it family, be it friends or whatever. but like how we interact with our community, our families, ourselves for sure. Yeah. And like understanding what it is. Like I'm an introvert. I'm a huge introvert. And whenever I, the more I learned about that, I never really thought about.

But the more I learned about what that actually means, I used to think that was a negative thing. And then also I used to like, because I thought it was about like that meant that you were shy. And I was like, well, I'm definitely not shy. But the thing is introvert, you get energy from spending time alone. Yeah. And you need time alone. And I think everybody has some level of that. Even if that's when you're sleeping.

Yeah, most people are a balance of those things. Yeah. Yeah. And it's never just like one thing. But if you like to spend like if you get in touch with your introvert side, and that's kind of a relationship like with yourself, make sure that you're getting that time. Because sometimes you're only around other people or whatever. And the cool thing about music, that's a lot. It gives you both.

You have the community aspect and you have the introverted part, the practicing and the playing with people. You know what the favorite part? of my new houses. What? The door on my studio. Because I have my piano down there. Me, when you invite your family in and you all sitting there together. Nope, I don't invite anybody in.

No, hell no. No, I invite them out. I say, get out of my studio. Is that your little, yeah, I hate the word man cave, but it is my man cave. But you know, hey, listen, for the entire pandemic, I was working and practicing and composing in my dining room in front of everybody with my kids right there on the couch next to me. And I was going a little stir crazy with that.

I need, I also need time alone. I need time to ruminate. I need time to pace around and decide what are my next steps and what do I want to be doing. And I need time to listen to music without anybody else around to talk about Minecraft. Right, right, right. Like, I need all of this stuff.

So I think that is crucial. I also think that the flip side of that is, is that the older you get, the more you realize that you get recharged also from your relationship with other people. Yes. And those don't happen effortlessly. Those don't happen without,

some kind of work between you and that other person. You have to text your parents. You have to or call your parents, call your mother. Well, texting can be dangerous. Don't call, don't text your mother. Call your mother. I do text with my mother. No, you have to call you a lot of weird emojis going on.

You have to, you know, like have date night with the wife. You have to, like, reach out to your friends and have, have happy hour with your friends. You have to make that time and put the work into it and try to be, you know, there with him. That, we, I know this sounds weird, everybody, but that will, of course, help you become a more like easy freer musician like you will have more confidence on the bandstander like you will proven time and time again

when I don't have that connection I get super in my head right and I mean it's an energy source for us totally like family friends friends and stuff but when we talk about you know tweaking your relationships it's really more like tweaking your approach to

spending that time and energy investing in that and how you can take that energy not just as a tactical thing for your music but except that in the other side of that is like make sure like your friends and stuff are people that are they'd have your back because you know to be an artist to be a musician it doesn't matter if you're amateur pro don't worry about any of that but put yourself out there like you need support and you need people that lift you up absolutely and so the whole thing of like you know you're the average of the what is it four people three people that you're around the

most like take that seriously i was just telling one of my kids that i was like make sure like that's good life advice i mean we're We all gravitation. You're the median. You're the median. You're the median. Like so like, you know, a punch up as you're picking out your friends if possible. And people that especially emotionally bring you down.

I mean, look, you got to be there for your friends, of course, and your family you're stuck with. So, but there's an energy. And if it's always flowing out of you to them, that's not selfish to cast them to the side. You have to. Because how else are you going to have the energy to become a better musician and give the world what you're actually here to do? Absolutely. Yeah. Super fun, Peter.

What's our bonus today? Okay. the bonus is you know for a lifestyle tweak that has been a game changer for me and for many folks I think around here at Open Studio I've seen of our members I'm just starting to understand

which is funny like you go all you know almost more than half a century in this world as I have now but this is to find something that you want to and are willing to be a pro at that is not music.

Oh, okay. Okay. So this means something that you're going to approach with the same seriousness, that consummate professional kind of approach to it. Now, what I've been doing recently, and you can do this with several things, and they could certainly be any of these things, I mean, not necessarily sleep. You're not going to be a pro at sleep. Oh, I'm a pro at sleep.

Well, it could be. You know, you could be like a sleep expert, but this would be more of the hives. I'm going to fix that for you right now. You love that. You love that. It's my new one. I love it. Well, you like that you can, because it was interrupting you on the YouTube ad for

so long. This is Harry Connick Jr., by the way, from the Quincy Jones piano method. I love it. I love it. Yeah. But this would be more applicable to the physical and intellectual hobbies we were talking about earlier. But the idea is like, you take something that is just a hobby, but you don't treat it like a hobby.

