You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Get the Most Out of Your Lessons

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

It's another SpeakPipe today, this time asking for advice on how to get as much knowledge as possible from a teacher or mentor. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own?Calling all pianists - the Piano Access Pass is now available from Open Studio! Save money with this bundle featuring every piano course ever from Open Studio, including teachers such as Peter Martin, Geoffrey Keezer, and Helio Alves. For more info, go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/piano-access-passAre you going to the JEN Conference? If so, stop by and say hi to us! From January 7 - 10, Peter and Adam will be doing special live You'll Hear It's, giving away special prizes, and answering any jazz or music questions you want to ask them. Just look for the Open Studio booth and get your daily jazz advice in person.Want every Open Studio course for free? That's right - over 300 hours and 1200 lessons can be yours with free lifetime access! All you have to do is enter Open Studio's 2019 Holiday Giveaway. Go to https://learn.openstudiojazz.com/giveaway/, or watch this video of Peter for more info: https://youtu.be/KsdhVXE5ovILet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, how long are we going to keep up this charade that we can just improvise the intro of this and it's going to be witty? We're going to keep this up through the 2020s, the roaring 20s, as we like to call them. I'm so sorry, folks. Yeah. I'm Matt Amanus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast.

Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by OpenStudio. Go to openstudio.com. Openstudio jazz. Yes. Don't go to openstudio. We're having a little dispute with those folks. Those guys are jerks over there.

Wow. Well, we're not saying that. They're fine. We'd like to buy your domain. We would. And not at a million dollars like last time. No, go to OpenSudiojazz.com, please. Check out all of our courses.

Check out the piano access past. It's all of our piano courses and all of the piano courses that we are going to produce. While you're a member, it's really an incredible value. And we have so much on there, stuff like the jazz piano technique. The jazz piano method, which shouldn't be on there probably. No. But is. It's so bad.

It shouldn't be on. No, it's so great. It should, it's too much. Oh, go on. And then Keys to Jazz Piano from Jeffrey Keiser, advanced jazz piano concepts. I have some basic jazz piano courses on there. If you're a beginner, we got the Jazz Piano Jump Start. We can go on.

I want to see a jazz piano. We have a whole, we're about to make a whole list of stuff we're going to do in 2020. So if you subscribe annually to the Jazz Piano, the Piano Access Pass, you're going to get all that stuff too in the next year. Yeah. And so you mentioned a whole lot of things. Now, we have been getting a little bit of feedback. People are like, it's so much. They're overwhelmed by it.

Oh, well, get ready for this. my friends. Oh wait, we're going to put it out there? Let's put it out the end of the episode. Stay tuned. Because that's coming next week, actually. Yeah, we have it. But they're going to be the first to hear here. This is completely unplanned. Yeah. And pearly blues just lit up, man. You look excited. Like, the office is getting nervous, but we're getting excited. I know, I know. Honestly, I'm just finally waking up. Okay, we're going to talk about it at the end of the episode.

All right. Okay. So today we're taking another speak pipe. You know, we turn the speak pipes on for December. Man, that thing is like, we should have throttled that bad boy. I know. Now, people don't understand. It's gushing. It's gushing. And we have to pay. our free plan only goes up to so many things. I think we're going to have to go to a paid plan. That's okay, though. We love the listeners. So you can go to you'll hear.com if you want to leave us your speak pipe, your voice message,

and we'd love to answer your question. But only for a few more days. That sucker's going off at the strike of midnight. Well, maybe. The questions are so good. I'd love it. Okay, we'll love them. Get in there now.

This is from Drew. Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. This is Drew from Cooper Tino, California. I'm an open studio member and a big fan of you'll hear it. My question is about one-off lessons. It was recently my birthday, and I am the lucky recipient of a one-on-one lesson with one of my favorite pianists. I'm not going to say who out of respect for their privacy.

I'm curious if you have any ideas for ways to approach a lesson like this. I imagine both of you have had multiple experiences on the teacher's side of one-off lessons and thought you might have some valuable insight on what is productive and what's a waste of time. Thanks. Love to hear it. Bye. That's a great question. That's a fantastic.

