You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Lifelong Learnin'

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

In this "Run it Back" special we navigate how to approach learning new things. Whether it be music or plumbing these skills will help you center yourself around being a true lifelong learner. 7 Biggest Myths About Learning Music - Jan 22, 2020 4 Core Principles for Learning Jazz - Jul 02, 2019 How To Learn Any New Skill - Nov 22, 2021Secrets to Learning Tunes FAST - Feb 05, 2018Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

How's it going you'll hear it listeners? This is Caleb Kirby. I'm here with another episode of the Run in Back series. All right. So today's best of is going to be centered around learning. I wanted to make this one more of a philosophical approach, a little bit overall, you know. I think that as musicians, a lot of times getting better, your instrument has a lot to do with a philosophy that allows, you to become a better version of yourself every day. And that doesn't mean like there's some

easy trick, you know, to getting into what you're working on. That doesn't mean like that you're just naturally gifted at anything. This just means that you've got a goal in mind. You've got a mindset that you want to accomplish. And the only way to get there is just incremental a little bit every day. And that's just creating a really cool routine. So this first clip is actually not, it's not about learning. It's about the myths of learning and the myths of being good at music. And this first clip is centered around

how talent being or examining exactly what it is and how maybe it's not everything that you need in terms of development, especially in something like music. What's number one? Okay, number one, talent is the most important. I don't even know what talent is anymore. Can I be honest about it?

that? Like, to me, talent is a combination of personality traits that make you good at learning stuff. Yeah, but I think if, like, think about your kids, like, and you've said different things, they're talented in this, he's talent, she's, whatever. So I think at the younger age, and maybe that's why you, in terms of music, you've been doing this so long, you disassociate really with the talent. But I do think that it's more applicable at an inexperienced or younger age, right? But don't you think it's more just a combination of, okay, I might have a couple of physical characteristics, big hands or good ears or whatever, that help me. play music, but more it's just that I was super interested in it than anything. I was just so curious

about it. You know what I mean? I think that's what talent really is. Yeah, nature versus nurture, passion versus an A thing. I mean, it always, I always think about like the, you know, the seven-footer that really doesn't care about basketball or isn't that interested in it, but they're always told, oh, you should play, you should play. And then they fizzle out if they don't have a passion also. So they have a physical talent, you know, for it. But they don't necessarily, If you don't have the passion combined, it's very difficult to excel at it. And then being an artist, you have to have, like, I think talent can be confidence or vision or the confidence to put your vision out there in the way that you want it uncompromisingly.

You know, I don't know. Talent is such a tricky word for me. And I also think that talent when it comes to music, and, you know, I haven't really, I'm not qualified to speak on other areas if you talk about scholastic or mathematics or athletic or intellectual. I mean, there's so many different things that people talk about. she's really talented at that she's you know what does that actually mean so we're just talking about music i would say that we underestimate both ourselves and others innate musical talent in this world

yeah and we overestimate the important we overestimate a great musicians innate talent actually yeah i think and i think part of that is because there's a lot of things from when we're born I think we're all born with way more musical talent than the world gives us credit for. So what happens is very quickly, a lot of that is stamped out. Ways that that's stamped out, parents saying, oh, we're not talented in our family.

We're not music. We're not. And so the kid hears that and it's like, okay, that's not me then. And then also just not being exposed to a high quality of great organic music. I don't mean great going to the symphony. I'm just talking about, you know, good music

that people are passionate about them, that they enjoy as part of the flow of their life. I mean, people that are like, I grew up as a talented chef. I bet they grew up in a household where one or both of their parents or their grandmother, whoever was around. Cooking was valued. Cooking was valued. Cooking was connected with love and family and tasted good and all these things. So I think very much so with music when you grow up in that situation, because people are always telling me, oh, you're so talented.

And then I'm like, oh, your parents were music. Oh, that's what. That is more about nurture. Wait, which is nurturing. Nurturing. Nurturing. The nature. It's not like you're, I mean, you have very talented musical parents, but it's not like that gene.

