You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Reasons NOT to Start Your Own Band (And 1 Reason You Should)

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

It's the world premiere of You'll Hear It Totally Arbitrary Season 4! Peter and Adam start off the new season with a list of reasons why you wouldn't want to start your own band.7 Reasons NOT to Start Your Own Band$$$$ - you can make more playing with othersLogistics - you'll deal with more than just musicHiring and firingTime (you'll need lots of it)Decision fatigueIt's your name, it's your reputationLove of music (you can't play a variety)BONUS TIPHave you been to the new Open Studio website yet? It's the same great taste with a whole new look! It's got all of the great courses from the old site, plus some new ones like Jazz Piano Jump-Start that are exclusive to the new platform. Plus, we've got a more user-friendly interface, faster load speeds, and new course resources - like quizzes over the lesson material. Visit https://www.openstudiojazz.com/ to learn more!Let 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, Adam. What's up? I thought you were off today. I was. I was. I thought you were off all week. I was supposed to be. I'm Adam Mness.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Let's see if you can hear this. It means welcome home, buddy. Oh, thank you. That actually technically means welcome to your home. I know.

I'm going over for dinner tonight. Very quickly in Google Translate, it's from English to Italian. Is there a keto fest waiting for me at the Manus residence tonight? It's Keto Fest every night at the Manus residence. You know that by now. It's like Kino Night, the casino. Kino night. Actually, the last time we had you over, we had to scramble for like, okay, we have so much meat.

Right, right. We need to have some kind of cauliflower sandwich for meat. That was good. It was a good sandwich. So, yeah, it's good to be back. Good to be back in the pod cave. I see that you got your microphone back, so we're back on. So grateful to have this microphone, man.

Big shout out for sure for taking a month to fix it. I'm noticing you got a new shirt. This is not a new shirt. This is the same one I've had. It was at the bottom of my drawing. dresser. That's a nice shirt. Yeah. You'll hear it shirt. Fun fact. You know why underwear are called by many people

drawers? Why? Well, they reside in your drawer. I get it. I get it. Can people buy A You'll hear it shirt? Yes, I bought this, actually. Did you? I think so. Somebody bought it from it. You don't get free swag. You don't have it. You don't have. You don't have. No. It's good. Service and, you know, yeah, but they can. Would they go to

Open Studio? They go to you'll hear it.com. Oh, you'll hear it. Of course. Of course. It's going anywhere else. It's so confusing. You'll hear it.com slash swag. Hey, before we get into this, man, but speaking to you'll hear at dot com, we got a big announcement today. We do have a big announcement. Are we ready to do it?

I mean, this is a new season, too. Yeah, yeah, season four. Season four. Arbitrary season four. No, it always kind of sort of middle end of summer. Oh, no. It's like it's the summer solstice. It means a new season. No. No. It's just kind of when. It's just time. It's when you've been

gone for a little bit. We just feel like retool a little bit. So season four, actually, we say this every season and it's true we have a bunch of new stuff coming at like last time it was the key station that's right you know we're up in our game you look at the quality that added to the podcast that's right is that thing plugged in no yeah good this this year though it's really game changer yeah this season we're happy to announce today on our first episode um you'll hear it premium you'll hear it premium right you'll hear premium which is going to be our new well it's kind of

self-explanatory it's premium yeah we can't even tell you about it it's so premium no it's coming soon and it's um What we want to do, it's a way for you guys to show your support for the, for the podcast and also for a way for us to be able to continue to produce these episodes, but also get back over to the piano episodes, which we actually just recorded a few today, which are now going to be available exclusively to you'll hear at premium members. And there's going to be a small charge for this, but it's going to be very reasonable. We're still working out the detail. Oh, did we work out the details? No, we're still working out. Well, some things we're definitely going to have is you're going to have full access to the archive. We have so many episodes now that.

but it's just a big, bulky thing to have up all of them. And it gets overwhelming. So we're probably going to do our favorite hundred or so, which tells you how much we have. I mean, we have hundreds and hundreds. But with the premium, you'll be able to get the full archive. Yes. You'll be able to get the premium episodes, as you just mentioned,

at the piano with the overhead camera. And then we're even going to add PDFs of those worksheets of those episodes. They're going to be nice little mini lessons. There'll be many lessons, essentially, with resources and everything. So go check that out. It's not here yet, but it's, It's on the way. But depending on when people, you know,

not everybody listens to this at 3 a.m. Oh, that's true. When it drops. I just assume everybody stays up all night every night so that they can hear this. That's right. I know I do. Look for it soon.

You'll hear it premium. When it's here, we'll add a link to the description of the lessons. Absolutely. And of course, you will get it at you'll hear it.com or at open studio jazz. For sure.

Okay, so today you just kind of came up with this topic off the top of your head and it's really good. I know. Well, you can see where my mindset is kind of right now. Yeah. So today we're,

We're going to give you seven reasons not to start your own band. Okay. And one reason you should, which is our little bonus at the end. We like to end on a positive. The weird thing about this for me is that we both have always had our own bands. Like that's what I really love to do is start my own band. So I'm interested in, I mean, maybe I'm- Well, this is why we're experts on this.

