You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Tools to Supercharge Your Practice

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Peter and Adam give you some easy steps you can take to maximize your efficiency during practice sessions on today's episode.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.7 Tools to Supercharge Your Practice:A focused place to practiceA great instrumentMetronome (unless you're Chick Corea)A practice accountability partnerA place to think (you might need one of these)PUJOA course or mentorThursday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Romero Lubambo: Bossa Nova Guitar... And More! on YouTube10:30 PM - Peter Sprague Plays the Beatles on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet 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. How many tools you got in the shed? Right now, I got seven for you, buddy. You got a supercharger in there? I do have a supercharger. Good. I'm at a practice.

I'm Adam Anus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll hear podcast. Daily music, advice, and inspiration coming at you. Coming at you. Today, we're sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJaz.com for all your jazz lessons needs. And Peter, we just finished our Monday YouTube stream.

Join us on Mondays on YouTube. That's the Open Studio, YouTube. channel at 4 p.m. Eastern. And you know what I love the most about the YouTube stream, Peter? What do you love the most? And they're finished and we're just doing our good old meat and potatoes audio podcast. I got my, I'm going to unbutton my top button here. Well, it's weird because you're in a robe. You got your slippers on. You really get comfortable once the YouTube finishes. It just feels so like, you know, we're live. So the whole world is live on some kind of box and some kind of little box. It gets a little bit. I mean, we're getting better on it. I love it.

Yeah. Not me wrong. But just being here with the mic, some classic, you'll hear it. I mean, you know, it makes me just want to kind of break into some, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I thought you were inviting me. Oh, yeah. That's cool.

No, that's all good. Who's my man? What Byron. This is what I'm saying. Is anyone still listening to us? Can we do this? Can we do this on YouTube? We can't do this on the podcast.

Well, part of the thing with the YouTube is, too, is we're, you know, we're doing a lot of production. We are self-producing this. I know, man. You're over there switching. You're switching. You're doing audio. We got a lot going on. So here we're a little more relaxed. Are you still doing audio, which is beautiful? I'm still doing audio kind of. If you guys are enjoying what you're hearing. Wait, am I doing an audio? Hold on.

No, I'm okay. I'm doing audio. Okay, good. Thank you. So folks, that would be some great outtakes except they never happened. Occasionally we come in and start doing an episode and then about 10 minutes into it. You're like, I'll say, oh, are you recording by the way? And you will say, in fact, I'm not. I said, well, that was a mighty fine conversation we have. Let's do a podcast now. That's just between us. Today, let's get into it. Yeah, let's get into it.

So this is not super clickbaity. Wait, let me pull up the name again. Oh, yeah, it is a little bit. Hold on. I'm not sure if you understand the definition. Seven tools to supercharge your, okay, a little click baby, but it's not because we're going to deliver on this. So this, we've been talking about, we were talking about earlier in the earlier episodes about, sometimes we'll call them hacks, but we're really trying to get into the qualitative side. Sometimes they'll call us hacks.

They do. They often do. But we're trying to get sway a little bit more to the qualitative side of practice because there's been a lot of interest in that. Not just the how do I find time for 10 hours of practice today because people are kind of over like, oh, I've got so much time to make sourdough bread and learn how to do Japanese Italian fusion cooking and do all this. I'm kind of like. I'm hungry now. I know, I know. But everyone's sort of panicked now.

They're like, wow, it's been six months. I hadn't done nothing. Can I wait. Can I have someone Japanese make me some Italian bread? You know, exactly. Exactly. That would be delicious. So, but these are things to kind of, like, if you feel like, okay, I'm practicing every day, but I just, I need to go next level.

This is going to be some things to supercharge. And they're a little bit tools because sometimes we think we need something external. So we don't like to usually satisfy people's it. We're like, no, go nude to a windowless room with just your instrument and practice, right? Don't do that. That's minimalist. Don't do that. So we don't normally say you got to have books and notebooks and electronics and stuff.

But we were decided to give you a couple tools. I love it. So number one, this is something that I actually don't have during the pandemic because I live in a tiny house with two tiny people and my lovely wife. And I do not have, number one, a focused place to practice. Well, that. And well, but you know what? You've kind of found a way to, I don't know, whenever I see you when we do something online and you're there,

it seems like you've got a certain, maybe you're taking your attitude to turn in your space to a focus. Well, I have to focus in the place I am, right? So I have to accept where I am. But I love the idea of creating a focus. No, you know what? That's not true because I do do practice outside of the piano. I just don't have a piano in a focused place. Where's your piano now?

