You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Finding Your Balance

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Adam and Peter discuss finding that crucial balance between life, family, and music. 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, Peter. Ancene. You know, I'm Adam Manus. You know, I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Music advice coming at you. We almost caught producer Caleb out on that one. That was a fast one.

That was one of our shortest. Least piffy intros. He had to be on his toes for that stuff. Right. And I thought I was going to throw you off more with my Ancene. Can I explain why I did that? You probably know. Everybody's wondering.

I'm going to explain to the dear listeners and the dear viewer. Shout out to YouTube. The YouTube channel is. exploding Mr. B-B-style. Not the Mr. beast you're thinking of, this other guy. Mr. B-E-E-E-T, a guy who lives on the corner. Down at the corner of Sarah and Broadway.

Yeah, totally. No, the YouTube channel is getting some nice traction. We're getting some new friends. Even if you don't watch us, if you prefer to listen to us, which let's be honest. It's a much more edifying experience, much more enjoyable experience. But even if you only listen to the pod,

not only. That's what it started as an audio podcast. Yeah, for sure. But even so, you might want to check in on the YouTube channel because there's some lively conversation going over there, commenting. Really good stuff. A little trolling every now and that? Not much.

We have minimum trolls. We have minimum trolls. But there's some good stuff, so you can even check it out there. But in jazz, you know, we play all of them. Snobs. 12 notes of the scale, dip shit. That clip is definitely a YouTube comment that has reached our ears here. And big shout out to all the parents that are.

listening to this with little kids in the backseat. Sorry about that. A little curse word. But this is a fairly, this is a very relaxed family show. Yeah. For parents, and this is very top of the law we're talking about today. For parents that are on their game, but let a few things slip in here and there as part of their parenting style.

This is the perfect pot. For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the whole thing is to a child, we're so boring what we're talking about. By the time we got to any curse words, they're totally zoned out. That's like the most exciting part for them. We don't really believe in like, we're not really big on curse words in our, as a point of like, this is a bad word, that's a good word. It's just more like, this is an inside word.

Right. This is a public word kind of thing. But what about with your parents? Are you, do you feel? They're very strict. They were very strict about curse words. Like, could you go to your parents' house right now and drop an S bomb. Yeah, I could.

But would you be like a little. They would be nervous laughter. Yeah. What are an F bomb? I could, but it would be very precarious. Right. That's the same would be. I could do it.

I can do whatever I want. I mean, for us, it's more about. the intention behind what you're saying than just like whatever language you're using yeah times are changing times are changing um but what we're going to talk about today and yeah so check in on the youtube we're going to talk about that at the end but i don't want to get into that to later because there's something else i want folks to do gentlemen and ladies only oh but um today we're talking oh just only gentlemen and ladies gentlemen and ladies only people there okay yeah um but today we're talking about um you know how do we keep growing as artists as musicians

as people, as composers, as creatives, as creators. How do we continue to do that while parenting or whilst parenting? Is that a word? It's an old English word. I think you pulled that off of the original Oxford Dictionary. Oxford University was founded in 13, whatever. Right, right. But yeah, how do we do this?

And I think that, you know, certainly you and I come from a place of experience. I can't say success. that's TBD based upon our children and kind of things. But it's such a common... I feel like your kids are crushing it at this point. Well, that can change quickly. As we know with kids, the wins. Kids are unpredictable.

They do. The winds shift for sure with kids. Yeah, but really, yeah, and it's a whole other thing. This is not a podcast about how to raise well-adjusted, happy children that become great adults. That's, we'll leave that to others. But you and I are both parents. We have been for a while.

And I do think that it's a... You know, it's one thing to become, you know, a working jazz pianist, a professional jazz musician, a professional music, an artist that is, you know, that many would see as a challenging career. I would say, well, how's the other way that you look at it? It's a challenge to do something that doesn't give you so much. It is not so exciting and it's something that we're so passionate about. But there's both those sides that come together, something that can really take over your life in all the great ways and all the challenging ways. But to do that while you're raising up young kids, being part of a family, being a spouse, being a family member, family leader at times, you know, teaching and loving and giving and taking in all these different things. How do we balance those things?

