You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Highly Effective Habits to Make You a Better Jazz Musician

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

On a very self-help themed episode, Peter and Adam discuss some good habits you should get into if you want to be a better musician.7 Highly Effective Habits to Make You a Better Jazz Musician:ListenDaily practicePractice patiencePractice journalTranscribeScalesComposeBONUSAlso, be sure to check out the latest course from Open Studio (featuring YHI's own Adam Maness): Jazz Piano Basics - Lead Sheet Breakdown. In this course, Adam will teach you the correct way to read from lead sheets as well as how to customize your own arrangements of jazz tunes. For more info, go here: https://www.openstudiojazz.com/jazz-piano-basics-lead-sheet-breakdown And stay tuned for upcoming courses as part of our Jazz Piano Basics series!Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.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 Pete. Yes. Did you start your morning off with an ice bath today? That was the seventh thing that I did this morning, actually. I'm out of menace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz advice, coming at you.

Coming at you today. Sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com. Check out owl of our courses. We just released this. Owl. Oh, we are almost in an owl season. Oh, yeah.

Who? Man, I saw. Hoot the other day. I was having a hoot the other day. When I was getting in the car this morning, the most, like the biggest, most beautiful Spider, like was forming this web, you know, tour almost there in this time where they're starting to get out there. Yeah.

Scary, but beautiful. Scary A-F. And I bet you rammed through it with your ice vehicle, didn't you? No, I'm not good like that. But we are brought to you by Open Studio. We have a ton of new courses. You know, I just released a mini course last week called Jazz Piano Basics, Volume 1, lead sheet breakdown in which.

Could you shove more words, a few more words into that title, please? It was a, yeah, it was ill-conceived. Lead sheet breakdown. Lead sheet breakdown. I'm going through the lead sheet. I'm explaining how to approach a lead sheet, basically how to sit down at the piano with a lead sheet and then play a good version of the tune from the lead sheet

with just that information. It's super cool. And what I realize is this is for people that when they look at a lead sheet, they're like, I cannot make this sound good. I know that this tune is good. I don't know if it's something wrong with me. I don't know if it's something wrong with the lead sheet.

We've all been there. But there's so many challenges we have in playing jazz piano, the actual process of how you interpret, what you use, what you can ignore, reference recordings should not be a barrier. And I think that you did a great job of kind of laying that out. Yeah, and then just breaking down some basic solo piano voicing techniques that'll get you there and make you sound grooving and good and with like solid harmony.

It's been super popular already. Go check it out. Andrew, let's put a link there. It's only $39. Check it out. Oh, man. We're making a meeting to raise the price on that bad boy. Well, then get it today before Peter decides to check it up.

All right. So today, why? Giving this stuff away. We're not doing that anymore. Why are we talking about? Is this how to win jazz friends and influence jazz people? No, seven highly effective habits to make you a better jazz musician. I like this.

This is nice. This is like right in my self-improvement wheelhouse. We thought this would be fun because, you know, we're both. Growth mindset. We're both in the growth mindset. And really the seven highly effective, what is it? Seven highly effective habits of successful people? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No. Of unsuccessful people would be as eye-opening. Right, right. Because I'd be like, oh, I'm doing like three of those things. Stephen Covey's masterpiece. which I read years ago, seven highly effective. Look, I'm putting it in now. Is that falling down?

Look at this. Oh, my gosh. Andrew. We joked yesterday to the podcage. The podcaves falling apart. Look, on the show. Oh, my gosh. Seven highly unaffective habits of the pod cave.

We just lost 20% of the pod cave. The sound is going to be jacked up on your side. The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey. Ooh, did you know that he did the seven habits of highly effective people? effective teens. I didn't know. It says that. It's ridiculous.

I don't even think that's legal to put that up. That sounds like a money grab. All right. Well, so we put together a little list of some effective habits that you can put in place in your routine to make you a better jazz musician. Right. Big shout out to Stephen Coving. Please don't sue us.

This is all with love and everything. Yeah, yeah. So seven highly effective habits to make you a better jazz musician. Let's first just kind of talk about habits because I think a lot of times people pass over that part. They want to get right into the kind of tricks or tack. and that kind of thing. And I think, you know, because these are, in order for a habit to be effective,

you need to be doing it regularly. It's actually very simple. A lot of times people think, like, how do I build a habit? How do I do this? Let's just talk about, let's paint it finished and talk about the end result of a habit. A habit is something, look, we come into the pod cave and stuff falls down because it's out of the habit of falling down, right? No, we come in here and we're going like lemmings.

