You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Fail

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam talk about taking risks and the possibility of failing.Special offer for our You'll Hear It listeners: For $129, you can get both Jazz Piano for Beginners and Elements of Jazz Piano ($320 Value). Just add both courses to your cart, and apply promo code "BOGO" to get this deal. Visit https://www.openstudionetwork.com/courses/Be one of the first 20 people to leave us a rating or review at https://www.youllhearit.com/sticker and you can score a FREE You'll Hear It sticker.Today's episode is sponsored by Soundslice. Soundslice is a web-based music-learning software that is a hybrid audio player and notation viewer that syncs music notation with real audio. To find out more about them, visit www.soundslice.com/transcribe. And check out our Slice of Emotion In Motion (the You'll Hear It Jingle)!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.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 Adam. Yeah. Let's play a little word association. Okay. You want me to go first? Go first. Epic. Victory?

No. Let's try it again. Epic. Pizza? Ooh, close. One more time. Epic. Fail.

I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear it podcast. Daily jazz advice. Success, failure. We got it all covered for you here, baby. Today. Coming at you, today's episode is sponsored by SoundSlice.

We love SoundSlice. We use Sound Slice every day. I think it's really truly one of the great tools that a musician can have. Go check it out. It's a browser-based software that allows you to sync notation with video. You can transcribe right there in the browser. You can notate right there in the browser. It's awesome.

Go to soundslice.com slash transcribe. We feel like we're at the forefront of turning the word soundslice into a generic verb, actually, because we use it as a verb around here. All the time. I'm constantly like... Like, what will be an example? Like Alexis, did you sound slice that jazz piano lesson? And she's like, no.

And I'm like, Alexis. That's right, right. So check it out. We love sound slice. Okay, so today we're talking about failure. And nobody likes to fail. But as we get older, we've talked, we've, well, one thing about getting older, if you're lucky enough to stay on this earth for a little while, if you're blessed with that, you're going to, your failure's only going to add up. Yeah.

You know, it's not going to ever go down. So you might as well get used to it, try to find some ways to, you know, turn lemons into lemonade. And why are we wearing headphones? We don't need them. See, we're failing right there, see. No, but we were talking about even our little witty intros I said to you today. I was like, are we falling off our game? For the witty intros, yeah.

Are we failing? Yes. Oh, we failing? Okay, good. So that's the only reason they've been bad. We want to give an example to you guys. Yeah, I mean, we thought about this episode because, you know, there's something too failing. I mean, I think a lot of people might think that great artists are people who don't fail.

Right. But it's actually quite the opposite. I absolutely. It's people that fail and are not afraid to fail. Right. And I think really the people who have the biggest problem are people who are scared to fail, who are scared to put themselves out there, to scared to be vulnerable, you know, for the fear of failure. Right.

And the truth is, is that we all fail. Right. Even Peter Martin fails. Oh man, what are you talking about? I'm a master fail. Master failure. But it's how you do with failure. It's how you handle it.

Yeah. And so hopefully we can get into some of that today. Yeah. And I would just say, first of all, for all your jazz musicians out there, which I know is a lot of our listeners and jazz lovers, you know, if you think about this in terms of, you know, a personality trait, I like to think about that. And, you know, personality may be more so than, you know, talent,

what we associate with talent. 100% correct. Yeah. Yeah. It's personality. Yeah, it's personality. But I'm saying like personality, we can develop and we do develop and is informed by art.

As much as we who we are a certain person, like playing jazz and being around jazz musicians and the music affects and should affect our personality. And if you're the kind of person that cannot fail, being a jazz musician is not the right vocation. I mean, there's just so many opportunities to fail at every turn. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, there's probably is a way to play music in general

or to be a creative musician in terms of an improviser that doesn't include, I've actually heard some students recently playing that I could tell. They're just, they're risk adverse, I guess you would call them. And they're playing sounds like that. And they don't really fail, except on a on a, on a micro level, but on sort of a bigger scale, they are failing because they don't have that inspiration. They don't have that vibe. They don't have that vulnerability.

