You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Bizz Skillz Learned From Jazz - #137

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

Today, Adam and Peter discuss some similarities between being a jazz musician and running a business. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin and I'm Adam Manus and this is the You'll Hear It podcast daily jazz advice coming at you what do you got well today we're going to give you some biz skills learned from jazz a lot of z's in your title I'm noticing man I love the zes you know the official name for my family no we're the martins yeah that's for real martins what's up um yeah so this we thought it would be fun to talk about all the things that we learned uh from jazz and you know I love jazz so much I love the music and I love the music and I love the music and I love the culture. I love the people. And I love how much, you know, I'm so grateful for so much that it's given to me. I mean, I've given just such a little bit back. I feel bad because I'm always taking, taking, taking. I'm a taker. But I want to give back.

And I want to give to you guys, if any lessons can be learned. But basically, these are things that we learned from being jazz musicians and what it gave us that we've applied to building the startup of Open Studio. Yeah, and this can be, I think, applied to your business of music. if you are trying to develop your career could be applied to another business, really any other business. I mean, I'm not aware.

Have you, do you have many degrees in business that I'm not aware of? I have several, if zero is considered part of several. No, but you're really good at, at you've been very good so far at growing this business at getting the team organized and on board and developing systems. And, you know, I wasn't,

until I joined Open Studio and started working here closely with you. Like, I never put those two together about being a jazz position into business, but it actually is a natural thing. It really is. And I mean, my concept on it was, and kind of how this is developed, was that, you know, when you have a startup, it's based upon an idea. And then it's based upon some people taking that idea. And that's all it really is. It becomes a whole lot more, but that's the foundation. That's the genesis, the genesis of it. And so, you know, it's not unlike a solo. If you have a good idea and then you have a good person, good musician, or even better good musicians around it, they can develop it.

It can be an interesting thing that's unexpected. You don't necessarily know where it's going to go, but you know that it's going to go somewhere. And the fun is kind of in the journey of how you do that. And so what I've been trying to do here is just take those things because I didn't have the business degrees to take the things that I learned from just. jazz on how to do that, how to work, for instance, like with other people, how do we negotiate working and playing with other jazz musicians on the stage without necessarily over-discussing everything? You know, how do you communicate with other people, not just verbally, but through the music

and through the signals there? How do you, you know, develop a band, and then how do you have a band situation where everyone can not only put their best foot forwards, but play in a way that makes the bigger, you whole band sound better than the individuals put together. Because I think that's what a successful company, especially when it's small at the beginning, and it's in that beautiful little kind of startup stage where everybody knows everybody's name still.

And for us, it's exciting here because we've just added some new employees, and we still know everybody's name, but you can start to see how maybe if we're lucky enough to get to the future where you've got 20, 25, 30 people, and you come in, you're like, wait, who are you again? It will come a day when that happens. But now when it's like everybody knows everybody, like how do you make the framework

so that everyone's comfortable, happy, productive, and can, you know, in the band situation, play things that they could never do if they were on their own, but only in that situation. I think this is the first similarity that really pops out is it's not unlike leading a band, you know, to lead this business because you have to try to build the best players around you or team around you of, you know,

the most talented folks that you can find. First of all, and you have to have something good, to a good product. You have to have good music, you know, good tunes, thoughtfully done. You have to, the leader has to put an emphasis on quality, which you do both on and off the bandstand. You know, you have to make sure that what you're throwing out to the people is of the highest quality you can be. You need talented people around you. And then just like on the bandstand, I think I've noticed that you need to be able to get them to buy into it and then to give them their own responsibilities and ownership of it. Right. You know,

I mean, so they don't feel like, oh, I'm just playing Peter Martin's music. Right. Like, this is us. We're doing this together. That's the key. And I mean, I think that that certainly goes beyond jazz and just to the whole art world. And I think that we can rally around as artists a lot of great life and business lessons from that, in that the highest level of artistry is so inclusive and inspirational at the same time that it really can lift people up to do things to really perform at their peak.

and do it in a very joyful way, in a very passionate way. And that's when great work gets done. Great collaborative work, great individual work, great company work. And when we're talking about, you know, a jazz band, I mean, there's nothing more exciting than a great solo, except a great solo where basically everybody's participating in it. And maybe it's not even about what the audience sees as far as the spotlight. And sometimes it's like behind-the-scenes stuff.

But when that interplay is going on, And usually it's the interplay, the conversation, the side conversations that can spur you to play something as a player that you couldn't do if you were on your own. That's right. Because there's ideas. There's ideas. That's right. And if you're in that one of the supporting roles, you know that it's a group thing. Yeah.

Even though the spotlight's known on you, you know that like we're all doing this. Right. And actually, I think, you know, a lot of times for the audience, it's actually more noticeable. I mean, we always have this problem as musicians because we go hear music a lot. But we always think that, okay, well, we're listening as pianists. as musicians, we know the inside game. It's like if a baseball player goes to the game, they're looking at it differently than a fan.

