You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 6 Years Later... Were We Right?

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

In this episode, Peter and Adam go WAY back to the YHI inaugural episode and see how things hold up down the line. ↓ Links from the pod ↓Unlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.https://openstudiojazz.link/trialMake it Stick: The Science of Successful LearningYou'll Hear It's 1st EpisodeHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Manus. Welcome to the You'll Hear It podcast. Wait, what? Sorry? V-O-G? Are there ghosts in here? What's going on?

I'm Adam Anus. Today we're going to give you seven great practice routine hacks for you to work into your daily practice routine. Okay. So I'm going to start. Okay. Wow. I'll have to expose what I'm doing here now. Yeah, what's going on here?

I am actually playing our first episode. We're going back in time. Yes, this is episode number one from six years ago. With those, sorry, was that us or were those robots that had our voices? Jazz bots. That was pre-AI. We were real. Today, we were ahead of our time.

Going to work on the, yeah. Right. And all the reverb, too, that was in our old space, the 35-foot high ceilings. Same theme song, though. Same entry point. I'm Adam. I'm Peter. Yeah, no, I thought it would be fun.

We thought it would be fun if we go back six years later and see if we were right. Now, we've listened to some of these old episodes a little bit over time, but this is about the title of the, do you remember the title of the first episode? It was like seven practice hacks to point your first. Seven great practice routine hacks. Seven great practice routine hacks. Yes. This is our first episode? This was our very, haven't we done this episode 10 other times?

We have. Did we just do it last week? But yeah, but we're trying to see. Okay, look, I jump back again. We're trying to see if we were correct about the seven. We're not going to criticize the sound quality or the wrong. robots anymore. Okay.

We're just going in to see is the content, does it hold up? Okay, does the content hold up? Or have we evolved? Does the original premise of the podcast? Does it hold up? Has it evolved?

Are we worse than we work? Right. Are we better? No, we're just seeing if these are still seven great practice routine. Okay. So I'm going to start with developing a routine.

I will say we got right into it. There's no banter. It was right. No witness banter. So I'm going to start right now in the first 10 seconds. That was the last time, Peter Everd did that.

Well, you know what else is funny about that? We didn't say like, hey, we've got a new podcast. This was our first episode. I don't know. Just like, get to the facts, please, which most of our listeners loved. That's true. And even now, we are foregoing the facts just to have some banter around it. It says on the episode details in this inaugural episode, Peter Martin and Adam Maness

break down seven ideas for your practice routine. All right. So what was the first one again? I would lost time. You want to have a routine of how you're going to get into your practice so that when you sit down each day, you already know what you're going to do. That might be just a real simple...

At the piano. What is that? Oh, just thirds on a major scale? A simple way that you like to start out your scales. Whatever it is for you. You know, trumpet players like to do those tonguing. Rituals, yeah. Rituals, yeah.

I like that. I'm already, we're already straying from piano out of our wheelhouse into trumpet players. For those are you interested? Exercises, things like that. But you want to have a routine. You don't want to sit there saying, what should I do? I just remembered a dream I had last night.

I swear to God, when you just said the Arbons book, Arbons book? Arbons. Arbons. Arbons. Arbons book. I had a dream, I swear to God, this is true.

I had a dream last night that I went and I bought the Arbin's book from Nicholas Payton. I was like, hey, could I buy the Arbin's book from you? And he was like, the warm-up routine book. And I was like, yeah, he's like, yeah, sure. I was like, it's for my son. My son doesn't even play trumpet. I don't know. Yeah, anyway.

That is both creepy and foreboding. Creepy. Okay. I have the feeling we're going to get into the number two real quick. Okay, how do we feel about that, first of all, number one, routine? That's, that holds up. That holds up. Having a home, I mean, come on.

That's good. We don't want to just sit down and play some random stuff. Although, if I have one criticism, the title of this was seven great practice routine, and number one is you got to have a routine. Yeah. That's a little bit of a hat on a hat. That should be number one. You want to practice routine.

You got to have a routine. That's right. Let's see if number two is a little better. You know, I was out for random. I was kind of random, right? Pretty random. Just some random stuff. You want to practice with purpose.

So develop a routine and make sure you're starting somewhere that makes sense. Number two. And I think this is great. You're not like, yeah, that's good. That whole time you were just prepping for number two for your big entry point. It took a lot of brain power to make this happen. Yeah. Is to don't play until the very end of your practice session.

Number two is to don't play until the very end. Wait. Number two is to don't. Wait, do that again. Back in up five seconds. Just sit down and play some random stuff. I was out for random. I was kind of random, right?