My piano is, well, I have two pianos. I've one in our living room. Yeah. And then I've one across the street here at the Cranzburg Arts Center. But it's not available to you. Well, it is, but I would have to leave my house and drive. And, you know, my kids have to be on like 17 Zoom meetings a day for school. So I have to be there for them.

That's right. So. Well, I think that this, and the next one will kind of go with this. I was just thinking is if it's possible. and everybody's situation obviously is different, that focus place to practice if you're carving out a little corner of a room, if it can be its own room. I like that.

But you have to think about all the things that are around it that will enable you to focus. It's not just having a door that closes. If you bring your phone with you and you've got your notifications on, you could be in Carnegie Hall by yourself and you're still not going to have a focus place to practice, right? So, you know, a lot of it is kind of going into the, with the mindset of like, I want to have this time to really focus. So what are the things that I need to not have?

Yeah, I need a space, a physical space, at a minimum, just you and your instrument in the corner of a room. If you can do better, that's great. Now, also, it's good to kind of think a little bit outside of the box. Is there a church, synagogue, mosque, place of worship? University that you might be able to? A university, possibly. And I know it's a little touchy going into different rooms and spaces, but some places are semi-abandoned right now. Don't break any state laws, folks.

Don't break it. County and city or federal, yes. State laws, no. Not on my account. There are some schools that are, you know, if you have access, and if you're a pianist, that that's harder because you have to have, you know, fine. But if you play something else that you can bring your instrument, that might be outdoors. That's great.

That's great. Number two, I love this one, a great instrument. Yeah. If you don't have one, where can you use a bar one? Just to what you were saying, finding a church or a school or somewhere, a friend, somewhere who is not freaked out and will let you come and play their piano. Or, you know, when you say a great instrument, I think the first thing that might come to people's mind is I got to get a seven foot Steinway B that just is in this perfect

shape or whatever. That's absolutely wrong. It needs to be a nine foot. Minimum. No, but I mean, there's a lot of instruments that have a lot of soul that can, and just sometimes just changing your sound in your space is enough. It could just be a different, a different piano tech patch. That's right.

It could be a new MIDI keyboard. It could be a Fender Rhodes. It could be a ball and acrosonic that you get at a church basement for free. something that has some new blood, some new soul for you, put some new life into your game, can really change how you practice. That's right, right. So if you're at home, obviously it's the best that you can get, but if you can get a little creative and think about somewhere you could go,

because that can give you that inspiration. Even if you do it like one day a week, maybe the church lets you go into that room one day a week, that can be a real game changer. Awesome. What's number three? Okay, so this is probably one of the most obvious tools that we talk about, but there's a little controversy I'm going to introduce into it this week.

How can there be controversial? Well, that's what I thought. So it's a metrono. A metronome, to me, like, that's supercharged in your practice every time because there's so many ways you can use it. So many ways you can incorporate it into giving you a little bit more of a handholding and regimented approach to practice in many different areas that you might need. It's scales, technique, working on your time, you know, working on different time signatures. So many different ways to use it as we've talked about ad nauseum, as they say, in the Latin countries. So what's the controversy?

Well, I recently saw an email. I received a personal email from Chick Korea. I don't want to drop that name. Sorry, you dropped the name. Although I have the feeling it's part of a bigger mailing list, but it said from Chick Korea Academy. No, from the great Chickoria.

And he said, yeah, although to tell you the truth, it was like a link to go read the further post or see the video. I did not do that, so I can't tell you in full. But he was basically saying the metronome, he does not recommend practicing with it. I think. Tell me your thoughts on that as I search for this email.

So I don't misrepresent. With how solid his time is, I just can't imagine. Maybe that's what he said. He's like, don't practice. I don't need to. I don't need to. I'm Chick-Korea. I have perfect time.

I don't know. I like a good metronome practice. You know what we've been doing over at the daily got to practice session? What? Using the rhythm trainer on the pro metronome app that I have on my iPhone, where you can kind of do, you know, you can do a bar on, a bar off with the click, right? Where it clicks for four beats and it's silent for four beats. Or you could do two bars and two bars.

or four bars and two bars or two bars and eight bars. You can really get into some awesome rhythm training with the metronome. Not only that, you can practice putting it at different places. Like some people like to put it on the end of two or the end of four, which is really challenging to think of like, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. And play a tune that way. It really keeps you accountable to the metronome.

