You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Ways to Find Your True Artistic Self - #12

Episode Date: January 15, 2019

On today's episode, Peter and Adam list off all the ways musicians can unlock their true artistic potential. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Yes, sir. What's going on, man? Oh, nothing. Just getting back in the swing of things from my Disney vacation. Yeah, did you get a chance to reflect on your true artistic self while you were there? I got a chance to reflect on my true commercial self while I was there. All right.

Well, today it's going to be a little different. Oh, shoot. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today, we are talking about seven ways to find you.

your true artistic self. I think this came from a question from someone you met at the Jazz Senate. No, the Jazz Supreme Court. Yeah, well, it includes all that, but it was generally the Jazz Congress. Yeah, this is from a young drummer that I met there who came up to speak with me

and introduced himself after he was at my panel discussion. Real nice guy, Daniel. Is he a listener? He's a listener. He's a fan. He's a listener. And he had this question. And I actually told him, I said, we're going to do an episode. He's like, no, you're not.

So look, yes, we are. We aim to please, Dan. So I want to shout him out. He's, uh, check him out on Instagram at D-M-U-S-I-X-97. That's going. Extra mile. They're giving out his Instagram handle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So check him. Yeah, so he was asking about, you know, really just how do you, he, he didn't ask, can you give me seven ways to, but I, we kind of added that in. I told him I was going to do that. But, podcast reaches guy to the point where people are asking for seven. I was like, well, I got eight for you. No, no, no, no, give me seven.

No, but he was just saying. I'm saying, you know, really, and I, you know, I love that when young musicians are thinking of these, these high level lofty things, because there's so many tactical and technical things. And we talk about those, and they're important for your entire career. And as long as you want to develop, we kind of even get more into those because we want to keep developing and keep a very focus on things that really push the needle. But I love it when we're thinking about these higher level things, because this is art. That's right. And we're supposed to be kind of like interpreting the world through our instruments. So we do all these little technical things just so we can get better. But we're supposed to be kind of speaking like poets do to people and giving them something another way of looking at the world. I mean, the technical things should come out of your artistic, your broader artistic goals and yourself. Yes. You know, we use those technical things to get to that point.

But you're right. It never hurts to pull back and say, why are we doing this? What are we really striving for in the long term? Yeah. And you know what I always say? Well, I've never said it until now. ABA, hashtag ABA. What is that?

Always be artistic. I've never heard you say. Well, no, there you go. Okay. Well, okay, so seven ways to find your true artistic self. Okay. Number one? Listen.

Hmm, interesting. Hey, have we done that yet this year? I don't think we've done. This is the first 2019 listen, I believe. Okay. Yeah. Well, we're going to keep up the tradition from last year because it is the best advice we can give.

It was the best that we were given in almost any situation. It's, now, for this, because it's a little bit broader of an area, we can think about listening as listen to yourself, listen to your true artistic self. Yeah. And we'll get into some ways to do that actually with the later seven, but also listen to music, listen to poetry, listen to theater, listen to anything that's of a high artistic level. Yeah, listen to me in this sense means really to go deep, you know, and to do deep listening, to be curious, right? Keep your curiosity about music. Listen as much as possible. even if that means just soaking it up and letting it get in you.

Like, you know, I was just like listening to some straight up like late 50s hard bop today. And I was like, this feels good to listen to. And it's good for me to just have that, you know, spangling every once in a while as you're listening to different stuff. Just listen. I mean, it's just think about it. Like just you want to take a deep bubble, an oatmeal bubble bath of high art. Just let it immerse yourself in it, right? But also, I like what I like the idea of listening to yourself.

And that means like listening to the little voice in your head that tells you, I like this or I don't like this, I want to do this, or I don't feel good about this. Listen to that voice always. You know, that's you. Yeah. And I think, you know, listening, all these different ways of listening really play into having a mentality of an artist, you know. And it's something that especially when you're younger, you may shy away from because you're like, well, I'm not great yet. And we know we're not great yet. I mean, I still know I'm not great.

So I can only say to young people, it's like, you're never going to get to the point where you're like, I'm great. But you have something to say. And if you don't listen to yourself, if you don't listen to others so that you can learn your true self and your artistic worth and merit, we all, every human has artistic value. You know, I think just the world, other people, society, government sometimes sort of stamp that out. I mean, I think about, you know, there was a time in Brazil where the government became very, it was they had a military. dictatorship. Actually, I think it may be happening again from what I hear, you know, cycling back. But there was a time when they banned the Brazilian National Anthem. Well, they changed it to another one and you weren't allowed to play the, and normally you'd be like, well, most of these countries,

they're kind of lame anyway, so whatever. But the Brazilian National Anthem is like beautiful. Of course it's beautiful. It's Brazil. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you know, there's all different ways that that stupid humans form groups or individually stamped this out. But if we're just born, you know, on a desert islands somewhere naked. We're very artistic people. But you've got to listen to yourself to get in touch with that. I love this, man. This has already gotten super deep. Oh, man, come on.