And I think that, you know, we talk about this and sprinkle stuff in, but I wanted to just go on a little bit of a semi deep dive on this today because we get a lot of questions about this. Yeah. And we get a lot of, but I think it's an area that. I people assume that I'm an expert on it and they probably do for you too I always assume that you are but it's the area I have some of the biggest insecurity with actually oh yeah and the biggest like oh no well but it's so it's always funny when people come and to ask questions about something that you don't necessarily feel like you have an answer to we got you got to start off with just acknowledging that we are not raising our kids alone in fact we are both of us extremely

lucky right through our partners are as far as the child rearing goes so it's like normally number one listen. We're like number one, choose your spouse wisely. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Shout out to Heather McCorkel. And so you know what's funny because of a great choice that we had in featuring Kelly and Heather on an earlier episode. Had we not done that, we could have pretended like

we were doing everything. We screwed that up. Yeah. Yeah. But there is a, so, but to your point of like, well, how do you like, because what we do to play music at a high level or to attempt to play music at a high level, it takes a lot of time. It just does. I mean, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy. It takes your passion. Not to mention, Peter, there's all these conditions that we have put upon us of what we think great artists should be. They should dedicate

their entire lives and existence solely to their art and nothing else. And that's only backed up by a lot of what we could call productivity culture, which is, I don't know about your algorithm, but my algorithm feeds me almost nothing but exclusively productivity bros trying to get me to, you know, spend more. I'm looking at you, Ali Abdel. Hey, there's a lot of good ones. There's a lot of people that are that can be helpful, but I think you have to just take a step back from your expectations of, I mean, I struggled with this for years, man.

It's another thing that I'm also insecure about too because it's like, it's always changing. Your kids are always changing, and your role in their lives is always changing. I mean, you remember when they were babies? A lot different than what it is now when you have kids in college, right? It's a whole, you're responsible

for a whole different areas of their existence. Yeah. Still very important. More connected, I'm going to assume it to the bank account at this point. Yeah. Right.

You think the diapers and the baby food is expensive. Yeah. And it's like it just goes up from there, obviously. But I think, yeah, for sure, the type of support that. So I want to throw one thing out there. And this doesn't have to be the most important or the least important, whatever. It just popped in my head, though. When you said we have to give dedication, we have to give a lot to music, you know,

and that is potentially the biggest barrier to being effective at doing anything else, having another job, which is what being a parent is, it's a full-time job, right? Yeah. And so I think that we have to look at some ways of sort of combining those. And I think that when we show to our children what it's like to be dedicated to something, as, you know, when we're examples, like the type of teacher that's just like, you know, show by doing it instead of telling them, because we may not always have time to tell them anyway. I think that's one of the best things.

It's like bring your kids along to see what you're doing. Not so much, I think, why the way that some young parents look at it where it's like, I'm really into jazz piano and so I want my kids to be, or at least one of them. People always ask me, like, which one's going to be the jazz pianist? I'm like, hopefully none of them, unless they really want to do it, then hopefully all of them or whichever ones want to do that. Yeah. But even if they don't show a proclivity or interest in that, that's not what we're supposed

to be modeling to them. We're supposed to be modeling to them just how to find a passion, how to be really serious about it and then hopefully the big advantage we can give them is like how do you keep growing forever because we never look like like the easy part of being a jazz pianist is it never becomes a job that's right or it shouldn't like if we're if we're approaching it right that's harder with some other types of professions but this is something because there's so much built in discovery and excitement and change and improvisation and all the things that are surrounding this type of art if we lean into those things and use that to spur our continual growth and childlike,

like I think acting like a child and how you're learning something and how you're approaching something is one of the best examples we can give our children. Like so when they were little like, dad is acting like a little kid. It's like great, you know, because that means I'm approaching something. And it's not about not being serious, but it's about being curious. Yeah, being curious and being playful. Those are things that we can definitely and should be modeling. to our kids and then also reminding ourselves to be,

as we're dealing with this. You know, there's a lot of lessons that having kids can actually help with for like time management. My time management was all over the map before I had kids. I just had no idea how to spend all the, there seemed like there was so many hours in every day. So many days in a week. It's like, man, are we really got another day this week?