Yeah, and I think just the idea of thinking about what you want to get out of a lesson is like a great first step. Yes. Instead of just going in like, hey, hey, I'm Drew and I don't know, what do you want to do, you know. I love your like letharic. You have that voice that covers like a lethargic, kind of like somebody high. It covers a lot of ground. I know. I'm not trying to put anything on you specifically, Drew, because that's not obviously your vibe.

but I think it's great to have an idea of what you might want to get out of a player, especially if like you said, Drew, this is one of your favorite pianists. You obviously know their music. Yes. So you can have pretty specific ideas of maybe what you'd like to ask them or be taught by. Now, you should be also open to their ideas when it comes to you. But I don't know about you, but if I'm going into a lesson and the student is like, hey, I heard you do this one thing.

Can you explain that further or tell me about that? That like frees me up. to, you know what I mean? Yeah. To really, like, be able to give them exactly what they need. Now, if I hear something in there playing later, I'm going to call an honorable and try to focus on that. But I think this is a great start. Yeah, why don't we, yeah, absolutely.

I think this is one of those questions now that I'm thinking about it may even benefit from an answer that's more based upon ways not, things not to do to get a lot out of lessons. We should do a little list of both. So I'm going to say this, first of all, is don't, don't try to guide the. lesson too much. So yeah, you want to know what you want to get out of it. Yep. But you're also, it's almost like, and this is a one-off lesson. That's what he's asking about, right? Yeah. So that it's not someone coming through town maybe. Yes. It's not like an ongoing or maybe you're like, can I take a lot of times people do that with me? It's like, I want to study with you every week. And I'm like, I'm not a good teacher for that because I'm not available every week.

So it's a different kind of thing. And I would say that when you go into it, yeah, know what you want to get out of it, but also be open to what the teacher is going to give you. Because you can go in and play something. Like, don't go to a one hour lesson and say, I want to play eight different things and get feedback on all of them. Because you're not going to get anything deep enough. So, like, lower your expectations for the amount of different types of information, but maybe decide in terms of what you want to get out, that one area.

So that might be kind of one tune. Like maybe you want to really demonstrate your solo piano thing because it's somebody, you know, like a Jeff Keesey or something that's got great solo piano chops or whatever. And then get it really focused. But then be open to, like, what they're going to give you. in terms of feedback. For sure. Because, you know,

most good teachers are very good at responding to how you play. I've had students before on these one-off and otherwise, like they want to come in and talk about

and ask questions and that's fine, but I think it's better to really, because sometimes they're embarrassed or shy about their playing. So like they want to do anything but play, even subconsciously.

But I think like we need to hear you to be able to give, for you to be able to get the most out of the lesson. We have to be able to respond. So, I mean, you have to have a certain amount of it where you're open. Definitely have questions ready and be thinking about kind of if there's one big question you want to have answered.

And that might be, what do you think of my left hand playing? What do you think of my time? You know, what would you recommend I work on to improve my time? You know, there's all sorts of great questions. Yeah, yeah. But you want to really give a chance to play and just to be responded to. Well, so that's the number one thing. I did a clinic.

Yeah. I did a clinic last year at a university here in. St. Louis and was asked like, you know, how do I grow? And from a, from a person in a music school. Yes. And I was like, you are in this room, because it was all the faculty and the students there, it was like, you are in this room surrounded by experts. Yeah. Who if you ask them, what's the one thing I should work on to get better? Yeah. They all already know what to tell you. Yeah. And because they've heard you play. So to your point, like, you know, the first thing that I would ask is I would play. Yeah. Even if I was nervous. play for that person and ask them, if I had one thing that I could work on the next month,

what do you recommend I work on? And that could be, that could be it. And that is so, so valuable. Well, and that focuses it too, because there's always, both from the teacher and I think that the student, you know, when it's a one-off situation, there is this pressure because you want to, I know I've been there before. It's like, I want to really give value. I want them to go away from this being like, wow, I got so much out of it.

