You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To Learn Any New Skill

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Skills or Skillz, either way Adam and Peter hone in on the act of pivoting and leaning into learning a new skill, setting yourself up for success. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested 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 Twitter | Instagram

Okay, Peter, I'm going to do something different here in the beginning. So the name of the episode is How to Learn any new skills. So I'm going to start a cold open, okay? But I'm just going to say, I think I already know what you're going to say to my query. Close your ears for a second. Okay, okay. Close your ears. He's going to say skills with a Z.

Okay. Hey, Peter. Hey, do you have any skills? Skills, like skills, S-K-I-L-L-Z, skills. Nailed it. Adam Manus. I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast.

And I cannot fit myself into this room anymore because Adam's head has gotten so big. Have we spent too much time together in the pandemic? Manor. Okay, let me just paint a picture here. Adam Manas sitting across from me, as you've seen. Just grinning ear to ear. No, he's a Cheshire. He's a veritable Cheshire cat.

Like the French kind in the cartoons. So you know what I... He's so pleased with himself right now. I whispered to our dear listeners before we started that. He's going to say skills with a Z. And man, I am a one-trick pony. I knew it was happening. Yeah, but you shouldn't be so proud of yourself that I'm so like, you know, I'm such a one-trick pony.

But I did not hear what he said, so I'm glad that we're in sync. I'll blend and tell you what it is later. Oh, my thanks, Miles. Oh, my God. I don't even know what that means. I'm so stoked on that. Whatever this episode turns out to be, it could be total dog shit. I'm completely happy with what it is.

Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. It's only November, but you're ready to close out the year now. I'm so ready. All right. So, no, today's episode is called How to Learn any new skill. And what I wanted to talk about, man, and I thought I could just interview about what happened this week. So I don't know if this is a week after, people will be listening to this, a week after our now famous Ron Carter episode here on the podcast.

And then we also made a YouTube video about it. Now, it wasn't always going to be a YouTube video. It started off as a YouTube video. We recorded it all the video. Then we had a minor tragedy. As we were recording it, a light was flashing that shouldn't have been flashing. Right. that was an indicator of an error.

Yeah. I'm going to fix that for you right now. Harry, I wish you could have been here to fix it, but you weren't. And so we, that was four minutes into the podcast. Yes. Right. Four minutes in we see a flashing light. But we didn't even really know.

I mean, we just knew it was early. Like we weren't look. We're talking to Ron Carr, so we didn't even know exactly how long it had been flashing. Oh, yeah. We're hosting a legend on a Zoom call, too. So, you know, there's all that. Anyway, so we get through the whole thing. At some point, Peter snuck off and he put a bunch of SIM cards and the cameras and

started recording that way. SD cards. SD cards, thank you. And, yeah, SIM cards give you your phone number. Sorry. SD cards in the camera started recording everything. So we had a little bit left. And we go after the interview and all that we have, really for the whole thing,

is four minutes on our little box here. And then we have, I don't know, what would you say like? Probably 20, 30 minutes. 20 minutes left on the cards of like the last part. So we didn't have the beginning part. The middle. We had the very beginning. And then we had a big chunk missing.

Just of you and I, though. Yeah. Unbeknownst to us at the time. Right. Because it all got very murky. It got very murky. So then this thing happens where we're like, okay, well, let's just really, first of all, it's a great conversation. And we really legitimately thought it works better as an audio podcast than it does as a video anyway.

It was like 45 minutes long. It's probably too long for a YouTube video, at least the kind that we usually do. Yeah. And so we thought, okay, we'll put it up on the podcast and that'll be that. Then on Wednesday, was it Wednesday or Thursday. It was Wednesday or Thursday. Ron Carter himself post on. on his Facebook and his Instagram.

Let's be honest, probably Ron Carter's assistant. He's probably his team. But I think he's engaged with that. They're not doing anything he doesn't know about or is not authorizing. No. They post on Facebook and Instagram. Only five days left till the new you'll hear it with Ron Carter on Open Studios. YouTube channel.

Very specific YouTube. YouTube. Very specific YouTube video. So then we lose all of the color in our faces, what little there is already. We just turn pale white and we're like, okay, well, we have five days. to make a video. Now, we usually use our in-house video editor, Ian, who's fantastic, he's amazing,

but he's very busy right now because we have a lot of things that are about to come out. So this is where this episode is coming in, Peter, because you said, you sent a message to the whole company, you said, I got it. I'm going on the road. I'm taking my laptop with me.