You treat it like you are a professional at it. So the example I use, and what I've been doing lately with this is with the running. Now, I've been a runner my whole life, but I have not always considered myself. I guess I always consider myself a runner if somebody asked, but I was always kind of like apologized for it. Oh, I'm trying to do that. I'm, you know,

and I've had my ups and downs with it or whatever. But I never thought about myself as that serious about it. Yeah. Over the last year and a half or so because I don't know. I mean, just a couple of things kind of came together. But I decided to take it more seriously. And I started to think about it more like,

what if I approached this like a professional? Not in terms of like, let me see if I can get a running endorsement or let me see if I can get paid for a race. Ha ha. But like let me treat it like a professional would like that's right because for music like in a weird way like I don't necessarily treat it like now like I'm a professional because I try to treat it like I'm having fun. I think I'm very professional about it. But I should say I don't have to work at being a professional because I'm so used to doing that. I think that's you know that's the way we are. Like we know we're music. Yeah. And I think everybody is given one profession and we think that's all we can have in terms of our attitude. You take that for granted with other things, though. There's a reason why you're such a great musician is because you already have the mindset of a professional.

And you take everything you do with a big weight of that. Like, this is my profession. This is how I feed my family. Right. And so I am not messing around with anything. Right. And that's how you've done it for decades. But I hear you, because with the running thing, you could be like, oh, but it's just a whatever.

You know, I'm not really into it or whatever. So it's a, hey, if I trim off this or whatever. Exactly. And then decades later, you look down the thing and you're like, oh, I never got that great at it. because you didn't treat it like a professional. You didn't treat it like a pro. And so I think like, so what I've been doing is like, you know, I got a trainer, first of all, a coach, which is something, you know, and I was very inspired by what you've been doing with the Open Studio Pro program. And I don't know if you remember this, Adam.

As big shout out to Open Studio Pro. Go to Open StudioJazz.com slash pro. If you want to learn about that, the great things that Adam Maness is doing with his group live coaching sessions there. But you remember when you started that and we were talking about different. names and I came up with the pro idea and you pushed back a little bit on that but I realized part of the reason I was saying that well because you were afraid like people would feel like they had to be pros to come into the program and you're more at like the intermediate level would you say even some beginners some advanced but it wasn't like four it's not for professional pianists but I was like

you know what you you're showing people how to practice like a pro so that means we want people coming into that program that have that pro their aspiration and I realized that's what I was kind of doing with running. It's like, I'm going to treat this as seriously as a professional and see where this can go. And what it's done is it's kind of taught me how to help teach and help people come to music. So being pro pros at music comes naturally to us. It's not even if it comes naturally. We've just been doing it a long time. And like you say, that's the expectation on us. Somebody when we're young says, oh, you're talented at this. We're like, okay, well, I'll do this. And then we work at it. And then somebody pays us to do a gig. And we're like, oh, we're professional. And then, you know,

we can see how professional we can get. But when you do it with something else, that maybe you're not as talented at, or maybe you're not, but you're passionate about it, but maybe your passion level is way above your talent level. That really builds grit. That builds grit and brings, gives you something to bring back to music,

something that maybe comes easier that needs a little bit of grit. And so for me, because music, I mean, I always worked hard at it, but I came from a household of musicians. I guess I was talented. I mean,

who knows nature versus nurture and all that, but I had a lot of advantages, a lot of privilege based around by the time I was, you know, in elementary school, it was like, wow, he's so talented or whatever. So I had it in my mind, whether it was true or not, that this was something I was talented at and came easy. So when you take something that doesn't come as easy, you treat it like a pro, that can take you back and give you another perspective to your vocation to maybe even up your program

pro game there as well. Wow, that was way too many sentences. Beautifully said. Anything else? That's the bonus. If you made it this far. Hey Peter. Yes.

Where would anybody leave us a rating and review if they wanted to? Wherever they're listening to and consuming this very fine seven-star podcast, my friend. This is a seven-star podcast? Yes, it has been rated seven stars many times. Isn't that impossible? Yes, it is impossible. It's a conundrum wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a big, fat lie. No, it's not possible, but you can put it in the comments.

Give us five stars if that's what they limit you to, but then give us a shout-out with seven stars because we love seven. We do love seven. And we do like to read every single rating and review. Let's read them. We have a new one right here. This is from Becca Puleum. I love this podcast from the way somebody blows across the mic at the top to how Peter, by the way, that's. Yes.

Oh, people are noticing that. Peter and Adam. That's a pro move. Talk over each other. What? I don't tell them apart even now that I'm listening to the podcast. What are they talking about? To their totally sound and motivating teacher.

I want to transcribe what they're playing, but it's a keyboard. Thank you, Becca. That doesn't make much sense, but we appreciate it. We love you, Becca. We appreciate it. Yeah, leave us a rating review. You know why it's important? Why? Because we feel down upon ourselves sometimes.

Sometimes our spouses and children are mean to us, and we want to have something to hold on to up our ego. No, because it helps get the podcast out there into the world. It does. Everybody wants to complain about the negative algorithms of which we've been getting a little bit of benefit from lately. But do something positive for the algorithm. This is like sharing it. That's all we're asking. We're not asking for money.

Next review. Udles of Noodles. Oodles of noodles. These guys bring out the best in each other. Like a duo who have been playing together for years, very entertaining and informative. Never mind the haters. Keep on noodling, singing and making basketball analogies. Shout out to Byron.

Lovelace. That was a slam dunk of a review there. We'll give it to y'all. All right, everybody. Until next time, you'll hear it.