Okay, so I found the email. And so, okay, misrepresented a little bit. The subject is why Chick doesn't use a metronome, why Chick doesn't use a metronome. But he's really coming forward. And actually, you know what? We'll link to this, because I'm sure this video is really good.

It's just a little snippet. Why he talks about it? So I don't have to misrepresent it too much. He's talking about a click track. He's like saying don't use it to improve your rhythm and your time. But that's generally not what we're talking about. Well, we kind of are.

Yeah. What would you use it for that? Watch the video. Okay, yeah. Not now. We're doing a podcast. But we'll link to that below. And you can hear from the great chick

If anything that we are saying is in conflict with Chicka Rio, please follow Chick, because he's a legend. There you go. All right, what's number four? Number four. Seven tools to supercharge your practice. Is a practice accountability partner? I'm going to amend this.

I'm going to call it accountability buddy. A buddy. Are you going with the buddy system? Or a practice partner. Practice accountability partner. Right. And I think, you know, in a way, we're sort of that for each other. I like buddy, better.

Yeah, buddy. Yeah. You like the buddy system. The only problem is buddy when we were coming up, we used buddy to, you know, mean like cheap or chinty. Did you ever use that? No. Is that a U-City thing? That was definitely, I thought it was beyond U-City. That was my world. It was like, oh, there was some buddies.

Like if you had some like venture or target brand tennis shoes and they weren't like a venture. Yeah, I remember venture. I do. I had some knockoff ruse that were ventured. Velcro ruse. Those are buddy. Those are buddy.

Very buddy. But, no, I think that, you know, the best with this, and I've done this with some other aspects of my life. We had a, we had a no buddy. system at one point. Just say no. Remember that? Oh, that's right. We did. We did. We did. We did. We did. We did. And then and then we were forced to say no to everything. The world said no to. Yeah. We were saying no. And then the entire world was like, no. Yeah, we didn't need we. We didn't need to be buddies anymore. At least not like that. Yeah. So basically Adam and I, and this was not that long. It feels like a

lifetime. It was like, that was like, no, no, it was pre pandemic. It was pre pandemic. But, but right before we, we talked to each other. We were both having trouble in our own way. Adam more so than me, to be honest. That's true. But we were both having trouble saying no, just good things. These were not bad things. And that's why we kept saying yes. And so, you know, Adam was a yes man.

I was a yes man. Whenever we were to ask each other, should I do this? We were a yes man to each other about the other saying that's how bad we were. So we said once a week we were going to meet for an adult beverage and talk about all the things that we said no to. And it kind of worked. It kind of worked for a couple weeks. Yeah.

The whole world said no. Yeah. So we didn't need it. But the practice accountability part, you know, one way you could structure this would be, you know, have an appointment with somebody. And this, the beautiful thing, they can be near or far. They don't need to be. It can be anywhere in the world. But just say like maybe Sunday night you're going to talk or send an email or or text or however you want to do it. But you're just going to check in and say let them know how your practice went for the week.

And they let it's better if they are letting you know. But you know what? If they're not a musician, maybe there's something they need accountability on. And just say, you know what? We're going to kind of connect on this. And if you do it with like a friend or like a law, long lost. I did this with my daughter for like a year. You know what? And then I kept forgetting it. She's like,

your accountability is horrible. You know what a good way to do this too is like a smallish group text with like three or four people? You know what I mean? Where you're going to have a couple of buddies and then like if one of you drops off, it's not like the whole thing falls apart because there's other people to pick it up. I love it. Number five.

We made doing a group practice on the new platform thing. That's a great idea actually. We can't talk about it. Okay. Yeah. OSP. OSP. That's a little sneak.

peak. Okay, this one I'm actually, I want to talk to you about. Okay. You've been talking about it all day. One, two, three, four. A place to walk. This is the stress rest concept. Yes. And so what is this concept? Okay. So this is going to seem counterintuitive, but so important to supercharge you're practicing. You got to know when to stop and take a break. And I say a place to walk because I think that's the most productive thing physically, physiologically, and psychologically and psychologically and just emotionally in order to maximize not only what you. You know, you know, you know, you know, you're about to practice next, but more importantly, what you just practiced on. So walk me through this.

