You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Biggest Myths About Learning Music

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

Becoming a competent musician isn't nearly as difficult as people make it out to be. On this episode, Peter and Adam tell you why.7 Biggest Myths About Learning MusicTalent is the most importantGrit is the most importantYou have to start when you're a babyYou can just feel it, no need to practiceYou have to be a geniusYou don't need to know the language/you have to be totally originalIt comes quickly and easilyTo learn more about the Suzuki Method Peter mentions in this episode, check out Nurtured by Love by Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. You can buy it here: https://suzukiassociation.org/store/nurtured-by-love-book/Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.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, Adam. Yeah. Do you like mythology? I like Greek mythology, yes. What about Roman? What's that? Greco-Roman mythology. You never heard of that?

I think that's wrestling. Oh, yeah. Rasseling. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to you'll hear it. Daily music advice about listening and playing music. And wrestling.

Do you remember wrestling at the chase? Of course. That was a classic. It was right down the street here, Channel 11. KPLR. Yeah. Any Midwesterners of a certain age, we'll probably remember that wrestling show. It was like a regional show, right?

It was, but it had the likes of Rick Flair and... Right. Nature Boy. Jim Duggan. Wouldn't he, Nature Boy? Art Anderson. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Nature Boy.

There was a boy. Name Rick Flair, whoo. He was a friend of Nat King Coles, perhaps. They did this annoying thing at the hockey game now. Have you ever been to a blues game? We went to a Pelicans game when we were in New Orleans, which was... Shout out to the New Orleans Pelicans.

Wow, ma'am. Great organization. They went from the generals, the Washington generals to the Harlem Globetrotters to a legit NBA team all in one game that we watched and won. It was pretty awesome, actually. But at the blues game the last couple of years, they do this super annoying thing. We're in the third period, they start doing this Rick Flair Woo. Like, it's a bunch of birds throughout the arena.

Like, woo! Woo! And they start, and they... It's like a jazz jam session. A little bit like a Brad Meldow concert. But apparently it's been spreading around the country. So, anyway, side note. Cardinals in first place, right?

I mean, the blues are in first place. Yeah. You have the best record in hockey. I just totally guess. Because I saw all the pictures of my friends with the Stanley Club, everybody but you and me. I know, I didn't get to touch it, which is a tragedy. Yeah, you know, they lost their star player Vladimir Tarasenko. I don't care.

Okay. So we're talking today about the seven biggest myths about learning music. Okay. We went from Greek to Roman mythology to wrestling to hockey, all in one breads. But now we're back to our raison d'être, as we like to say, our reason for me. Listeners love it when you speak French. That's right. Yeah, so this is our seven biggest myths about learning music.

Yeah, we thought, you know, you hear these things all the time about like you have to have this and you need to do this. Yeah. La la la la. None of it's true. And unfortunately, a lot of these are being perpetrated and perpetuated in, you know, popular culture, movies, maybe perchance even other podcasts. For sure. We won't name them. But, and maybe there's some controversy with some of these.

I don't think when we went over these earlier, we didn't feel. you're like, we were like, yeah, that is definitely a myth. That myth meaning something that's told that is not true. Actually, I don't even, that's what I'm assuming a myth is. But, you know, we don't really look at these as controversial, but we'd be interested to hear if anyone disagrees, of course. So let's go with number one. Disagreement is the sincerest form of flattery. That's not the phrase. That's not true. Yeah. Not all. What's, what's number one? Okay, number one, talent is the most important. I don't even know what talent is anymore. Can I be honest about that? Like, to me, talent is a combination of personality traits that

make you good at learning stuff. Yeah, but I think if like, think about your kids, like, and you've said different things, they're talented in this, he's talent, she's, whatever. So I think at the younger age, and maybe that's why you, in terms of music, you've been doing this so long, you disassociate really with the talent. But I do think that it's more applicable at an inexperienced or younger age, right? But don't you think it's more just a combination of, okay, I might have a couple of physical characteristics, big hands or eat good ears or whatever that helped me play music?