But sometimes I think maybe not as much because I hear from so many people. I love talking to people after our gigs and just, you know, seeing what, I mean, not just for the, you know, oh, you sound so great. Who wouldn't want to hear that? But I love hearing what they like about what's going on. And, you know, a recurring thing so much is like, I love the way you guys were interacting and having such a good time. Like those two things seem to go together.

Always hear that, you know. And it really is. But, I mean, I think what's part of that, too, is it sounds great. Yep. You know, and that's an easy thing. But, like, when people see you interacting and doing something together and having fun doing it, and they're enjoying what it sounds like, it's not unlike, you know, we're both big foodies, and you go to a great restaurant, it's not just the food tastes good, because then you could get a carry-out and go home and eat it, it would taste good.

Right. But it's like seeing the theater of the kitchen staff working and the servers and the timing and all that. Right. The plating of the food itself. The plating of the food. And I mean, that's a fun thing to experience. And I think that's why it's, yeah, it's fun to just cook at home. It is nothing like seeing it presented.

I'm getting hungry for lunch, by the way. That's why I'm thinking about this. So what are the similarities here with that to, like, Open Studio or to business, do you think, like, when you have this team together? Yeah, I think, you know, trying to have a, you know, what we're trying to do here is to have that same kind of framework where people have are empowered and inspired and even passionate about. putting their ideas forward and doing it in an improvisatory way, not just being free, like anyone can come up with a good idea here. And it doesn't have to be in the area that you have your degree in or your title or whatever. And so that's very much like a jazz musician thing. Like we, you know, we do have titles here, but like everybody's involved with all aspects of the business

because we never know when a great idea is going to come from somebody. So trying to empower people to do that and not let it become just totally random. Same thing like we do. you know, in an interesting jazz ensemble, I would say, is that you want the framework for the unexpected to happen, but it can't be just a free-for-all either because then everyone gets a little bit, you know, depressed, and it's like, I mean, we've been in these kind of free situations, and I'm not talking like about free jazz.

I love open improvisation, and I've only done it a little bit, but that's a thrilling thing. But I mean, but we've also been in situations probably where it's like, okay, everybody just play freely, but nobody's listening. Yeah. And then, you know, I think you can have, a company environment. I mean, those usually just don't,

like, you can't even get work done so the thing falls apart because there's no, it just doesn't work. But, you know, but it's basically because your voice isn't heard by anyone. Just because you can speak doesn't mean you're being heard. And so I think that there needs to be freedom for those ideas to come out, but it has to be in

a disciplined way where you feel like, okay, this is the time to do it, this is the channel to do it. And so, I mean, you know, it's a work in progress just like we do with kind of any band. And I think that it's a great, if you think about the great sort of jazz ensembles over the year

and, you know, not to get too traditional, but they always talk about the Duke Ellington band since it was around for so long and it was called the Duke Ellington band, but it was really based upon specific personalities of members of the band. Yeah. And it was a big group.

I mean, it was a big band. But, I mean, you had, you know, certain people that had outsized influence on the band, but everybody had some influence, their time to say something, even so unexpected times to step up, some varieties from night to night. That's interesting.

I think that's really important for any team, whether that's, you know, a band or a company. Yeah. To have that freedom that's definitely made, you know, open studio a great place to work and to develop. So, but getting to what you're actually making, whether that's on stage or in the recording studio or, you know, here. Yeah.

You know, obviously here, you're making jazz lessons, right? That's what we're primarily making in a podcast. Yeah. but you know one thing that strikes me a similarity is in music the best people that i've that i know of really try to keep every single element of what they're doing at such a high quality and and make sure that it's creative and relevant and executed perfectly and i mean that's something i've gotten from you here as well is that we're not going to let any part of this i mean we have to be light on our feet obviously you know we can't get bogged down but every part of this you

needs to be as high quality as we can make it. Yeah. And that's something that you've kind of developed, I think, over the last few years, but it definitely is straight from the Jazz Edition Playbook. It is. I mean, I think that, to me, that goes along with having a passion for something. Like, if something is valuable enough, you know, artistically or spiritually or commercially, or really in any way, if something becomes valuable enough that you have a passion for it,

then the quality will matter to you to the point where you will always fight for that, you know? And so to me, like, because I got into playing jazz, because I love the sound of it, and I love when I started to play it, like being involved with it, but it was basically just based upon the artistic merits of it, which is just how it sounded. I mean, I loved other things on the periphery, but it was always just the music felt good to me, and I wanted to be a part of it because of that.

