You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Things to Practice During a Pandemic

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

Social distancing might be a gig-killer, but today, Peter and Adam let you know how you can turn some lemons into lemonade by using this time to build up your chops.7 Things to Practice During a PandemicScales (for some tips on this, check out our YouTube video)Learn a second instrumentCompositionLearning tunes (that you should have known)Classical sight readingLearning solosPerformanceIn light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey. Okay, so we're all stocked up on canned goods and hand sanitizer and toilet paper. But are you stocked up on piano technique? Yeah, actually, I don't have any of that stuff, but I do have my McFerrin scale and arpeggio manual, my churny exercises, my Phillips exercises for the independence of the hands, and my Kulao, sanitinas. I think you're going to be all good.

I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio. Jazz.com slash YHI. That's YHI as in you'll hear it.

For a very special offer during these weird times that we're living through. It's getting weird out there, man. It's getting weird out there. We are offering a pay what you... Choose what you pay. Choose what you pay. Choose what you pay offer for any course we make at Open Studio. Lifetime access.

That's Lifetime access courses. Our mission at Open Studio is to help our global community of jazz musicians play jazz better and that means as many folks as possible. Yeah, so we want to meet you wherever you're at. We know a lot of folks have lost gigs as we have, as every musician has. Schools are out. Kids are home. Child care is a drag.

People are getting laid off. All these horrible things are happening. So if you have some extra time and you're like, wow, I want to develop my jazz skills, but I don't have the financial resources. We are here for you. Really, no offer is refused. We really just want to get these courses out to folks that could use them at this time, our little bit of a part to do that. So as Adam said, go to open studio jazz.com slash y-h-I

and we're going to make it happen for you. That is no joke, man. The child care thing is a serious issue, man. I'm going to be able to it in my house for sure. Yeah. You're feeling it. I mean, for me, I don't have that. My kids are a little bit older, but you have the issue once they're going off to college. Everyone had to come home. You had airplane booking issues and things like you got to move them around the country because it just stuff ended, man. And we're, you know, I'm so glad that we have this open studio and and this community here. The larger open studio community has just rallied around almost making us cry on a daily basis in their interest in what we're doing. So we are soldiering on and we are here for you

guys, both on the podcast, the YouTube channel. We're going to be trying to put out as much quality content as we can because as long as you guys want to hear it and see it, right? That's right. You know what I just launched today for our Piano Access Pass and All Access Pass members is a daily guide at practice session. Yes, I'm excited. Find that on your dashboard. if you're a piano access pass member or an all access pass member and you can just practice with me I'm practicing every day

I did yours today by the way I didn't even told you that the chromatic scale man your voice is so soothing on there I was a little tired when I started and almost put me to sleep not in a not in a boring way it was just you were so

it was almost like a Sam Harris experience there you think my voice is soothing it was very soothing I'm trying to make sure that you're breathing and that you're connected to the keyboard it was instructive yet stern all right what are we talking about today

All right. Today we're talking about seven things to practice during the pandemic. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So you want to practice washing your hands? Yeah, definitely. We're not going to go through all those things. You guys know those. We're not doctors here.

But just to reiterate, as all media outlets are telling you, listen to folks that know what the hell they're talking about. If you're in the United States like we are CDC, licensed doctors, those kind of things. Don't listen to us. But we can tell you some good things to practice when you're kind of trapped in the house. Because what are we talking about? social distancing doing it like we're actually socially distancing ourselves here at the pod cave minimum of six feet you know trying to be a good example but uh these are things that you can do in the practice room on your own in a safe space and you know maybe since you do have some

canceled gigs some canceled work or whatever it's a fun time to be able to kind of bow you know once you get over the shock of everything to kind of bone up on things but often as is the case when you get some unexpected extra time to practice oftentimes the question is or the situation is a little bit of paralysis like oh my god what do i practice though. So we're here to kind of help you get over that. That's right. And we're going to start with the king of putting this off. The one thing that you've probably put off. Louis Armstrong, the king of jazz. The king of procrastination. Okay. Scales. Scales. A lot of musicians are scared of them or just don't want to do them. They're like the vegetables to the meat and

potatoes. But you've got to do it. Yes. And I think this is an area that when you've got to extra time. Look, a lot of times when you're just trying to cram into your practice stuff, you're getting ready for gigs or things that you're excited about, that's all fine and good. But look, now you got some real time. So you can't avoid eating your vegetables now. You know what I'm saying? And this is kind of like, like we did some cleanup at the studio the other morning. And, you know, the first thing was to do that deep cleaning and cleaning off all the services. It's a drag, but you've got to get that part done so that you can get to the more important work. So that's kind of what scale practice is. But yeah, the main thing I think is to slow everything down.

Now you've got the time to do that. You can get to some really fruitful practice with scales. Take your time, relish in the opportunity to almost be stoic about it. Can we be stoic about our scale practice? Is that all right? This is a good time for stoicism. Stoicism is very helpful at this time. If you haven't read up on your Marcus Aurelius, get in there.

