You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Attitudes of Gratitudes

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Adam and Peter talk about have a present and gracious mindset when growing on your journey to be a musician!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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. How's your attitude? Poor. Oh, you're going to need a different attitude for this episode, buddy. Like an attitude of... Aptitude? No, close.

It's more like you're grateful. It's an attitude of... gratuitousness? Oh, gosh. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Jazz.

Explain. I could see the gears turning as you were trying to remember the tagline there, Peter. No, no, no. I remember it. I was thinking about what did you think? about that intro today. I thought it was good. I thought it was a,

that I was going to say a B plus, but I know that for you, a B plus means a straight up half. No, a B minus. I love a B plus. That's so weird. I killed it when I had many B pluses. That was...

What about a straight up B? Just a B. A B is okay. Make a little B. But B minus, failure. Might as well just be a failure. Wow. Well, no, but I don't think folks realize

how off the cuff our intros are. Let's just talk about that. Oh, no, no, but I think they say, I mean, they may not love them. They may hate them. They may be somewhere in between. But I mean, we do not only do we not rehearse them or script them. We don't know what we're going to say. And we don't know who's going to go first either.

A little fun fact about that. All we do is push the swoosh. And then the default is that you would go first. And I think most folks realize that, what, probably eight out of ten times you're going first. But sometimes I'm like, I got it. I'll point to myself as you're swishing. Yeah. And then I'll do something.

like hey Adam yeah and then you say hey what's up yeah right or whatever and then we're just but we don't know what's going to happen after that so before after during we're just completely oblivious to the situation right no it's fun to be in the moment and yeah you know i would say i would say that yeah like one out of every couple of hundred is okay no no it's better than that so is you let us know and oh we can't let them know how that's the thing with podcasts let us know in the comments below, they can't do that. They can't do that. They can't do it. They need to start tweeting at us. We need to check it more often. Full disclosure.

You can't ask people to tweet at us and then be like, but we never check it. Well, it's hard though, because we got to log in. You never log in, which is not good. I'm off the Twitters, man. But is it like you're against it? You know, during the 2020 election cycle, I just couldn't take it anymore. I just couldn't take all the vitriol. Well, you're following the wrong people. Yeah, probably. Yeah. And see, look, I got logged out because I'm logged in my normal thing. But dude, look, we're going to start checking it. Tweet at us at, you'll hear it.

And let us know what you think of our intros. Are you team B minus as a grade for our intros or are you team? I know it's not going to be in the A's. So team B, actually just give us a grade. I don't want to, I don't want to feed you. Oh my gosh. Biggest mistake ever.

You're going to break Twitter. Give us a grade on our intros overall. Yeah. You know? And what do they say? Like drop the worst and drop the best. Just, I mean, like our everyday level. Tell us what you think.

Just the average run-of-the-mill common intro, what's the great on it? Well, don't make it sound so averaging run-of-the-mill. Just your day-by-day brilliant delivery or whatever you think. Yeah, just your regular old brilliant intro. What are you from Brooklyn again? Okay. So today's show is all about seven things that great musicians have in common. I love this title, man.

I love that we're going back to the lists of seven. The lists are great. This is an aspirational for us in terms of like, we've got to really bring the fire today. You're ready to bring the fire? I'm always... Not the fire emoji. No, I'm...

I am always ready to bring the fire. I am always ready to bring the fire. So let's talk about a little bit what we mean by things, I think is the word. What are the things that great musicians have in common? Like, what's the idea behind this list? Okay, so this is going to be about like really overall traits. You know, things that are maybe just ingrained in the great musicians

that we've seen some commonality between them. It could be any kind of genre or anything. This is not about they all play A flat minor. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. This is about big picture stuff. It's kind of a personality list, honestly. Right. And these are all things.

What's exciting about this, whether you think you're a great musician or not, these are all things that you can work on. And really, there are all things that we all have some level of, I think. I'm just looking back over the listing and making sure. Yeah. Now, what's great about, and this is sort of built into this list, I don't want to give it away too much. But a little bit of self-awareness, if you can understand how much of these different things you have, it can really help you

in kind of your overall work that you're doing as a musician. Again, not in the learn your A flat minor scale. You know, things the great musicians have as common. They all know the scales. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But we're not talking about that. They can all play. Yeah, they can all play. But if you can kind of think about these things, these seven things, and

you know, think about it away from your instrument as you're going through your week and see for different ways that maybe the areas that you feel that you're a little bit you know, lacking in, you can, that can inform the flow of your practice, the flow of your mindset, the flow of like how you want to, you know, not get better today, but maybe get better in the next three months, six months, one year. Yeah. Because because I love to study things about, say, musicians, like if I think about how do I

become a better musician? My mind goes to this place of like, well, what is one great musician? Let me try to become like her. It's more like, let's get a good. group of great musicians. Let's increase our odds and see what they all have in common. Totally. Because they're all different. They're all individuals and it's very easy to be like, well, you can make no connection between these two different people. But it's like, I want to become a great basketball player. Don't get fixated on like one person,