Yeah. So then I wanted to learn how to get better, and because it's such a pure art form in that the better you play, the better it sounds and the better it feels. It's just like a loop that goes along there with the listeners and with the players that, you know, it's... I don't want to say it's binary, but it kind of... There's a spectrum there that goes

that's so pure and that feeds your passion so organically as long as you don't get lost in all the other kind of periphery that it just works, that because our product here with Open Studio is based upon teaching that thing, that it really works the same. So what we're trying to do is to help people that want to develop the same things that we did. You know, like, they want to get better at playing jazz.

People don't come to us because they're like, oh, I want to get some jazz lessons because I'll be able to water my plants with them. I mean, it's very clear with what we're doing. And people, if we can help them get better as jazz players, become the pros that they want to be, then it's such a beautiful thing for them. Like we don't have to sell them on, we're not selling them.

Jazz is great. Like they come to us, they already know that. They know that, yeah, yeah. So to me, it's like I want that process to be as simple and as fun and as inspired and as passionate as it was for me and continues to be for me. And so, you know, the big part of that is we assemble some great artists. Right. Then it becomes easy. But then we want to try to like attend to all the details, basically just streamline the members.

and the customers to be able to get that access in as innovative and easy as a way as possible. Yeah, and I think a key with both of these things, whether that's in playing jazz or with Open Studio, is never really being satisfied with where you are. You know, always being hungry to develop that and find a better way. Yeah.

You know, to practice getting better, to practice making better music. And then, you know, on the business side to find a better way to reach people, to find a better way to serve people, you know, to find, you know, more beautiful ways to present the lessons and more artists that they'll like. And it's always like trying not to be satisfied with yourself.

I think it's big on both ends. Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking now it's fun for us to talk about this because I'm realizing another thing that I learned from jazz that's helped me in the biz world, biz skills. Zs and zes and more zes. But that is that my evolution as a jazz player, I think, mirrors a lot of players in that you start out kind of militant,

when you're young and like I'm playing for myself. I'm playing for the music. I'm playing for other musicians. And then as you evolve, you start playing more for the audience. Not because you're compromising your standards, but because you realize that that's how the biz of music works. And also there's a lot of satisfaction from playing things that are edifying to the audience.

And there's a lot more gigs and there's a lot more opportunity, you know, to develop as a player that way. It's just more fun. And so then there's a certain kind of market-driven, it's probably get me a little bit in trouble, but market-driven aspect to playing jazz successfully, I believe. And I don't think that that's anything about compromising your artistic integrity or anything.

I think John Coltrane was one of the most market-driven musicians, jazz musicians, ever, because it's not to say that he couldn't have played another way maybe to get more listeners, but in terms of the passion that his audience had and continues to have, like he was very driven by that. And I don't know personally. I didn't obviously know him personally, but I'm saying I can hear that and feel that in his music in the way that it was presented. He was very much going for a niche audience,

and he was able to line that up apparently very much, very close to what his personal passion for how he wanted to sound. So it doesn't get any better than that. So it's like the same thing with business. If you can line up something that you're so passionate and have so much belief in and then find a tribe of people that are interested in that too, then you're going to have a successful business

because then you're not trying to sell people something that they don't want. you're actually giving them exactly what they want. Then it just becomes a challenge to find new things they didn't realize that they wanted. They'll help edify them even more. And a better way to do it. And a better way to do it. But if the sincerity is already there, then it doesn't. You've got no problems.

Exactly. I think that's true in both cases. Yeah, I think that's an important part. Well, this has been fun. And I think, yeah. Biz skills learn from jazz. I learned a little bit. Me too.

I hope you at home learned a little bit. Thanks for listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Please go to you'll hearit.com to leave us a question or, a suggestion. You can leave us a voice message, go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating review. I think we're on Spotify, but don't worry about that. Yeah, because we are on Spotify, but we don't totally understand the system yet. But if you're listening on Spotify, give us a shout out. We don't know where we'll see it. Yeah, I have no idea.

We hear us the wave of the future, though, so we're there. We do. Good. Currently, we're still running our special here for Open Studios All Access Pass. You can just enter. You'll hear it. 10 in the offer code field to save 10% on an annual all access pass from Open Studio. And yeah, it's all I got. You got anything else? No, but I would just say the all access pass.

I finally figured out how we need to market this since this is biz skills. This is like the, do people, do they still have the all you can eat buffet or is that gone out of style? Like the restaurants where it's all you can eat? I mean, you know, there's some really great lunch buffet is still around. Are there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's good.

So this is the all you can eat buffet of everything that we have at Open Studio. That's the best way to... We can't call it the Uber of jazz lessons, but we can call it the lunch buffet of jazz lessons. Referring back to the biz skills thing, maybe all we're missing is a couple Zs. Yeah, that's right. All access...

Oh, jazz has two Zs on it. Yeah, but I'm saying all access... Paz. Yeah, maybe. That doesn't make it sense. All right, well, you know... You'll hear it.