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

Episode Date: July 19, 2019

It's another trans-Atlantic episode as Peter's still in Italy, but that doesn't stop him and Adam from answering a SpeakPipe on practicing performing in front of an audience. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Just go to https://youllhearit.com/podcast-contact/.To check out all the Open Studio courses mentioned in this episode, take a visit to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/piano.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. What's up? How do you say you'll hear it in Italian? Lo sentiery. I'm Adam Anas. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you.

Coming at you. No, that was not me saying that. That was Google Translate. Saying it way better than I can say it. And Google Translate is like a serious Italian dude. He's like old school. Lo sentierry. It's so much fun to just press the button.

And it keeps saying it. That means you'll hear it in Italian. And we're doing that because Pete's in Italy. You're in Naples, Napoli. Napoli. That's a really... But now, I'm not sure... You know, sometimes Google gets a little funny with their translation.

It sounds right. Yeah. But maybe some of our Italian, we do have some Italian fans and listeners. We do, yeah. Of the You'll Hear podcast, maybe they could write in and let us know how accurate that is. I know it's a funny term, you'll hear it. It's such a, you know, it's like one of those things that actually just translates the same. every language.

Yeah, that's right. Maybe Los Enzi Live. We'll see. All right. So we have a speak pipe. I just like to say it. We have a speak pipe today from Kevin. Check it out.

Hi, guys. This is Kevin from Los Angeles. I'm a All Access Pass member as well as a steady you'll hear it, listener. And I was wondering if you guys could speak about when you've talked about having performance be part of your practice routine. and when you guys spoke of that, it really stuck out to me as that is something I've definitely not ever had as part of my practice routine. And I've tried it some. And I'm finding myself mentally just kind of drifting back into my normal practice with, you know, the analyzing and being critical and whatnot. So I was wondering if you could speak of how you guys kind of shift mentally and how are you doing differently?

when you guys do that aspect of practice. All right. I look forward to hearing it. Thanks. That's a great question, Kevin. Yes. Yeah, you know, Peter, we have talked about practicing performance a lot. You know, this is something that I hear you do when I do kind of get the,

get the awe-inspiring moments of actually witnessing Peter Martin's practice here in the studio. But you do practice performance. a lot and I've started to practice it more like because being inspired by hearing you do it a lot. And I'm not sure exactly how you approach it or how you're thinking about it. But I get what Kevin's saying here about the judgment thing. I think that's something that we have to be super analytical and judgmental as we're practicing, say, scales or something like that. But when it comes to performance, we want to get in the habit of being in a judgment-free zone in general and really just trying to, you know, practice the flow, practice being free.

practice not thinking. Yeah. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, the flow and the whole thing about flow state, you know, I know just a little bit, just enough to be dangerous about that. But I think what we can take from that to apply to this, I mean, to performing in general and then to this kind of performance practice, which I see it very much the same mentality and kind of headspace we want to be in. as when we're actually performing on a gig, whether we're with other musicians or by ourselves.

I think the closer we get to that same state when we're practicing, that's exactly what it is. There's nothing any different. So what we're trying to do is simulate or really inhabit that performance space by ourselves. So the only thing that's different is we don't have an audience. And if you have somebody you can grab, you can actually just go ahead and perform for them. It doesn't have to be an organized gig. But the idea is that we're trying to be, you know what it is? I think the trickiest thing is to like, how do you reconcile staying self-aware but not being judgmental about yourself at all or critiquing yourself at all, but still being self-aware.

So we're not like so much out of our, you know, self that we're just thinking about totally other things. We're aware of what we're playing and we're even maybe, we're not critiquing it in the moment. hearing what's happening like we are and you know we're performing like we're we're a listener at the same time and we're so we're aware of what we're playing and hopefully we're very connected to what we're playing but we're not judging at all we're not critiquing we're not saying wow that was too slow that was too fast outside of whatever adjustments we need to make to the music as the listeners and as controlling the music at the same time so I know what the way I just explained it makes it sound like it's impossible to do but it's not what you have to do is first just sort of give yourself the

license to just play in an in what do you call it in not in hep bad what am i trying to say uninhibited you know like uninhibited that's it you you complete me out of it could reach your mind from 10,000 miles away or however yeah yeah exactly uninhibited so you know a lot of times it's like well how do you just do that well you have to practice it doing it but the first step is like give yourself license to do that yeah so like from mentality things standpoint, it's kind of like, it's a lot easier to be uninhibited than to be inhibited once you get in the habit of it. But it takes some time to sort of be in the habit. So you have to first be like, okay, it's like whatever is cool. It's sort of like if you're going to go out on a first date with

somebody, you know, your initial instinct is like to be fearful and be like, oh my God, what is she or he going to think of me? So I have to try to be this or whatever. But what if you just say to yourself, you know what? I'm just going to be myself. And but not think about like, well, what parts of myself do I like? What parts of myself do I not like? No, no, no. I'm just who I am right now. I'm just going to be myself. So I think the closer you can get to that, so you're still aware of who you are as a player

when you go through this performance practice thing. But you're not judging yourself. You're not inhibited in any way. So you're hopefully putting yourself into that sort of mental space of the best of you can come out. Your story can be told to the best of your ability at that time. And that's good enough. So that's the kind of self-awareness thing.