Wilt Chamberlain. Okay, of course he's a great basketball player, but take Will Chamberlain. There's probably too many like individual factors that come into just being Wilk Chamberlain. Right, which is great. That's the personality. But like, what are the things that they all have? Number one, because you know you need. Exactly. Yeah, because if you get fixated on that, you're like, okay, I'm not seven feet tall. I can't. So you got to get a short player too. But like what are the things that they all have in common?

Yeah. Because then if you want to be great, you got to make sure that you probably have those. I feel like we're getting our Mamba mentality on now, buddy. Oh, man. Let's do it. Okay. So number one, what is the number one thing that all great musicians have in common? They listen.

That's right. Big ears. Big old ears. They listen to a lot of music. They listen when they're playing. They listen when they're listening. That's right. They're always listening.

And I love the big ears thing because the listening, it's almost. like listening leads to big years. And that's why they're great, you know. And so now this does not mean that every great musician has perfect pitch. Nope. We're not talking about that. Not at all. But we're talking about they're all actively and have spent a lot of time on ear training.

A lot of time listening to music to the nuances of it. They, as you say, listening as they're playing. Oh my gosh. The greatest musicians I've ever played with are the greatest listeners on stage. That's right. You know, they're completely present with you as you're doing what you're doing. And it makes playing with them such a joy and so easy. Right.

Assumee. I love to listen. Because they're there for you no matter what. They're there for the audience. They're there for the moment. And that takes training. It's not like, I mean, there is a personality thing to that. But you have to just make up your mind.

I am going to listen to everything that's happening here on this stage right now. Everything that's happening in this recording session. Everything that's happening on this album I'm listening to. Everything. You know, as I'm making this podcast, I'm going to listen to everything, every dad pun that comes out of Peter's mouth. And I'm going to enjoy it. That's right. Found some back.

Because I'm a great listener. I heard that. I know you thought I was checking our Twitter feed. No, I even know that once you, that even as you're checking Twitter, you're listening. Yeah. And so this one's great.

As we said, like this can be, this is probably our most actionable in, in some respects in that you can, like, oh, well, I want to be great.

So how do I learn how to listen better? So we're going to start thinking about allocating more of our time during the week as, you know, we practice. Like, do you have a time when you just sit and listen to a record? Have you,

like, dedicated yourself to going out and listening to all, not all, but like the greatest music that's coming to your area. Everybody's just like, you know, live music is happening again. Go out and support it. Yeah, but also like, are you going to something every week? Are you putting your money where your mouth is? Are you putting your time more importantly? Are you, are you reserving when you're actually playing with other people? Are you reserving moments to listen then? Right. You don't have to play all the time. No. You can just sit back and listen. Yeah. Are you listening to yourself? Are you recording yourself when you practice and then

are you listening as you practice, but are you also listening to get that objective thing? This is a great one. If you're learning a new tune, are you listening to different versions of that tune? If the answer is anything but yes,

you could be listening more. And like we said, this is definitely something that all of the great musicians, at least that I've ever met and worked with here at Open Studio and in my musical career, they all have this characteristic.

They all are the best listeners. Absolutely. Number two is discipline. This is an important one, not just for being a musician, but for being a person. And I think this is a lot more varied than people might think it is. It doesn't have to be like, it doesn't mean regimented. It doesn't mean like, well, I have to be up at 5 a.m. every day, although that helps some people. And I have to practice nine hours a day for 20 years, kind of discipline.

Yeah. Kind of. Well, when we talk about things, like, think about great musicians that we both know. Yeah. that like we like that we really know and we see kind of what they're the flow of like how they work at their craft that's why we have this in there like that's pretty much always I mean even the most talented musicians oh yeah yeah like I always think about Roy Hargrove because you know he was just I love Roy Hargrove as a man and as a musician and he's probably the most brilliant

musician that I was closely around for a long big part of my life like but he was probably the most one of the most talented, just naturally talented, but he also had some of the highest level of discipline in terms of like, I'm going to go learn this and not put it off. And like every day I'm learning something and that kind of a thing. And so that's, that's different than trying to account for every single second of every day. Oh, yeah, of that kind of discipline or that kind of like, I'm going to know what I'm going to practice. You can be open. Right. You can. Yeah, absolutely. But just that consistency. Yeah. Right. That idea. And it's that dogged attitude. Right. Of like, I'm going to gunning, you know, like a dog goes after a bone.

