You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To Sound Great When You're Not a Great Player

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

On this episode, Peter and Adam give you some easy tips to immediately improve your playing no matter your skill level.Interested 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.Friday's Open Studio Live Events (all times are EST):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam on YouTube8:00 PM - Shelter in Place solo piano concert with Peter on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Yo. I'm Adam Manas. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Euler podcast. Daily Music Advice and Inspiration on Black Friday. On Black Friday. Coming at you today, sponsored by open studio jazz.com.

We are going to talk more about that later. But first, we're talking about how to sound great when you're not a great player. What the hell does that mean, Peter? I don't know. But I'm just looking at Adam, you look a little heavy. What happened yesterday? What? Oh, I ate a metric ton of turkey and gravy and stuffing.

and a pecan pie. So that turkey ended up being as large as you thought? Yeah, but it's not large anymore. It's dead. Is it a carcass? It's, yeah,

it's in my belly. No, man, I'm, I'm eternally grateful for having married someone who can cook as well as H. Mac can cook. Nice.

Pretty awesome. Cool. Well, yes, so we are talking about, so this is a little bit of projection, I guess, is built into this title,

which I think it's okay. A little bit of fake it till you make it, a little bit aspirational, advice. Well, yeah, what we were talking about, though, is like, it doesn't matter what skill level you are. These are kind of little tips that you can do in the moment, right? Things, we don't want to say hacks because we get called out for doing hacks because, you know, I don't know if you know this, but hacks are hacky. Well, they have a negative kind of thing. We are always like, wow, we are, we are using more of the shortcut side of hacks. Yeah, we like to pretend like we're the

enlightened jazz, online jazz educators. That's right, right, right. We don't have funny accents, but we have funny words, hacks. These are, these are real things that know. matter what skill level you are, you can just kind of use these as, you know what, there's a, there's these things in Zen, Peter, called Coens. I don't know if you know about these, but there's these little thoughts. I got some cousins out in California, the Coens. There's these little thoughts that kind of help you loosen up, right? And these are these things, right? Little triggers, what do you call? Little triggers, exactly. They like, they like loosen these ideas in your brain. And I think these things are how to sound great when you're not a great player. I mean, this isn't, this is not calling you out for

not being a great player, but really it's all about like, no matter what level you are, you can apply these and you're playing right now and it's going to help. Yes, great stuff. And look, we're all, it's all relative. You know, and I think that we all, you know, artists have a certain sense, serious artists, aspirational artists, musicians, any kind of artistic endeavor where you're really trying to go for something. There's always going to be times of doubt and like, oh my God, I'm horrible. I suck. I'm not a great player or whatever. So sometimes, you know, sometimes we don't have an accurate view often of where we are in the journey. And that's okay because it's all about, you know, the journey and progress.

And it's not just about the destination. It's very little about the destination. So I think these things can work well for people even at a time when you feel like, I'm just not, or even if you're like, you know what, honestly, I'm not a great player. But I want to play some good stuff, at least some of the time as I enjoy the journey to getting better. So our first tip here, is going to be to prune your playing back. This is for players at every single skill level. Up to me. I have to remind myself of this a lot.

Ooh, up to me. I like you. Yeah. I like your confidence there. This is to literally say to yourself, I need to be playing less. I could be playing more. I could always be playing a lot more.

That's right, right, right. But I'm going to play less. And this could be, oh, yeah. See, how great does that sound? No, it does not sound great. Exactly. Now, this could be done at any time. This could be done during the solo.

This could be done like on a set where you're like, you know, this tune, I'm going to consciously just play in a very simple way. I'm going to get the most out of less. This works no matter where you are. Yes. And I mean, it's really, you know, if you want to go full on, I think taking advantage of this one, it's really just putting on that mindset of less is more. Like you could do it for a phrase. You could do it for a solo. You could do it for a whole gig, though.

Or you could do it for your whole week. You know, just like, look, less is more. Now you're going to have to remind yourself. And it's one of those things, especially when we are unsure about where we are. Sometimes we rush, we push, we play too much. It's like definitely along those lines of playing more. Sometimes if we play something that we don't like the way it's sound, we try to fix it right away. So, I mean, this is easier said than done.

So the more you kind of adopt it as a real mindset of how you're going to go about, a strategy of how you're going to go about playing, the closer you're going to be able to get into it. Let's do a G-Bloos real quick. You might accompany me a little bit? Absolutely. I'm going to play a little bit too much, and then I'm going to switch it up. I'm going to do the first course a little too much,

not like crazy too much. And then on the second course, I'm going to tell myself, play less, and you be the judge. Okay. One, two, one, two, three, and... All right, now just lighten up. So, there was a lot more music going on in that second course.

I like the course number two better. Yeah, me too. And you noticed something, too. it didn't mean that I didn't ever play fast or play, you know what I mean? I was still able to like, yeah, to do some fast and flurry and, you know,

what, fragrant, no, furry lines, but it was the whole thing, just thinking, just thinking about playing a little bit less. Yeah, really,

it's brought into focus. Yeah, and I tried to throw you off. I was doing a little joke. I didn't even start playing. I was like, how's that for less is more? Less is more.

It's nothing. Yeah. But what I noticed, a nice byproduct of your second chorus was you play by playing less it was a way that I could hook up with you I was kind of playing the bass part

at whatever I was able to catch some things where in in theory your first course gave more opportunity more devices to hook up with but because it was like a stream of consciousness sort of situation I wasn't able to really I was just it was just like oh he's playing on his own

so you know you immediately on course number two went into more of a collaborative type of playing, which is always going to harness I mean, we talk about ways to sound good when you're, and I was going to save this to later, but now it was the perfect time. It's just like, harness great players around you,

harness just players around you, you know, take on the mob, the nice mob, not the pitch for a mob, and use, lean on each other. You know, there's no I and team. There isn't me, though. Well, so this brings us to our very next point of how to sound great when you're not great player.

you can always connect, connect to the people you're playing with. Let's do another couple of courses. I'll do the first course where I am not giving a crap about anything you're doing. You don't know how to play yet. I know, but I'm not even, I'm going to ignore you and just think about myself. Okay. Second course. I'm going to.