Incredible. And now, as you know, it's like you start having kids, even when they get older, it's like it's still your life gets to the point where you take on more responsibilities, and you have to earn more money or whatever it is, you just have less of that free time naturally as you age. You probably should. But that can really help you to get your time management skill together.

But then also, being around kids can help with the playfulness and the curiosity to really model, like, they're modeling that for you as they're just experiencing life for the first time, it does remind you like, oh, this stuff is amazing. Everything is amazing. And if we're just open to it and not so rigid about what our expectations should be, but really be open to the experience of the moment, it helps us to be better musicians. I mean, it really helps us grow. And then another thing I'll say is that there was a point, I mean, I really had some struggles with this like three, four, five years ago.

I mean, it comes in waves with all of this, right? Because we're always changing and shifting and growing. And, you know, when I first started working here at Open Studio and really being around you and Jeffrey Kieser, Gregory Hutchinson, and Christian McBride, and all these really, like, incredible, amazing world-class musicians, there was a point where I realized, like, oh, crap,

like, I'm actually going to have to work on my personality. Like, my, I'm going to have to work on myself in a way that opens me up. I could see it so clearly. I think mostly it was hanging around with Hutch, and just seeing how curious and open and not rigid he is, As much as you think, like, oh, man, this guy has all of these, like, skills and facilities and experience or whatever. Right.

What really brings his music to your heart, and this is the same for every musician, is how open he is to everything that's going on. Yeah. And it's so inspiring. And I was like, okay, so one thing I know for sure, I'm never really going to have the sort of facility that Jeffrey Keesers. I could practice hours every day at, you know, as I'm... It's actually easier to be like Jeff, just, like he said, just practice everything with both hands. Yeah, no, totally easy. But, you know, like, there's a lot of time.

Totally easy. But, you know, like, there's a certain point where it's like all this work that has happened when these great musicians were children. I'm never going to have exactly the same technique or the same facility or whatever. And it's not like you stop working on that. But what I can, you know, really spend time on is working on myself, is working on my rigidity and trying to loosen up some of that rigidity with my art, with my life, with everything. There's no line between your art and your life and how you treat people and how you interact with the world and music and other people. So really, like, that, you know, being at Open Studio with young kids, seeing all of these things happen, it really, you know, started like pushing me down this hill of like, to be a better musician, I actually have to work on being more comfortable in my own skin, you know, and being more okay with the ugly parts of me that I think I want to hide, right? Those are actually the parts that most people want to see. You know, they don't want to see me. I say this all the time to my students. I don't want to see you try to play perfect. That's the most boring. thing I could ever imagine.

Like watching you try to play impressively is the worst. I want to see you'd be you and show me something I haven't seen before from your perspective, warts and all. That's what is interesting. So that, I think, can be something as you have kids. It's hard to spend eight hours working on scales, but you can work on that. You can have the time to work on that. And actually, having kids is a great diving board for that.

Yes. So I was just thinking you said, you know, I want to. to see you. I don't want to see you trying to play perfect. I think it's this whole thing and we can see the growth from our own children or just young people in general as they grow up. But we can also look back at ourselves coming. You know, that always puts us in the thing of like, what was I like at this age? Yeah. You know, my daughter's 13 and like looking at the world in a new way. Do I remember that? Like, how do we progress? But in terms of like our playing, it's very much like when they talk about people that are attractive. Like there's the surface level

like Instagram influencer, swimsuit model, buff guy at the gym, attractive. Yeah, you can, or just like a model that's just physically attractive. But they've shown in studies like people that are comfortable with who they are telling their story. It's very much applicable to how you play as a jazz musician or like how you compose or how you create art. Like the closer you are to who you are, the more attractive your art is actually. Yeah.