There's like a music gene that they passed on to you. I mean, maybe some physical attributes. There is some of that. I just think it's way less than the nurse. But don't you think more that music was failing your household? My parents, my dad is an amateur guitarist. My mom is not a musician at all. But there was such passion for music in our house and still is.

My parents go to more concerts than I do. You know what I mean? That it was very clear that it was something special. And important. Important. Right. And I think that, the importance, so the value of it and the passion, if you talk about value, passion, and talent, and then there's other elements, too. But even of those, I would say talent is the least important.

Totally great. And in fact, the one we're going to talk about next, they can work against it. But, I mean, you know, I would just encourage everybody to, to even compare it to some other things like, and I'm trying to think of what would be, I don't know, like, you know, even in like athletics is very, it's very hard. Like, you could say, okay, like to be a high jumper, you're talented. if you have a certain speed, you know, muscle speed and height, and, you know, you fit within these parameters. But even those things have exceptions when you have a big passion. So I would be very careful to ever say somebody has, you know, success at something because,

certainly not solely because of their talent. But in music, even more so because we talk about different instruments and we'll say, like, well, you know, such and such has big hands and they're strong, and so they're a great bass player. And we can certainly see that's the case with many musicians. But then there's an outlier. that is one of the most So Alicia de La Rocha, I don't know if you've ever heard her

is one of my favorite classical pianos. Because I heard her live a bunch of times here. She's teeny. Her hands are teeny and all these things. And I know with piano, it's not always you have to be huge or whatever,

but a lot of times it would be like, well, you have physical attributes. She doesn't sound teeny. She does not sound teeny at all. And so I mean, you know, talent is overrated, so that's all we're saying. I think that was actually a Malcolm Gladwell book. It was.

Talent is overrated. Cool. Great stuff. I love how they dive into that topic. And really, like, you know, they're not, I feel like we're not like saying that, oh, it's worthless to be talented. But really what we're saying is, like, the passion behind what you want to do has to be there. All right.

So moving on, let's actually get into something that I think is extremely helpful in terms of learning and in terms of development and, you know, just kind of traversing this little plane we call music and life. This next one's about the virtue of patience. So I think that this is just a great clip because, you know, especially as lifelong learners and some, you know, in this kind of day and age, a lot of us really expect to get good at things fast. And if we're not good at things, we can just say that like, oh, I just, it's not for me or whatever. But this next clip is really good because it goes into depth about having the patience to really apply yourself towards a certain subject. So I hope you find some value. I think this is, this is almost like one.

This could be like tied for one. As far as the importance of actually being able to learn something like jazz piano and to be able to grow at any stage of your growth requires this. This is patience. And it's so important to remember that if we're really in it, if we really love music, if we really want to learn more and we really want to grow, if we want to have that growth, we have to develop a sense of patience. We have to develop the sense that we don't have to practice everything at one session, that we don't have to. have to become Chick-Korea or Brad Meldow by next week, that we have the rest of our lives to work on this, to fall in love with the process, to realize that the results are not as important as putting in the work.

Yeah, and I think that this area of patients is something that really ties together the jazz world and the medical world. Like when doctors and medicalists... You always go to the surgeon. Sorry, yeah. Well, no, but when a good surgeon or a medical facility focuses on the patients instead of just on the doctors and the nurses. How much better does that operation, no?

It's not that kind. Did I read that wrong? Oh, patience, this kind. I should have been more patient. No, in all seriousness, this is truly, well, it comes back to the thing of like, you know, you mentioned, you know, we can't be, we, it's not even that we can't be chikaria tomorrow. Like, if we could become chik, if we could give you a secret jump start to becoming chikorea in one day. Yeah.

What does that mean about chikorea? It's worthless. Exactly. Absolutely worth it. So like not only be patient, but like revel in it and like enjoy the journey. That's right. You know? And first of all, we're not even asking for that much patience with this seven weeks.