You don't want it to be like, ah, I was just kind of. But you don't, what you don't want to do is. as a teacher or as a student expect to cover so many different areas in one hour that you can't even absorb because then you're like, oh, they said all this great stuff but I couldn't really,

like you want that one thing. So that's a perfect way to frame it. And it's really... And it may lead to other things. Of course it will. It's going to lead to other ways to think about it. But really what you want out of this lesson

is direct feedback to your weaknesses so that you can work on those weaknesses and make them stronger. And you don't get that by purely asking like, hey, what's that voicing? You know what I mean? Yeah. Which may be something you're curious about, but really if you have this amazing musician in front of you for a limited amount of time at a high cost, what I want to know is like, if you were me and you were working on getting better, what are you working on?

Where are my biggest weaknesses that I probably either can't see or just need to be told like you need to iron that out right now? Yeah, because sometimes when we're so like, this is the question I want to answer and you don't leave it open to the teacher, like in terms of. of this more kind of question, like, what do I need to work on? Then you don't know. That's why you're there. So, like, if you try to focus it so much upon show me this. And that's, so that would leave me to my next area of things not to do. Don't ask for things like what you said, how do you play this voicing?

Don't ask about stuff that you can learn just from watching somebody else play. You know, it's not that they can't show you, but like, why are you going to pay someone in a one-off lesson? You want to get that higher level of, like, what do I need to work on? Like, what is an area of my weakness as opposed to, like, how do you pay you? play that voicing that you did on that record. Just go listen to the record. You can get that for free. You don't need a lesson in person. But people want to be spoon fed this stuff and that's just not

an efficient use of your time. So don't ask stupid. Can we call it stupid questions? They're not stupid, but they're stupid to waste. The information's already out there. Yeah. Well, how do I finger a diminished scale? I mean, come on. There's so many resources for that, you know. I get that question every day, man. I get that question every day. Another thing you might

think of is going even a little more meta. And so if they tell you the one thing that you should be practicing, you might ask them in this way, how would you practice that if you were to practice it this week? How would you approach it? Just kind of get there. Not to maybe you don't do it exactly like that, but maybe you just get a feel for how they tackle things that they can't do. Yeah. Or maybe just how do you, what does your practice routine look like in general? Yeah. That can be a very eye-opening situation. Absolutely. That's great. So sometimes you can just learn

from the workflow of someone who, I mean, look, you know, we go to like a teacher or a consultant or whatever area you're in, somebody for that human help, you know, something that you can't just Google, you know, how do I get by better practice? You can put that into Google and you can see a lot of people writing about that. Maybe even this person that you've hired, that would go along with my thing of don't ask stuff that you can already find out from them, you know, so I wouldn't ask that practice routine question before I Googled it because they might have already laid that out, you know what I mean? Oh, for them specifically? Yeah. Maybe. Oh, you mean, or you were saying, well, how should I? That's a good one. Yeah, like how would,

If you were me, how would you practice this? Yeah, yeah. But don't ask them, like, what's your practice routine? Or it's, oh, man, I've had students that are like, show me how you play over this. I'm like, yeah, I mean, I can show you that, but it's not going to, like, just transfer over. Don't you want me to help you improve your playing?

Yeah, you know what I mean? You want to see how I got to be able to play over this? You want me to fry the fish for it? You want me just tell you how to get to the fish and then where the friar is. It is interesting, isn't it? To that, to that question, just listen to the records. Number one.

I've made some records. Yeah, exactly. You just listen to that. I play over it. So I had a couple ideas that just popped in, too. Can we go a little more tactical too? Got it. Is that cool?

You got it. You got it. Okay. So record the lesson. Always. Always. Always. Now ask first.

And really ask in advance, I think, is respectful. And maybe not video or whatever. I mean, you could do video, maybe, I guess. But, I mean, the main thing is audio. And that's about, like, just you get excited. And especially if it's a really good lesson, you want to remember everything. It takes the pressure off having to keep notes as you go, which I would encourage if you can't record it, you kind of have to keep notes, either mental notes or written notes.

But I think most teachers are, wouldn't you say most people would be open to that recording? I think most people would. Yeah. Certainly, if someone says they don't want that to happen, that's cool, you should respect that. Of course, yeah. And I mean, I think you would be certainly fair game to say, look, can I record this is just for my own so that I can remember all this stuff? For sure. Not so that I'm going to put it up on, you know, some public channel or whatever. That's not cool, because that's a personal lesson for you. Yeah. Don't post your lessons with, you know, the pianist that you. you admire online.

