You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Ways To Stay Sharp On The Road - #149

Episode Date: July 4, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam give tips on keeping your mind sharp and your playing standards high when your traveling. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adamanis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. What do we got today, Peter? Well, I don't know if you heard. I got a little bit more spring in my voice. Yeah, what's up with that?

I went and followed your lead and ate some almonds, so I'm feeling better. A handful of almonds in the middle of the day. It's a good pick-me-up. That's a tip. Hey, can you slow it down? And you're going fast over there. I've also had about six iced coffees. Nice.

Today we're going to talk about seven ways to stay sharp on the road. Good. This is important. You know, if you're traveling or whatever and you have to play some, it can be rough. It can be rough. And I think that these tips certainly were coming at it from the standpoint of musicians and balancing the day with usually a gig at night, maybe in the afternoon. But I think these might, I mean, I've traveled enough at this point.

I feel like these are good ways to stay sharp just in general when you're on the road. Yeah, even for a conference or some other business trip or anything, not music-related. It can be helpful to do some of these routines when you're traveling. Yeah, I mean, the main thing I think for musicians is the schedule because you're normally playing at night, so you kind of have to balance things out. And if you're working during the day, but a lot of times we're doing sound checks or teaching workshops, afternoon gigs. So why don't you start with number one, Adam? Yeah, I mean, number one, this is important, not just for travel, but for life in general. And that is to eat well and sleep well.

You know, I should have... Study show. Study show. I did not follow this advice in my early 20s when I was traveling a little bit. Did not eat well, did not sleep well. Were you more a drink well, smoke well? Was it more of that? Drink well, smoke well, sleep when I can.

Right. But we can get away with that a little more in our 20s, right? Yeah. I mean, we can't really, but we think we can't. Well, you know, yeah, you can't. I don't know, man. I remember not feeling anything. But I remember there was a point of maybe like 28, where I woke up one day, like, oh, what am I, what's going on?

Why? Why do I hurt everywhere? Well, I used to think, like, or we could put our bodies through anything. But I think it was more just we weren't as, we weren't listening. as well too. I'm sure our bodies were telling us something, you know, but we're a little better listeners now. Absolutely. But it is very important to, I mean, regular sleep is very important studies have shown for any kind of performance. So if you have a gig one night, make sure that you get at least a solid six to eight, you know. Yeah, yep. And as much as you can, you know,

try to get in touch, I think, with what kind of what your sleep cycles are. And then this is a lot of easier when you're at home. And you're having a regular schedule. It's, It's easy to do, in fact. Yeah. It's a challenge on the row, but normally, like, your sleep cycles are kind of be similar, so, but you just have to adjust for, like, different time zones and things like that. But the main thing is just get sleep.

I mean, when you're tired, that's your body telling you need to sleep. Yeah. So for me, I'll sleep, like, you know, on a plane, anywhere. But I don't always, a lot of people, like, oh, because they'll come, they'll be on a flight with me, and they'll see me sleep for five, seven hours straight. And I will do that sometimes. And, like, it's so easy for you to sleep on the play. I was like, no, I was just tired.

Yeah. Other times, like, if I got a good night sleep the night before and I get on an eight-hour flight, I'm not sleep at all, but if I'm feeling good and alert, I'll get some work done, work on some music on the computer or whatever, watch a movie. But I think just listening to your body is good. And then as far as eat well, you know, that can be. We know a thing or two about that. Well, yeah, I mean, eventually, if you spend enough time on the road, you get really into finding the best restaurants, no matter, you know, within a two-block radius of wherever you are. Shout out to you.

That's right. Yeah, things change for sure. But this can be very challenging, at least to eat, like, healthy on the road, right? To not eat all, like, preserved carbs and stuff. I tend to hit grocery stores if I'm really feeling it. That's a gray one. You know, we were just talking about a handful of almonds. I'll get a nice bag of almonds. I'll get some fruit.

I'll get some vegetables that are travelable. I might note those handful that you just had, and then the handful I had, separate handfuls. Disinfected. Those did include about 100 milligrams of salt on eating. each almond. But it's part of the reason they're so darn good. Yeah, we're not going to think about that too hard. But no, you can definitely hit up a grocery store.