But more, it's just that I was super interested in it than anything. I was just so curious about it. You know what I mean? I think that's what talent really is. Nature versus nurture, passion versus an A thing. I mean, I always think about like the, you know, the seven-footer that really doesn't care about basketball or isn't that interested in it, but they're always told, oh, you should play, you should play. And then they fizzle out if they don't have a passion also.

So they have a physical talent, you know, for it. But they don't necessarily, if you don't have the passion combined, it's very difficult to excel at it. And then being an artist, you have to have, like, I think talent can be. confidence or vision or the confidence to put your vision out there in the way that you want it uncompromisingly, you know, I don't know, talent is such a tricky word for me. And I also think the talent when it comes to music, and, you know, I haven't really, I'm not qualified to speak on other areas if you talk about scholastic or mathematics or athletic or intellectual.

I mean, there's so many different things that people talk about. She's really talented at that. She's, you know, what does that actually mean? So we're just talking about music, I would say that, you know, I would say that, we underestimate both ourselves and others innate musical talent in this world. Yeah. And we overestimate the important, we overestimate a great musician's innate talent, actually. Yeah.

I think. And I think part of that is because there's a lot of things from when we're born. I think we're all born with way more musical talent than the world gives us credit for. Yeah. So what happens is very quickly, a lot of that is stamped out. Um, ways that that's stamped out, parents saying, oh, we're not. talented in our family. We're not music. We're not. And so the kid hears that and it's like, okay, that's not me then. And then also just not being exposed to a high quality of great

organic music. And I don't mean great going to the symphony. I'm just talking about, you know, good music that people are passionate about it and that they enjoy as part of the flow of their life. I mean, people that are like, I grew up as a talented chef. I bet they grew up in a household where one or both of their parents or their grandmother, whoever was around. Cooking was valued. Cooking was value. cooking was connected with love and family and tasted good and all these things. So I think very much so with music when you grow up in that situation. Because people are always telling me, oh, you're so talented. And then I'm like, oh, your parents were music.

Oh, that's what. That is more about nurture. Wait, which is nurturing. Nurturing. The nature. It's not like you're, I mean, you have very talented musical parents, but it's not like that gene. There's like a music gene that they passed on to you.

I mean, maybe some physical attributes. There is some of that. I just think it's way less than the music was filling your household. My parents, my dad is an amateur guitarist. My mom is not a musician at all. But there was such passion for music in our house. And still is. My parents go to more concerts than I do.

You know what I mean? That it was very clear that it was something special. And important. And important. Right. And I think that, the importance, so the value of it and the passion, if you talk about value, passion, and talent. And then there's other elements too.

But even of those, I would say talent is the least important. Totally agree. And in fact, the one we're going to talk about next, it can work against it. But, I mean, you know, I would just encourage everybody to even compare it to some other things like, and I'm trying to think of what would be, I don't know, like, you know, even in like athletics is very, it's very hard. Like you could say, okay, like to be a high jumper, you're talented if you have a certain speed, you know, muscle speed and height or, and, you know, you fit within these parameters. But even those things have exceptions when you have a big passion. So I would be very careful to ever say somebody has, you know, success at something because, certainly not solely because of their talent. But in music, even more so because we talk about different instruments and we'll say like, well, you know, such and such has big hands and they're strong.

So they're a great bass player. And we can certainly see that's the case with many musicians. But then there's an outlier that is one of the most. So Alicia Della Rocha, I don't know if you've ever heard her is one of my favorite classical pianists. Because I heard it live a bunch of times here. She's teeny. Her hands are teeny. and all these things.

And I know with piano, it's not always you have to be huge or whatever, but a lot of times it's like, well, you have physical attributes. She doesn't sound teeny. She does not sound teeny at all.

And so I mean, you know, talent is overrated. So that's all we're saying. I think that was actually a Malcolm Gladwell book. It was. Talent is overrated. So number two is grit is the most important. Now this isn't a myth.

No, this is not a myth. And this is what I was saying that like sometimes this can go, this almost goes against, like if you have a huge amount of talent, sometimes you don't have enough grit. And the grits is the thing that's going to sustain you long term.