Pretty random. Just some random stuff. You want to practice with purpose. So develop a routine. Wait, hold on. It's number one, practice with purpose or develop a routine? So now I'm already straight. It's really hard to tell.

And make sure you're starting somewhere that makes sense. Number two is to don't play until the very end of your practice session. Don't start. Wait, let me finish my thought here. This one may not hold up, just as a war. Performing a piece or a tune and just start playing around the tune until you've hit specific things that you need to work on. Why not? Because then you just get caught up in these, you know, rambling.

Okay, okay. I think what I was trying to say is don't practice things you know. I just didn't have the language for that six years ago. What I was trying to say is like, don't just, and this was from my own experience of just being like, okay, well. Play something that you're good. and F blues again. Right. Something you're being performing.

Right, right, right. To actually like practice your weaknesses. I wish I would have said that. You know what? We learn. We learn. Of tunes over and over again. Usually the same tunes you already know.

And that brings us to the third point, which is... Wow, that was short. Separate your conscious from your unconscious practice. So, okay. That's a tall order, right? Don't people go to Thailand for like five years of silent meditation to do that? That's a lot of work. Yeah.

What is this about? How is that a hack? That's like the opposite of a hack. That's like a life long. Become a mindfulness master of 20 years of meditation. What is it? What I mean by that is, I think, Okay, keep in mind, I can remember it.

But what I said, what I mean by that is, as I'm saying that, I'm trying to think through what the hell I mean. What are you talking to? 80% of our practice should be very conscious practice, very focused where we're thinking about specifically what we're doing. The 80-20 rule. working on improvisation, we're thinking about specific scales, we're thinking about specific patterns, specific solos.

I think we just said the same thing in two and three. We're practicing in a way and thinking in a way that we wouldn't do when we're performing. But then you always want to have that unconscious kind of practice where we're just playing don't play until the end. Point of number three. Oh, I think we're saying the same thing. I think I'm waiting until the end of your practice routine. That was actually number two though.

That was actually number two. to your point of number three, that was actually number two. Yeah. So this is unconscious. We didn't fix that. Let's just keep going. Separating. Now, this holds up as a lifelong dream.

It does not hold up as a practice routine hack. Yeah. Because that's like a hack is like a shortcut, right? Yeah. An easy way in. This is not an easy way in. I'm confusing myself. So maybe you're waiting until then to just play through the piece and not think about all

the stuff that you worked on. Give yourself a chance. You sound skeptical. I'm already moaning. Or maybe it's subconsciously. I don't even know the difference. I don't either. Clearly we didn't know.

You know what? We weren't afraid to not come in. We came in very authoritatively, but then it just really fell apart there. But they're both important. Nervous laughter. Right. And so that brings us to number four. Good.

Don't practice stuff you already can do. This is. That's the same as two and three. That's the same thing three times. You're real don't guy. you're real uh i'll tell you what not to practice something that are silly human brains trick us into doing all the time our egos want us to sound good i'm already on the egotter for us especially when it's just for us sometimes but don't fall into that trap you will never improve just playing the same thing

it is the same thing many times in a row right but that one's valid number three is not valid no no but like two three and four are all the same thing basically yeah i'm going to mark that one as correct but not coherently distinct. Doing the same licks, in the same keys that you can already play great. So make a decision at the start of your practice routine to work on things that you can't do. That's the time to do it. You don't want to be doing it on the gig or at the jam session. You want to be doing it in the privacy of your own home where you can really focus and hone in on the skills that'll bring your entire level of playing.

Have the little you time. A little candle. Light a candle up, you know? Up, not just the stuff you're already good at. Yeah, because when you're practicing things that you can already do, you're actually not really practicing. You're just playing. I can tell you one thing we were not practicing that we could already do.

Make an effective podcast. Yeah. It'd be fun, but you can't count that as part of your practice time, can you? I like that. When we felt like it was sliding off the rails, I got real, I came in to try to get more dogmatic. Yeah. We've tried a couple of techniques.

Nervous laughter. Yeah. Repetition. Yeah. Hedging. Hedging, hat on a hat. Yeah. And now I'm dog, dog,

which is, listen. We save that to the end. We save that to the end. Number three. Now we're tying it all together. Good. Okay.

Number five, have a discipline of practicing every day. Even if it's only for five minutes, that's better to do that every day. That holds water. That's good. And to be it. Okay, but isn't that number one?

Have a routine? Yes. It's not what the same as number one. So so far we said two concepts, really, which is have a routine. have a consistent routine and then don't practice things you know, practice things you don't know.