That's great. So number two, we have live life. And I think this is such a crucial part of this. You know, anybody who follows like Nicholas Payton's Instagram, is what he talks about a lot. Yes. About developing yourself as a person, living your life. You know, travel, make friends, make mistakes, fall in love, get your heartbroken, get in an argument with people, meet strangers, like, fail.

You have to have all of that to be a truly insightful artist to pick up all these things. And this term that I actually until just a few days ago, I didn't embrace, but I'm like, F it. It's a new year. I'm going to embrace it. Live your best life. Are you living your best life? I mean, it's so corny, but you know what?

It's kind of true and I kind of like it, you know? And I found out my wife told me that's actually from Oprah, started that. Yeah, a big surprise there. Yeah, yeah. She seems to be living her best, best life. Oh, that explains the scarf. Yeah. Number three.

Yeah, let's move on. Number three, check out different kinds of art. Yeah, super important. I mean, you alluded to, in number one, with the listen, but I can't tell you how much I've learned about just art and form and ratios of doing things from watching films and TV shows and reading books and going to museums and visual art. I mean, it's very, very important, and it's all connected.

It's more connected than you think it is. Yeah. And most of the masters of, especially jazz, have been into these other kinds of art forms, famously Miles Davis, and Thononies Monk and all these cats who, Charlie Parker, like, pretty much all the best players. All the best players, Coltrane,

like they all had... Causation? Yeah. They all had interests in other mediums of art. Super important. Well, and that's the thing. Like when you're these first three, and I think we're going to see all of them

can be wrapped up together, but definitely these first three, when you're living your best life, when you're embracing artistic things, You can be hearing that a lot, buddy. When you're listening, and I mean, look, this is the checking out different kinds of art, it's looking at listening, experiencing, embracing all these different things. And things that are challenging and things that are like easy for you to listen.

I mean, you've got to do all of it and deeply, deeply. Absolutely. It's important part about being any kind of artists, but overlooked, I think, from some musicians. Number four is to be bold slash confident. and this is super important, right? Yes. Bold and, yeah. So as you're living your best life, do it boldly and confidently.

Yeah, so I think this really ties in with, you know, understanding our artistic worth, working on ourselves and our craft to be able to find it, refine it, and define it. Yeah. But also being confident, not just once we get to the mountaintop. You're never actually going to get to the mountain top. Even when you're in the valley and you're going to that next. Mountain, be confident as you go up. I mean, if you think about a great mountaineer as they go up and down these mountains, they're not just like confident when they get to the top. They're confident as they start out. It's easy to be confident when you're getting close to the peak. But it's like along, you know, enjoy the journey and that becomes part of the process and part of your artistic development and makes it all the more meaningful. Yeah. What you have to say. And be bold. Take risks. I think that's what what this means to me is like, you know, no one makes great, great art without taking a really significant. at risks as far as just putting themselves out there and trying something new and trying to push

themselves beyond maybe their comfort zone. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've said yes to things. I probably shouldn't have said yes to, but I wanted to push myself. I felt like I could, even if I didn't know what I was doing exactly, I can handle it. Like that kind of confidence will serve you well. Absolutely. And you have to show up to do that. That's part of the boldness.

I mean, sometimes being bold is just showing up to something that you're unsure about. And then you have to have that confidence. And maybe if you don't fake it and then it'll come. But that's how you get in touch with your artistic. That's how you tap into more importantly than even getting in touch with your own. Is this kind of bigger energy of art and culture that's there for you to embrace and to become a part of. Totally. Yeah.

Okay. So number five, I love this one. Work and grind. Every day I'm hustling. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so this is like, I mean, of course, all the, we're always preaching this is like show up but then do the work. But in terms of finding your true artistic self, it's a little bit more esoteric, but it's still work to do and it's engagement.

And it's a mentality. So that like when you're why, like when we say check out film and television and high art, all these different things, that doesn't mean, oh, cool. I'm just, I'm not going to practice. I'm just going to sit and like veg out on Netflix, you know. Yeah. No, it's using that not being a consumer of entertainment, but being a participant in art. Yeah. And that might be on television sometimes or film or music or whatever, but you have to work at it.

And so be engaged, deep listening, deep watching, deep experience. That's right. And as you're checking out all these different kinds of things, as you're listening, as you're living life, you know, the work. Living your best life. The work of this is actually taking note of the things that hit you, you know, deep in your chest and figuring those out. Yes. And being able to absorb them. That takes work.

You can't just listen to great music and just be able to play. play it all of a sudden. You know, that's not going to happen. You have to actually go through the steps of, why do I like this, what is it about it I like? What is it? Yeah. And then how can I do that, you know, in my art?