So first course regular, like we usually do. Okay. And then what do we do second course? So the second course, I'm actually going to get some information from you. So I'm going to, and you're not even going to know it, but I'm going to listen to what you're playing. and I'm going to pull some ideas out of what you're doing. Let's do a G-flat blues. Okay.

Let's do it. One, two. One, two, three. Not bad, but... So that second chorus was, again, so much better for me, so much more musical. I was connecting with you. The first thing you did was play two repeated G-flats, and so I used that as the whole theme of the first two-thirds of the blues.

And then I heard you do something like... And so that was the second theme. I didn't have to think about Jack Squat for that whole second chorus because you gave me everything I needed to do. You are welcome. That's your Thanksgiving. That's your Black Friday gift. And that's something you can do no matter how much theory

or how much of a player you are. You can always connect and take some information from what's going on around you. Yeah. And so even if you think, okay, we're always going to get into a situation where we're like, I'm not a great player. But then you're going to get a situation

we're like, wow, I'm better than I thought. I'm playing with these crappy players. don't think like that. Like, because that's that kind of thing where you're like, oh, I have, there's nothing from them I can take. And that's not true. There's something you can take from anybody that can play. Like everybody, a clock is, is, you know, a broken clock is correct twice a day.

That's right. And so, I mean, you'd be surprised. Like, we all have something to say. So never be so, so cocky about what you're doing. And don't be so like, you know, beneath everybody else too that you like, you got to find some meeting ground to play. Just like with speak, anybody can speak a little bit of a language that you can speak. You can have a conversation. They don't know as many words as I do.

So what? They've got their own stories. So talk to them. Meet them where you can. Let's do one more. Okay. How to sound great when you're not a great player? Yeah.

Listen. That's right. Yeah. Listen to what? Number three. Yeah, like we always do. Number three. We've relegated it.

And look, everything we're saying is about listening on some regards. But, you know, the first thing in terms of playing, less, that's going to force you to listen. And if you listen, that's going to force yourself to play less because it's very hard to talk and to listen at the same time. It's very hard to play and listen at the same time. You can. And that's certainly advanced playing. And that's a big part of what we're training ourselves to do is to be able to listen and play at the same time. But when you feel like you're not a great player yet, spend time listening around you, listen to great recordings over and over again, simple things that are great. Listen, listen, listen,

listen to simple things that are great. Learn how to enunciate and express yourself the way the great players have done on recordings and then infuse your own playing with that, the same way you would infuse a deep-fried turkey as we used to do in Louisiana in the pre-plant-based days. We would infuse our turkey with certain flavorings, Cajun and Creole flavor. So you're going to want to infuse your playing with what you're listening to. but if you skip over or are a little bit too shallow in your listening. Everybody's like, oh, yeah, I listen.

Of course I listen. I love listening. But you know, that kind of deep listening and that like very intensive on specific things for your level. Not your level as a listener. Your level is a player. You've got it. Like don't, if you feel like you're not a great player, don't go listening to John Coltrane solo on Giant Steps all the time. I mean, you can listen to it.

But I'm saying don't listen to that is your only material and solo that you're going to be infusing your playing with. Because it's just going to be too advanced for you to be able to get. that much out of. Yeah, sorry, I mean, I'm not listening to you. I'm texting with my dog sitter. Are you serious? Yeah. How do you have a dog sitter?

Well, I mean, I'm very important. What were you saying? Oh, that was the, that was such a long charade for it. And no one could see what you were doing. I know, it was for you. It was for you. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I really like this idea of these universal things

that players of all levels can use. How to sound great when you're not a great player. Hey, you know, something else, Peter. Yes. It's Black Friday. It is Black Friday, which is an exciting day around here at Open Studio. The office is all virtual, so there's nothing happening. There's no buzzing. But there is buzzing on the internets and stuff. We, you know, last year, as we said earlier, was one of our, was that yesterday we were talking about this? Yeah, we were talking about this yesterday. Last year on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, that weekend, we had more new members than we've ever

had come in, which is so exciting for us. New members, new students. because you and I and the whole content team, the burgeoning content team and all of our artists, have been speaking and talking about and planning stuff for 2021. And it's very exciting all the different ideas we have. And man, what a 2020 when we had, even during this global pandemic. Well, I was saying planning for 2021.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're in 2020. Oh, you got confused there. Oh, man. Sorry. Shannon again. My doggy daycare.

Sorry. Doggy, doggy daycare. Snoop doggy doggy daycare. Man, yeah, no, sorry, what a 2020 I misspoke. We had. We added so much stuff with this. And, you know, this is the time of year. This right now, today is if you're thinking about getting an open studio course, now's your day. It doesn't ever, you'll never get a better deal than what you'll get today. We're talking about 70% off all lifetime courses. And for the first time, 50% off of memberships, including monthly memberships. If you've been on the fence, if you've been a long time podcast listener and you wanted to get into the open studio universe, now's it. Yeah, exactly, because we know everybody wants to save money, which is good, and we're happy to provide this. If nobody has any gigs, Peter. That's true. There are no gigs, so this is our little way of doing that.

But the main thing has become part of our community. The community has never been stronger, and it's a very exciting time. That's true. Go to openstudiojazz.com. We said that already, didn't we? Well, you said yesterday, but yeah, go to openstitogadjazz.com. Until tomorrow, you'll hear it.