You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Accountability Check-In

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Peter and Adam dive into what it takes to stay accountable towards your practice and self-growth weather it be music or otherwise.Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Adam. Yeah. At the end of this episode, I'm going to need you to provide me with something. Okay. But it has to be perfect, and it needs to be handed to me on a silver platter. Okay. A full transcript, handwritten of every, actually printed, because I want it to be easy for me to read. Okay.

Pick a color that's easiest for me to read. A full transcript of everything that we said, because I'd like to review this episode. Can you do that for me? Please. In PDF form. No. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to The You'll Hear at Podcast. Music advice coming out. Let me tell you something, Peter. I'm not a fan of doing your work for you, buddy. Come on, get it together. Is that what we're talking about today? It's a two-person podcast. I can't write your transcript for you.

What is this all about? Well, that's what we call the cold open, the witty banter. Okay. I wanted to just to introduce how ridiculous. A little bit more witty, I think. But this is kind of the equivalent of what people are looking for. That's why we're talking about, you know, what are we talking about? Oh, how to become accountable for your own musical development, not having stuff spoon-fed to you.

Say it again. How to become accountable. accountable, how to be accountable for your own musical development. What does that mean? Well, we live in a time now. First of all, welcome in. If this is your first time listening, we are not normally this dogmatic. We are probably like one out of every 10 episodes.

Yeah, we like to we double down. We flirt with dogmatisms. That's right. Occasionally. Right. Yeah. And then we walk it back. And then we walk it back.

Because we're really nice guys. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a fine line for us because we are both propagators of probably too much information that we find is useful. I mean, that's what this pod is all about, Open Studio. Yeah, yeah. But also, we really want to,

we want to ultimately help folks with not just getting better, but having fun along the journey. And sometimes that means some harsh, uh, truths in terms of how we think you should do things, especially in this day of day and age of just an extreme amount of information. I mean, you put, you know, you don't have to, it's not even about being lazy.

Well, no, it is about being lazy. You have to type into chat GPT. How can I become a better jazz pianos? And it gives it all to you. And you can just sit back. It's in 25 seconds. It took them to mention chat. But I haven't said it in weeks.

So I haven't said it in weeks. Yeah. But I mean, we live in a time when there's so much information and so much great curated information. I'd like to think that we're part of that. And so I'm super proud of that. But at a certain point, we each need to take responsibility for our own musical development. And so what that means, I think, is taking both the. easy stuff and then doing a little bit of self-curation.

I mean, that's what taking accountability is, really. Taking the things that are easy and then taking the things that are easy in concept, but are actually, you know, some nice little work that is going to be a part of your development. So not always taking the easy way out. Figuring out the times when it's okay to do this is a little bit easier. Like, in other words, I want to hear some Clifford Brown. It's okay to go boom, boom, boom, YouTube, Clipper Brown. You don't have to go to the record store and buy it to turntable and do all that.

because what you're trying to do is get to the music. But then, oh, I want to learn that really cool phrase on Clifford Brown. Let me go put a comment in the YouTube. Could you please provide a PDF of this transcription? Thank you very much. That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Yeah. But don't we get that kind of stuff?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, you know, a great propagator of this concept, I think, is Robert Glasper, friend of the pod here. Yeah. Who had a great rant about this. It was like, he told people,

We'll stop sending him DMs to get a chart for his tunes. You know what I mean? Why do you want somebody else to do the work for you? Yeah, we have a video here at Open Studio. We'll link to called The Easy Way to Get Good at Music, which is all about this kind of thing. And it actually includes a little bit of a clip of that Glasper Instagram post. I love this topic, you know, Peter.

This is one of my favorite things to talk about because we do care about actually helping people get better. And mostly people want information. So people have an idea in their head that if I just knew this, bit of information, this little bit of theory, or if I knew how to rhythmically do this, or if I knew this voicing, then I would be better. I would get better. But really what you need to be more concerned with is designing your life in a musical way or in a way that helps you to more freedom and ease with what you're trying to do, which is playing music. It's not

information. You can't information your way to being a better player. It's just impossible. There are a lot of people who know take that chat g pt well that's true there are a lot of players who have a lot of information and they simply don't sound as good as other players who have a little bit less information right but who are more concerned with having the right vibe of of being an artist with the music you know and so that takes a little bit of a turn in the way that we think so if you see a video of like you know one of our videos of peter teaching like a pentatonic you know, voicing structure, your first instinct might be like, okay, I need that PDF and like, why are you, what's, what's this information all about? But what you should actually maybe be

paying attention to is how and why is Peter playing the way that he's playing? And it's not actually what this voicing structure is. It's more about like what, what is he using it for? How did he get there? and what is he doing with it? You know, how you play it and why you play it are more important than what you're playing. Right.