I mean, you could put acid in this cup at this point, and I would just pick it up and drink it because I'm in the habit of drinking this when I'm in here. and not for better or for worse. So when we're talking about these kind of habits... You're talking about coffee, right? There's not coffee. Oh, yeah, there's not acid. There is not by many people thought whiskey.

There has been at times. But we do not put whiskey in these glasses. We put them in clear containers, right? Go cups, they call them in New Orleans. And you can tell it because the general quality of the content here goes way down. You don't even have to look at that. You can just listen to it. No, but a habit is just something that you do automatically.

Yeah. And we're going to be talking about what we think are good habits, but bad habits, good habits in between. It's just something that you do regularly. That's right. And, you know, it's easy to put into place, but it's hard to maintain. So pick habits that you can stick with, that you know can fit in your schedule. It's not a good idea to say, like, oh, I'm going to put on this habit.

This takes four hours for me to do every day. That's not going to be an effective habit. Something that you can do on the regular is what works. Well, if you were like some kind of religious guru that went and, like, prayed for four hours a day, that would be effective. It's a different kind of lifestyle. But also realize that these are the things that are going to make you better. Like if you're wondering why is my left hand not as good as my right hand, probably because you don't practice it ever.

That's exactly right. Hashtag Jeffrey Keiser. Yeah. I mean, because he plays left hand really well. Not because he's... Yeah. So, you know, to that point, I think that... I always like to think about it, too, in a positive way.

Yeah. Like we talk about, I don't know, anybody that we love hearing play, Ruben Rogers, our friend Ruben has great baseball. but sometimes I'm like he's stuck in playing really good. Like he, I mean, it's funny. Like, he's not the flashiest bass player all the time, although he can do that. But one of the greatest skills he has is like,

he always sounds good. It's like he's gotten in the habit of sounding good. Sure. And so that's like, it's a very complex how he got to that point, but the end result of that habit of sounding good, when we talk about, man, he's so good, he's so bad as in a good way, or that's a great player, or she can really play her ass off or whatever. What we're basically saying is they're just in the habit of,

of playing good. They might have built up a, I'm sure they have built up a number of sort of daily practice habits to get to that point. But now when they pick up their instrument, the default is to sound good. Like if they play something bad, like it hurts and sometimes their hand can't even go there. Yeah.

Well, let's get into it. Okay. Okay. Number one. Am I pre-rolling it too much? My bad. I mean, we are setting this up. Okay. So number one. Listen. Yeah. Imagine that. Man, we've been two. I think we've been a couple weeks without doing that. feel better already. Man, I listened, speaking and listening,

a few weeks ago, I listened to this amazing audiobook about sort of this, the creativity curve. And it's this book about, like, all these studies done about great artists, right? And what their habits were, actually.

Yeah. And so one of the things that struck me was that great artists spend two to three hours every day ingesting what their art is. Wow. Not their own stuff, but what is.

And they ingest a mix of new things and old things. Yeah. Right? So, like, if you're a jazz musician, two to three hours every day should be spent listening to music. Yeah. Old stuff and new stuff if you want to be good. Like, that's sort of this, what the data points can.

I mean, it sounds very sterile and analytical, but it's really, really interesting that the same data points were true from like someone like Leonardo da Vinci with painting or, you know, and someone like Beethoven with music that two to three hours every day of ingesting music that's, you know, helping them become a better artist. So think about that. Think about when you can use free time or or commute time or at work time or whatever to ingest what you're doing. Like it's part of getting better and it's a super important part. And I mean, this doesn't change, as you say, since Da Vinci or Beethoven or even before, you know, in the creation of art. None of this has changed. technology changes but that really there's parts of technology that make it harder to do this because we're in a distracted world so we get on this thing about i don't have time but it's all about priority but technology also helps as you say during a commute anytime we we have access in a way so we need to be able to limit and push out the noise get the signal going which is ingesting like the concept so that and that's just what for us is listen and i love the way you put it ingests the art for for being an effective jazz a better jazz musician it's like that's like that's just what