Don't feel like you have to hit restaurants every single meal. In fact, you're going to save some money. Yeah, and you're going to save some calories. You can be able to control. But I think that, you know, a lot of people will say, oh, it's so it's, no, they'll say it's impossible to watch, to eat healthy when you're on the road. And I don't believe that. I mean, there's times when you get stuck, but with a little bit of planning, it's not.

I actually find it in some ways, I wouldn't say easier, but as easy when you're at home. But I've also been doing this a while and I'm kind of always thinking ahead, having some healthy snacks in your bag really helps. Because the only time I really feel like it's impossible to eat healthy is certain airports, certain terminals if you get delayed there. St. Louis. Yeah. And even St. Louis has got a few more options depending on where you are. But that can be hard. I mean, you can really get stuck.

But again, if you've got some healthy snacks, you know, some nuts, some dried fruits. I mean, I know it sounds like we're foraging, like in olden times here, but you got to... You're on the road, man. You got to do what you got to do. Yeah, some energy bars, whatever. But you got to have something in your bag because you will get stuck traveling. Yeah, and the last thing you want to do is, like, not have something to snack on. And then before you know it, you're like wolf and a double cheeseburger from Wolfgang Pucks.

Right. Wolfgang from Wolfx. He's spending $18 on a gross cheeseburger and no one wants to do that. What's number two? Number two, and these are seven ways to stay sharp on the road. Yes. Okay. Number two, and I love this one.

I'm really into this, been doing this for years, is meet some local people. And so when you get out and meet locals, and I don't mean local yokels. I mean, I'm not trying to say local people. I mean, people of the area that you're traveling to, you have an opportunity to be influenced by the local culture, the local cuisine, to learn things about what's happening there, to kind of engage in the place that you're at. A lot of times our schedules are set up in a way that we feel kind of isolated. would just like go to the concert or the club or whatever and then you play and maybe you meet someone after the gig But if you take a little bit of effort you can meet people as soon as you get to town

Certainly certain countries are more open to that where I'm thinking like Italy where everybody wants to talk to you if they can speak English or you can speak some Italian You can meet people at over coffee and like that's just a big part of their culture You can learn about some healthy places to eat you can learn about you know good places to eat Yeah, some good places to eat maybe even a combination of both you know But I think that it's a great way to acclimate to where you are and certainly to stay sharp. And then I like to use it as kind of information as really what to play on the gig after meeting people talking to people or even just, I sometimes I'll even just tell a little story or make a joke about something I experienced or through something

somebody recommended, oh, I went to this museum, I went on this walk. And then you mentioned something local and people like, wow, it's a great connection, even if you just got there that day. Yeah, and you know, you can end up making some good friends out of this too. And the next time you're in the area, you know, the next time you're through that city or whatever, you've got a hookup. You know, you've got someone that you can hang out with, you know, before, after the gig or whatever, and they're excited to see you because you're never in town or whatever. Exactly. Yeah.

I mean, it's, I'm amazed, like, how many places. And what I do a lot of times is, you know, certainly hook up with friends that I've met over the years in different places. And also, my family's kind of spread out around the world in Europe and in New Zealand and some different places. So I've had the opportunity to meet some family members. Shut up Kiwi. Yeah, what's up Kiwi.

But they, you know, I also, other musicians traveling kind of hook them up with the network of people that are interested in the music. It's a lot of fun. That's great. Number three. Number three takes us to practice when you can. So this can be challenging for pianists and drummers and even bassists. For horn players, I think there are definitely some things you can do to practice, and even for drummers to practice in your hotel room, you know, whether that's on the bed. Oh, drummers can.

They've got the little drum pad. A little drum pad. I think it's just challenging for drummers to practice, let's be honest. Oh, hello. Shade. No, pianists, it's a little more difficult. You know, you could try to, a sneaky melodica, but it's not the same. Right.

Right, right. I think piano is the most, I mean, guitar is, I mean, it's fine. I mean, it's great. I mean, I'm so jealous of guitar. I hear them in there. I used to bring a guitar, just not, I wouldn't even play it on a gig, but, like, just to practice something. I mean, early on when I was touring in the early 90s, I used to bring my violin just to have something that it was not nice. It's not informal, actually.