Because then you can play anything. Because then it doesn't matter the content that you're playing. It's coming from a place of honesty and integrity and authenticity, you know? Yeah, and I think that that, you know, if folks are willing to embrace this, this kind of personal accountability

in your practice, in your development, it'll connect you with something that we believe so deeply here, in being participatory in the journey and like honoring the journey as as important if not more important than the destination. So if you're learning a solo, the whole thing of like, or learning a tune,

like give me the PDF. Like that's just thinking, I want to get to the end result of like, I can play this tune. When you should be thinking for your development, for your edification and connection with the music about like I want to participate in learning about the creation

and the underpinnings of this composition or their soul and be able to get all the beautiful things out of it and enjoy that process and then trust in your participation in that that it will help you develop as a musician, as a person, as an artist, in being able to tell your story that that's kind of the ultimate benefit that you can come back and serve.

So it's not about you being able to be like, oh, I've got this tune as quick as I can. I've got the PDF. I've got the, you know, the information, but it's more like, how do I curate for myself the process of going about participating and connecting with the most intimate things? So if you think about it, you have to get there as simple as possible. It seems like the simplest way is, I'll just give me the, that's the easiest way.

Yeah. That's the laziest way. It's like the level. There's, there's, there are uses for it. For sure. There's nothing wrong with. Yeah. We're not saying, you shouldn't read music. You have to do everything by ear, but it's all about what you're trying to get out of it.

So like, do you want to be passive or active in your development? You know, like if you're going for a 10-mile run, that if you think about, it's all about the destination, I want to end up 10 miles from here. Well, just jump in an Uber. It's a lot easier than running there. Yeah, yeah. But if you want to go about the process, if you want somebody else,

oh, no, but I want to run, kind of, because I want to be moving at that pace. We'll get somebody to run and tow you along, and you can sit back lazily with some wheels on or something. But if you actually are invested in the process of it, it's not just, of course, you'll be happy when you get to the destination. You've accomplished something. But if we think about learning music in that same way, you're going to get there quicker in the Uber than running. But in terms of if you're concerned with becoming a runner, becoming a better runner.

Right. So the equivalent, becoming a better musician, you're going to be going a slower way, but it's going to be a deeper way. Well, right. And that's taken being accountable. And you need to address, it's not just the what, which is getting to the destination 10 miles away, but it's the how did you, get there, right? So obviously you mentioned the Uber. That doesn't make you a runner. But if you run there, then that is more in line. That's the how you did it. And it's the same thing with music. And then there's, even if you walk part of it or you fall down or you crawl or whatever, that's

going to teach you a lot too. But then there's the even deeper question, which is the why did you do it? Why are you going there and why did you do it the way you did it? Right. Going on that next level of depth, that's where personal accountability for this kind of stuff can come in. Like, so if I'm teaching a a Charlie Parker solo and we have the Omni Book as a reference. The notes in the Omni Book are just the what it is, right?

That's just the information. And that's, there's useful things. Yeah, exactly. There's useful things to that for sure. But that doesn't tell you how Charlie Parker actually played those notes, which is really important.

And then why he played those notes and why they're important. And that tells you more about how to be a better musician than just what the notes are. The notes are important because just like the 10 miles is important because it's like, that's, okay, well, we got to do that. Like, that's what we're doing.

But the why and the how are, for personal accountability, like you actually, you know, need to spend time with those yourself. You can't actually fake the funk on that. You have to spend that time. Figure out why did this musician play this and how did they play that? Absolutely. And I think that, you know, a lot of folks might be like, wait, hold on a second.

this. So we're not supposed to listen to what you guys or other teachers say, and we're not supposed to gather information. So let's just try to be clear on this because I don't want to discourage anyone. But if we can continue with this analogy of the 10 mile run, it's up to you to do that run and to not get in the Uber and to be, you know, open to that dialogue with yourself when you have to stop and walk and to think about like, you know, how it's affecting you both physically and emotionally and all those kind of things. But on the bigger level, in terms of the next day, okay, well, should I go out? to do another 10 run or you want to do a four run. That's more of where you're like, okay, maybe I get a coach, maybe I get a teacher, maybe I'll become a part of community so I can learn things that I don't know. You don't have to go at all alone. That's not being lazy to reach out for tutelage, for experience, for reference points. And so I think in our practice, it's like people want to take the information that's available. I mean, the wonderful things on YouTube and open studio and all these great lesson sites, all this stuff is, We believe deeply in it.