I don't know that's where the phrase came from, but that's how I think about it. Sure. Where like you're not, I mean, to me, discipline is like you're not going to let anything get in between you and the objective of learning that tune, of writing that composition, of learning how to that scale. You know, whatever it is. It's like the discipline is like you're, you're saying no to other things to say yes to music. It's really the patience game. What's that famous, famous study? I think it's been debunk now, the marshmallow study with kids, right, where they put kids who are like five or six years.

gold in a room and there's like one marshmallow on the table. And they say, okay, I'm going to go out. Don't eat the marshmallow. If you don't eat it, you'll get two more marshmallows when I come back. Right. And then like they see who which are the kids has the patience. Yeah. Right.

And, you know, most kids eat the marshmallows as soon as the adult lead. But some kids wait patiently. Yeah. And they'll some like the, it's correlated with like success later in life. You know, so. I love it. So discipline maybe is patience combined with work? I think so.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, what's number three? Number three is an attitude of gratitude. It's so important, man. Yeah. So, so important.

Yeah, I mean, I just, I've never been around a great musician or the ones that I don't know personally that I consider great, not just me. It's kind of generally known that don't exude an attitude of gratitude in their music. You know what? Maybe they're assholes otherwise and they're not gracious and we don't see that. Who knows? But I haven't seen that. Like there's always a very high level, highly highly, highly, tuned connection with gratitude.

Now, does that mean they're perfect people that never, you know, diss their friends or get divorced or whatever? I mean, that's a separate thing. But in terms of like on the spectrum of gratitude, you know, he's kind of like, when you're around a person that's just like has a lot of gratitude, it's not like it's not just like they're about to walk into the street and somebody says, wait, come back and they save them from getting hit by a car. It's very easy to be, you know, have gratitude.

towards that person at that time. Of course. They saved your life. But we're talking about just like gratitude for music, for art, for the world. Gratitude for being in having the opportunity to be this sort of conduit, this connection point between forces bigger and greater

than us to be able to produce music for people and to be part of that process. Yeah, I mean, it's love, man. That's love, it's humility. It's all of those things combined in this attitude of gratitude. I love it, man. I think it's actually.

the more and bigger names in this music that I've been lucky enough to meet and work with, the more you realize they have that in abundance. They have an attitude of gratitude. You know, you realize that it's not all you, you know? Like, it's not all about you. And really, all of us are lucky to be here. You know, there's only so many people that get to be born. That's right. And you're one of them. Well, there's billions. But yeah. There's only so many, there's a specific. There's only so many people that can, you know, get to make a living, playing music. There's only so many people to get to make this beautiful, improvised music. But haven't you noticed that, like, the really great musicians are the ones that are saying, like yourself.

I would just say that. And I'm not blowing smoke up your new. I mean, I really, like, you exude. And I've seen you at your most upset and most unsettled at different times. Likewise, man. But there's still like, there's a graciousness and a level of gratitude that informs, you know, your personality and your music that is very, very much in tune with each other, as we would say. And I've never been around a great musician. They didn't have that.

I agree. No, it's definitely the thing they all have in common. And likewise with you as well, it's there in spades. Number four. Four, you got it. So number four is authenticity. Now, this is a trait that we see and is really celebrated among the greatest of musicians. Because I think it's something that is very, it's very hard to, it's very hard to, it's

It's very important for the actual production of your music and like your story. Because if you don't have a, you know, in openness to having authenticity and like haven't developed that, then it's going to be very hard for you to be successful, especially with the non sort of, you know, technical parts of the music. Like you can learn all the different skills to be an incredible pianist. But if you aren't have some kind of self-awareness about your authenticity, it's going to be hard for you to tell your story, which is what we're trying to. too and then you're going to have trouble to connect because we're talking about great musicians not just like musicians musicians we mean people that come to see you that are the fans and the general populations as we would say are like oh my god that's such a great musician because

do they have the ability to move somebody to move an audience to be that conduit to be that connection and I think you have to have that that openness that authenticity and that self-awareness about it and it's really vulnerability here too that's what you're talking about is like this ability to really show and reveal your authentic self with all of the warts and mistakes and beauty and ugliness all wrapped up into the person that we all are right that takes a lot of vulnerability you are you are opening yourself up to a lot of love but you're also opening yourself up to a lot of criticism and that's hard to do that's this is the openness and authenticity the vulnerability i think for a lot of really smart musicians this is a hard one yes really hard

especially if you're a perfectionist, that can work against this, you know, like, and that, and a lot of us have that gene. It's how you get good at an instrument, you know, the discipline, you know, the listening. Yeah. All that stuff. We're going to talk about more of that kind of like, that can all like skew towards perfectionism, which has some merits in, you know, acquiring skills, but it can hurt the vulnerability aspect of it.