It's like who I am. I'm happy with that. You know, yeah, I mean, long term, are you like, this is as good as I'm ever going to be? No. But for today, this is cool. Like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm getting into practice. And you're also sort of imagining in a weird sort of way where you're going to be in five years, where you're going to be in two years, where you're going to be in 10 years.

You're going to be always getting better. You're going to be developing. So go ahead and act like you're already at that place now. Why not? Yeah, I love that, man. And I love what you said about being uninhibited. When I practice performance, I don't do this technique always. but I do it sometimes, and when I do, I always learn a lot is I will record myself.

I will record maybe four or five tunes in a practice session, me performing them, just one take, where I'll record it on my phone because that is an audience. And I'm not actually practicing the tune. What I'm practicing is being vulnerable, being uninhibited, being myself as much as possible, trying to create something that I think is special. And then I don't listen to that for at least a day, sometimes two days, sometimes two days, sometimes a week. But when I come back to practice again, the next day, usually, I will listen to it and just be

totally honest with what I hear and then form my next practice session out of the things that I want to approve on from that. And I don't, you know, listen to it with like, oh, doesn't that sound great? Or, oh, doesn't that suck? I really try to just kind of detached, in a detached way, say, like, what would I do? What do I want to hear as a listener? that I'm not hearing. You know, what do I want to play that is me that is not coming out because I wasn't as free

as I could have been. Maybe I was thinking about like, oh, I'm recording this. I don't want anybody to actually hear this. And so maybe I won't try that or maybe I won't do this thing. That to me is a great way to practice performance to record yourself on the regular, not listen to it directly after, wait a day, come back with fresh ears and a fresh mind and no judgment. And that way you can practice performing free.

to an audience of your phone and then also use that performance as sort of a jumping off point, something to learn from. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's like, you know, we got to remember we're doing this, you know, for ourselves. But we're the ultimate goal, I think, of this kind of practicing performing is that when you get, so that when you get to a performance situation, you're going to be all the more prepared. You're going to be more comfortable.

you're going to be comfortable to the point as best as you can. I mean, every performance situation is different. And for some people when you play for a bigger audience or important people or people that you, you know, loved ones, or whatever the situation is or a special piano or a special venue, that can bring another level of, you know, of nervousness or whatever. But the whole thing is the more practice we have at this, the easier it becomes. So a lot of times, you know, for me, you know, haven't performed a whole lot over the years. There's just the security of that, you know, with these things that we're talking about. And like you brought up the word vulnerable, which I think is great because that kind of goes along with, I think, being uninhibited.

If you're not inhibited or you're getting as close as you can to being uninhibited, you know, try to get 99% or whatever the maximum we can, you're naturally going to get to a state of, being able to expose vulnerability to an audience. And as an artist, I think that's one of the most important things that we have to offer. I remember, you know, like almost being, you know, disdainful against, like, you know, folk musicians and different people that I would hear play and be able to connect with audiences. And to me, they seem like not that sophisticated musically. I'm like, they're only playing a few chords. They're kind of playing basic things. But, like, they have such a connection.

But I think what it is is they're able to get that vulnerability of their. art and their story. And that's the most important thing. So like we think about the core changes and all these things that we talk about on the podcast. And we know these are important. But only in so much as they exhibit and we can use them to exhibit our humanity and our world outlook or artistic vision or whatever it is, you know, two real people that are

an audience, whether it's by ourselves or with the phone recording us and then with one person, with your spouse, with 10 people, with 10,000. It doesn't matter. Like our job is to be able to be vulnerable, to be able to be uninhibited, to be able to be in the moment, to be able to be our best self, be able to represent this music. So, you know, in practicing this, that's what that's about. There's going to be, you know, Kevin, I would just say that I'm just looking back at what

you're saying performance, practice routine. Yeah, you're saying, you know, you're doing too much analyzing and being too critical as you're going through that. That's a process to get rid of that. So if you're able to do this everyday practice this performing and maybe you're able to do a little bit less analysis, a little bit less critical thinking of your playing more in the moment, that's what you want to be doing. You want to be growing. It's not like all a sudden you decide to do this and it happens. There's a pathway to get to this sort of vulnerability