It just takes work and grinding, man. That's all it is. Absolutely. Number six. Number six. I wrote this, but I want to hear you say it. Long walks on the beach. Yes.

I mean, that's why I went to Disney. That's right. A lot of fun fact. A lot of people don't know. Orlando is not on the beach. Nowhere near it. Did you guys go to the beach while you were there? We did not.

No, I wish we would. You know, after you do Orlando, you need about four or five days on a beach just to recover. That's right. Yeah. But no. So I think this is just what I meant with this was just kind of representing introspection. Maybe even meditation if you're into that or just a meditative state. Yeah.

To sort of like as you're living your best life and absorbing all this art and becoming more artistic, more artistically in tune with yourself and the artistic world is you have to take time to let that absorb and just, you know, if you go. me it's like going for a walk and without listening to music or whatever just thinking introspection that kind of thing but you have to find some time to do that because this is a noise noisy cluttered world that we live in it's a very anti-artistic we've talked about it several times about either if that's meditation or exercise or just or time with friends or some kind of decompression time where you can be you know alone at least a little bit in your thoughts and not be around the art you're trying to make you need to put that time in there for yourself yeah and the alone thing is very important important for I think all these different things to becoming, you know, your true artistic self.

That's the thing. It's like jazz music is a very communal music, which is one of the things I think we love about it. We've talked about this a lot. And the participatory nature of it is, is wonderful. But the actual, you know, developing your artistic self is a very lonely process. There's a big element that needs to be lonely. And you have to get comfortable with being lonely. Absolutely. And that kind of development. So this kind of times. for introspection on that, that'll get you into that mindset. Totally. And number seven, finally, is be patient. This might be the most important thing of all because we can talk about art all day and how to get better at it and we can get down

on the nuts and bolts. But if you give up after a week because you're not making the progress you think you are, it doesn't do any good. Yeah. So it's, yeah, are you going to be able to live your, live your best artistic life within one week? Probably not. Even if you take, well, if you followed all seven steps, maybe. Yeah. But yeah, you have. You have. have to be patient on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, decade type of basis. So when you're young, you don't have the benefit of being able to have actually experienced decades that you can remember, that you can remember at least. So you have to kind of, you know, just go on faith. But that will come. Like as the decades start to go by, you realize you have time and the process, like as you

go through this, what's so important is not, it's the journey. It's not the destination. So true, man. Well, that's great. Thank you. you, Daniel, for cornering Peter at the Jazz Congress. Yeah. Once again, Daniel, he's at D-M-U-S-I-X-97, at D-M-U-S-I-S-I-7 on the IG. Not the catchiest handle. Well, you know, I love how everyone puts it like their birth, like, 97. He's born in 97, I'm thinking. So.

All right, so let's recap our seven ways to find your true artistic self. Number one, listen. Number two, live life. Live your best life. Oh, live your best life. Sorry. That's right. Number three, check out different kinds of art. Number four, be bold and confident. He said meekly. Number five, work and grind.

Every day I'm hustling. Okay. Number six, take a long walk on a beach or... Disney Resort, possibly? Yeah, wherever you are. And number seven, be patient. Be patient. Good stuff.

Do we have any ratings or reviews we want to... Occasionally, we've been known to spout those out. We always kind of do. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. While you're pulling that up, why don't I just say that you can leave us a rating review? If you're listening to this on a podcast, leave the rating review either on Apple podcast or wherever you're listening to this, Stitcher, Google.

Stitcher. Yeah, wherever you're listening, you can leave us a rating review. YouTube, feel free to leave us a comment, whether you watch us on YouTube or not. I mean, check us out, see if you like it. If you only want to hear our sultry voice, no problem. You can still comment on YouTube. I was going to say we're very active in engaging, but it's more me at this point. Let's be honest.

I'm in there now because you keep calling me out. Yeah. Well, yeah. So that's going to be kind of our commenting place. You can always go to you'll here.com, pick up a t-shirt, all that kind of good stuff. Keep up with what we're doing. Are you going to hear a review? No.

Here's our latest review. This is five. Yeah, it's only five stars. Thank you, Peter and Adam. You do a fantastic job. I've been enjoying listening to your podcast for quite a some time. It's fun, educational and inspirational. I give you seven stars.

Ah, there we go. You are one of the seven best jazz podcasts. Kidding, you are number one. Okay. Why, thank you. Man, he took us on an artistic journey with that review there. Here are the missing two stars, and he puts two stars there. All the best, and I hope to hear it from you many more ahead by Jazz Cat 1625 from Israel.

Oh, nice. A little love from Israel. Yeah, yeah. In the motherland. I like it. Cradle of civilization. Maybe I don't know. Well, you'll hear it.