That's right. You know, so we all have different parts of our personality. Like, and there's a time, like, I guess when you're filling out your tax return or financial documents, that's not a time to fail. That's a time to be entirely 100% accurate. So you're putting on a different mindset. So it's not a binary thing. It's like we're either like reckless or we're not. But when we start to kind of see those different sides of our personality and how they can apply to our music, then we can really focus in.

You know, because like if you're someone that is very, very open to failure and you don't mind like you don't have any shame in terms of like, oh, what are people going to think or whatever? And you can fail at any time. That's great. But like let's say you become a brain surgeon. That's not the time when you're in there and the actual surgeon. to be like, I'm willing to fail. I'm going to take a risk. I'm going to go for it.

No, this is a time for accuracy. It's not really a time for creativity. I know I'm speaking a little bit out of my zone, but I'm thinking. But there are other times as a surge. I mean, if surgery is a risky game. So they are willing to fail, I think, in a way. Like, just doing it is a risk, right? Right.

But they can't be as reckless as we could maybe during a solo. No. You know what I mean? Like, as far as, let me go for something. But they all. But they can't be scared either of like making an incision. They can't. What if I fail?

You know, they can't be thinking to that. Oh, you're right. Wow. See, that's what I brought it up. That's what I'm saying. You know, but also, but the other side of, like, being a surgeon or something, at a certain point, they do have to push the boundaries, maybe not when the skull is open. Right. Or otherwise, the field never, there's no, there's never advancement.

So they do have to get creative. And at certain points, they're going to try, I mean, think about the first person who cracked open or cut open a skull or however they do it to actually do surgery on this thing and look inside there. They didn't know if that was going to kill the person or not, you know. So, I mean, there has to be a pushing of the envelope, but it's kind of, kind of when you do it. And I think it's very much the same way in terms of when we're solo, because we don't want, you're not going out to try to fail you, but you have to be open to it

and you have to know what you're going to do when you do fail. That's true. And I love what you said about how personality affects this and how it's as, you know, an important element. Because I do think that especially newer musicians or younger musicians feel like it's all about information. If I can gather the right amount of information, the right information, and have enough of it, I'll be good. Yeah. And then what happens when you get a little older and you have experience that you see people who have lots of information who can't play their way out of a paper bag.

Right. And you're like, oh, like this person knows so much about all this and I don't want to listen to their music at all. Right, right, right, right. And then you might hear a 16-year-old kid who has way less information than you but has a personality that is open and joyous and it's taking risks and it's fun and it's exciting. Yeah.

And you're like, well, that's. kid doesn't know anything about anything, but I want to listen to them play all day because it's really, really affecting me, it's reaching me. And that's that, you know, not having a fear of failure. And that personality trait is something that you can work on. And you should be thinking about. And you should be trying to get better at of being risk-averse, of willing to be vulnerable. And you should realize that that's just as important as knowing what scale goes over what court. In fact, it's way more important in the long run. Right. And really, like, as you, you know,

if you're doing the right things in terms of your practice and playing with, you know, other musicians that can help you to get better and really just all the elements that we talk about here every day and that most people probably know. If you're going through those things after a certain amount of time, your playing is going to get to the point where you can be, you know, willing to fail because you know you can play. Yeah. Like once you know you can play, then it's supposed to. And look, we've talked about this before. It's not an overnight thing. You wake up one morning. you're like finally I passed over that threshold.

It's a gradual thing. And then all of a sudden, you know, and it's like the whole thing, the overnight success. Yeah, it took 10 years overnight, you know. But at a certain point, you do realize, okay, I can do this. So I should be playing in a way that opens up the listener to me. And I can show a little bit of my, what would you call it, you know, willing to fail or whatever. That is that side of you as an artist, that should be able to come out in your music.

that exposed side in which is really something interesting as opposed to just like, I'm going to execute everything. Just because you're good and you can play. Totally. Now is the time to push it even a little bit further. Totally. And then another thing to think about with this failure thing is that it's going to be an ongoing thing for the rest of your life.