But if you have a ton of talent and a ton of grit, you're Michael Jordan. Exactly, exactly. If you have a ton of talent and no grit, you're, who is Sean Bradley? You remember him? Ooh. So, I mean, big shout out to Sean, big guy. Sorry. No, but I mean, in music.

How many musicians have we known, though, that have a real propensity? You're like, man, that is such a talented player. Right. And they don't make it. Right. Yeah, because now the big talents, I think, that are easy to identify. in music are like perfect pitch. Because it's sort of a binary,

I guess it's a binary thing, a little controversy. Controversy amongst the open studio stuff. But, I mean, if you say you either have perfect pitch or not, that could be seen as a big talent. But I know so many, not so many, but I know several people that have perfect pitch and have never really done much with their music

because they didn't either have that passion or the grit or the other elements. Chops. Think about chop. I mean, chops is talent, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a good musician. And I think that a lot of times

you develop grit when you put in adverse situations, there's many different ones. I mean, this has been proven. There's a great book, I'm forgetting what it is. It's all about grit. There's a book called grit,

actually, it's all about grit. That's the one. Yeah. There's another book called grits, which is a bunch of recipes, southern recipes. Oh, no, I'm all about that. All right.

Number three, the third biggest myth about learning music is that you have to start when you're a baby. Or is they say in Italy, a bambino. A bambino. A bambina. Yeah.

So you started when you were very young. Yeah. I started when I was 10, which is. young but not that young. No. You know what I mean? I think a lot,

and it's all relative to. A lot of people be like, wow, 10 is young and be like two is young or whatever. But I think it's like, I think what you mentioned before

about like having music in the household. Yeah. And like that's the important thing to start young. Like when you start an instrument is really, I think, varies a lot depending on what instrument. Yeah. Just your,

your kind of situation of other things. I mean, you can pick up an instrument at any age, but it's harder to pick up a passion and an innate musical, what do you call it? Like just a sense of, and sensitivity to music.

I think, so, you know, I came up in the Suzuki method, and my mother's a Suzuki teacher. She actually studied with Suzuki in Japan, and was one of the teachers. Actually, she was the first teacher to bring it to St. Louis. Cool. And was sort of the first wave of teachers, you know, in the early 70s that were popularizing around the U.S. So I'm definitely indoctrinated there.

I am a Suzuki kid. I will say whatever. Dr. Suzuki told me. But the thing is, I mean, I was indoctrinated, but I've had a chance to think about it through the prism of jazz and popular. popular music and all the things I've got involved with. And I'm such, I have so much gratitude and love for the program and the concepts. And what this, you know, a lot of people say, oh, well, Suzuki means you have to start

when you're young. That's not what Suzuki's about. I mean, it is about young kids playing the instruments and that's what you see. But it's called, like the first book that he read, and we'll link below to this, and I really recommend it called Nurtured by Love. And that's what Suzuki, that's, there's been a bunch of books written and scientific studies on the program. but Nurture by Love is all about getting kids around just really high quality musical content.

Not about if the parents are musicians or not. It's like playing them, just like you would want to feed a baby the best, you know, if it's breast milk or then foods or whatever. Or the idea that if you expose them to quality material, that they'll develop a passion for it. Yes, and that that is more important than whatever you think or try to program them as innate musical abilities. We've already established the innate musical ability. is not nearly as important as having a passion about it, having the grit to want to stick with it.

Right. And I think that that part is important that you start from when you're a baby. So I love all these different programs where it's like, you know, exposing kids not waiting until they can talk and stuff for them to hear it like great. I mean, even when they're the womb. But you don't need to start piano and violin

when you're two and a half to become a good musician. No, no, no. I think it's a cool thing to do if it fits in the lives. First of all, I think, you know, too young, like a lot of people look, they're like, wow, you started violin when you're two and piano when you're three. Part of that was just my mom was a violin teacher

and I wasn't in school yet. And she literally just stuck a violin in my hand. So I don't know how much I was doing. I'm going to do it. I still haven't heard you play violin, bro. Man, I'm going to do it on the podcast. It's going to be called the last episode. You should do the theme song on the violin at some point.

