You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to NOT Be Perfect

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam answer a listener's SpeakPipe on overcoming the anxiety of not being a perfect musician. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Just go to https://youllhearit.com/podcast-contact/And be sure to flip through some of the suggested reading material mentioned in this episode for even more advice:Kenny Werner - Effortless MasteryBrené Brown - Daring GreatlyJames Clear - Atomic HabitsTimothy Gallwey - The Inner Game of TennisHave you been to the new Open Studio website yet? It's the same great taste with a whole new look! It's got all of the great courses from the old site, plus some new ones like Jazz Piano Jump-Start that are exclusive to the new platform. Plus, we've got a more user-friendly interface, faster load speeds, and new course resources - like quizzes over the lesson material. Visit https://www.openstudiojazz.com/ to learn more!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, Peter. Hey, Adam. How do I battle against perfectionism? Oh, man, I don't know. That's a battle I lost years ago. Mattamanus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Perfect Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Perfect every time, all the time. Perfect medium.

Perfect sponsor for today's episode is Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJadio.com to check out all of our courses. I'm talking courses by Peter Martin, Adam Manus, Jeffrey Keiser. We've got folks like Christian McBride, Diane Reeves, Steve Wilson, Gregory Hutchinson, Rubin Rogers. Who am I leaving out? Sean Jones. Yeah, Peter Sprague. But, you know, one thing I'm really excited about all those people

and also our growing Brazilian contingent. If you're interested in Brazilian music, we have some wonderful, we have the Brazilian rhythm section. Those guys are badass. Out of Sao Paulo. We have an incredible chorus. We have Aedu Ribero coming very soon. Elio Alves.

Yeah. And so our Brazilian game is strong. Merro Lobambo. Ameri Lobo, of course. All right, we have a speak pipe today from Samuel. This is poignant. Let's do. Let's check it out. Hi, Adam.

Hey, Peter. It's Samuel from Munich in Germany. Thanks for your podcast. I've been listening to it for about a year now, and I've been really enjoying it. And it's been really helpful for me to get into jazz. My question today is about perfectionism. And I mean perfectionism in a bad kind of way. I'm a person who has the tendency of wanting to be perfect in every area of my playing.

And that puts a lot of pressure on me sometimes so that sometimes I can't practice anything because I have this anxious feeling in my stomach and I get really nervous when practicing. So I wanted to ask if you have maybe any practical tips on how to let go of those unhealthy expectations. and how to embrace the fact that I'm not perfect and I don't have to be perfect. Wow, this will be an easy one. They were totally qualified to answer. Actually, I'm kind of ready for this one, man.

Have you checked out Brunei Brown? No. Dude, I'm going to loan you this book. Please. This is good stuff. Perfect. She's perfect. Okay.

No, but I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. Okay. Yeah, man. This is a great question because this can be crippling to a lot of people. I mean, I've struggled with. this too. Yeah. And I mean, I realize like sometimes like our teaching style and I don't want to be overbearing because, you know, I can be very hardcore and be like, this has to be right, this has to be right. But nobody is perfect, obviously, in terms of playing the instrument. The reason I always say like,

you know, you, you want to get to a certain level, but it's not even about, hmm, I wonder, like, is there a way to have the mindset of your striving for perfection? Because I think that's important, but you know that that's not possible. You know what I mean? It's not striving for perfection. You're striving for excellence. Strive for excellence. And excellence is not perfect.

Right. That's right. Excellence is, involves a lot of failing. It's right. And I mean, art is not perfect. Actually, art is not excellent when it is perfect. I mean, think about like, you know, computer generated art as opposed to human generated art.

And I think that, you know, if maybe we could adopt a little bit of that mindset where, yeah, I love this, you know, striving for excellence. I think maybe on the micro level, because, you know, some people, their personality just wants to, like, do something right and get it to completion. I think that's not necessarily a bad thing, but you can't apply that to bigger things like a solo or a composition or whatever, because you will drive yourself crazy if you try to make everything perfect. But I think maybe Samuel and, oh, and he's from Munich, which is cool because I was in Munich yesterday, about 16 hours. Are you serious? Absolutely. Oh, wow.

Just at the airport this time. But I love Bavaria. I love that part of Germany is a wonderful place. But yeah, so if we're thinking about with, because Samuel specifically talking about being very anxious and nervous in certain parts of his practice, you know, we talk about the journey. And I think maybe if we think about that in terms of our practice,

and really everything, remember, everything that we practice is about preparing to perform. Yeah. You know, so I think you can kind of relax when you perform if you're practicing correctly. and practicing correctly is not trying to practice to perfection. It's trying to maximize and even, dare I say, enjoy the journey of the practice, you know, the music that's within that.