There's not going to be a point where you're like, okay, done failing. That's it with failure. Like it's always going to happen. And it's always going to be a part of your process of learning. You know, we have been talking a little bit about this, Terence Blanchard opera, a beautiful piece of work that, you know, I'm playing that you worked on for a little bit. But there's failures going on for, you know, I played it last night. It's three hours. Like,

there's failures happening all the time with all of us in that pit, you know? And I was thinking about, like, you can't, when they happen, you can't, you like, check, check, okay, well, now I'm worthless because I just missed that intro or whatever it was. You know what I mean? Like, there's still more work to do. It's, you know, we're going to try. to clean it up, we're going to make notes, we're going to get better, we're going to learn. But the next performance is going to be a little bit better, hopefully, but I'm still going to fail at some stuff. And then thinking about this opera even more, I think about Terrence, and this is a jazz

musician who just is putting himself out here in a very vulnerable way for a piece of art that is not like straight down the pipe what he's known for. You know what I mean? And that takes a huge risk, a huge of comfortable feeling with risk. for him, I feel. You know what I mean? Yeah, he's not scared to fail on this.

Like, you could. And ultimately, he doesn't have a lot of control over the actual performance because he's not playing. He's not playing. He wrote it. And it's not even,

like he's adapting this story from Charles Blow. It's beautiful. But I was just like, blown away by the kind of inner confidence and the freedom that he must have with himself.

Well, I think that that, that it's a beautiful thing that can get, um, you know, the listener and the viewer of a piece of art like that gets that. even if they don't get it in a totally conscious way.

That comes across is what makes something exciting. And I think there's all different levels to this in terms of failure. We're kind of talking like in terms of something might happen where you don't quite execute something the right way. But your professionalism masks it enough that no one in the audience would notice that. So you're saying there was many failures, but probably almost none of them were actually noticeable. None of the failures would be noticeable to anybody. But that's because it's like specific way, like kind of professional techniques in which you don't go back and try to fix something. something you don't get rattled so the next part isn't messed up you know right all those little things that are important but i think in terms of like as

us as improvisers as jazz musicians um something to think about in terms of failing is the other kind that we set up in a solo you know we talk about the solo being a story yeah and so any interesting story has to have its ups and downs yep and like failure is kind of part of that if you look at the way the characters are developed in a book a novel um you know a movie a play a play and opera or whatever, there's like the falling down and then the getting up, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so it's not necessarily that precise or overt the way it translated into our solos, but that there can be an element of that, like, in terms of how you develop the story.

So that's more of like a calculated kind of failure and then success. And I think it sort of focuses around like, and look, I've been at fault for doing this sometimes. Like a solo of just great stuff from beginning to end is not always that interesting. Like just technically great or harmonically brilliant. Like there's got to be something in it like a little bit of grit, a little bit of failure or mistake almost like I would say. Like not that you're trying to do that, but something that you develop and then it becomes this more precise thing. I don't know. There's a lot of ways to do it.

What makes me think of we did a solo analysis here once of Herbie Hancock solo. Remember this? And like the solo is building, he's doing all this hip stuff. And then kind of like towards the three quarter mark, he just kind of pulls back a little bit. But you could tell he's kind of feeling things out again. Yeah. And that takes not being afraid to fail. Yeah.

What my instinct at that point would be, okay, well, you know, the audience needs to like it, so we better keep going. And he's like, no, wait, wait, what's the best for the music? So I think here raises two things that you've talked about before, which is you're not going to fear failure as much as long as your main services to the music, right? Because it's not about you. and it's not about what people think about you. It's about the music and making sure that that's the most important thing. I mean, going back to this opera,

you mentioned we had our episode about the opera that you were originally scheduled to do it and you couldn't make these rehearsals you came in and you pulled out because it wasn't about you. It's about what's best for the music. And I think if you have that mindset, not the mindset of what can I do so that people will like me?