But for me, it was nice just to have something. I mean, then it became so difficult to bring an instrument, and I started seeing the advantages of being a piano. It's not to bring something. But I think that, you know, practice when you can. There's always pianos in hotels. I learned this years ago, actually from Marcus Roberts. Marcus Roberts, a great pianist from Tallahassee, Florida.

Jacksonville, Florida, actually lives in Tallahassee. I remember him meeting him and being on the road sometimes. And he would often have a piano in his hotel room. I was like, man, this dude is baller stance. But he told me, he's like, man, I just ask him, is there a piano that could be brought to my room? And I'm like, man, I'm nervous just to ask if I can get a hamburger brought to my room if I can afford that.

And he's like, man, it's usually free. Now, he's Marcus Roberts. But he's, you know, so he's maybe getting a little bit of special treatment. But if you ask, sometimes they'll do that or sometimes they'll actually have a room with a piano. Certainly like a ballroom somewhere you can go practice, but most hotels have multiple pianos.

They're not in usually great shape, but they are something you can play on. That's great. You could also, you know, whatever venue you're at, you can see if you can get in there a little early to practice. You know, I was teaching a little bit at Jess St. Louis here right across the alley from where we're sitting a few weeks ago. Ben-green was in town, and he was there every day at like 8 a.m. practicing all day. So is there a connection between him practicing and playing so well, you think? No, it couldn't be. Couldn't be.

But you could do that. You could also, you know, oftentimes universities or schools in the area might let you come in or you can sneak in. You know what I'm saying? A little practice. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. No one's going to mind if you sound good. But something I've done, all of those things. Yeah.

Good. Yeah. So number four. Number four. Okay, this is very important. Focus your day on the gig. So in order to stay sharp on the road, we have to remember that even as we're doing these other things, eating well and meeting local people, practicing all this, our job is to play the gig.

I mean, that's what we're there for. That's what they're normally bringing you there. That's what you're on the road to do. do. So this is actually one of the biggest challenges for me because I love doing all the other things involved with travel is like, you know, retaining that energy and mainly just sort of mental focus so that you are sharp on the gig. Because that's the most important thing. So sometimes depending on how you feel like even if there's something really interesting to do, you get to town somewhere, you got to just kind of go to sleep. If your body's saying you need to sleep so that you know when you get to the gig that you're going to be sharp, then you got to do that. So you have to be selfish about your time to find. focus on the gig. Yeah, any routines you can create while you're traveling to really help with this for me. Yeah. If it's an hour before the gig, I'll do a little meditation, do a little exercise, whatever it is I need to do to clear my head and get ready. Yeah, and you're really good at this. I mean, I've noticed you do this here, even when we're in St. Louis and we're working

real hard on a project, and if you've got a gig, a local gig, it's like you'll shift, like, I think that you have it on your mind, that you know you have to do that. And yeah, ideally you'd be sitting there meditating on the music all day, but we don't have that luxury. But like you're able to shift that focus, but I think that you probably plan that in advance. You've got it in your mind. I need you this, this, this, and then I got to be able to bring it on the gig. That's right. Number five is to roll with travel changes. Do not be rigid. Yeah. I was on a tour once with Seamus Blake, and he said some very wise words, which was, uh, don't be rigid. No, it was, expect the worst, accept the worst, demand the worst.

that was great which I thought was a really really good saying for that yeah yeah even if it doesn't turn out to be the worst demand it yeah so this is something that I am such

like this is this is one of my core principles and this is one of those things that just pisses me off constantly with you don't necessarily see it I don't think with musicians that have toured a long time

because you can't survive with that kind of ad you wouldn't be able to yeah you know someone would just slap the beep out of you yeah but I do see this so much with and I try to be compassionate and help people along because what I see is I mean look when you're traveling there's so

many things are out of your control yeah so you have to go into it expecting that so even if you're a control freak or you're not or you think that you are entitled to something you're you know when the weather changes when the airline screws up or whatever it's going to happen so you know as shameless Blake said expect it um but also like you know get yourself into the mindset where you're going to roll with it you know um I mean I accept it except except exactly exactly exactly Exactly. But I mean, I, you know, I think there's been two times in like 25 years of touring now that I've missed a gig because of travel delays. And one of those was kind of my fault. I think the statute of limitations is up on it. There was only one time there was a hurricane, a typhoon, I guess, approaching Taiwan. And I had a gig there.