That's right. I'm going to link here to, if you look in the description, I'm going to, which is why Peter got scared. That's an inside joke. I'm going to link here to a YouTube video that we made about. about how to practice scales. Nice. Just a couple of weeks ago here on the podcast. But we did a YouTube version of it.

Click the link and check it on YouTube where you could see the light up keyboards and everything about how to practice scales if you're looking for some inspiration for your scale practice. Right. And the idea with the stoic side to this, with any kind of technical practice, is like, this is a time to be like,

you know what? I'm gonna buckle down and do the stuff that's hard to do because I've got the time but because I care and because I want to be ready once all this passes to really come out and go next level with my playing and give the world my musical voice, which it needs to hear.

That's right. Okay, our number two is to learn a second instrument or a new skill. Now, this is like a cross-training principle, right? So if you exercise the same muscles over and over and over again, eventually they're not going to respond as well as they did it first.

Oh, I thought you'd say eventually you get huge guns like Peter. Well, you do, but only on one specific muscle group. This is why professional athletes cross-train, they exercise the smaller muscles, the muscles that aren't primary muscles to their goal, but are going to help them perform overall in the long run. Question. And this is what, yeah.

What's a smaller muscle? I don't understand that concept. Sorry. That's cocky right there. No, but this is where something like learning how to sing or compose if you don't compose or ear training or anything that we would consider maybe secondary to just playing our instrument, right? Yeah. This is your time to get on that, right?

Maybe a time to learn a piano. We were biased. That's right. You don't play the piano and you have a keyboard at your crib. You're kind of chilling at your crib a lot. Maybe now's a little time to check out some beginning piano stuff. A little chittara, as they say, in the Iberian Peninsula. Are you going for that?

You made it one of your goals this year. See, that was a big mustache. I should have made it a 30-day goal. You should. I might make it a, maybe I'll make it this month goal. Yeah, I mean, I got the guitar out. I got it physically into a space. Do an April goal of guitar.

That's nice. I like it. Yeah. Okay, what's number three? Number three is to practice your composition skills. So this is another area that unless you are, you know, normally folks, when they get a commission to do something, if you're lucky enough to get that or an arranging gig or whatever,

sometimes this gets pushed to the back burner because we're doing the more practical things, more of the revenue generating musical practice ideas. That's right. But, I mean, composition, the world needs your composition. I don't know how much we can stress this. Yes, of course, the world needs. Thelonis Monk and Wolfgang Amadeus Maltz. I already have those.

It needs yours. So I'm talking to Peter Martin. As much as I'm talking to you guys out there, it's like this is such a great time. So to look a little bit inward, musically and see what we can pull out of ourselves to give the world. That's right.

Yeah, write a song or write a tune. Or if you just want to like, I love how you said practice your composition skills, if you really want to practice some orchestration and arranging skills, take a standard that you know really, really well. Yeah. And then use four or five voices and arrange it out.

That's right. And four or five, you know, SAT TV kind of style voices and see if you can get great voice leading the whole way. I mean, that is a challenge. And if you don't do that on the regular, it's like any other skill. It's like it goes away. So you've got to keep up with it. Great way to practice composition that. And then one other I'll throw in there for practicing composition is to transcribe a composition.

Much of the way we would transcribe a, but I mean, like really nail every part. I always think about Thelonious Monk, you know, where, like, you get exactly what the kind of weighing shorter, any of our great jazz composers, the same way you'd learn a solo and get all the nuances of it, but transcribing and writing it out. While you're transcribing the compositions, I think it's a great way to learn why they did what they did.

So ask, like, why did Monk go here, here? Why does that sound the way it does? Yes. What effect was he going through? A little on-the-fly analysis. Composition is even a little easier to do than improvised solo, because there's a little bit more, you know, of the moment in the improvised solo,

but the composition is more thought out. Very good, very good. Okay, number four is learning tunes that you should have known. Yes. And that I should have known. Exactly. My Grand American Songbook standard list is weaker than it's ever been, I think, even though I'm older than I've ever been.

No, it's probably, there's probably tunes there that you thought you didn't know, but, you know, there could be some review. I've forgotten more tunes now than I actually know. Well, and that could be. be part of, you know, when we say learning tunes that you should have known. Maybe it's ones that you always kind of knew. Or like, I know for pianists, a lot of times we'll sort of know the changes or be able to fake our way throughs, but we always know, like, if we had to play it solo piano. That's right. That's the test. I think that's a good thing. So if you're a pianist

or a guitarist, even if you just took a list of the tunes that you quote unquote know. Right. See if you can play the melodies to them, solo piano. And if you can't, you don't really know it. Exactly. And I mean, and then the kind of inverse of that is horn, players, singers that like know the melody, but they don't really know the changes or the root movement. Like if they have a really good rhythm section or pianist playing, they can hear and they have good ears. They can kind of skate above it. But can you sing the root movement? Right, exactly. Can you sit down at the piano and play it? Come on now. All right. What's number five? Number five is, oh, so this is when I just started a little bit yesterday. And this is definitely

one of those things that I only do when I just have extra time or thoughtfulness or whatever. And that's work on my sight reading. And I like to work on it. You know, because oftentimes we're doing, I mean, site reading to me is one of those skills that is, I don't know, it's basically the opposite of riding a bike. You do forget it. Or you lose it after a while. You know, like they say you never forget how to ride a bike. You get back on a bike. It's like you've never been off of it.