Maybe I'll play the bass. That's a tough. I have to put that in D on the violin. It'll be a little easier. So the number four biggest myth about learning music is you can just feel it. No need to practice. Right. Oh, that's not true?

That is not true. Once you're good, you can. I knew a lot of cats like this in college. Fun fact, my wife claims when we were dating that I told her that I didn't practice because I was so good. Like, I don't remember saying this. What? But you know, when we're trying to woo somebody. Are you like, no, they're a lot of crazy.

Yeah. She was like, when do you practice? I was like, I'm so good. I don't need to. It worked. Hello. Hello. Jokes on her.

21 years. That's right. Yeah. So, yeah, just feeling it. This is something I think that a lot of listeners, like if you're doing it well, that that that should be the reaction if you don't know anything about this. But it's the kind of thing that there's a lot of work that goes on. Even terms of maintenance, yeah, once you're good, it becomes easier to skip practice.

Of course, we know this. But just feeling it only takes you so far, even when you've got the basics and the foundations and a lot of experience. And I think that it's funny because you look, I mean, it goes back to the whole thing of like, oh, you make it look so easy. So it's supposed to look easy. But that doesn't mean that you don't need to practice it. And it doesn't mean a lot of work went into it.

It's our jobs to make. it easy and fun and not make it like a science experiment. That's so good. Okay, so the number fifth biggest myth about learning music is that you have to be a genius. Right. That's just not true. Well, yeah, I mean, come on. Obvious by this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So a genius of anything, really, yeah, it's not, this is not something that's reserved. I mean, there's always the joke of like, it's not rocket science. Truly, this is not rocket science. But do you have to be a genius to be a rocket scientist? Does that be right? I mean, technically, kind of, right? It works better. But, you know, a brain, one of the things we always say that he's a genius, she's a genius, she's a brain surgeon, right? She's a rocket scientist. Now, I think that there are some geniuses that play music. For sure. Didn't Monk say it best when he said the genius is the one who sounds most like himself? Ooh, I love that. Is that what you were just Google searching for? No, I was it. That was awesome, man. I love that one.

I think this, especially if you play music like classical music or jazz even, that I think people think that you have to be some kind of innately smart person. Now, we've been friends with enough jazz drummers to know. Oh, wow. Hello. Let's put a lampshade on that comment. No, but you don't have to be the smartest person in the room to be a good musician to be able to express yourself in music. So if you've never been like, I mean, I was not a straight-A student, especially as I got older. Neither was I.

You know, and like, it's, that doesn't equate necessarily. smart person, I would say. Well, you know, I mean, I noticed I didn't say genius. I have my moment. Yeah, but I'm, you know, it's, it's, it's, I don't think it's necessary to be able to be a creative person, to be the smartest person. And it is different parts of the brain. I mean, they've shown, they've proven this.

You don't have to be a genius to know that. In fact, yes, you do have to be a genius to understand that. But, I mean, the creative side. Now, having said that, there's a lot of musicians that, um, I know that are, you know, not a lot. There's several that seem to be geniuses to me. I don't know what the cutoff for that is. Some very, very smart intellectually.

I think the further you go down the music road, the smarter you get, actually. Like you tend to become smart as you study this stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it activates your brain in a way that we're just, you know, and I think that that's the exciting thing with neuroscience becoming such a growth field and people studying it. You know, my daughter is big into it. So she's been talking to me about it, but I've been reading some things.

And there's been a lot of writing studies in relation to music. Now, your daughter is very smart, actually. She's very smart, but I mean just like neuroscience. Everybody wants to study that now and it's so exciting. There's so many applications to AI and all these different things. The Final Frontier. Yeah, that's right.

Number six, so I did call an automobile on this. You had something about weed or something. I don't know what a joke. I was just seen if you were paying attention. But this is one that I ran into a lot, especially when I was a younger musician, you'd see people or hear people talk that I have to be totally original.