And I'm leaving like two days before the gig. And I got to Chicago and I'm supposed to take the flight. And like, they were about to shut down the airport so they're like, you can fly to Japan and then maybe catch a flight. but you're going to get in there right before the gig, but I'm like talking to people that like the typhoons coming, so I ended up missing that gig. And everybody else got in for some reason because they were on a direct flight into Taiwan. They had already gotten there.

They played the gig? They played the gig. Sans piano, as the French would say. During a typhoon? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, typhoons are pretty, I wouldn't say common there, but like they're kind of prepared for it, you know. But, I mean, in general, like, things,

it's always like, what is this going to be? And I see people, like, up there harassing the poor workers at the airline. Why is the flight? The flight is canceled. Okay, first of all, the flight's canceled. Get on the phone, get on your computer. Reschedule. Don't go up there yelling at the people.

They're not going to tell you why it if they are. They might be wrong or maybe they know, who cares? Who cares? The flights canceled. Whatever your sense of entitlement is, you're not going to get the flight back on. I mean, it goes the same way with like hotel rooms. Like, you know, in my experience,

traveling, it's like you can go from like seven-star hotel one night to like half-star. Yeah, begging your way in. Dog house, chain link, fence, you know, the next night. And do not, you are not entitled to anything, okay? You know, even if you have a private jet or something, you're going to be delayed at some point. Absolutely. And if you keep that attitude, you know, when you do get, like, bumped up to first class and you're in a five-star hotel.

Acting entitled. Yeah. Oh, wait, no, no. No, don't act entitled. But then you get a little like, oh, this is nice. Yeah. It's not awful. I mean, I always have a rule, and I've been really good about sticking to this.

Like, I never celebrate. an upgrade until we are in the air. And I'm thinking about even changing this because it's never fallen apart. But, you know, a lot of people think, first of all, I think they're entitled to an upgrade. If you don't buy a first class ticket, you're entitled. I don't care what status you have. The airplane can change. Somebody with higher status can come on right at the last minute.

Yeah, yeah. A seat can be broken or whatever. So take it as a gift, you know, even if you're paying something for it. But I remember I was upgraded. Big shout out to United for upgrading me from St. Louis's Chicago and then Chicago flying to Germany. And they have upgraded me in St. Louis. They're like, oh, we have an upgrade for you. Complimentary. Thank you so much for your service. You know, for your, not for your service, for your, for your loyalty. And I was like, this is great.

They give me my boarding pass, my flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. You know, I'm in business class. I'm like great. But I wasn't celebrating yet, you know. So I'm, we get on the plane in St. Louis. And then the plane's delayed. But I've got like a three hour lay over two and a half hour in Chicago. I'm like cool. Delayed, delay. By the way, it's like a 15 minute flight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 40s minutes. And so, you know, finally is delayed, delayed. So, of course, I miss the connection there. And so I'm, so I've still got the boarding pass for the, you know, for business class.

And so I go over there, like, that was the last flight to Frankfurt, but they have a flight on Lufthansa. And they're like, we think you can get on, but it's full, so we have you on standby. I was like, great. So I go over to the, you know, everyone's lined up there. And no way you're getting in business class. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and so I still come up and I'm trying to slip my little boarding pass. I was like, hi, is there any room in business class?

And Lufanza looks at me like, you know, you're going to be lucky to even get on this plane. I was like, well, whatever's great, you know. And so then I ended up, you know, just sweating until the very last minute. I mean, they're boarding and then they're calling the standby. They finally call me. I mean, like the last row middle seat, you know, next to a couple of large portly German gentlemen. But that's what I'm saying. You go from business class to the last row.

It can happen. But in my mind, I was like, whatever. Yeah. Of course, I would have preferred to be. Expect the worst? Except the worst. demand the worst. Yeah, I demanded it and I got it. All right, so number six is, now this is something that I always love to do when I hit the road.