We're some of the biggest creators of that. But within that, you have to find the places. And hopefully we will continue to do what I think is a really good job of letting folks know. Like when we challenge and push people, it's not because we think, you know, we're trying to make it hard on anybody. We're trying to find those things that have been proven to work. So just because there was a time when that was the only way to do something, you know, if it's still beneficial, even if there's an easier way, That's why we talk about, you know, we're not against slowing things down when you're transcribing. But we're also not like, don't go to that first.

We're not against using the Omnibote totally. We're not like all or nothing. But we're like listen to the recordings a lot and just use that sparingly when you need to kind of maybe speed up the process a lot a little bit. But the point of like being very cognizant of the ear training, being accountable to yourself is in terms of like it's not just about getting to that destination. It's like, how am I going to get there? Am I going to catch a ride on that 10 miles? Like being very, you know, mindful as we go through our practice journey for that. I think if people start thinking like that, we're not going to get as much like,

where's the PDF for this or whatever, where it can be there and like a little bit of a checkpoint, but it's not the be all and all. So true. So true. Yeah. Just always keep that how and why in mind as you're thinking about the what. You don't have to ignore the what completely, but the how and the why are more important. It's not even more important.

It's just a little bit deeper version and it just takes a little bit more personal accountability to get there. I think too, like for folks maybe like if you start to get like, wait a second, about like we don't, we never want to be dogmatic to the point of like, wait, so what are you saying we can do? I can't do and have to change. We want to give you some reference points maybe that are outside of music that you can understand hopefully. So think about this. You want to have, you have a problem like your house is dirty. Right. So you can hire somebody, a house.

cleaner to come in and clean it up. It's going to get dirty again. So then are you going to hire them at a regular schedule? You come in once a week or whatever because your objective is to keep your house clean. So that's great. You can do that forever. But as soon as they don't come or you can't afford them or you don't want anybody in your house, your house is going to get dirty again.

So and there's no problem with that. But that's like different than saying, I want to bring somebody in to teach me or to guide me on how to learn to clean myself. Or I'm going to bring somebody in. I'm going to watch them. And then I'm going to learn. Or I'm going to go on YouTube and learn how to clean my house. And then I can always do it.

Like, what is your goal? Is it just to have your house clean? Is it just to be able to get the PDF or to be able to say you can play that song? Well, that's fine. But if what you want to do is learn how to get to there and way beyond and the same way on a bunch of other tunes and more importantly, to develop your musicality where you can tell a really interesting story for others, then you need to think about not just hiring the house cleaner or to watch them as they're doing it and learning how to do it yourself as you go. It comes, like it starts to get deep very fast because what we're talking about here is living a musical life and designing every moment of your life in a way that is in line with how you want to be spending your time.

And so if you want to be a musician, you need to be spending your time doing the things musically that you love to do. Right. And yeah, it's as simple as that and it's as difficult as that. Right, right. And the thing is a part of the accountability is to understanding which parts are, like what's the gradiation of simplicity and hard. You know what I mean? So things can be simple and difficult at the same time. And for each of us, that's different.

Sometimes you'll see people are like, oh, that's so easy. And it's simple by its very nature. So maybe it's easy for them. It might not be easy for you. There's going to be something that's easy for you. Or maybe nothing's going to be easy for you. That's okay, too. Seems that way.

Yeah. Yeah, but that's okay. You're going to be developing all the more, but not if you take the easy way out all the time. And the beauty of all the resources we have available in this world now are that some things, you know, you can learn a pathway quicker if you know how to curate it than ever before. The danger is that you can be hit, hit these same kind of easy things can become a stumbling block because they can help you or allow you to leapfrog over important developmental areas that you can't ignore. That's the accountability. That's so true. Peter, I love this kind of discussion.

Why don't you hit them up with the gentleman and ladies agreement? Well, talk about being accountable. Now that you've made it to the end of this podcast or video, we appreciate that, first of all. Put in the comments if you're going to fulfill the agreement. We've had some great. We've had a lot of folks do that. You can just say agreement adhere to. And it's actually required.

So you have to do the agreement. You might as well shout it out to the world. It's required. No, it's required. Why are you laughing at? I don't know. Come on. Let's have some accountability here at the podcast.

Caleb, you've got Caleb's smiling too. No, no, no, no. This is where we get dogmatic. We're giving the gentleman and ladies agreement. We're giving you a great podcast. Why are you showing him? Show me. There we go.

Okay. Let me look into the, to your eyes. Subscribe now on YouTube. Are you listening? Go to YouTube. YouTube.com. Search open studios. Subscribe.

Gentleman and ladies agreement. Done. Until next time. You'll hear it. Stay accountable. It's creepy.