I'm going to edit this video. And I'll be honest. I was a little nervous. You were a little nervous and a little skeptical. I was like, are you sure I can't help? I can help. I can do it. Because I've done a little bit of video editing

on my own YouTube videos recently. So I've been... Perhaps when we come to mind, you're famed, why do I still suck video with 100,000 plus views to date. I've been enjoying getting into the editing process. Yes.

But it got me thinking about this episode. So first of all, you edited a beautiful video buddy. I mean, it really is spectacular. If you haven't checked it out, it's called... Well, right now, it's called... We'll put a link in the...

Yeah, we'll put a link. What's it called now? Ron Carter School's Two Jazz Pianist and Bill Murray, because that's a very funny little clip of Bill Murray that you added. In your brilliant, editing. But you really did an amazing job telling a story, inserting all this

music and these Japanese commercials you found. I mean, it really made the conversation come alive. So I wouldn't be surprised that by the time our listeners are listening to this and they go to check out the video that it's a big hit for us because it was just incredible. And even if it's not, it's such a cool video. I'm super proud of it to be even

remotely involved in our channel. But I was thinking, you know, as we were kind of talking what we wanted to talk about this week and what is interested in us this week. It's just interesting watching you. And learn this new skill. And this isn't the first time this has happened in the pandemic. So for those of you who haven't checked out, Peter, Peter's solo piano concert series on Friday nights during the pandemic, every Friday night for over a year, Peter played a Friday night solo

piano show. And most of those, in fact, I would say 95% of those, you were in here by yourself with a multiple camera stream, live stream, doing it all yourself, never having done this before a global pandemic. Like before the pandemic, let's be honest, at open studio, you played the piano and you were like, and I barked orders and people. You were just like, no, yes, make it gray, make it green. No. Bring me my espresso. That was Peter. And then he'd go play some badass piano and we'd all be grateful. But you have really, as we all have had to in the pandemic. I think a lot of musicians, this is going to resonate with them. But you've had to learn a bunch of new skills. I have to. and I thought I could just ask you like so

how do you learn these new skills? Like what is your process? And I'm genuinely curious to know. So I'll start by saying, you know, with this Ron Carter video, right? So okay, here's the task. You've five days you've never, you've not never done video editing,

but you really don't have very much experience with it, especially now, right? I think you said you did some early days. Well, I did some back in the day. Like actually going back to the beginning of... Like 10 years ago, though. Yeah, 10 years ago or something. But I would just say, I think for in general, like learning a new skill that, you know, necessity is the mother of all invention.

Absolutely. That sort of, it starts with that. So like when there's a need to do something, I think that can be the impetus. And it can also be the kind of, you know, adrenaline and dopamine hit that you need to kind of keep going and energize you to do that. But if it's something that you're passionate about, then that's what the necessity is. It's not like, oh, I've got it. Like, I have a lot of trouble figuring out how to do things as my wife will, the lovely Kelly Martin would be first to say.

She's like, oh, yeah, Peter's great at learning new things, except the stuff I need him to do around the house. So it's like, I don't have a passion for some of those things. So it's not like I couldn't probably learn some of that, but it would be a lot slower. It wouldn't be as good. And it wouldn't, like, I don't have a vision for that. It's not hard for you to come up with ideas for a Ron Carter video on your YouTube channel. I've been loving this dude since I was like 12 years old and listening to his music.

And so, and I had these stories. So to me, it wasn't so much about the editing, the technical part, although I didn't need to die back into that and learn some things with that. But like that's, I wouldn't say that's the easy part because it is a little tricky. But I've also like, I mean, you know, for me, when I was coming up, and probably for you too, you know, we were coming watching the Jetsons and like, I thought by now we'd have flying cars and like robots doing everything. We're close. We're getting close.

Yeah, we're getting close. So I'm also like, you know, yeah, we should be able to do this kind of stuff. And I've always been had some kind of technical training on a on a on a some base, you know, sort of foundation for a number of different areas. So I think once, you know, once you get a mindset of like it is possible, I can do this. You might screw it up and you might not be able to do it. But a lot of this kind of stuff, anything that's creative, it's not binary. It's not like you either get it to a place where it could be pretty good and maybe even very

good or they're great or it's not like building a bridge where it's like you have to get to the point where the thing doesn't fall down if people go across it yeah like people are either gonna die or they're not it might not be a great bridge but it's great because it didn't fall down absolutely in the creative thing i think editing a video and you know you've helped me a lot with this and just the concept of like let's create us let's tell a story yeah you know and so that's something i've been doing for a long time so the the parts of like how are you going to you know technically get that onto the screen and stuff is a little bit of a challenge but not as much as the storytelling part so if i was having to tell a, you know, a story about how to, um, you know, cook a great meal.