The more, and it doesn't mean that like, okay, well, I'm going to remove all my influences. But it's the same with people, right? People that are comfortable in their own skin, they dress better. Like they, they, being, yeah, being hot as a mindset. Being hot as a mindset. I just haven't found it yet. You got it. Where is it, man?

You got it. No, it's true. It's like, it's, you know, there's, like, it'd be like watching someone who's trying to, you know, with like a ton of plastic surgery. Yeah. And trying to be whatever. That's like, no one wants that. But then it's also like, you ever seen like a really attractive person. that you can tell is not comfortable yet or maybe ever.

But you know it's like there's like, there's like, oh, they don't know how to, like they've got great clothes and they're attractive, but they don't know how to stand in them or something. And it's like, oh, but they've got a talent, like they've got a natural. I do think there's obviously a natural attractiveness that some people have, just like some people have a natural. It's the same thing with anything. Yeah, but it's like if you don't know how to use it, it's almost like,

but the story, people just, they vastly overestimate how much talent has a play, how much natural attractiveness. You would say in your musicianship, in your ear training, in your face, in your body, in your height, whatever it is. People vastly overestimate the importance of that in being attractive. Yep, totally. And vastly underestimate being confident in telling your story. And working on the things that are going to enable that to happen.

For me, I had a whole list of things as a musician that I should be. I should be able to have a time feel like Brad Meldow. I can do all these crazy free-sounding things. And I should have a harmonic sensibility of Cedar Walton. And I should have chops like Oscar Peterson. And if I don't, I'm probably not good enough to be here. You know, and so I really had to do a lot of work through defensiveness and through, you know, my own ego to get past all that. Because that's really all it is.

And it's not like that's the, like what is a human, the growth trajectory. There's no finish line for that, too, by the way. Like there's always a new frontier for that where you're like, I could actually loosen up on this thing here. And it's just that kind of thing when you have, when you are in it the more, we'll say advanced stages of your career. You're old enough to have kids. You're old enough to have a family. Right. You have a career.

You're 12. No, so we have a ton of professional musicians that listen to this podcast. I know there are people right now listening in their, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s who are going through this exactly this thing where you're like, you're a professional musician, you have a family, you're kind of in a, You're in your city or your town and you have your sort of vibe that you happen. And you're like, you know, what can I do to grow at this point? It's like I can only spend so much time shedding in the practice room. It's like working on your rigidity, working on your openness, working on your connection to that inner voice, that inner spirit that moves you in your audience.

That's good work to do. Yeah. That's good work to do. That's put in the good work. No one is listening to Miles Davis because of sheer trumpet virtuosity. Right. It's because he's had something to say and he said it with confidence. Right.

And I mean that like if his confidence was based upon if Miles Davis's confidence in terms of how he played was based upon his technique or even his ear training or anything really outside of his belief that he had a story to tell and that he could do that with this instrument, with the trumpet. Yeah. whatever that level is. And look, when we're talking about this, it's not like he wanted a high-level trumpet player, but you've got to put it from his position coming up being around Clifford Brown, Fats Navarro, when I'm sure he, well, no, I know you hear the stories.