listening. Well, and you know why it's so important? Like, so since I've read that, I started doing this on the regular, like really making it a priority for me because you get distracted with phones and Netflix and all this stuff or whatever. So I've really tried to make this priority of like, okay, I want to be a more in-depth listener. I want to keep it in a regular part of my day without getting distracted by all the noise. And so since doing that, I mean, music starts to take on this whole other, this whole other tone when I listen to it because you come so, so steeped in it, right? All the time. It just becomes part of your brain waves almost. It's an important part that can get, can go by the wayside too quickly. And it's so good. I mean, I know for me, I've gone in and out of this habit over time. I've been kind of in it for a while now where it's pretty habitual. But the fun thing is if you do fall off this habit, and look, everybody falls off some habits at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you do, it's so exciting when you get back in it. Actually, some of the times I've fallen off or on have been when I've gone on like vacation. I'm not a good vacation. We'll talk about that another episode. Seven ways to be a better vacationing jazz musician.

Bring your steel pan drum with you. Then you can do gigs. That's number one. But the idea of like when you have been off and you get back, you realize how important it is, how inspiring, how invigorating it can be to the rest of your routine. That's right. And don't freeze up thinking you have to listen to some important stuff every time. Just listen. Listen to stuff you like. Listen to whatever you like. Whatever that is. Allow yourself to listen. Connect with the music. All right, number two. Number two, daily practice. This is number two of our. seven highly effective habits to make you a better jazz musician. Why is this one so important that it sits at position number two for us?

We want to keep a daily connection to whatever instrument we're playing. It's the easiest way to grow. It keeps you sharp. And it helps you discover new things that you have to put into your practice routine. If you're not hitting your instrument for at least like five, ten, 15 minutes every day, you're not going to grow as fast as if you do. Right. It's just true.

You know, and the easiest way to do this is just to carve out. some time on the regular, whether that's at lunch or in the early morning or before you go to bed, to just sit at your instrument and be with it. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and this one is so binary that it should be simpler. Like we can get, we get into some, and we're going to get into some other things a little bit. But like this is literally, I mean, just the, as you say, sitting at the instrument and playing

the thing. Then you've accomplished it. Of course, you want to, you know, do many of the other things. We talk about it and stay longer and be effective and everything. but when you commit to daily practicing connecting with your instrument every day either do it or you don't yeah for sure cool number three

number three practice patience so it's not just be patient but it's practice patience it's tell yourself that I have as much time as I'm alive to be a musician so I don't need to become Bill Evans this morning

I can I can just be here with it I can listen to what I want to listen to I can practice what I want to practice. I can make sure that I have my goals set and just sit in that and not be in a hurry to be great. Because that's not how it works. Right. That's great. I love that.

One way that I kind of think about this, because this is more of a conceptual side of it, too, that you can kind of be almost back in your mind all day long, is for practicing patients, is to think about it like, you know, most people grossly over. they can do in any one day, especially when they're inspired about something. And I've been falling prey to this many times. But then on the other hand... Don't we know it? But then on the other hand, they underestimate what can be done in much longer spans,

like a year or something. Like if you look a year forward and you think what you could get done as an individual or as a band or as an orchestra or as an organization, it's very easy to underestimate. Until you look back and you're like, wow, we got all this not. But on a daily basis, a more granular level, it's very easy to try to push too many things in. and basically do things that are going to keep you from being patient. So when you take that breath, even as you're wanting to accomplish a lot in your practice routine,

transcribing, whatever, the other things we're going to talk about, you also, it forces you, the great thing is if you listen to the music and the flow and the spirit of this music and interact with the community, that'll force you to be patient. The music will force you to be because you cannot rush through the important things. If you do, your playing will be lacking. So as long as you get into an organic flow with the music, the music will actually teach you how to be patient. That's right. And it's just that mindset of, hey, I'm a musician. I'm a musician for my whole life. Yeah. I have my whole life here to work on this. I don't have

to do it all in one day. I can take care of those details that need to be taken care of because that's important. And even if you could do it in one day, think about how unsatisfying that would be for the art that you created. If this was something we could get in one day or one week or one year. Video game mode on easy. I mean, it's like I'm hearing Herbie Hancock at Newport Jazz Festival this summer and I'm hearing, you know, 76 years of accumulated, you know, patience and knowledge. And he was good at 16 probably. Yeah. So that would have been fun too.

