You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Burning Questions: Hitting the Fan - What to Do When Things Go Wrong

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

Peter and Adam are going to be streaming and taking your questions live on Open Studio's Instagram every Saturday for the duration of the global health crisis. Today, Peter and Adam tackle what to do when problems arise on a gig, and also take a question on what to do when applying for music programs.Today's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)4:00 PM - Open Studio Demo & Tour - register here8:00 PM - Peter & Adam's weekly Listening Sesh on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkIn light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. Are we going to be able to make it through this entire episode without anything breaking, going wrong, or without you getting another snack? Likely, no. I'm hungry and hangary. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily music advice, coming at you. Coming at you today. Brought to you by OpenStudio. Go to Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com. Oh, jazz lessons. knees. I threw that back in. That's a throwback from early.

We're back on that, huh? That's pre-pandemic, Adam, right there. Can you see how excited I am about that being back as part of the stick as it were? You never appreciated that. You never appreciate that. We are here on Instagram. We are, we're taking your questions. We're here on Instagram every Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. Well, it's afternoon for us. 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. That's 2 p.m. New York time. So come hang with us and ask us your questions. We've already got some good ones. But we already have a question that we are going to. going to ask ourselves because we've had an interesting 24-hour period, really.

Yes. Besides the normal, you know, world burning itself up. That's right, right. It's been happening the last 72 hours or so. Right. We've had some just very minor compared to that problems, not problems, just challenges. Challenges. We look at them as challenges.

But the question we wanted to ask ourselves was, what do we do as pianists specifically? and then maybe we kind of scale it out to all instruments. But what do we do when stuff, you know what, let's just say everybody. What do we do when something goes wrong on the bandstand? Now, what we're talking about going wrong, we don't mean, oh, I played a phrase that it was supposed to be bluesy, but it was beboppy. Or we, you know, played a sharp 11 when the bass player played the regular 11th, not that kind of thing that are kind of part of the music and just part of the flow of

things. But this is more like the string breaks on. on the piano. The top of the lid falls down. The power goes out. Now, I've been in that situation a couple times. Outdoor gig, it starts raining. Like anything kind of environmental outside of the actual just notes that you're playing and stuff. Like, what do we do? How do you keep your cool? What do you kind of do? And maybe I'll just kick it off with one thing that may seem obvious, but let's just get this out there, is evaluate the safety scenario. If you're playing outdoors and it's not covered and it starts raining or lightning, you need to abandon the gig. This is not like,

the captain of the ship where you have to be the last one on. No, we're playing music and sometimes, you know, and I've actually been in that situation recently, Chicago Jazz Festival. Man, a storm came. It's beautiful. We're playing outside at that Pritzker Pavilion there, Millennium Park. Yeah. And it's, I mean, actually the stage is covered, but the audience is mostly, it's lawn.

It's beautiful. And there's like, you know, 15,000 people out there. We were, I was playing with Diane Reeves in the band. And Diane hadn't even come out of you. We're playing a tune first. Just the quartet. And this storm just came off of Lake Michigan, just like, woo. And it came over.

And it started raining so hard. People were running out, and it was like lightning. And so I kind of got up. And one of the stage hands was a little bit like motion can go by. I was like, no, no, no, we're cutting now. We're not. Lightning is happening. Yeah.

And we're all standing around electrical cables that are wet now. I'm out. Exactly. And then so we kind of stopped and came over to the side. And I was like, who's responsible for calling? Anyway, this is not important. the rest of the story, but it's important, like, safety is the first thing. But normally, that's not that big of an issue except outdoors.

I mean, you see it in TV and movies where the band is playing as the Titanic goes down. But in my experience, if there's any safety questions at all, the musicians are the first one. We know the way in that's like the secret way in from the back, you know what I mean? Because that's where they made us come in. And so we're out. We're through the kitchen and we're out. I remember once I was in high school and I was playing with a blues band in this really cede bar in St. Charles, Missouri, and a enormous fist fight broke out right in front of me. Like, I'm playing,

I'm like 17. I'm playing, you know, like Sweet Home Chicago or something. And this huge, I think one guy took another guy's leather jacket, and then they just started beating the hell out of each other. I was, it was like, it was like the Blues Brothers or something. I was out of there. I was like, time to go. Time for Little Adam to get up and get out. So yeah, do consider your safety first. But, Other than that, I think other than that, there's some things to evaluate. Like, you know, any kind of technical issues, if you can still make some sounds somehow, you're going to get so much credit from the audience for just continuing to try to put on a show.

That, I mean, like you, like I've been in situations where the power's gone out, and then the singer just puts the mic down and I grab the acoustic guitar or something, you know, and we just do something. Right. And the show must go on. And those can be actually very special moments, like really, really magical things can happen when everybody's in that kind of like uneasy situation. And then you provide them with, you know, kind of kind of wow them like, we don't need all this fancy lights and synthesizers. We can do everything just like right here with with our minds and our little.