I mean, we know people that knew people that were around during that time. I mean, Lou Donaldson talks about, I've sat with these masters and heard the stories about Miles Davis, about his insecurity. And then, you know, you can kind of hear that in his music, maybe connecting a few too many dots, but where he went from like that imitative thing to like laser beam focus of like I'm going to tell my story through the horn and it became something that spoke to so many more people you know and there's an oversimplification always that goes through looking at this but you can look at the end result and you don't even have to go back that far but you could look at someone like Robert Glasper who I would say is supremely himself and comfortable in his own skin he's a meme with him with his shirt off right and it's not like he looks like a you know professional athlete with his shirt off and he's dancing and he is is like sharing this meme on his social media and he's like owning it and it's hilarious and

awesome and it's beautiful that is the type of spirit that gets you that's him that's him and it gets you to be able to make the kind of music imagine if he was just playing the piano to just impress he could he's got the skills to be able to do and when he does that when he does play and it impresses it's not because he's playing to impress there's a difference between no like he will go in and the right situation of the tune or whatever. It's because he has a perspective. He's got a point of view. Yeah. And he's got the musicianship and it's, but it's linked with this storytelling and being comfortable within his own skin. Now, do we want to see Brad Meldow pulling off his shirt and doing that? Probably not. That would be amazing. That would be incredible. Brad, if you're listening, yes, please do.

But, I mean, I think all these things, there's overlap between what we all do, you know, as pianist or whatever. But yeah, finding your voice as a person or whatever. And this is all stuff that I think, you know, with having kids kind of can help you to clarify. Like we started out saying that there's some things that this helps. It like not necessarily needs to optimize your time. It's like, oh, I've got to make sure I get everything done at the right time. It's like, no, I got to make sure that everything I put into this is really about the important stuff. Yeah.

You know, yeah, I got to practice skills. I got to do these things. But it's like I need to be serious about finding my voice. I need to be serious about maturing wherein I can put a priority on the things that are going to. you know, put it into place for me to be able to tell my story. To be confident to do that. It's what you said. Like the most important thing lesson we give to our kids is modeling.

We want them to see in us what we would hope them to be, right? The kind of qualities that we would hope they have. So that's why I got my kids in pageants from a young age. Modeling. I love forcing little kids into modeling. It's a creepy world, but they got to do it. It's so rewarding in the end. Well, this was fun, Peter.

Thanks for the prompt, the sort of impromptu prompt. It was great. Right. This is a good prompt because for the next episode, we're going to be going to be going to a different kind of prompt. Do you have any? Going back to an IEI prompt, just to warn folks. An agreement of some kind that you would like to talk about?

Some kind of discussion. He sheepishly asks. Yeah, big shout out to YouTube. I can't remember if that was on the outtake. Did we say that this time? We didn't. Shout out to YouTube. So even if you're listening to the pod,

we love you if you listen. In fact, you're OG if you're listening. This is a podcast first and foremost. But we're having some phone over on YouTube. We're getting a little traction with some of our things there. We ask, no, we demand that you go. Well, we can't demand. We agree with you that you will go,

because that's what a gentleman and a lady's agreement is really about. This is a long walk. It's an unhandshakeable agreement that goes across the airways, across the oceans, oftentimes to other kinds. A blood agreement. No, it's not. That's not that kind. This is just, this is like a high level spiritual and intellectual agreement that we have.

We call it the gentleman's agreement. We call it the ladies agreement. They're interchangeable. and what all that we do is we provide the first part of the agreement, which is to deliver to you an amazing podcast, over 1,000 episodes, over 1,100 episodes, I believe, right? Already done, you're welcome.

Thank you. And so in exchange for that, you're part of the agreement. No one's listening anymore, right? No, definitely not. You can say whatever you want, honestly. Okay, if you're still here, thank you. The thing is, the people that are still here are probably already fulfilled the agreement.

But if you haven't, go to YouTube, press, subscribe yep and that's it right that's it if you want to get fancy go to wherever you're listening to this podcast and give us a rating review but that's not part of the agreement that's that that's the higher level agreement that's the exclusive that's right that's the pro level agreement but just give us a follow a subscribe and a like of this video we would appreciate that and we require it by the gentlemen and ladies agreement and until next time you'll hear it