Maybe I've been doing it wrong. We definitely know reasons not to start. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And we know at least one reason you should. So why don't you kick it off? Okay, so the first reason, money. Yeah.

You can make more playing with others. It's possible that if you're just a side man, you can make more money. You can be more in demand. Oftentimes this is the case, depending on what, unless you're a vocalist, you can always make more money, having your own band, of course. That's because you pay everybody else way less. Yeah, and especially when you take an account your time. I mean, it really takes a lot of time to start and to run your own band, and that's usually time that's not compensated for in the traditional sense. And look, we're playing music because we love it.

We know this, but we also are professional, so the money side does come into the equation. but it's definitely people think almost aren't on my own band and make a lot of money. That's right. You generally, especially at the beginning. You're looking at investing. You're investing in that band. So, yeah, if you do it right, it will pay off later on. But if you just need to make money for your rent every month, it's not probably going to be in your financial best interest to start your own band.

Yeah, I like what you said too. Especially in the beginning, it can be very expensive. You know, you've got to do the website thing, any kind of promo. You've got to hire people sometimes. Headshots. Headshots. They still do that? No, you got to get some pictures.

You got to get a band. And sometimes the gig might. might not pay enough for the musicians that you want to start playing with. And you get paid last. So later on when your fees big enough, yeah, you might start making some money. But a good band leader gets paid last. All right. Number two is logistics.

Now, this is a huge blanket category, but this can be a real pain in the butt. This is everything that you have to deal with, managers, booking agents, club owners, a bunch of unsavory people. You just name some right there. But then there's also just like, you know, there's a lot of emails. Like, when I'm running projects or running my own. bands, there's like hours and hours of emails that you have to do every week just to make sure

like, hey, can you do this rehearsal at this time? Here, can you make this gig? Here, you can't, okay, well, now we have to get back with the club and do the, you know, like, all this stuff. And I mean, look, a lot of it can be great and can be well done and can be very satisfying, but it is, you have to be aware that it just, you're spending a lot of time on logistics

that actually have nothing to do with music. That's right. So as long as you're prepared for that, you have the right mindset and the skill set. And a lot of people think, oh, I'm going to be big enough I'm just going to pay somebody to do that. That's it. Well, you probably are at the beginning. Even when you are, there's still a lot.

I mean, I've toured with some artists that were like very, you know, top shelf, top of the line. And they had whole staffs, assistants, you know, managers, assistant managers, the whole thing. But you still have to understand at a minimum the logistics so that you can kind of control things and lead things. This is your thing. It's time. You got to be the decision maker, ultimately. Right. Yeah.

The decider. The decider. Okay, number three. Yes. Number three is hiring and firing. So in terms of a reason not to start your own band, I think there's very few people, even that are good at this. And I think we did an episode a couple weeks ago about firing and hiring.

We did. Yeah. So even if you're good at this, it's not necessarily something like you don't want to start a band so that you can do this, you know, but it is a part of it. And you, I mean, at a minimum, you're going to have to hire everybody. And maybe you'll get lucky like, you know, Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock and Jack Dijanette. Yeah, for 30 years.

Yeah, that's right. But you have to, you know, and a problem can be just hiring, getting good people that you can't afford maybe. You got to sell them on. You got to be a salesman. You got to be a lot of different things when you start your own band. That's true. Number four is time. We alluded to it in number one with the money because of the all the time you'll spend uncompensated.

But you just need a lot of time to execute things like logistics, hiring and firing. And some other things that are on this list. Time is scarce anyway as we're progressing in our musical career. So having your own band is definitely a time suck, and you really have to be committed to be able to invest in time. And I think, you know, it's funny. People, like, you know, it's true time and money, but this whole thing of like, time equals money.

I'm like, yeah, sort of. But when you're broke and you got a lot of time, you'd love to be like, oh, time equals money? Well, I'll give you some time if you give you some money. That's called a job. That's right. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, yeah.

That's right. Well, how about time? Like, I want to spend some time watching Netflix tonight. Will you pay me to do that, Adam? No, I won't. Oh, you won't. It's not worth my time. is this is yours here.

I have no idea what that means. Decision fatigue? You go through it all the time, buddy. I know you do. I can't decide whether or not I do that or not. Decision fatigue is because you're making decisions. Sometimes you get overwhelmed with the amount of choice and options you have. Sometimes you make, you're making a lot of decisions, and it just gets exhausting.

Right. Like that, that activity of deciding between just one thing or the other can get overwhelming to a lot of people. Should we take this gig? Should we not? Should we play this? Should we call this person to be part of the band? Should we? Yeah.

There's a lot of little micro decisions. And then sometimes, yeah, at the end of the day, you're like, okay, well, I was going to write this last two hours of my day. But I'm just, I'm exhausted. Yeah. And even that, I mean, with the creation of the music and everything, it's so many decisions and creativity that needs to go into it. Okay, good. So that's one, two, three, four, five. Bam, we're moving along here.