I would fall flat on my face because I know I can tell you a story about how to enjoy a great meal. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. And actually, I've seen a lot of great meals. So I maybe if I got into the mindset of that, I possibly could. But for this, it was all about the story because I had such a passion and a vision for

what the story. And basically because Ron Carter laid it out so beautifully in the thing with his words. And because we had the video of him, I'm like, well, we got to do something. Right, right. Because, I mean, we could have easily just called him and said, look, actually, we lost most of the video. So it's just going to be a podcast, but it's going to be great and blah, blah, blah. I'm sure he would have been fine with it. I mean, he's not like living and breathing.

You know, he probably just put the thing up and said, well, whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Yeah. Put his post up. But I wanted to take the challenge to at least try it. So can I tell you just observing you, not just with the Ron Carter thing, but also with Shell Theater in place and some of the other skills that you've required and that I've acquired. And I think this applies to learning anything, including something like piano or or how to, improvise or something like that. But can I tell you what I think the most important part of this was?

Yeah. It's that Ron Carter said Monday of videos coming out. That deadline. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Because that gives you automatically parameters. First of all, this doesn't have to be Jurassic Park. Like it doesn't have to be this perfect, beautiful video.

It has to be out by Monday. Right. That's what it has to be. Yeah. And you know what? I think that we have great training for that as jazz musicians, as pianists, as composers, as artists, because everybody thinks like, oh, the creative process, you have to go out into the woods and just, you know,

stay out there writing the great American novel until it's done or writing the great composition. And that's not the reality of how actual great art is usually created. It's usually like I got a commission for this or I've got to. There's a deadline. There's a deadline. Always a deadline. And usually it's a performance. It's like, learn,

learn, learn. But it's like the gig's going to start at a certain time. You've agreed to do it. And so that's super helpful. But we're also trained for that. So it shouldn't be a thing like for me, I don't let myself off the hook. I can't be like, oh, well, I don't know how to. Okay, yeah, maybe some technical things I don't know.

That's kind of the easy part because you can like Google it or you can watch a YouTube, but you can kind of acquire that. But the skill of being able to respond to deadlines, some people aren't great at that because they haven't been put in that situation. I've been in that situation so many times that I, of course, I still get like, oh, but then I'm just like, let me take a breath and say, I've got a lot of sets and reps with this. Yeah.

There's a lot of things I can't do in this world. Yeah. But this is something that I can do. And so just because it's a little bit of a different medium, I'm letting myself off the hook if I'm like, oh no, I got to get somebody else to do that. And that's what I used to do with it. Like you say, you were not wrong. I'd be like, do this. And I mean, I've learned a little bit about, you know, audio engineering. And I mean, not nearly as much as I was, I was, I was, I was being hyperbolic there. You were, you were, no, but I knew nothing before. I,

I couldn't even open up logic or anything. And my thing was like, it wasn't that I was above that about I was like, that's just not my thing. But now I realize I'm like, I'm a musician. So I'm never going to be able to engineer like a great engineer. I don't need to. Yeah. And I'm blessed to be able to work with great engineers. But the more I know about the process, It's just like I've learned a little bit of drums when I was there on because I was interested. I was just trying stuff. Yeah.

I never became a great drummer like where I could make a gig like Nicholas Payton could play a gig on drums. Yeah. Yeah. Like I couldn't do that. But I learned enough now that it's profited me from playing with drummers. Right. Like I kind of understand that a little bit. Right, right, right.

And so and then it just gave me that kind of mentality that I can try some different things. And Ron really inspired me because he's like a total renaissance man. Absolutely. He knows about all these different things and stuff. So I was like, we got to make this happen. But man, for me, the real, the takeaway, for all of this is that like if you want to learn a bunch of monk tunes

book a gig that's billed as your trio plays nothing but the lonious monk that'll force you to learn a bunch of monk tunes and you'll remember them too because you had to learn if you want to learn how to string arrange book a recording session with the string quartet before you even have anything written you've held some gold there and I would say for these kind that the sort of technical things that you need and look as musicians this is super important even if it's not you know full on video editing or audio editing it could be like Sibelius. I know, you know, when I first learned Sibelius, I don't know what your experience. Like, I didn't know this thing of like a deadline. My pants are all, my hair is always on fire.

Yeah, as I'm learning Saberia. Yeah, yeah. But I kind of did that by accident. I got lucky. So I was, I was, I had to do a bunch of big band arrangements. And I had done them before. I had done stuff by hand forever. I was like, you know, I finally got to do this. So I decided like, who is this for, though. This was for, this was for Jazz and Lincoln Center. Oh, okay. It was. Or was it. I'm going to fix that for you right now. Oh, no, oh, you know what? No, no, no. Those were the ones by hand. No, that was way before. I was doing it on. I mean, like finale was out.