And so, like, if we can, how can we decouple perfection from development and excellence, as you say? Well, yeah. So I think the first step are some kind of big things that you have to work on is from within. And these are things that I think are super important. The first one is realizing that your playing is not you. you're not linked to that. You are enough without your playing. You don't have to play, and people still love you.

That's right. You know what I mean? Like, that's not who you are. That's what you want to do. That's not who you are. Because I think some people equate this perfectionism with, like, well, I have to be this, or I'll never be enough of this. You know what I mean?

That's a killer. That is a killer to creativity, right? The other thing we've been talking a lot about on here lately is vulnerability. And, you know, like, you have to understand. that, I mean, come on, man. Like, when you think about this, every time you see a player

who have these vulnerabilities that are exposed, but confidently exposed. Yeah. Like, think about miles. No one says like, oh, man, I didn't want to hear that cracked note. That was not perfect.

I mean, no one thinks that. They think, like, this guy is, like, so confident. Like, it's one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about is that we are terrified of vulnerability when it comes to us, but we really admire it in other people. Yeah.

You know, it's like a crazy dichotomy that when we see vulnerability in other players, we're like, that's amazing. Like, I want to be there, but we can't get ourselves to do that at all. So one thing you're going to have to worry about, or not have to worry about Samuel

is being perfect because you'll never be perfect. Yeah, yeah. And that's part of it. And everybody who's really, really great is fails constantly, and they're not afraid of failing constantly. They're not failing in front of you, and that's why they sound so great

because they can fail and they can get right up the very next second and confidently do something because they're not attached to it. It's not them. Well, and it's so much a part of this whole thing of like, you know, we always think people are looking at us and listening to us much closer than they actually are.

You know, and worried about us. And that's the whole thing. Oh, I was embarrassed. This happened. I'm like, most people do not care that. Even when they're sitting there at a concert listening to you, even if it's solo piano or whatever, They are not caring that much about your perfection.

And I remember, and I'm wondering if Samuels comes from the classical world because I was, you know, I kind of came out of the classical world growing up in a lot of ways because I started and played for a long time and even like up through conservatory was doing that. And I never really had that, that real perfection disease like some. I was always very driven with that music. But because I play jazz, I think it helped me as opposed to the other way around in knowing. like experiencing these Miles Davis solos where there's so-called mistakes and how great they were, that I kind of took that to the classical world that, like, play with spirit and a vibe and a verve. That's what people want to hear. They don't care if it's 100% perfect.

Well, dude, even the classical friends that we have, I'll talk about how classical music has suffered from these perfect recordings that have been put out that people take multiple takes of or whatever. Because like the classics from way back in the day had mistakes on them. Yeah. You know what I mean? But the passion was there. the artistic freedom was there. And I think about to all of the greatest concerts I've ever been to, there have been multiple mistakes

that have happened. And mistakes where the artist is recognized. Well, but think about this. But the type of mistakes you're talking about, too, are, and probably even what Samuel was saying as far as imperfection, only other musicians even know that anyway, most likely. Maybe. I'm thinking about, like, I saw Sean Jones here.

And I mean, a couple times, like, he went for something, he didn't hit it, and he was like, oh, you know, I mean, he, like, acknowledged. Like, he was like, ooh. But he was, but that was just part of, it was almost like he was like, you know, doing another activity and just like, oops, you know, like, it had no bearing on the quality of the concert.

It was amazing. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. Right, but you know what I'm saying? Like how, like, if you watch a great major league baseball. All right, we have no idea what's going on. Yeah, no, but you'll see them like, they'll make a pitch incredible, you know, nice. And you can tell they're frustrated.

What are you talking about? That's the perfect pit. They missed their month like two inches. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think that that's another thing is like, this is all relative. So like, we're not really just playing for musicians. But I think, too, that Samuel, and I'm just remembering from how he said this, maybe specific, like we're kind of talking performance and stuff. And he was saying that there was some anxiety and stuff, specifically in his practice. So I'm going to suggest, and look, I'm not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist at all. So this is just a suggestion. And I think that, you know, we all could benefit from some good counseling in all areas of our life, but certainly things that contribute to music. so I would certainly recommend that and for all of us to kind of get our minds, you know, just get more woke and aware and everything about what our mindset is about practicing. But you might try this and that is to take some very controlled situations and I would suggest say very simple scales that you know well, hands alone slowly and say, I'm going to play this scale perfectly. A D-flat major scale, two octas, whatever it is, something that's really you're able to do perfectly so that you can satisfy.

satisfy because maybe he's got that need to execute something perfectly. And you can really listen to your sound. And like, I kind of do, now that I'm thinking about, I kind of do that because I like to really execute stuff well. Then that gives me the freedom when I'm trying something harder. Look,

it's not going to be perfect or whatever. But maybe you just give yourself a little bit of satisfaction of really being able to nail that. And maybe almost like you think about these chefs that go for all this crazy stuff and they're not sure if it's going to be a hit or not. But then they'll do something real like right down the pipe. the pike, so to speak, that they know, you know, a good old Terry Missue, you know, whatever. Oh, by the way, it's totally off subject. Do you have my hat, speaking of great restaurant?