I don't need to know the language of what I'm trying to play before me. No matter what kind of music you're playing. Yeah. Even if you're a classical composer or a rock musician, you can't come at it in a vacuum. No. You have to know what happened before you. You have to find your path,

and you have to find your people that are inspiring to you. I mean, we talk about it all the time as jazz musicians. You know, you're not stealing. You're learning from the masters. Right. So you can't have an original sound

if you have no idea what happened before you. So many great quotes and ideas that emanate from this same concept. You know, everything has been played before. Yep. I've heard that from a number of great jazz players because it's like, you know

we do want to be original we talked about this yesterday like tell your story but we don't want people to get confused by that and to be like oh I have to be totally original you already are original it's like you it's like the snowflakes and our thumbprint is

everybody has a different thumb and fingerprint even twins you know even identical twins so we don't actually have to work as hard as we think we don't have to work at all at being ourselves we do have to work at getting the tools to better tell our story And that's kind of when we get into the nuts and bolts of technique and, like, you know, relaxation and practice and all these things. It's all in the service of that.

But if you can, the more you get in touch with who you are and telling you story, you're going to be original without the effort of effortless mastery. There you go. Effortless originality. But I know people who think that in order to be original, I just can't digest anything that happened before it from the past. That's just the opposite, actually, of what being original is. Absolutely. All right. What's number seven?

Number seven, our seven biggest myth, well, though, is it kind of leading up to, I mean, they're all equally big myths. For sure. Of our seven biggest myths about learning music is that it comes quickly and easily. Oh, boy, does it? Does it ever? I'm 41, man. It just happened overnight.

Yeah, this shouldn't be a big myth, but I keep hearing this. I keep, because you know what does happen is like you'll hit spurts of like rapid development, which is great because you'll feel like it's coming quick. But in terms of like the overall thing, this is not something that even if you use, you say, okay, I'm going to get a music degree in four years, and then when you graduate, you have the degree and you've mastered it. That's just not the way it works.

It took me 10 years after music school to digest everything that I've been taught in music school. Yeah, but wasn't that partly because you didn't graduate? I didn't graduate, but you're fed, like, things like music school are places where you just get fed information and get told opposing viewpoints, and it takes a really strong personality to be able to navigate that and not

feel a little messed up. And we're not anti-museum at all here, because that's part of the process. But it doesn't happen in those four years that you're there. But we live in a world where we expect, so like if you go to nursing school at a certain point, I don't know how long it is, whatever four years you get a piece of paper and you get licensed, you pass this thing, and you are a nurse and you've, and not that you don't have more to learn and you do, but there is a real demarcation point that doesn't really exist in the arts in a way. Like you could find your voice at a very young age and we see some

gene. Like that's when really, talking about number five geniuses. I think we think about traditionally musicians that are so in touch with their voice at an extraordinarily young age. I'm not just talking about a little seven-year-old that can be trained like a robot to play Bach at a high level. That's a different thing. That's necessarily finding your voice. But I mean, a real creative soul. And when you're a teenager, that's kind of typically the youngest you would see that. That's a genius level. For sure. But for most of us, that comes much later. You know, you might have accomplishments in certain areas in terms of mastering. Not even mastering, but having a lot of agility on your instrument.

Man, we say it all the time. This is a lifelong pursuit. Be patient. It doesn't come overnight. That's right. That's right. And, you know, I mean, look, everybody's living longer. So we really should be seeing some better musician.

This, not only is it a lifelong pursuit, it's something that you can. And if you have these other things, the grit and the passion for, you're going to want to do it forever. And they're starting to prove, you know, a lot of things in terms of activating your brain and staying active. Like, we don't really retire from being a musician. You might say, I retire from touring or you might retire. But I think anybody who has a passion, you have a passion. from the music is always, I know I'm always going to want to play. I know we've got a lot of young listeners out there, so now it's on you.

It's on you, right, right. We threw you the ball. Just want to go out a little bit. Sorry, I'm still finding it. He's still finding it. Oh, I thought I was adding. Into the show, jam. Do you the pod studio.

Dopeo.