Yeah, leave that to Open StudioJas.com. We post lessons from the pianists that you admire. We have contracts and we pay them. Yeah, we do. They know what's happening. Yeah, but I think just recording it for your own, it takes the, you know, and I've been in this situation. I remember back old school Walkman and stuff.

And like, it takes so much pressure off. And actually, now that I remember, my Juilliard teacher, I think, did not allow it, which is a funny thing, because I used to want to bring it recording. And they were like, no. Like, it was disrespectful or something. But for me,

it just made it so that I could really concentrate on the moment. And then when I was like, wait, what was that? I want to confirm something or whatever you go back. But anyway, I think it's worthwhile. I agree. Totally agree. That's great. Yeah.

Well, Drew, I hope that helped. Yeah, Drew from Cupertino. Really, though, you know, you're going to want to, if it's someone you admire, your first instinct is like, hey, what do you play over that C7, Sharp 9? But really, you have this opportunity to go bigger, I think, is the point that we've been making. Yeah, because. If you're studying every week,

there's less pressure to get that one big thing, as you say. Like a teacher, a regular teacher on a regular schedule. You can ask some of those kinds of things and get that more kind of help, you know. But really, the critique from a master is the most valuable thing that you can get. And a lot of times, you know, I think you're looking for that kind of information.

Like, what is the flow so that you can get that kind of higher level, really game-changing information that, I mean, look, even if you get the best, best C7 sharp 11 voicing ever. That's just one thing. You know what I mean? And look, everything's already been played. You can, believe it or not, you can figure it up yourself. So don't fall on that thing.

It will be easier. Or I can say like, Herbie, show me this court. Herbie show me so many chords. I've never taken a lesson with it. You know what stuff he showed me through his recordings? For sure. Mini. But if that master can guide you in a different path on how to think about the music

or practice the music or where to focus your attention, which we know is the most important. important thing in learning. That is going to be way more valuable use of your time and your money than just like, hey, what's that boy thing? Right, right. And I think, too, just in general, don't guide too much. You're paying this person for their expertise. You know, it's just like when somebody, you know, if you're hiring someone to come and design in addition to your house, you know, tell them what you're interested in accomplishing. But then let them do it. Don't like micromanage them. One of the best lessons I ever had.

I was with this guitarist and pianist, great pianist and guitarist, actually, named Rob Block. Oh, yeah. He's now in New York City. He was here for a long time in St. Louis, and then he was in Chicago and New Orleans. He's been all over there.

But he's just a spark of energy and a great teacher. And we kind of like set up a lesson and I was really young and went over to his apartment and I was expecting like he's going to listen to me, play or whatever. And I just sat in a chair. And for half an hour, he just wrote. on a piece of paper, two pieces of paper that I still have, by the way.

Wow. And on that was the diminished scale and how to use it and drop to to and how to use it and a bunch of... Wait, somebody that dropped to, I need that. I know. I mean, the whole thing is like, it's kind of like just like a whole jazz theory book

and two double-sided pages. And he was like, here you go. And then he like had a list of records to listen to. He was like, go do that. We didn't play. We talked for a little bit and it was super valuable. But that's... That's what you needed at that time.

He had heard me before. plenty. So he's like, this is what you need. That's awesome. But if I would have gone on with like, hey, show me or let's, you know, so you know, if they're an expert, they're going to be. Trust the expert. For sure. Cool. Thank you, Drew. Thanks, Drew.