So it's all about balance for that, man. You got to work on that, too. You can't just ignore it. You have to work on your vulnerability, work on your authenticity, work on your self-awareness. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we don't have perfectionism as one of these, but we could have had that. And that, but to me, that kind of falls under number two discipline in a way. Yeah, it's, it's kind of the negative aspect of discipline.

Like, I don't see any pride in being a perfectionist at all. Right. Well, it's good to like reach for. Should we open the debates panel once again? No, no, no. Like, but I'm saying like there is toxic perfectionist. Oh, for sure. For sure.

And it can be easier. And that really is toxic discipline in a way when that becomes just a means to an end as opposed to like, you know, as we said in previous episodes, the North Star. Like perfectionism to try to chase towards the North Star, but to think you're going to get there becomes toxic. Well, and also it can be boring. Perfectionism is going to be boring. Right. I don't want to hear you trying to be perfect. I want to hear you trying to be you.

Absolutely. And that's the authenticity. And that's how all these things they work together and like, and they can work against each other. So understanding them and the push and pull, but knowing that they need to be. there I think is great. Well, before we get to number five, we'll be right back. All right. Number five, Peter, you have, this sounds like self-help speak.

This is a little bit. Just a little reminder. We're talking about seven things great musicians having common. And I have noticed that number five, a growth mindset exists in virtually, no, I'm not even to say virtually, all great musicians that I've had access to. Were you like me when you read growth mindset and all about it for the first time, we were like, yes, yes. Well, I was just thinking, yeah.

I mean, it's probably relatively recently the last 10 years or so that I've even, you know, been familiar with that term. Because I feel like, you know, like when you hear about something and understand and then you're, but you've actually thought about it and experienced it your whole life and believed in it, even if there wasn't a catchphrase for it. And for me, that's like, you know, I was very lucky to have like parents and teachers and just like, you know, siblings and relatives and just people I was around that fostered that and encouraged that in me. Because some people, I mean, so it seemed normal to me. But some people like for whatever reason their parents or or well it's an important thing to think about like because friends so called friends that I'm using air quotes. I don't think somebody's a friend if they don't encourage a growth mindset in you or respect that. Because sometimes friends, air quote again, are more like they want to hold you down and stay away from those people. They're not your friends.

So we tell our children this actually. Don't don't be friends with anybody who's going to try to tamper out your joy. That's right. We tell our daughter that all the time. Stay away from the haters. Stay away from the haters. Those are your real friends. Like you want to be with people and be around people that are going to like delight in your accomplishments that are going to delight in you growing.

And that, you know, that's a tall order for a kid. But like that's great for them. I mean, she's so lucky to have that foundation because as she moves through life and it like it will seem normal. Totally. Because it's like we can't shield our kids from the haters. Yeah. But and we shouldn't because that's, that's doesn't change as we go through. But I think, yeah, having like, not only like mine.

people, people that can inspire you, people that are around you, that bring out the best in you that make you aspire is so important. And I think you see that with great musicians. They want to play with better musicians. They want to be like, they want to go study. They want to learn new things. They're not, they're not resting on their laurels. They want to be around. That's about growing, you know. Oh, I want to learn this new thing. I mean, Herbie Hancock is like just to me is the epitome of showing a growth mindset at the very micro level. Like as he's playing. Yeah. He's exuding a great. growth mindset in a very exciting way.

And part of the growth mindset thing in my experience, too, is, you know, like, I feel really lucky. I heard the comedian Tina Fey won an award or something. I think I've quoted some of the podcast before. And she said, she thanked her parents for giving her encouragement despite, or what was it? Encouragement beyond her looks and abilities. So like basically saying, like, you'll be fine no matter what.

Like, you just keep going. That's right. I feel like that is wrapped up in growth mindset. Like, you know, it's, don't know your limitations. You better not. And just do it. Just keep going. Just do something.

That's right. Like, even if you're going to fail, just go do it. Just go do it. And chances are you will fail and then you'll learn how not to fail. How many times did Edison invent a faulty light bulb before he invented one that were?