But, I mean, like, I mean, it's such a joyful thing to be able to see this. You know, it's like you see LeBron James play now. And in some ways, it's his most exciting. And I think he's, I mean, some people are like he's on the down swing. I think he's at his best. Athletics, your body does start to break down. So we have an advantage that we can keep on that upslope. So be patient, keep that in mind.

That's right. All right. Number four is a practice journal. We preach about this all the time. keep a practice journal, keep what ideas you want to practice in the future. You're going to want to record yourself and really try to honestly pinpoint some areas of growth that you need to hit. But you have to write this stuff down or else it'll get lost in the shuffle. Write down what you've practiced so you know where you've been, the keys, the tempos.

Keep a journal of tunes you want to learn or concepts you want to learn. If you like don't have it together with two-handed voicings and all keys, that's like something you can make a little chart of and keep that in the practice journal. And like you, and like if you're practicing patients, a few months, maybe a year or whatever. Oh,

so fun to look back and be like, and be like, oh my gosh, I couldn't believe I couldn't play drop two in G flat last year. Right, right. And why you always tease me about the drop two? Because it's like,

I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. Or at least understand it. All right. What's number five? Well, just one more thing on the practice journal.

The, the, the, the thing of writing it, like I've heard this from from enough reliable sources now that I really believe it. I already felt it, but I didn't know if it was because of how I came up in the non-digital age as a very young boy. Yeah.

It was none of this. I don't know if you knew this shiny object did not exist at one time, young Adam. Can't believe it. No, but the idea of like, because people always like, well, should I do it on my phone? And I'm like, it doesn't matter. Just do the system that works. But I really believe now you should write it somewhere. I agree.

Because, you know, it's been shown. And I think even more so in this day and age because everything is like coming and going. The process of writing, it gives it a significance to yourself. It does. Not only that, yeah, you can go back, but just as you. write it, like you're putting a stake down. You're not going to do everything you do, say, but you're going to remember it and it's going to have that impact.

And you might go back and cross it out. You might correct it. But things like having a page like, things I suck at, colon, and then a list can be very effective. I totally agree. A little negative reinforcement. All right, number five is transcribe. Is this important?

I don't know. I mean, I feel like, you know, so these are, first of all, these are not an order of importance, except number one, right? Yeah. These are all. I would say number one and number two are. Or an order of importance, for sure. So transcribe, look, this is just a habit that is going to make you a better player.

And if you get into the habit of it, this one that's a little tricker because I think you can get to the point where you definitely will get to the point where you're not going to be doing this every day. But remember, like we didn't say daily habits. I mean, most of these are daily habits, but this is one I would say you're going to go into periods where it should be a daily habit. But you have to maintain your connection and mainly through listening where you're planning your next transcription. Absolutely. But, I mean, yeah, it'd be great if you could do it every day, but I don't know that that's necessarily necessary. But I've never met a great jazz musician that didn't do a beep ton of transcribing. Yeah, it's mentioned so much because it's such an important part of the process.

Not only are you learning tons of key information about the language, but you're also developing other skills as you do it. You know, ear training and technique that you normally wouldn't do in the comfort of your own hands learning from the master's. So transcribing is got to be a huge. part of it. Right. Good stuff. Number six, scales. Yes. I love me some scales, man. So now we're getting real nitty-gritty. We might get a little dogmatic, but this is just, you know, there's something about scales being, you know, they're one of the main building blocks of, you know, melody and harmony and the connection. It really rhythm, too, in what we play, all instruments that connects all instruments

in individual ways that are very specific to their instruments, but the scale notes are the same for everybody. That's right. But how. But what we wrestle with as pianists is different than what a bass player wrestles with, the ranges, the fingerings, playing in different keys. This key's easy, that key's hard. Why do bass players always write in E, A, D, and G? Because they're open, you know, all these things. But the notes of the scale are the same. That's right.

And they're so, it's just like that base level of vocabulary that you have to be constantly playing them. And then once you master them, master them, it's something that, you know, good jazz players are always having that effective habit of revisiting them. some kind of systematic way, I believe. That's right. And just like transcribing, you have all these added benefits. Scales, you're learning about music theory. You're learning about melody. Your training. You're learning.