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Well, and it's nice because it's like a real, remember MTV unplugged. I don't know if you're, you're, you know, I don't know if you're young to remember that. No, of course, of course, yeah. But that was, you know, I always thought that was funny because they would never actually unplug. It wasn't an entirely acoustic. It was just more acoustic than whatever they were normally doing.

Right. But what you're talking about when the power goes out, I mean, you're going straight acoustic. There's no, like, oh, I'm playing just a Fender Rhodes instead of a road sound. No, no, no, you're playing. And if your instrument can only produce sound with electricity, you're singing. You're singing off mic. Or you're clapping or you grab a tambourine or something. But let's maybe talk specifically about.

instrument failures because it is a thing when a string breaks or a piano goes terribly out of tune in a very unfortunate place on the instrument itself. You know what I mean? So how do you deal like last night, right? So and no one probably noticed, but you had a damper that was from the get really causing you some headaches, right? And so what do you do? It's, you know, in my experience, it's like trying to avoid it is is maybe the worst option. You know, that, that to me is like, I don't know if I can do that. Because then you're in your head, well, I can't hit that F. You know?

I mean, you can make something out of that for sure. But I think trying to find something with it, you know, trying to do something with it could be even more beneficial than trying to just straight up avoid it. But I don't know. What do you think? Yeah. No, I, well, whenever I end up trying to avoid it, it's, it's. kind of, you know, you end up playing it more, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it gets in your head. The important thing with like, with a damper or a broken string or whatever is not so much to avoid it, but is to avoid thinking about it. So it's like whatever, whatever it would help you to, even if you could avoid that note or that register or whatever, the fact that you have to keep thinking about that can throw you off your game for the other things that are more important. And from a piano standpoint, for the listener, there's no one note that's that important. There's actually not even, I mean, think about the 20, 30 notes we hardly ever play at all.

Now, granted, they're probably towards the edges of the keyboard. So, you know, when something, but look, something is going to go wrong at some point. So it's like, be prepared mentally for that. And when it does go wrong and like a string breaks or something, it's not usually way up at the top or the bottom where it's out of the range. It's right, where you're playing because you probably broke the string by playing too too hard. Exactly. So, you know, you just have to kind of almost, sometimes with the, the damper to me, it's actually harder than the broken string, because the broken string I can use my imagination when I play it, like if I'm kind of trying to hear what I'm playing.

To me, the damper is harder because, like, it's just out of control, like, you cannot control that note from ringing over. I was actually, I played a Rhodes, like, a few months ago, right before all this went down in a studio session that had a, like, broken, like, right in the meat of, like, just below middle C, like a broken F or something. Yeah.

It just made a thud sound, thud. And I just started using that. as like a rhythmic thing, you know, just like where that would be. It was like, but do, do, do, da, da, da, da, da, as like a drama almost. You can, you can definitely do that. And I like that idea more than just trying to avoid it. I mean, at least don't think about it, like can't hit it. You know what I mean?

Think of something to do with it. Right, right, right. And so basically you're using the classic technique of making lemonade out of lemons. Exactly. Yeah, I like that. Exactly. That's awesome. So let's do one more question.

Let's do one more question for this one. We have, this is a good one. Joel Ross Sounds says, what advice would you give to someone applying for a jazz performance degree this year, a.k.a. me. He's asking for a friend, apparently. Yeah, yeah. Not for a friend, for Joel himself. Applying for, like, to go into a program?

Sounds like it, yeah. What advice would you give someone this year? I mean, Joel, the first thing I think of is like, you know, I really don't know off the top of my head what to tell you because this is such a weird year that's never ever happened before, you know. Well, 1918, Spanish flu pandemic. Didn't have a lot of experience with the Spanish flu. There wasn't a lot of jazz programs back then.

No, there was some jazz programs for sure. Yeah, well, you know, I think it's always good to look at, you know, kind of what is different about the situation from, excuse me, I'm not going to eat. I'm going to sneeze. Here, why don't you tell them what you think? And then I'll come back and tell them what I think, okay? This is all free, right? This is a free podcast.

Sorry, I thought I had to sneeze. Anyway, okay. So, you know, so we think about what is it that's going to be unique during this time. I think the main thing would be the possibility of maybe the audition is not going to, the application process is going to be different than usual where it's very heavily waited on the in-person audition, you know. So maybe you're kind of supporting materials, sending a video, and those kind of things become more important.

So my advice would be, if you're going to apply, is like really think about how you're presenting yourself so that you can show yourself in the best light. A lot of times, you know, having been on some auditions, and I know you have two, Adam, it's like on both sides of auditions. You know, when you're the, you know, the applicant, what you think is important is very different than the most of the people sitting on the other side of the desk and what they are evaluating. So it's the kind of time when you're not necessarily thinking of, well, they are the audience, but it's not like an audience at a gig because they've just heard 30 other people, you know,

you know, play the same same three songs that they can pick from. So you have to kind of stand out. But similar thing, but not exactly in the same way when you're sending in a video or audio. First of all, my advice is if you are sending in, they give you a choice of video and audio, do video and audio. Don't do just the audio because the video has just such an impact. I know it shouldn't, but it does. I mean, like, that's a way to set yourself apart because a lot of people are shy or they think, oh, my playing is so good. It'll stand on its own.