It was like hundreds and hundreds of times. Right. He failed at the light bulb until he invented the light bulb. Like it either works or I guess it calls a fire or flicker out or something. But so is, I mean, so is kind of playing music. It can be binary as like this is either,

the solo is either going to work or it's not. Right. You know what I mean? Well, I love this one too because wrapped up in growth mindset, I think is a real, real bundle of gratitude. Because when you think about like on a more macro level growth mindset, it's like there isn't one pie. See, that's the problem with those toxic friends, air quotes, friends in air quotes. They look at the world as like there's a pie. And if you're growing, you're going to like take some of their part of the pie.

people with a true growth mindset don't look at the it's like an endless pie like you having more makes it possible for me to have more and we can all have more and you know that's why i mean you know we don't do politics on here because this is a joy this is a happy place this is a safe place yeah yeah but i i hate those kind of like political movements that think of like everything is like i've got to get mine because else somebody else is going to take it's a zero some game zero some game so if if you get something if only someone have a term for that if you if you get something then i don't get something. That is such bullshit. It's not true. No, but the problem is if enough people, like if a majority of people start believing in that, that myth becomes reality. And then

that's the system that is actually built. What great musicians do is they've built the system with the growth mindset that helps everybody. And that's why they're kind of leaders usually in what they do. Yeah. And why that gratitude is always a part of it. All right. Number six of seven things that great musicians have in common. Great musicians treat their art seriously. uncompromising, they treat it like a business. That's right. Yeah. That's right.

And those things like really work together. I mean, they're serious about what they do. Of course, they're joyful about it and everything. But I mean, like they're serious about the discipline. But they respect their time. They respect their craft. Yeah. And they respect the art.

Not because it's theirs. No. Because the art, the music, the, that connection is bigger than them. And that's why. And then the treat like a business part, this can seem a little bit trite. But it's like that's what, and treat it like a great business, you know, in that like you have. you have these things working together so that people that are involved with it can find joy and

passion and contribute to something that's bigger than themselves. It's not just about making money or whatever, just like it's not just about making music. It's about elevating everybody that's part of the organization and this type of thing with the musician, everybody in the audience, everybody who's listening, everybody who's in your orb. Yeah, they're leading a musical life. It's not like they're creating a musical business. They're just, they just have music as their career, not as like a hobbyist, right? They put it as their, main source of income professionals exactly like a pro exactly so treat it like that don't treat it like your hobby but treat it like a like it's it is your livelihood that's right right and it's kind of and that's

part of the reason we put in like treat it like a business it's sort of like don't treat it like a hobby I mean no look you can totally treat like a hobby but we're talking about what great musicians do they don't treat it like a hobby that's right and that's why they get insulted or pass on things when somebody's just like oh can you just sit down and play for this can you do that I mean they'll do it if the moment no this is my art man This is what I do. Yeah, I'm a pro. Yeah.

You know, I treat you. I got the discipline and the gratitude. All right. Man, a lot of positive stuff, Peter. A lot of positive. Sometimes number seven, we go, we jump off the ledge a little bit. Yeah, so what's number, yeah, let's jump off the ledge on number seven. Well, we had a couple ideas for this.

This is like under the category of if one through six fail. Yeah. So this is not actually something that great musicians have in common. Well, some of them. Okay. Some great musicians. Actually, it isn't. It isn't, actually. But if one through six fail you,

You can always try being a complete narcissist. There are some great musicians. That works temporarily. That's right. It can work for a couple of years. What about some ego maniacal tendencies? Also fun. It can be fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Some psychopathy. Psychopathy. Psychopathy. Yeah. All of those things can be a blast for a while. That's right.

But they probably aren't going to be very lasting. Yeah. You can throw out, you can sprinkle them in there, but concentrate on one through. I love it because we can't get too positive for too long. We have to end with something that's a little bit. Should we do a quick review? Yeah, let's go through them.

Number one is listen. Number two. Discipline. Number three, attitude of gratitude. Number four, authenticity. Number five, a growth mindset. Number six, they treat their arts seriously. These are the seven great things musicians have in common.

We're not even going to mention the seventh anymore because that was, you know, what it was. That was good. That was super fun, man. Let's grade us. Let's grade ourselves. I'm going to Twitter. Nobody's graded us yet. I'm going to grade a, I'm going to grade a,

Hit us up on you'll hear it. I'll tell you what. Intro B plus. Episode A plus. Oh, A plus? With AP extra credit. Wow. Yeah.

Okay, I'm going to go A, a solid A. Because I feel like we can do better. We did great. All right. But I mean, but I have a growth mindset. I'm sorry. A plus plus. See, people with a growth mindset use things like that.

I saw a little bit of narcissism. Oh, B minus. That might as well be a failing grade, Peter. It's an F. Oh, boy. Well, until next time. You'll hear it.