You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To "Network" - #143

Episode Date: June 26, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam talk about talking. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin and I'm Adam Manus and this is the You'll Hear podcast Daily Jazz Advice coming at you Yep we're doing a little Instagram live did I mention that to you oh it's on Instagram I see I was looking for it on Twitter and I was looking for it on Snapchat and I was looking for it on Facebook And I couldn't see any of it I'm always a step ahead here so we're going we're going Instagram live so big shout to those folks Today we're going to talk about How to network that's right now so this is actually something that I'm not that interested in But we've gotten a lot of questions about it. And I do remember a time when as musicians, it's like, well, I'm practicing.

I want to play. I want to get some gigs. Now I need to network. How do I meet people? How do I go to a jam session? So, you know, it's definitely an important part of the flow of what we do, right? Yeah. And it's funny that you say you're not that interested in it because I feel like you're really,

really good at networking in general. Oh, thank you. No, but you, I think the social aspect of this music, like it or not, is a big part of it. So you have to, first of all, you have to make your face known to other people. You have to go out. Right. You have to go to gigs. You have to go to jam sessions.

If you don't have a network of other musicians that you play with on a regular basis, go make some friends. You know, go meet some people who are your peers who are on your level as players and don't be a jerk to them. Right, right, right. You know, look them in the eye and tell them that you want to play music with them. That's, I think that's step number one. Yeah.

And I guess just to clarify, I didn't mean I'm not interested. I'm actually very interested in the effect of networking with other musicians through this music. Yeah. I'm just, I'm not interested in thinking about it as a separate endeavor from kind of what naturally or organically, you know, hopefully comes natural to us and organically as musicians. Like I have a natural, whoa. No, that's okay. See, that's how we do it. Little mic adjustments as we go.

Yeah. for people that are into this music like you and all the good folks here and just, jazz music has opened up a world of friends and enthusiasts that I would have never met had it not been for the music. So I'm very grateful for that. So from that standpoint, I don't look at it as like a calculating, I'm going to network so I can get this because I've gotten so much from the music and from the network of jazz and jazz musicians around the world.

Yeah, it's awesome. And it is traditionally been a big part of, how the music is handed down and shared. So don't think that you have to, that you can get away with skipping this part of it. You know, it's all about a community. It's all about the hang. Right.

You know? And maybe it's not that different than, you know, what we talk about in terms of practicing and developing as musicians. Anyway, like there's certain things that we have to be more conscious of as we're developing as players. And then they start to become habits, hopefully good habits in our playing. and then eventually they become just sort of a part of what we do

and we can get up and sort of relax and just let the flow go. And I think that's the same thing with networking because it's all about people and stuff. And one thing that you mentioned at the beginning here that I think is the most important part is just showing up and just putting yourself out there. And so until we feel more secure with our playing and who we are as people,

the tendency is to kind of withdraw and be like, well, I want to work on myself before I actively go on and meet people. But it has to all be working together. So I think you have to know what you're, skill level and your position is, but you want to start being and getting to know people, being in those kind of situations with not only musicians that you're currently working with, but being around the musicians that you want to work with. There's nothing wrong with that.

You just have to go in with the right attitude. Yeah, if you're trying to get on a scene, any new scene, whether you're, you know, you've just moved to a new city or you're just kind of starting out as a jazz player, I think the best thing you could do is find the good jam sessions, go to the good jam sessions, make yourself known to the people of jam sessions. You don't always have to play. We just talked about this on our jam session episode. You can go and hang and listen.

And sometimes that's a really great networking tool to just be there and be like, oh, hey, you sound great. You know, I play piano too or whatever. That was awesome, you know, would love to hang with you and play some time. That totally works. Right.

You know, that really works as far as just like, oh, yeah, that guy plays piano, you know, whatever. They didn't even have to hear you. But it is good also to play. You can also go to other people's gigs. I mean, it's especially good if you go to people's gigs whose music you genuinely love, and then just introduce yourself.

No one minds being told that they sound good by anybody. So you can go and say, man, I really enjoyed it, love that set. By the way, I also play piano, would love to get together sometime or play or any good jam sessions. Where are you playing next?

Questions are always great. Asking people questions is always good in a networking situation because then you don't have to talk about yourself. Right, right. Which we all want to do, but it's not always great. Well, and I think, too,

you know, you don't have to worry, like the same kind of apprehensions we have as we're learning to play this music, which is, it takes a long time. And we're always talking about this. It takes years. It takes a lot of practice. And then you still don't sound good. Then you've got to practice some more and then you got to wait some more time. I mean, it's a long process. But in terms of putting your personality out there, as opposed to putting your playing out there, for most people, I mean, unless you're just a total, you know, what did you call it, an antelope hole? You called somebody an a-hole. No, I mean, unless you really just have a horrible personality, usually as a person and your personality, you're a lot more agreeable and amenable and nicer to be around than maybe even you're playing is at an earlier point because it's easier to be a good person. You can figure that out,

a good kind of social skills than it is necessarily even jazz skills. So then you can be working on those musical skills as you're already kind of networking as a human. That's right. So I think that's really, I mean, there's not a lot to it. In its essence, it's very simple. Just go out consistently, go to places, you know, it's a fake it to you make it kind of thing. Like go to the places where you want to be.

Absolutely. Go to where your next level is that you're not at yet. Go to those venues. Go to see those bands. Go to see those musicians. And just kind of hang around. Yep. I mean, first of all, you are going to network and you're going to make connections.

You're going to meet people. But also, you might accidentally learn a couple things. you know, musically, which is also important, kind of. Well, but it's so important. Like,

the more people I meet and, you know, it's kind of come to critical mass for myself in life at my age in which I've met so many more interesting and just thoughtful, compelling people.

I mean, just within the jazz world, just musicians, than I could ever possibly be able to really keep up and foster the kind of relationship and friendship that I would like to. I mean, there's so many more

interesting, thoughtful people in the world than than are not. And really just about everybody's got something to say, like if you're willing to listen. So I always look as an opportunity in meeting people, even if they're a little bit lower on the road

in terms of the journey of where they are as players, if they're not quite there yet. That doesn't mean anything about who they are as people. So like if you're not feeling like you're that accomplished yet, put yourself out there. You know, be helpful, be around people. You've got something that you can help someone with. Maybe you're not a monster player yet here,

but you've got other attributes, I'm sure in your personality that we really want to get to know and be a part of. Am I getting too wishy-walky? No, man. If you don't have that, you know, work on yourself a little bit, maybe. Exactly. Maybe back off and they come back. That seems mean. Well, we hope you found this helpful. Networking actually is a bigger part of this than you might think it is. So it's something to consider for sure. I mean, not just for music for any for any walk of life. If you're a painter or whatever, you've got to have some kind of community. Yeah.

And put yourself out there. That's such an important thing. We could have almost stopped at that point. So much of it is just showing up. Show up, show up, show up. And, you know, it's not even, it is about making connections and having this, you know, professional network of people. But also, if you're really wanting to learn and get better, you need a community.

Yeah. Like, that's a crucial part of getting better. There's so many elements of being in a group of people who have more experience than you at something that helps you get better. that it's really, really important that you learn how to make friends in this endeavor. So I hope you found that helpful. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

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