Or what can I do that makes me look like a badass? You know what I mean? But what can I do to serve the music in the best way? Sometimes that's chilling out like Herbie and being like, okay, where are we? Yeah. And sometimes that's, you know, stepping away. But whatever that action is, the motivation needs to be from that pure place. Yeah.

It'll help out a lot. And I think if you come from that place when you're playing, you can be satisfied every night that you play that it's more than just good enough what you've done. And so that even the nights when you feel like, damn, I just kind of fit, I didn't do this. and I messed this up or whatever. But if you're constantly of the mindset of how do I make the music sound the best, whether that's just you on stage or up to a full orchestra and an opera or whatever,

but that you're part of that, you put your best foot forward, then that's fine. That's enough, you know? And plus, even though you might feel like an epic fail to you, if you're coming from that mindset and you are a skilled player and you can play, believe me, the audience actually got a lot out of what you played,

a lot more than you think. So it's really a success. It's like a little micro failure for you, but it's not about you, as you said. It's the ultimate conundrum because, yeah, like sometimes for, like when you'd stop caring about what people like you, your ego gets involved, people start liking that more. Yeah. If you love someone, set them free. Sting said that. I don't know if that's what I was saying.

Yeah. Yeah, man, this is great. I love talking about this stuff because it's inspiring for me to come out. Well, I think that you failed at it. And I feel like I fail at this discussion. But I'm okay with that. You know, one more thing that I was thinking about, just one kind of button on this to tag. There's something else that's connected here with the fear of failure.

And that's the other direction. That's when the pendulum swings the other way. And you congratulate yourself too much for succeeding. Would that be kind of a general self-congratulatory flare that you might have? Yeah. So if you play one badass solo in the night and then you're like, well, I am a cat out here. the scene. Who to man?

No one's touching me. I mean, that's all, that's in the same, that's on the same highway, just the different direction of the, I suck, you know, I can't, you're still going to be afraid of failure, if that's your thing. You got to take your highs, man, take it from local psychopath, blues goalie, Jordan Bennington. Don't celebrate too big and don't beat yourself up after a loss as much. I'm just going to leave it, leave it. Hockey references are totally lost on me.

Go blues. Well, good. Well, thank you. guys for listening today, we hope you're having a wonderful time with the You'll Hear podcast. You can go to you'll hear it.com. That's right. No pronunciations because that'll break the internet. It's just you'll hear it.com. And check out our blog. Check out our two minute jazz. Check out. Everything is free there. How do you like that? Is that good enough for you? Yeah, free 50. It's not even free 99. It's free 50. So check that out. You can leave

us a message and speak pipe, all that good stuff if you want to get deeper into the podcast. And our special is still running two courses for the price of one. Bogo, baby. Our best, I'm not going to say our best two courses. Our two most popular courses. Jazz Piano for Beginners and Elements of Jazz Piano, featuring yours truly, Adam Manus and myself. And yeah, check those out.

You'll put in B-O-G-O in the offer code on the checkout page after you put both those courses and you'll get them for free. Well, one of them free. Sorry, did I oversell it? Did I oversell it? Did I fail on that? You did fail. It's $129. but it's two courses that it's worth well over $340.

Yeah, and it's lifetime access. And you get the PDF downloads, the audio down. The workbook. The workbook. People love the audio downloads. Yeah, they like to run with it. They want to run with the supple sounds of Adam Manus talking about, you know, I don't know what he's talking about.

But, yeah. We're talking about like drop two voicing. Drop two voicing, all that good stuff. But you get lifetime access, so take your time with that. Have fun with that. And until tomorrow. You'll hear it.