Number six, it's your name, so it's your reputation. Okay. So this is a reason not to start the band because you're not going to have as much control as you think you have. even if you're Keith Jarrett with the Keith Jarrett trio. And so, but a lot of times, well, either the band is like called you, the Keith Jarrett trio, or your name is so intertwined

as you being the leader and the creator and the originator of that band that when things go south, you know, everyone's going to be looking towards you. When things are doing great, they're going to look towards everybody. Wow, what a great band. And when everything falls apart, they'll be like, what a horrible leader, Adam.

Right. You know, if your saxophone player sucks, it's still, you know, everybody knows that's your thing. You know what I mean? So if it's the Adam Mattis Quartet, everybody's looking to me, like, why did you even hire that guy? Whatever it is.

And I could put another, can I add a little correlator, like a little 6A or 6B on this one? And that would be a reason not to start your own band if you're a pianist is because you can just play solo piano. It's so much easier. It's like you have your own band. You make more money. You don't have to pay anyone.

You don't have any of these other problems. But again, in my case, it's my name, it's my rep. People have got to hear me play solo piano, and they're going to know it's all going south. They love it. They love it. All right, number seven, and this is because you love music. Now, this sounds weird because you have your own band, but, you know, one of the things I really enjoy is being able to play a lot of different kinds of music. I love to be able to play other people's music.

Yeah. And learn a lot that way. Right. So if you have your own band, you have all this time, you're spending all this money. You might not get to play the variety of music with the variety of musicians that you're used to. Although I guess technically it's your band. You can decide what you play. Oh, sorry.

Did I jump ahead there? Yeah, yeah. Well, no, but this one, actually, all these. Now that I'm looking at it, these are seven reasons not to start your own bandwidth. They could be seven reasons to only play solo piano gigs. All right, so we have a bonus. I'm so excited about this bonus because it's a bit of a, oh, right. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Which is Open Studio. Who? Open Studio. Ever heard of it? I have. Yeah. The new home for Open Studio is openstudiojazz.com. Please come and visit us at our brand new platform and website.

Same great artists, same great content, even better for you. We're so excited. We just about got everything almost by the time people hear this, it's all going to be there. It's all going to be there. Can I give ourselves a little pat on the back? Yes. I just want to give a shout out to all our crew here in the crew.

The crew. Open studio because the last couple weeks, they were hustling to get all this stuff over to the new platform. And they just did an outstanding, outstanding job. While I was hustling in Italy to find the perfect pizza in Naples, they were hustling. You seriously sent me a picture of pizza while we're all working on this stuff. We're like, well, I was trying to motivate you.

Yeah. Yeah, so we, big thanks to Open Studio for sponsoring this beautiful thing. And, oh, wait, let's get to our bonus. Okay. Our bonus is all... Oh, wait, wait. Oh, sorry. Sorry, we got to just define this.

Make sure we remember it. The bonus is the one reason you should start your own ban. Right. This is the one reason. We gave you seven reasons not to start your own band. Here's the one reason you should. You ready? You ready for this?

I love this. Okay. This is, by the way, it's the new territory for it. It's inspired. I'm just trying to build it up a little more. The reason you should start your own van is all of these seven reasons. But on the flip side. So let's go through them real quick.

Exactly, yeah. So number one, we got money. We said you can make more playing with others. True. All right. But if it's you and you're band. Right. You can rip off the band members and make.

No, no, no, no, no. No, but if you have any kind of success that you are going to. Mo money. Right. Logistics. Okay, yes, you have to deal with the managers and the bookings, but you get to decide on all of these things. You get to decide where you're staying.

That's right. You can decide where you're playing. Vince Carlton, here I come. You get to decide all that. Steinway piano 10 foot every night. Hiring a fire. Pain in the ass, no? Well, you get to decide who's in your band, and who's not.

Yeah, another power, control. Time. Okay, you do need lots of it, it's true. But wouldn't you rather spend your time working on your own music with people you love than doing it, like digging a ditch? Right, exactly, building up your own name instead of somebody else's. That's right. Decision fatigue.

Yes, you get to make a lot of decisions, but you know what the flip side is? You get to make a lot of decisions. That's right. It's all you. You get to decide where this ship is being steered. That's right. You are the El Capitan, as we say. Number six, it's your name, it's your rep.

Yes, if things go south, it's your rep on the line. But if things go north, hello. And you get all the glory. That's right, right. And then number seven, love of music. Yeah, you can't play the stupid wedding gigs that you have to have been playing in all these years. But you get to play your own music all the time. If you're hiring and firing with people you like, you get to do it with people you like.

If you're deciding where you play, how you play, how much you play, you get to to enjoy all that. That's right. I love it. I love it. So it turns out that this seven headed monster of an episode here actually was like a seven-headed coin with a two side, no, 14-sided coin with two sides to each of these. We are such a layered podcast. That's what I love about us, man.

We're like a bad onion. It's so deep. Too many layers. So like you just scratch the surface and then there's, well, there's nothing else. That's right. Yeah. Well, tomorrow you'll hear it.