Or the subconscious, unconscious, conscious practicing, or... That one I'm throwing out. That one we were not right. That is kind of practicing things you know, practicing things you don't know. Right. So so far we were right. We just didn't know how to not repeat ourselves.

Just not, we're not great at disseminating information yet. Oh, no, we're great at disseminating. It's just not all coherent or distinct. True. Or bespoke. This is truly not bespoke. Are we listening back to this in six years and be like, What the hell?

For instrument, then to take a couple days off and say, I'm going to wait until Saturday when I know I have five hours. And we sit down at the instrument. You know, it's just like becoming a great chef. Be in the kitchen or a great basketball player. Have the basketball in your hands. We don't all have the luxury of being at our instrument for hours a day. But we can all fit five minutes. Come on.

You can get up five minutes earlier. We can all do that. Or stay up five minutes later or one less bowl of cereal. I don't know. It's so true. Yeah, no. Thank you for the support. One little, very, very important.

Number six is to switch it up throughout your practice routine. We talked about not playing things you already know. Well, one trick to helping to retain things and to learn things faster is to actually, once you can kind of perform it as you're practicing, a skill, move on to something else and then come back to that later.

Yeah, this is a technique that I've used in Open Studio Pro a bunch called interleaved practice. In fact, around this time, I was using an index card system where I'd like pick five different concepts or maybe three different keys for those concepts. And I wouldn't give myself more than five minutes on a concept. It actually really helps. There's some research here at Washington University in St. Louis that we retain things faster, the slower we let ourselves actually learn it.

Does it make sense? So bulk practicing. In other words, like how we're taught to cram for tests, how we're taught to practice like classical pieces where you just repeat the same thing again and again for hours is not as efficient as interleaf practice where you practice something for 10 minutes, move on to one, two, three, four other things even, and then come back to it 30 minutes later. And you've forgotten a lot of it and you have to relearn it. And that relearning it actually helps us to memorize it faster and internalize it better, deeper. What is it called?

Interleaved practice. There's a great book by two psychologists here in Washington University in St. Louis called Make It Stick, which talks all about. this and maybe we can link to make it stick, Caleb, in the show notes. Make it interesting. And again, I wish I would have said all that in this podcast. But we said it now, six years later, better late than never. That's right. So I'm going to give that one a check for, we were right. That's good. You were right. I should actually, we should talk about more about that, probably. Kind of forcing your brain to forget it again.

And it forces you to really absorb it the next time you come around. Sometimes I'll do, if I'm practicing a particular scale, I'll play it once. Once, once, I can kind of get it and then I'll move on to maybe voicings and then maybe some time practice and then I'll come back to that scale and it'll be worse than when I left it and that's good. I want it to be worse because now it makes me reabsorb it again in a shorter amount of time. So don't do that. Is that what you're saying? No, do that. No, this is actually really useful. And if you haven't tried interleave practice, it's actually, it can be frustrating because you're not used to that. You're used to like

practicing on mass where you're just like repeating the same thing. until you got it, you know? But then think about what happens the next day. You come back and you like don't have it, right? Right. And that's when actually, when you have to relearn it, when you learn it, learn it, right? So what this does is shorten that process. If you kind of are switching subjects many times in your practice session to where you come back to it three or four times in an hour-long practice session, forcing you to forget it three times, it helps you absorb it quicker. Well, that's great.

And not only am I going to give this a check and say we're right on this one, but this is actually the first one that we were right about and is an actual hack. It is a hack. Yeah. The other things we were combining. They weren't really. They were not shortcut. Like this is an actual like.

It's a good one. It's a good one. But like I said, it's hard to maintain because it's like you get psychologically frustrated. Like, why can't I get this? It's like. And there's a little bit of delayed gratification in terms of. You have to see the vision down the road of like, okay, this is going to help me retain this deeper later.

And once you see that, it's, it actually is great. Awesome. You know, in the same way, you know, hit things up day to day. You know, once you have something one day, don't just ignore it. The next practice session. Who is that gentleman speaking, by the way? Because you sound very different. I sound different than that.

That pretty much sound the same. I don't think so. No. Try it again. Leave in the comments, dear listeners. My voice is definitely, is it deeper? I think you, this was, you were a prepubescent Adam perhaps six years ago. How old are you?

45. Oh, okay, maybe not. All right. Kind of like thoughtful practice. Thoughtful practice. I like it. I like it. Thoughtful practice.

I love how I just, let me come put a little bow on it for you. Call it the wrong thing and it's actually not thoughtful practice. It's interleaf practice. But let's call it thoughtful practice. Right? Maybe it's, let's call it unconscious practice. Is it a hack? Is it subconscious?