Come on. Yeah. For this course. Yeah. But even if you don't have it in seven weeks, realize that it's like it's not a, it's not a sprint. It's a marathon. Yeah, right. But the journey of learning the music and we talk to so many people and that so fun for us to

to see people as they go through our courses that if you kind of put on the right mindset from the beginning, you can have a lot of fun as you move through. this patiently. Totally. You know, if you try to rush through, it's not as fun because this is a, I mean, this is a deep, valuable kind of skill that you're developing and you don't want, you don't want to, even if you could rush through it, why would you do that? Yeah, I hope at the end of seven weeks for this course that people aren't, you know, jazz piano masters, but that they've sort of laid the foundation for those skills that can help them for the rest of their lives. Absolutely. In learning this great music. And then how are they going to do that? That

takes us to number three. Okay. Coming right up is this next clip called Deadline. I chose this one because I have found it extremely helpful in my own journey with learning music and especially with writing tunes for me. But in this one, Peter and Adam really get into talking about how when you want to apply yourself towards a new thing or you want to get better at something, really one of the best ways to do it is to just have a deadline. And, you know, it's got to be firm and you got to make sure that you get everything done at a certain point. and then you move on from there. So a deadline is kind of crucial if you're trying to really accomplish something soon.

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. 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. And 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 being hyperbolic there. Yeah. No, but I knew nothing before. 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. Oh, if you want to learn how to string arrange, book a recording session with a string quartet. Yes. 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 Sebelius. I know, you know, when I first learned Sebelius, I don't know what your experience. Like, I 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 Sabarrail up. Yeah, yeah. But I kind of did that by accident. I got lucky. So 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, Wait, who is this for though? This was for,

um, this was for jazz and Lincoln Center. Oh, okay. It was. Or was it? I'm gonna fix that for you right now. Oh, no, no, those were the ones by hand. No, I was,

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 love doing that.

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. Try out 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. All right. So this next clip is from an episode where Peter and Adam try to explain how to learn tunes fast. So when you're trying to learn anything fast, I think that it's really cool if you just get your mind wrapped around it in the easiest form. And for music, that has to be listening to it. So you cannot just go cold into learning a tune.

I mean, I guess there's some people that can do that, but I personally find that you have to listen to a tune. You have to like really get in deep. And that way when you're first approaching your instrument, when you're getting into that zone, you already have like a huge head start because you know what you want to sound like. You know what you're going for. So this last clip is about listening to a tune and having that be your first step towards learning it fast. Today we're going to tell you the secrets to learning tunes fast. Now you're not talking about learning tunes playing. fast. You're talking about absorbing tunes in a timely manner.

Exactly, exactly. So the first thing I think is important to absorbing tunes in a timely manner or learning tunes fast is, and this one's a little bit of a cheat in a way because you have to have some preparation before you actually get here. But it's by really knowing the tune by ear, away from your instrument. And I mean like you've listened to it so much either from a recording or live performances or both, that you already can sing the song. You can sing the melody, you can hear the chord changes,

you know the form, even if you haven't plotted out the form or ever seen the music or anything, it doesn't matter. I mean, that you really know it. The same way, like if you were going to learn to recite a poem, a poem, is that the way we say it?

Poem. Poem. So, erritude of you. You know, if you wanted to be able to recite any kind of prose, but you'd heard it many times and read it before you even opened up your mouth, you're going to be in a much better position to be able to learn it. So a lot of times we get excited about learning a tune and all of a sudden we pull out the chart

and the music or we'll listen to the recording and try to learn it. But do yourself a favor. Listen to it a lot. And you can actually do this pretty fast. I mean, if for a couple of days, you know, you get your headphones on and you're going out for a walk, just listen to the same song over and over again, maybe a couple of different versions, sing along with it, really absorb it. then when you sit at your instrument, you're going to have a big head start.

It just makes it so much easier to learn it if you already know it. Exactly. You know what I mean? So even if you don't know it, know it in your head and you can sing it and you know how the melody goes and you know what the form is before you even sit down at your instrument, I mean, that just saves yourself a ton of bandwidth in your brain for learning this tune. Thanks for listening to You'll Hear It. This is the Run It Back series by Caleb Kirby.

Now remember, if you like this podcast, it's sponsored by Open StudioJazz.com. where you're going to find the best content in terms of growing your relationship between you and your instrument. And if you like this podcast, give us a like and subscribe. Until next time, happy practicing.