You're not that good, and it doesn't stand on its own. I can just tell you that, you know. And you're really at a competitive advantage, I feel. Now, you're going to hear a lot of things, you know, schools will say, officially, it does not make a difference. You're only evaluated on your playing. But the performance is the whole thing, you know. Yeah, it's humans. So yeah and then the quality of your playing and and your presentation of course is the most important

but the quality of the video and audio does make a difference it makes it so that easier to be able to hear what you have to offer you know and so really put you know within within what you can do budget wise and everything I mean we've all heard you know audition videos and and and audio recordings that were incredible quality they go in the best studio and everything and you know he or she can't play at all And so that's not going to work. But you want to get the quality as good as you can. Of course, the music is the most important. I don't know.

What else you think? Yeah, I think for audition-wise, one of the most important things that you can do is be very confident. And that one of the things they're looking for is, yeah, can this person play? But do they have something to say? And are they confident enough to say it to me right here? You know, it's a nerve-wracking thing to audition. And so be confident with it. You know, be cocky with it almost.

Like this is what I'm throwing down. That's right. I'm here to do. And I'm going to do it for you. You know. Yeah. And then when my advice, like when you start college, when you start music school, music school is a head trip, man, especially nowadays because depending on where you go,

I mean, almost anywhere you go, though. There's just so much variety, even amongst like a jazz program of what you can study and the paths you can take. It really messed me up for the first year I was there. Like, what do I want, what kind of musician do I want to be? I've got all these great musicians around me and they play way. They're telling me opposite things in some cases. Yeah.

from like, you know, the bebop traditionalist to like some of the, like, free guys. And I like both the way everybody plays. But what do I do? My advice is like, really, like, ask yourself, like, what kind of music do I really love right now? What is, what am I feeling right now? What is at the core of my sound and who I want to be? Who are my heroes? And what's the path at this school that gets me closest to those heroes?

Like, that gets me on those guard raise. Yeah, you're going to learn different things. you're going to have to take counterpoint classes, and you're going to have to learn about bebop if you don't want to know about bebop, you should anyway. But, you know, if your thing is, you know, Chick Korea, find the people that are most like that and then just hit that as hard as you can,

as early as you can, because you're just going to get that much more of a head start and get the ball rolling of your scene, right? Like the scene that you're about to form around you, which is going to happen no matter what you do. But, like, you don't want to be in the scene where everybody is like, I don't know what I want to do with this.

music. I don't know music. Don't get confused. Like, be very clear, like, or as clear as possible. Like, I really love this kind of music, and I'm just going to really get as deep into that, and then find the people that know all about, like, again,

if it's Chick-Korea, I'm just an example. If it's Chick-Korea, like, where were Chicks' influences and then learn all about those people? And you're going to have these opportunities very, very soon. So take advantage of that as quickly as possible. That's awesome stuff, man. You laid it down. That's right. I mean, remember Adam like it was just yesterday you up at the new school the way you're talking man good memory

I also I think that these things are are kind of timeless you know like there's similar you know my dad my mom both went to music school and stuff and a lot of these same issues they I mean this never really changes schools change and programs change the faculty changes it's not even schools too it's like scenes in general if you're just going to a new scene like find your people you know and be clear about who you are and be confident about this is what I have to say even if it's not exactly what everybody else is doing or even if you're not the best player in the school like you have something to say and so be compliment right that's right good stuff well great uh well today we are brought to you as we normally are as we often are by open studio jazz.com please go check out what's happening

over there because it's a lot you know and we would direct you to one particular place for your jumping off point on your voyage of all things online jazz at open studio jazz and that would be open StudioJazz.com slash live where we have weekly, weekly updates, right? To the schedule? We have a weekly schedule posted and you can see, I mean, we're doing things multiple times a day. We're doing two things today. We have this.

And then our friend Omerlobombo is playing a duo concert somehow. I think they're trading. They're trading. By coastal. By coastal. Fabulous young concert with a guy named Chico Pinero. It's amazing. Shiko, shiko.

Come on, man. It's Portuguese. Not Spanish. Oh, Pinedera. That was very good, though. Yeah, so check that out. Open Studio Jazz.com slash live. And our events, you know, we have events that are open to everybody and that are live.

And then we have events that are open to everyone and are live but are not archived. You have to be there for those kind of like this today, I believe. And then we have events that are members only. But I think that there's something for everybody. And we've been enjoying seeing our members and just the community in general, the global jazz community. It's been really, really a beautiful thing. For sure. And until next time.

you'll hear it.