Okay. I hear you. Walk me through it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's say you're going to practice for 90 minutes. Like, I've kind of been making note of like practicing, composing, just kind of working, even writing things that I, like, 90 minutes for me is kind of a sweet spot of like I can really concentrate.

If I have no distractions, you can get a lot done in 90 minutes. So I don't necessarily set my time. for that, but I'll check when I'm feeling like, and it's sometimes, sometimes it's an hour and sometimes it's a little longer, but 90 minutes definitely is a sweet spot. So at 90 minutes or whenever I get that feeling, I'm like, even if I'm still,

when I get that feeling, I'm a sucks well healing. So I get a walking healing. So basically what I'll do is, and especially if I'm here, I will go out and walk, and this is a little bit of a dicey neighborhood sometimes. Let's be honest.

It's a little desolate right now. No, but I'll go out. and walk and recharge. I feel like the physical, you know, with piano you're sitting or if you're at the computer or if you're like keyboard

to get up and walk but just to really, but don't like, what I've had to start doing is don't take my, like my initial thing was I'm going to go out and like check my phone

and catch up on stuff. Don't do that because you're basically, you're not getting a chance to mentally rest. The resting part, the stress, and I don't mean stress in a bad way, like the stress as far as pushing

yourself in practice. And this will be a whole other episode we'll talk about, this but productive practice and productive work involves a certain amount of stress or pushing yourself pushing yourself to the limits and beyond right so really you're stressing yourself during the practice and maybe stretching is a better way to put it for practice stretching you know but yeah you are stressing yourself so you need to like mentally and emotionally and physically rest then after that in order to sort of recharge if you think about it in terms of like if you go to the gym and you're doing

a little two pound barbells well for me yeah I'm so weak with my cord probably do a lot at this point. But if you're just doing something that's easy, it's good for you, but you're never going to build a muscle up. Right, right. But if you do just within your range, yeah,

but if you push it a little bit, not to the point of injury, but you're stressing your muscle, of course. But then if you don't stop and give yourself a chest of rest. You got to take a day off in between. And then that's that rebuilding. So I think even with these 90 minute practice periods,

they can be very productive. Early pandemic, you made fun of my hammock, my pan hammock, which is my little, that's what I do after I, get a little, work going on and then I just go out there

for about 10 minutes and I don't It's like a recharging. Just what you're saying. I would never take my phone or try not to take my phone and just kind of just chill. That's funny. I think you did have your phone when you would FaceTime you'd be like try to make me all jelly of your Well I mean it's I'm going to entertain myself Peter. Yeah and so the rest can be a hammock. It can be walking

it can be you know laying down but you really just want to give yourself a chance because that's like what I find is when I come back to the instrument then like the things that Yeah, I'm fresh and like there's the problems that I might have been having before that are solved all of a sudden. Especially you talk about resting over. I mean, how many times are you woken up in the morning? I woke up in the middle of the night with like, you know, oh, I've got the solution.

I don't want to write that down. I've got an idea, you know, or you're in the shower, you know, and like the water and you're like, that's a kind of rest and you don't have your phone or whatever. Oh, man. You know, if I'm writing anything, if I'm doing like a big arrangement or whatever, I take about, I average about eight showers a day. Right. No, I really do. I take a tremendous amount of showers because I think really well in the shower.

Well, also with that, I'll give you a little game changer, a little bonus here. I don't know if this might be... A little bonus Jonas? This might be a little gift that you're getting in your stocking this year from Pedy.

I have in my shower a notepad and pencil waterproof. What is this? The Jetson? How is that possible? I don't know. You can get it on Amazon. You got a waterproof notebook notepad and pencil

so you can think about some stuff? It's very weird. Yeah. Because I'm always having these. I'll get out, I'm getting it all wet, and I'm going over to write it down and find my phone. Now I don't have to leave the shower. Okay, well, this brings us to number six. Get yourself a waterproof practice journal.

Actually, you know what? We're going to link below to affiliate. I'm just about trying to sell our own Pujo here, and you're going to link to some other affiliate. I'm going to link to both of them. Because I know people are going to be like, where can I get the waterproof, you know, thing. Do they have waterproof manuscript paper?