Yeah, it's, you left it at Bull Rush over there. It's hanging on the hat rack here at the studio. Okay, cool. I'm sorry to digress a little bit. They threw that hat at me, by the way, when I went in there. Your boy, Peter left his hat here. I was like, I did leave it for a couple weeks. I was out of town.

I mean, I left it when we went before. Yeah, I like that idea of practicing something, starting with something easy. I start my practice with some kind of easy chromatic scale. or major scale or something like that, that I can just really focus in on my sound, warm up. But really, you know, I would also recommend Samuel. Check out Kenny Warner's book, Effortless Mastery. There's a section in that where he has this exercise

where you just, you strike one key on the piano or maybe you throw your, I forget what it is, you throw your hands on the keyboard, and then before you can think of any other thought, you think to yourself, that's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. And then you do it again, before you can think about it.

So you're actually kind of training yourself to just accept what happens. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think it can be life-changing if you can detach who you are from the music you're making because it's not the same.

Your value as a person does not depend on how well you play even though sometimes it feels like that. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's the journey. It's the journey. Even when you're practicing, it's the journey.

If you can come to enjoy that, and if you're hitting 87% or 93% or 99%, it really doesn't matter. I mean, yeah, we're going to try to improve these specific things that are playing. But, you know, when there's a lot of good things going on, there's a lot of things

to enjoy along that journey. And that can kind of get your mind off of something that actually has very little bearing upon your or the listener's actual enjoyment of the music. I mean, it's kind of like if you're playing 90, first of all, this is a ridiculous thing that I'm even rating it like this. This is just very arbitrary. It'd be like 99% accurate as a jazz player. Yeah, that's not.

Are you a 97 or 96? Yeah, no, no, no. Well, I do. Okay, buddy. No, but let's just say in your mind you're 99% accurate and like 1% you're like, oh, I wasn't perfect. I mean, wow, 99% versus 1%. If I were to be able to cook a dish that was 99% nutritional and I focused on that 99% I think the 1% would kind of fade in.

It would be kind of overtaken by the 99% right? Absolutely. And also think about this. One more parting thought. Every mistake you make, everything that's not perfect, especially in your practice, that's an opportunity to grow. That's right. We don't want to practice. No. You want to, you literally will not grow as a musician. What's your practice is perfect. You've got to find out where your weak spots are. You have to find out where your failure points are so that you can work on them.

That's right. And you know what? If you're failing a lot, welcome to the club. Every other great musician you've ever heard fails in their practice all the time. That's why they're so good. Right. And then remember, too, talk about the journey. The reason we can have fun and be creative with doing this is because when we talk about failing, nobody's life is getting lost. Nobody's limb is getting lost. You know, we're not talking about you're going into doing to do surgery and you fail. Don't even listen to jazz.

What you are talking about it? Yeah, no one, listen. When they do, they don't like it. They're just going to be cool or something. Come on, man. Hey, Andrew, can you make sure to add a link to Kenny Warner's effortless mastery maybe on Amazon or just if he has his own website or whatever?

And also, what was the book you mentioned at the beginning? That might be. Oh, yeah, check out Brene Brown. Any of her books, actually, are great. We'll link to one of some of those. Daring greatly is the one that I'm thinking of. Yeah. And then another one that, you know, I read recently that's good.

This will be somewhat applicable. We talked about a while ago is Atomic Habits by James Clear. And that's not really so much about perfection, but it's about, like, developing, you know, habits. And I think that developing a habit of, like, really productive practice where you're not focused on perfection, but you're focused on development all the time. Where it becomes, I mean, and I thought, like, you said effortless mastery, I've always, love that title so much. But where things, all of a sudden, you're kind of in the half, you can get into the habit of a good mindset.

Absolutely. And it sounds like you just need a little bit of an adjustment in terms of your mindset. And things are going to start really clicking. One more. We'll add the inner game of tennis. Classic. Oh, yeah. Classic performance.

Under game of tennis is great for musicians, whatever. Speaking of that, right after this, we might have to play a little inner game of table tennis. Oh, I'm down. I got my tennis lesson in about an hour. Oh, that'll get you ready. All right. Well, till tomorrow, you'll hear it.