To me, sight reading in my experience is like I've, there was a time when I could do it really well because I was doing it a lot, you know. And then when you're not doing it a lot, you kind of lose that skill. And so I always like to keep it up, even if I don't have to have it. And so what I do is we'll just do like 20 minutes, 15 minutes a day of reading through sonatinas and maybe even some of the simpler Mozart. I just got a couple books sitting at home on the piano. I'll just kind of flip to somewhere. I mean, I've played most of the stuff, but it's been long enough that I don't really know it. And for sight reading, for working on site reading, you really need to get stuff that's totally fresh to you.

But the idea is that you pick a temple that you can get through, but you do not stop. Like once you start, even if you have to keep going. Or else you're not working on site reading. you're learning the song. Yeah, I bought a book of, of Bach corrals that I've been working through, site reading. You know, just straight, like you said,

straight, straight front to back, no stopping. Yeah, just barely. It doesn't matter how bad it is. And then the other part, you can go next level of practicing this, and this is something that, basically learning how to fake your way through that, where you can leave certain things out.

Right. But the process will actually take you through that where you're sort of just charging ahead. You're not stopping to fix. All right, number six. we have learning solos. If you've been putting off sort of transcribing new solos

and you have a little extra time on your hands, this is the time. And that can be a timely endeavor. Yeah, all these things actually are pretty timely endeavors. Yeah. And maybe not sight reading or learning tunes, but learning solos is surely

time consuming when you get deep into it. And hey, now's your time. Get things into it. Yeah, I mean, this is like, you know, like I thought it was finally going to be the chance I got to watch the Irishman all the way through. Oh, yeah.

And every time I start, it says three hours and 40 minutes and it's so good I can't get past that first scene with old Robert De Niro I can't even get back to see I haven't even started it because of that time but that's just the thing we don't have to watch as Kelly's always telling me you don't have to watch it all in a row is the vibe don't you I don't know I've only

watched the first 10 minutes and then I fall asleep on the couch you do have to start before I would like to say 11 p.m. but like 8.15 yeah yeah okay finally number seven and that's to practice performance oh like I'm clapping at a performance I'm clapping at a performance I'm I'm clapping for number seven.

It's good. Yay. So a lot of us are not going to have performances for a little bit. That's right. And so we want to stay sharp for performance. I've been just videoing myself perform like a fool. I've been videoing myself. Every time I practice,

I try to put a performance in there that I can record and then come back to. Do you get dressed up in gig attire before you do that? Well, like gigatire is usually just a t-shirt and jeans. So no. And then you know, ladies a gentleman, Adam Manis,

the world's oldest millennial. No, but you know what? If you want to then take this to the next level, you know, to kind of keep your... Go sport jacket, jeans, and flannel shirt. That's right. That's next level.

Yeah, that's what I recommend. Now, if you want to go next level, you know, this is also an opportunity to up your social media game with this. So post your performances to Instagram or Facebook, what you're working on. You know what I mean? Keep your face out there.

Yep. Start trolling Wayne Shorter on social media. This is a great time to do that, right? Don't do that. Is that up in your social media game? Please leave Wayne Shorter alone. He's done enough for us. Yes, good stuff.

So what you mean by social media it's like specifically putting up some music performances. Yeah, so whatever performances you record as you're practicing your performance, if you think it's good enough to share, go ahead and put it up and say, here's me just shedding on, you know, Blackbird by the Beatles or whatever.

Yeah, and I think most folks actually... Oh, we're on social media. So I was just going to give you some... Oh, it's good. I like it. Some outro music. No, it's kind of like, you know, unlike what people will post on social media of gigs that they're at as spectators,

they'll put anything up, doesn't matter the quality. It's true. Normally when people record themselves, they want it to be at a certain level, so this can actually inspire you a little bit of social media pressure knowing your stuff is out there. But don't be afraid to put your stuff out there. World needs it.

And don't be afraid to go to open studio jazz.com slash Y-H-I. No. I mean, yeah, no, do not be. Do not be afraid. Yes, go there because you're not afraid. Everything is safe there. and we've got all your needs. We're still doing our, are we still doing it?

Yes, we're still doing it. As long as people need it, choose what you pay. We never thought we'd say that, but it's working out beautifully. So come to OpenCedioJazz.com slash y-H-I. Choose your course, choose what you want to pay, and it's all good. Until tomorrow, you'll hear it.