That would be like next level. So number six is a Pujo. It's a practice journal. We call it a Poojo right here. We do have an open studio practice. We'll link to that too, Andrew, if you know mine, and the waterproof paper. But using something to write down with, and actually, you know, before I would rest and go to my hammock, Peter, what I got into this pandemic that has been a game changer for me is a little reflection after my practice. So whatever.

That's work rest kind of too. It really is. But it's also what you're taking what you've just worked on. you're attaching it in your own words to parts of your learning that are already so ingrained that it's easy to recall, right? You just make it a little bit easier

the next time you have to recall it because you're putting it in your own words, you're putting language to it. And so having a practice journal where you can plan your practice before your session and then reflect on your practice afterwards, this will make you a better player. I have no doubts about that.

That's guaranteed, right? Guaranteed. That's a 30-day guarantee. We got time for one more, but before we do, who's our sponsor today? That'd be Open StudioJazz.com. Check out all of our course offerings. Adam Manus has some beautiful new things.

Tell me about the bebop course that you just did. Because a lot of people are like, oh, another piano course from Adam. O contraire, Monfrer. Oh, yeah, monfraer. It's a city French. The new course, it's actually been super popular. It's really great.

It's called Bebop Enclosures for Beginners. It's for all instruments. What I basically do is break down a couple of elements of bebop into digestible pieces, like, you know, broken seventh chords and enclosures, and more broken seventh chords, and more enclosures,

and we create little lines out of it. Those kind of things can really go a long way into just dipping your toe into the bebup language. You know, it's a deep and varied language, so we don't want to say that this will get you 100% there, but this will actually, if you're having trouble getting that sort of bob and weave rhythmic bebop sound in your lines,

this course is designed for you. It's designed to kind of help you understand the basics of how to get that way. It's like a kind of turbocharged, supercharged vocabulary builder. It is. We'll put a link there too, Andrew. And so, yeah, go check it out. Bebop and Closures for Beginners for all instruments. That's right.

Number seven. Speaking of. Yeah, let me pull it back up here. I lost it and I was so excited about it. So, oh, yes, number seven for our seven things to supercharge your practice. This is totally coincidental, by the way. A course and or a mentor. Or in the case of open studio courses, both.

Both. They both come with both. Yeah. Actually, any kind of mentorship. Someone to give you feedback. Coach, mentor. Totally. Yeah.

Some feedback or even just some ideas about what or how to practice can supercharge you're playing. Like you never, like you really, you don't know what you don't know. Exactly. So you got to have someone else. It's part of the tradition. Don't sleep on it. Yeah. And I think, too, you know, it's that.

combination of that that'll give you ongoing inspiration ideas for how to optimize what it is you're working on because sometimes we'll talk about different things that folks be like I try what you said but like they weren't ready for it at that time it was a good idea for them the mentor coach or the course if you're following it closely we'll let you know not only what to do but when to do it as it were exactly um we did we talk about um the youtube that we did we did talk about that but there's nothing wrong with saying it again we're on youtube all the time man let's talk about it We just been having fun and we want people to know you can leave the podcast and go to YouTube. You'll be welcome back here again.

It's not a one way road, right? And we would ask one thing of you. If we would only ask one thing, what we ask. Please vote for the Democrat. No. Well, we will ask that, of course. But no, we want to ask you for a rating review. Now, I apologize.

This is going to take you 30 seconds out of your life. But think about what you get in return. It does help spread the word about the podcast. Yeah. Now, do not leave a rating review if you don't want us to shout you out. because we will shout out. Oh, you're going to get a shout out. Like, we're about to do it now.

What do you got? Okay, this is from TD 2981 from the United States of America. Five stars breaking down the walls. This is from Apple podcast. Breaking down the walls. I'm a longtime rocker who's appreciated jazz from afar the last couple of years, but always found it utterly impenetrable at an intellectual level. Careful, careful.

Is that right? Impenetrable? Yeah. These dudes break things down to a comprehensible level. dudes are funny witty and smart yo and monster player oh single single I think you forgot to ask he forgot to ask him or her

wholeheartedly recommend thank you TD 2981 maybe that's Rick Beato is that his he said a long time rocker who's appreciated him really I think actually Adam Neely okay um good stuff we have one more but we're gonna do that one tomorrow so until then you'll hear