There was no Sebelius. Oh, that's funny. Finalee was out. But yeah, Harry Conick, I did, I didn't buy hand.

I loved doing that. Yeah. But it got to the point. I was like, you know what? Let me, I was like, if I learned this and I still like doing it better by hand,

I could always go back. Yeah. But what I did was in, and this is a good tip for everybody. Don't say, oh, I've got to learn the skill. And then I'll do it on an actual. Nope.

Something. Do it. Yeah. Trial by fire. Book it. Yeah. And then make that part of the thing. So I learned it and that forced me to do it within a shorter amount of time.

Because otherwise, you're never going to be ready. You're never going to give yourself license to say that you're ready. Man, before I had my very first string arranging gig, I like had, I saw it out like David Halen. I was like, can I just meet you? Can I buy you lunch? You were trying to information your way to. I was, I mean, I was just, well, I just had a deadline and I didn't know anything about it. Oh, you had the deadline.

I had the deadline and really forced me to like, you know, do my research. I thought you could say you had a deadline. You're like, let me see if I can find someone else to do it. No, no, no, no. I've successfully done that. But no, I mean, having that deadline, all the things you should be doing, you're all of a sudden like, okay, well, I really actually need to do this. Yeah. And I mean, the deadline combined, that's going to come pressure.

And so a lot of people shy away from that because they're like, well, I can't work under pressure. And that's what I'm saying. If you're a jazz musician, you got to work under pressure. You got to get used to that. Yeah. But you also have to like pressure tested is what they call it. Pressure tested. Yeah.

And you have to realize, see, like a lot of this is a mind game. So you can, but when there's a foundation for something, it becomes real. So when we say, okay, look, there's a lot of things I can do. There's a lot of things I can't do in this world. But let's concentrate on the things that I can do. So I've been playing jazz for a while. Like, that's something that I can do. I love doing it.

I'm pretty good at it. And like the skills that you get for that from that and why I was talk about jazz music has given me so much. I've given it like 0.001%. It's given me, you know, 99.99. Yeah. You know, it's an unfair trade. but what I've gotten from that experience

is not just the ability to play a tune and people go, oh, that was fun, I like that I'm entertained. Yes, that's like just the most obvious product that you, the work product that you provide to the world. But what are the soft talents, as they would say, or whatever? And this thing of being able to work under pressure, being able to think creatively under pressure. I mean, when you're improvising,

you've got to listen to what's happening around. Oh, yeah, man. You've got to be able to multitask. You might have a stomach ache. Like, there's all sorts of stuff going on. Yeah, you can't, you know, so. So I think that ability, you know, you have to take and then channel. And that's what I kind of use for these new skills things.

And, but a lot of that is just really mindset. It's not like I have this special ability to. I think that anybody who's played jazz that's a creative kind of soul and invested in that actually has those skills. They just don't always tap into them. Yeah. You just can't be so precious with it. Just realize that it's going to be a pressure test. And you do the best you can with your deadline and rely on, hey, man.

Yeah. It's cool because I'm doing it. And look, full disclosure, too, get a team, you know, and like this, I did not do this on my own. I have a fantastic team that really starts with you on the creative side. And so I couldn't have done any of this without you. Even the, and we talked about collaborating specifically on this, and we both realized that there wasn't going to be enough time to, because I had the drive. I'm like, do I take this up to New York? Video editing is in a collaborative process.

Yeah, yeah. But the impetus to do it because of the other things that we have collaborated on recently, that actually gave me the skills, the storytelling. stuff like all that sort of lines up the actual technical thing is just like that's just everything kind of coming together absolutely um and and so you know rely on others get feedback and then be ready to jump in if there's something and ask for help when you need it great stuff peter well congratulations uh we'll put a link to that video here in the description go check it out ron carter schools two pianists and bill murray edited by our very own peter martin hey stay tuned for wednesday's episode i'm calling it now peter yes speak pipe wednesday speak pipe wednesday i love it and then on friday we got first

Take Friday. I'm starting to like these weeks. I love it, man. And hey, if you have a suggestion for... Monday is Mystery Monday. Mystery Monday, exactly. Leave us a voicemail. You can go to You'll Hear.com to leave us to speakpipe. And if you have a suggestion for First Take Friday, if there's a new record you want us to listen to and react to for the first time, hit us up also at you'll hear it.com. That's right. Thanks, everybody.

Until next time. Until... I'm sorry. I was almost so good. It was almost so good till the end. You'll hear it.