You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Catch up as an Adult Student - #65

Episode Date: April 5, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam discuss some techniques for making progress as an adult student, new to jazz. From listener Chris. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Today we're going to talk about how to catch up as an adult student. Heinz 57 catch up or like how to get better even though you started late in life. Please tell me it's Heinz 57 because a little bit of both might go. Well, we're going to have to go to the tape on this one because we have a great voice question this week from Chris in Atlanta. So let's hear what he has to say. Hi guys. My name is Chris and I'm in Atlanta. I found your podcast a few weeks ago and have really enjoyed it, so I appreciate you guys doing it. My question is about, I'm sure you both have adult students

that, you know, didn't start playing until they had gotten older. I'm kind of in that boat. I started about a year ago in my mid-30s, and am, you know, completely bitten by the bug. Love doing it, and have gone so far as to think about maybe even going to school full-time to do it, to play, specifically jazz. But I was wondering if you had any thoughts on catching up for an adult, you know, somebody that hasn't been playing since they were three years old. If it's possible for that person to maximize their ability and, you know, if so, are there any specific tips or tricks that you would recommend for someone to, you know, to kind of make up for lost time. So anyway, really enjoy the podcast again and thanks a lot.

Bye. Cool. Thanks, Chris. That's a great question. You know, I think there's a couple things that you can do. But it's not actually that unsimilar to you is if you started when you were three, because we all have to do things to maintain where we're at and we are always trying to grow. But I think one important thing you can do, Chris, is to find a community of jazz musicians. You know, that's what we have the luxury of when we're younger. We find these friends that play jazz and we hang out with them and they tell us about records they've heard or players they've heard.

And we play with them a lot. And that's something that kind of can fall off as you get older and life happens and you have kids and a job and stuff. So I would think it would be very important to find like a group of jazz musicians that you can hang with that can show you things, that you can play with peers, that you can really, you know, learn this music from and with and grow together. That's, I'm sure you've already kind of gotten into that a little bit, but I would really put a priority on that. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. And I think, you know, one of the advantages, you know, it's easy for us to look at maybe the disadvantages from starting earlier. And then, you know, there's certainly things that come easier when you're younger.

But we have a lot of advantages as we get older in terms of our maturity, our understanding, the ability to apply ourselves, I think. Sometimes, you know, with a basketball reference or sports reference would be what we call old man tricks. Yeah, yeah. What we lack in speed we make up for in smarts in terms of how we get around the court. So, you know, one thing is I think that you'll find it. I can kind of hear it in your tone of voice, even in terms of how you want to approach it with the passion that you have for this music. If you channel that in a very kind of smart and effective way towards things like, you know, community and really surrounding yourself with great players. I mean, that's ultimately what community, I think, as a jazz player is.

But, you know, recordings and really trying to kind of maximize your time, you can actually catch up pretty quickly if you're kind of working on the right things in the right way. and I think that that really is an advantage. Like when we, and even the things that I think we would look at as advantages to being younger, which is being able to absorb language quicker than when we were older, we can actually do some of that if we adopt that kind of childlike spirit, wouldn't you say? It's going to take that for sure. And you know what?

And it might even take Chris an acceptance of the fact that you might not have a grasp of the language like a native speaker would have who started when they were three. but that's okay. That doesn't mean you can't be a great jazz musician at all. That just may mean that you have to approach it from a different way

from like the artistic side of things. You can always develop as an artist. Wait, that's kind of a good side to be approaching it. That's a great side. So maybe you, you know, and I don't know about the case, about your case specifically, but, you know, if you're having trouble

of becoming like a technical master, that may be just something that you're going to have to compromise on to develop your artistic side more because you're able, more able to develop that then, you know, the intense years you would have to put it at this point in your life to try to become art-tainum, that's probably not going to happen. It's going to be so hard.

So you'd be referring to the general concept we call making lemonade out of lemons? That's right. No, just approaching it more, you know, less like you're going to be, you know, a virtuoso from a young age and more that you're going to be an artist and choosing those kind of those decisions, making those decisions. Right. Yes. And, I mean, there's, you know, one thing that usually comes from a little bit of perspective

and maturity within this music and just as an artist and really as a person in general, I think is being able to, you know, really be able to curate what you're going to absorb, how you're going to absorb it, and when you're going to absorb. Now, that's something that's very young to do when you're young and ambitious and all that. And so you actually end up spending and wasting a lot of time and kind of drifting around. That's all part of the sort of young process. That's true.

But the nice thing is later on, you might feel like in terms of the catching up, like, I say there can be a little bit of efficiencies there. But if you just sort of take a breath and think about those kind of things, and I love your concept, Adam, about really thinking about the artistic side, because that's something that you can only really effectively approach with maturity and with perspective. That's true, actually. Yeah. You know, another thing that I think we get into when we're young and then we kind of keep them

are developing routines, routines that become habits, part of your life. You know, I'll always have a practice. I mean, I've had the same sort of basic practice routine since I was a teenager. So you're going to have to develop that now and work it into your life routine as it is right now. And that's totally cool, actually. That works better because sometimes my practice routine really gets in the way of the life that I've built after I develop that practice routine. Right, right. And I mean, look, maybe we're even overlooking the most obvious things in that, you know,

you have more life experiences to channel through the technique that you do develop as you get older. I mean, you have all these wonderful experiences and relationships, you know, be it family, friends, travel, life, whatever, reading all these wonderful influences in order to channel through your music that you don't have when you're younger. That's true. Or don't have as deeply. You know what else I'll say about this that I bet is going through your mind, Chris, and I'll kind of tell you right now. And that's not to panic about this either. Like don't feel like, when you think like, you know, you would have to, he might be thinking like, oh, I've got all this stuff to make up. I better like go, go, go and do this.

And I've got to, I wouldn't, I wouldn't panic. Like, you still have time. You know, it didn't take Miles Davis 30 years to become Miles Davis. So would this fall under your Rome wasn't built in a day concept? Rome wasn't built in the day. No, really absorb, you know, your core concepts and don't panic thinking that like, I'm starting late. I have to get all this in by the time I'm whatever.

Yeah. Just go at it like you would go at anything and take it slow, absorb the concepts that so that they become a part of you. and don't worry about like, oh, I've started late, I don't have that much time. It's just not true. Yeah, and we both know some wonderful musicians who started, I mean, I'm talking about world-class jazz players that started at shockingly late ages. It's getting to be a little less common, but I don't think that's because it's any less possible. It's just there's more kind of specialization at a younger age.

But one person that comes to mind is Reginald Veal, who although he was involved with music a lot, he didn't start playing the bass until he was, I think, 17 or 18 years old. Right. And you might say, okay, well, that's not 30 or 40. Yeah, but I mean, he was world class by the time he was in his mid-20s. Right. But he applied himself in such an accurate and efficient way. I mean, he also had a deep musical understanding before that. But, I mean, it just shows what can be accomplished in a short amount of time. If you take that deepness and that richness and that artistic vision and apply it.

Or someone like, you know, Joe Levano, who had been playing, you know, for a long time, but really didn't get to that top, top-tier level until he was in his, like, mid-30s, you know. Really? I was thought he was great. You know what? I've never heard a great recording before. It's 30s. That's what I'm saying. That makes sense. That's what I'm saying. Maybe. What's that?

Well, I was going to say, maybe one day, you'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hear it.com to get more information, submit a question, or just say hello. You can do that. Absolutely. All right. And if you like what you heard, please leave a review and a rating below. Thanks.