You're learning about technique on your instrument. It's very, it's like the push-ups of music, right? It's just like a basic exercise that you have to be able to do to be fit. Yeah. And I was, yeah, I think that's a great analogy. It's like, of course you can't only do that, but if you were

stuck on an island, you had no equipment and you only knew one exercise and all you did was push-ups, you could probably stay in pretty good physical shape. It'd be better to add the other things, but it's great to have that base level. That's right. Number seven. Compose. Now this one, I threw this one in there because I thought it might

be a little controversial, not for you, but to some folks saying, why do I have to have that habit? I just want to be a jazz player. So why do you think that's important? Well, because to be a good jazz player, you have to be a good composer. That's what an improviser is, is we're composing on the spot. So it doesn't hurt

And in fact, it really, really, really helps for you to sit down and try to compose something that's not improvised, but actually try to work on something to craft something. And the craft of composing can teach you so much about your improvising. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the reason I think this works so well as an effective habit for everyone to get into is because it's something that, you know, you can actually just schedule and sit down and do. You're either doing it or you're not. Now, I'm not saying that what you're doing is, you know, composing a Mozart symphony masterpiece.

but you can sit down and say, I'm going to compose. I'm going to compose for 30 minutes. Whereas improvising, you know, that's more of a byproduct of all of these things. You know, something that's going to happen. We do all these things. But if you get in the habit of composing, I remember Ray Brown told me, you know, he went like 30 days where he said he was going to write. And this is before, like, you know, self-help books were available on Audible and Kindles and stuff. I'm pretty sure.

He was just like, I'm going to write a tune for 30 days for one month, a new tune. every day. It's going to be finished. Yeah. And he was just like, none of them except one really came out to be anything that I used, but he wanted to get, you know, in an effective habit is what I took that to be. For sure. For sure. And I think it helped him beyond just being a composer. It helped us playing. It challenged him. And so I love stuff like that. Yeah, you know, this is one that I have to really keep in mind for a priority for me or else it's another one that will like kind of go by the wayside when I get busy or stressed or whatever. I have to carve out time every week to compose a little

bit or else I'm just, that's not a happy Adam. Yeah. You know what I mean? But also it's like... It's hangary at him. Oh, no, that's different. That's different. It's hashtag keto. Adam.

No, it's... I think it's a super important part. I'm glad you include it here at the end of our list. That's seven. Let's break them down from the top to the bottom again. Number one is listen. Yeah. Number two is daily practice.

Number three is to practice patients. Number four is a practice journal. A lot of practicing going on here. I know. Oh, I've got a bonus, you just in case anyone's going to tune out. Number five. Transcribe. Number six, scales and number seven.

All right. Our bonus. After we tell you that we are sponsored by OpenSudiojazz.com. We got a link here to the new Jazz Piano Basics Volume 1. We're still hyping that thing up, man? Come on.

That was at the beginning of this episode. Oh, that was today. That was today, yeah. This is a super long episode. See, that's what I'm saying. I'm overestimating what can be done in one day. I'm starting to fidget, man. Let's get the bonus going.

The second point. Pod Cave is literally falling down around. Okay, let me do it before the caves in odds. Okay, bonus. I'm going to say, I'm going to throw an audible here. and say community, okay, as a highly effective habit of being a better jazz musician. Being a part, and that can be an online community

like we have, that can be a jam session, that can be somebody that you get together and play with. This is a communal music, you know, and the more, like, we wanna encourage, and I think we've done a good job of like talking about, a lot of this is personal practice, and that's a huge part of it. Yeah.

But when you come together, you're gonna be able to put these effective habits in place, and I would say that's in a community. So you have to be in the habit of doing that, and because you can't wait So, oh, once I get to a certain level, then I'm going to become a part of a jazz. No, no, no, no. You've got to start now.

You've got to get in the habit of doing that. You've got to do some failing so that you can get back up, get back on that horse. But find your peers, find your mentors, you know? And actually find people that you can mentor because you'll learn from that as well. I think it's your spot on. That's a really, really good bonus. Awesome. Well, until tomorrow.

You'll hear it.