I don't know the difference. We're going to call it something else. Good. Okay. And number seven, the last one. How many times have I said okay on this podcast? Seven times. No, I mean, an aggregate.

Oh, over the 1112. episodes? Yeah. I think this may be the most important hack that we can give you for your... Well, that's good. We've only given you one hack so far. Practice routine. So we saved it for the end. And that is to listen. What? Listen. Okay. Okay. Now, it seems so simple. Our very first ban. Not witty yet, but yeah, we were experimenting. Listen. That wasn't bad. Okay. Now, but again, is that, of course we were right about that. So, yeah, that's a good. But is that a hack? Well, if you're not listening, it's a hack. If you haven't done any listing yet, yeah, it can be a hack. Let's see how I'm going to reserve judgment on this. Let's see where you go. No, we're not. Sometimes we're

thinking about what we're going to have for dinner. We're going out on it, thinking about going out on a date, thinking about a gig we're going to do or whatever. But if you want your practice to be effective, and especially if you only have five or ten minutes to practice, you have to listen to everything that you're playing, just like you're in the audience listening. This is true. This is a hack. This is be present. This is mindfulness. Yeah. This is this is, this is, this is rewarding yourself by putting your attention on what you're doing, not what you're about to do or what you've already done. So I think we're right on this, but we're a little bit deceptive in terms of listen because it's more pay attention. It's more about be present. Be present. Stay in the

moment. Don't like, you know, don't get distracted by thoughts of the future of the past. Turn off notifications. All that good stuff. Yeah. So you want to hear the nuance. How are we going to wrap this up, Pete? Is there a bonus? Really listening to yourself has to apply to everything that you practice, not just when you're sounding good, you know, or when you're playing your tune at the end. Especially. Exactly. Exactly. So we when you're practicing scales, you want to really be

listening. I don't want to hear that. Fast forward. That's it for the... Exactly. Oh, that was it. All right. See you guys next time on. You'll hear it. Whoa. We are already doing it. Hold on. That's it for today's episode

of the You'll Hear It Podcast. For more information or to hear more of these podcasts, go to Openstudio Network.com. slash podcast. Oh, my little intro. Don't go there anymore. I was producing,

this was before, producer Caleb was just a twinkle in our eye. This is, I was producing this and doing the editing and the sound design and I remember like,

I should record a little tag on the way out. That was nice. It was okay. A little promo. Yeah, we gave up in that because we can do it live. Yeah.

Write it and we'll do it live, you know. Well, I've got one point five out of seven. It's one and a half hacks. A lot of it not communicated very clearly. Not clear at all. good hack about the interleaved learning. I didn't even mention the book or how you might use at the index card system. I just said. And I jumped in and called it something else. Yeah, we were still

growing. We were growing. Our voices were still growing. It's crazy how your voice changes when you, I mean, if you think about it, Peter, we've done six years of this podcast. We've done so many like YouTube videos and we've done a lot of lessons. We've probably done more talking in the last six years than we did in our whole lives leading up to this. Do you know what I mean? Like more talking specifically with the intent to communicate things to an audience because we were just talking through the piano mostly to communicate through an audience. But it's a lot of talking. It changes the quality of your voice. Your voice has changed as well. Right. Yeah. Right. I've said right. Okay. Okay. Yes. I know that's my thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've also, strangely enough, um, taken on nervous ticks and things from each other somehow by us. you know, by osmosis, which is fun. So, man, I've been enjoying this journey with you. And it's never a struggle. It's always, we always be honest. No, it's fun to go back and listen to this one because it's both worse and better than I would have thought.

I don't know if it's better. I'm going to push back. Well, no, I'm not saying better than now. No, I'm saying better than it should have been for your expectations. Yeah, yeah. It's a fun thing. Actually, I've never done. I mean, I know we've probably done this at some points,

but I so rarely listen to the pod. I'll listen to a little bit in the car sometimes, but I have podcasts that I enjoy. I don't, I think we put on a great pod. It'd be weird if you listen to every episode of the podcast. I'm going to be honest. If you listen to yourself talking about after you've already had the conversation, it's hard.

It's hard. It's like when you make a record and you spend all this time like mixing it and mastering it and you've listened and you comped it and you're done. And you're just by the end of it, you never want to hear it again. And then like maybe two years later or six years later, you hear it somewhere and you're like, oh yeah, that's my record. I like that.

Wait, what are you saying you'll do six years later? Like you'll hear the, you'll, you'll hear it. Like you'll hear it. That was cheap. That was cheap one. We learned a little, little song. A couple hacks here in the old to six years.