Okay, so let's just talk a little bit piano access pass on our plans for January. Can we do this? Is this legal? Let's do it. We can always, you got nervous and you got quiet there for a second. I was trying to lend gravitas. Gravitus. Yes. So we are planning a boot camp for pianists. Is it going to be just pianists? We're not going to restrict

somebody else, but I think it's going to be of most value. It's piano-centric. It's piano-centric, right. But it can cover everybody in that we're going to go from beginner to advance. We're going to have different tracks. And what this is going to be about is, you know, if you sign up for Open Studio, and this is going to be a great time because, you know, our end-of-the-year specials and stuff in this, particularly boot camp, this is all about helping you to start out 2020, start at the new decade, start at the new year on the right track.

as you alluded to earlier at the beginning of the episode, Adam, the piano access pass is fantastic, but it's got so much material in it. We think that it's a great one for the year, the annual plan, because it allows you to move as quickly as, even if you went as fast as you could and practiced four or five hours a day,

you wouldn't be able, you would probably get through everything, but just barely in a year. No, you wouldn't. You still wouldn't get through it. Because of the jazz piano method. What about if you did it? You might get through it,

because you know your way around it, see. Maybe. But this is what the boot camp is about. It's kind of like, yeah, you can go to the gym or you can go to the park and work out on your own, and you can get all the information. But we're going to do a little bit of group guidance throughout January in helping you along. And we may even have some surprise guests. We haven't secured them yet, so we can't say that.

But any pianists that come or teaching are going to be at the level of an Adam Manus or Peter Martin, perhaps even beyond. But the idea is that... Is there anybody on this group? That's theoretical. That's why I say it's not even possible. No, but the idea is that you can be able to come in at the beginner, the intermediate, or the advanced level. and we're going to help you and guide you to those exact lessons in our courses. Jumpstar Jazz Piano.

Jazz Piano Jumpstar, Jazz Piano for Beginners. Yeah. All the different ones. We have all of these piano courses, but we're going to design basically tracks that you can go on depending on your skill level and your goals. Yeah. And what we think this is going to lead to is by the time you get to the end of January, you're going to be able to soar on for the rest of the year. Of course, we're always here for guidance and assistance, but the boot camp will be over and everybody will be in shape, as we say. and I'm looking forward to you because we're going to have some nice little groups

that people help to hopefully connect people, not even in a competitive thing in a helpful way, kind of a global community of pianists that are trying to get better at the three different levels. And I'm super excited about it, man. One more thing about January. Yes. January 7th through the 10th.

Yes. You know where we're going to be? A little place called Nalans. New Orleans, Louisiana. Right. We're going to be at the Jen conference. We're going to be doing some... You said it correctly, and you're not a native.

I'm very impressed with that. I've heard. plenty of people from that area. And they do not say New Orleans. They don't. And they don't really say Nau Orleans. That was a joke about that. That's something that you would hear something.

It's one in U.S. Exactly. Oh, you're going to Nalans? I love me some Nalans. Come on. I heard Andrew say that once. Yeah. I was going to make a joke, but not at Andrews expense.

January 7th through the 10th, we're going to be at the Gen Conference in New Orleans. Come check us out. We're doing a couple of live you'll hear it. come be in the audience and come win some prizes, some door prizes and ask your questions and hang out. We're going to have our own open studio booth, so come by and say hi to me, to Peter, to Rachel. That's right.

Maybe to Sean Weil, I don't know. That's right. I told him, he's going to be working the booth too. Yeah. But we're going to just be around the conference, having a great time. Yep. We're going to have some swag with us.

We're going to have lots of... It's going to be like Swaggy P and Swaggy A with our swag. And we're going to have some free open studio stuff. So come by the booth and... That's what swag is. No, no, no, I mean like some, yeah, no, but some actual, like, not just stickers. Way to put a hat on the hat. Sorry, it was a bowler hat on top hat.

So, yeah, so come to New Orleans. Come to New Orleans, just as a sister-ist. No, you're going to be a genuine way. I mean, it is a really fun time, and it's going to be so popping off in New Orleans for this conference. And several of our artists are going to be there, too. I don't know if you do about that. Sean Jones is the president of the war. Warren Wolf is going to be there as well.

Is he really? Yes, he's going to be there. Oh, man, we're going to have a great time. So come for. for the podcast, stay for the hang. That's right. And yeah, so check out the boot camp. More information coming on that soon.

We're just sort of ironing out the details, but that's sort of the broad strokes, as we like to say. Go to openciojazz.com. Check out the piano access pass. It will be available for free, I believe, as part of that. We're not going to charge for that, are we? It's going to be like a value ad.

So anyway, but that's going to be available for a limited time because we're starting in January, as you will be. So until tomorrow, you'll hear you.