And in fact, I'll often save this pastime for when I'm traveling, and that's to listen to new music, to experiment and to dive into either an artist or even a genre that I might not have checked out before. I mean, there's something about having that time and that window, whatever window you're looking out of. that really helps music land with me. So I always like to load up on some stuff that I've maybe wanted to be checking out or should have checked out more or like,

but maybe I'm going deeper into an artist or a record label or whatever. You know what I mean? I think it's a great opportunity for that. Well, I love that one too, Adam, because that's like, you know, I love looking at travel not as like how do we survive, how do we just eat well and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I look at it as an opportunity, like, how can we take advantage of being in new surroundings, new, out of our routine? And I think, you know, pairing up listening to new music and kind of, I mean, yeah, we could do that any time.

But what a great opportunity when you're going to have some possible downtime because the flights canceled or something. Right? Instead of going and yell at the people, go sit down and listen to some music. Go sit down and read a book. Just chill out and just be happy that we're even in a situation where, like, I keep one thing on my mind. And there's been a lot of things that we're always, you know, trying to improve our lives. and tweak and hack different things, which is great. I love that.

And some things I succeed in others, I don't. But one thing I always think about with travel I've been pretty consistent with is like to be able to go and get on this like metal canister and be flown somewhere and they get off and go play the piano for people that actually want to hear what you're doing. And then they pay you some money and then you go home. Like to me, that's an amazing thing. And I'm still in wonderment over that whole process. So if it gets delayed at some point or if I have to, I don't care because like the whole thing

is just amazing to me. It's pretty cool, right? It's very cool. And so, like, you know, we can take these opportunities, you know, to expand our listening and our reading and all this different kind of things. What a great time to do it. Yeah. That brings us to number seven.

What do you got? Number seven. Okay, exercise. So I think this is something that, you know, kind of like listening to new music, you can actually even take up some forms of exercise or at least take up a different way to do it when you're on the road. A lot of times you're in a hotel that might have a gym or something. Like, I find a lot of people like, oh, it's hard.

to eat well on the road. It's hard to keep up exercise. It's actually easier sometimes for me, especially when I was doing more gym workouts because you have it in the same building. You even have to go outside and go to the gym. You have more time sometimes than you do in your normal life. And you always have enough. I mean, when everyone's like, I didn't have time to go to the gym, okay, if you're living someone, you got to drive 15 minutes there. Kids have soccer or whatever. Yeah. But if you're on the road and you want to do a 20 minute workout, you could actually do that in 30 minutes because it's going to take you one minute to walk down to the gym. Do your 20-minute workout, one minute to come back and then shower.

And so take advantage of those opportunities. Walking, the greatest form of exercise, and then you go out and see and meet people. If you're a jogger, runner, biking. I mean, all these cities have like the line bikes, the city, you know, the bikes that you can rent for a dollar and everything. There's so many great opportunities to exercise. And then, you know, I went rowing once in Toronto. That was a bad idea, but somebody recommended it. We went out. That was silly, but we were like rolling around that big lake. I didn't realize how

how wakey it was. Yeah, that's hard, man. But there's always interesting things to do paired with exercise, which will kind of help your general well-being, I think, on the road. Cool. This is a good episode. This was good, man. We're talking about staying sharp on the road. We have our almonds. We're good, man. We're staying sharp at home. That's right. That's right. So hit us up on Instagram. Hit us up on Twitter. I'm going to lead with that one today. Is that cool? Yeah, yeah, you go. We are. open studio and just say hello and we still have some special coming we aren't quite ready to announce them yet because we haven't gotten organized enough but

start giving us a shout out you'll be ready for that keep the ratings and reviews coming we had some wonderful reviews and and ratings that have come in oh we get reviews really we do we get we occasionally and this one I don't know if you're gonna like this much as I do Adam but this is from Ireland Republic of Ireland and shout out to Dublin, to Cork. Those are the only cities I've been to, but I love the whole country. I mean, I love Irish people.

I love Irish culture. I'm in. Those are my folks? Those are your people? I knew I liked you. Yeah, yeah. My grandma was just shy. No, there you go. Okay, so this review comes from Redmond fella from Ireland, and the title is entertaining and insightful. Five stars.

And we don't only read the five-star reviews. That's just all we've been getting recently. Oh, we're getting cocky. We're getting cocky. It says, I could listen to Peter Martin talk about jazz all day. As a jazz musician myself, this is exactly this stuff I like listening to. So, sorry, man.

I, you know. No, I mean, it's cool. I think if we keep checking these ratings and reviews, you'll hear it.