and you will get there, but you have to be conscious of it and put yourself in that mindset. Yeah, that's right. Practicing performance, to sum up, I think, what you were just saying, which I think is so important to reiterate. Practicing performance is not about seeing if I can play stride piano at 300 beats per minute. It's seeing if I can maybe play that, uh, but be completely vulnerable and uninhibited in my creativity as I'm doing that to, to do it without thinking about it to that's what we're practicing is that flow. It's not about anything that we're actually practicing before the performance as far as like scales or whatever you're working on or trying to think about. It's really practicing that that mindset of flow,

of vulnerability of art of being the most you you can be so i think yeah and let's just remember too like because we we mentioned this before but maybe some people didn't hear or forgot or whatever the kind of goal of this portion of your practice is to is to actually get as many of the things that you're practicing in your more conscious regimented part of your practice routine to be able to come out in your improvisational jazz playing to give it a chance for that to just sort of happen in an organic and automatic way. So, you know, part of this is just letting your mind kind of wander sometimes and not thinking about, oh, I was working on this certain voicing

or this thing over C minor. You're going to get to a C minor. Let's see if it can just sort of pop out. It might not do it the first day. It might not do it the first seven days. But it will happen at one point, but you have to let that process kind of complete and go through the repetition of just doing this. So actually, if you're, you know, performance practice,

is just taking the song, like let's say you're working on at one particular composition in particular in your practice. It's like kind of your main thing. So let's say for seven days, you just play that tune, solo piano from beginning to end.

And an important thing is to like not start and stop. Act like you're actually on a gate where everybody's sitting there listening to you just from beginning to end. And maybe you feel like the first day you're being too critical or analyzing it. But that's okay. You're like just getting through the tune.

You're actually getting something accomplished really good. And you keep that every day. That's good enough. You know, the analysis and to be critical will start to sort of fade away, but just pushing through the tube. Because a lot of times when we're practicing, we don't realize, like, we don't even get through the tomb that much. We're going back and trying to fix something or trying to be perfect with this or trying to work in something. So we've got to give ourselves that chance, even if it's just a small part of our practice, to just play music, just great music.

So well said, man. Kevin, thank you for the great question. I love thinking about this. Yeah. and you're not practicing performance, you're missing out on an opportunity to practice on something that can really help you when you get on a gig, when you get on the jam session,

when you get in the recording studio, that kind of being able to access that kind of flow and know what that feels like is, I think, a main component of being a complete musician. So make sure to not sleep on that part of it, for show. Yeah, and it really, yeah, I mean, this should be some of the most fun part of your practice, too. For sure.

You know, at all levels. I mean, there's always going to be a certain amount of painfulness because, you know, we don't sound good to ourselves and we might feel like our flaws are exposed. But it should be a chance where you can just play whatever is fun and comfortable, whatever, like, best represents your feeling and kind of musical mentality at that time. That's so true. It's all good. Hey, man, you know how you could, you know a way that you could practice performance? Yeah, I thought before we were talking about it. I feel like you're reaching for something else.

I am. I'm reaching, I'm plugging here. You could practice performance with the. You can practice performance with the excellent playalongs. We have over at open studio jazz.com. Ah, now I see where you're going with this. As you can see, we are a well-oiled machine here, fully scripted, and we always know where each other's going.

Yeah, man. So I'm talking about like jazz piano jumpstart, our brand new beginner course has a ton of great playalongs. That's Montes Coleman and Bob Dubu. We have the advanced jazz piano concepts. has some playalongs. We have improvisation for all has some play alongs. Elements of jazz piano

has some play alongs. Those are all really... And some trading. And some trading with you. You can trade with Peter Martin, talk about practicing performance. These are all great ways to practice your performance. At the end of your practice routine, you can put on one of these swing and play alongs. They're real musicians playing real tunes. It's not

going to be the same as being in the same room with live people, of course. But it's a nice substitute if you can't get that from some pretty world-class players and more coming by the way we might have some with with uh with uh rubin rogers and ulysses ellens on deck uh we're working on i think we do have some cute up i remember recording some of those yeah no i think it's a really good way and i mean you can always practice along with recordings as well i mean i know you and i both have talked about doing that a lot but these the back and track thing

is is a lot of fun because there's not a if you're a pianist especially there's not another pianist getting in your way as we have to say uh with ourselves so that's fun you know what they call uh what i just did in the industry, Pete, that's an organic plug right there. Organic plug. I know, I know. It's like when you're watching the football or soccer match and on the side of the little billboy, the guy's running

by, he looks sweaty and then he grabs some Gatorade. That's organic as well. Are the play alongs we have organic? Are they certified? They are not certified, but they are GMO-free. I can tell you that. Good. They are GMO-free. I don't even know what GMO is, but it's

bad. Hashtag plant based. All right, if you team me up, I'm going to do our tagline here in Italian, so go ahead. Well, I would say until tomorrow you'll hear it, but I think until tomorrow, Lo sentiery.