You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Live From Instagram: Q&A (4/20/20)

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Peter and Adam are going to be streaming live on Open Studio's Instagram every Saturday for the duration of the global health crisis. Here's this week's episode, and be sure to tune in this Saturday, April 25.In light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.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.Let 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.

So we're taking Q and A's. We're doing Q&As. We're doing questions. We're giving answers. We might be asking questions and taking answers, too. We're not going to put any labels. We're not going to put any labels on this. This could be A and Q as well.

So if anybody has any questions about coffee or jazz piano or practicing or, I don't know. So what is your coffee of choice from Blueprint before we get any questions here? Okay. And we actually have one. I'm going to show you a second, but I'll tell you, this is, you know, I'm, I'm subscribed to them because I usually go there in person, as you know, every day when I'm in St. Louis. Yeah, yeah. But they'll be nice enough to drop off a bag, contactless drop off. A gloved gentleman brings this and throws it at the front porch, but it's every two weeks of drink.

But it's like whatever they're, it's from Columbia. And I know we got some fans of the podcast down in Columbia. That's actually kind of a big listening post for us. So I always think about our Colombian brothers and sisters when I'm drinking Finca Tamana single origin. And it's great, man. This lasts me actually two weeks. I'm the only one who really drinks. Oh, Rachel drinks a little bit in the house, but it's good.

All right. So we have some questions already. All right. I'm going to just give this one. And why don't you keep an eye on those ones coming up from that boy, Tom. If you want to press the question thing at the bottom of Instagram, that's a good way to get our attention. You can certainly put in the chat too, but we may miss it. Um, that boy, Tom says, will you have more transcription analysis videos of solos?

Yes, we will. Have we had any so far, really? Well, Corey Henry. That was more of a, it was more of a play by play than I think of detailed analysis. We got called out a little bit. I know, but it's a, but, well, we've done some Herbie Hancock. Didn't we do the, um, one of this, like, All of You Solo or, or something from Mike Money Valentine, maybe some Kenny Kirkland.

Oh, we definitely did Kenny Kirkland on, um, bring on the knife. That's true. Yeah, we should do more. I even like the play-by-play things. Just talking about what's happening and how it's hitting us, I think, is, it's good for me to just think about, you know, much less like transcribing something and analyzing. That's what we should do. We should have Max transcribe something for us.

And then we analyze the heck out of it. That could be a thing. That's good. Good stuff. So Rob says talk about, talk about, talk about. playing patterns in your practice. And it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately because of the daily guide of practice session that I've been doing and just thinking about ways to practice improvising with patterns

in a way that doesn't make you come out sounding like you practice patterns. Yes. And when you listen to someone like Kenny Kirkland on a Phryzinian man, like someone's just talking about here, there are definitely melodic patterns that he's playing. And so, you know, there's a thought that at some point he probably worked on patterns. I would say when you work on things like patterns, you more want to think about it like, I'm not like Peter's going away, but you don't want to think about it like, you don't want to think about it like, I'm learning these specific patterns by rote so that I can just like insert them into said core change here. More like you want to change your brain waves so that you can think in patterns and sort of play much. melodically with patterns in mind, not that there's any preconceived patterns that are going to happen,

but more just like you understand how to put together melodic shapes in a way that you can make interesting patterns. This is just, you know, this is like simple, um, uh, a thematic development, really. I mean, it's the same kind of concept as, as opposed to just playing a pattern like, here's my pattern A, here's my pattern B, here's my pattern C. I'm just going to insert here. It's more, it's more getting your, your musical brain thinking in ways of, you know, of different ways that you can organize things on the fly. So that when you're on, maybe it's a chord, you didn't even practice any of these patterns

or it's a shape you didn't practice. But because you are working on, in applying different shapes on the fly, and you have some kind of like mental pathway for how to throw those over chord changes because you've rehearsed it in the practice room, it becomes much easier to do. And then you can actually, like,

you could actually talk with patterns, which is how you, you know, ultimately you want it to sound like Kenny Kirkland, where it sounds like you're just playing these amazing, you know, um, um, uh, thematic ideas as opposed to just like pattern A.

No one wants that. Right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean,

I totally agree. And I think it's, it's, it took me a while. I always kind of subscribe to that, uh, philosophy in a way. Um,

but I would always say like, don't learn patterns. Don't practice patterns. Because the only way that I really associated was with, you know, making it this. kind of programmatic, B, C, whatever, and then taking it in a way that was almost anti-music.

But, you know, when I started to realize that, especially in terms of construction of solos, construction of tunes, how you develop things, taking a pattern and then manipulating it in a musical way, and so you're coming from that mindset of music and groove and everything, and you're placing the patterns and letting the music and the storytelling sort of decide where that's going. That's, like, super interesting.

And I think there's also things that are like very specific to different instruments and that you can take from other instruments. So like if you learn a trumpet solo, if you're a piano player, I always think that's interesting because the kinds of patterns, it's really more about the different kinds of shapes. And you can get a little bit of an insight into the way trumpet players think about shapes, you know, in terms of like fingering. You know what I mean? It's like we do certain things on the piano. And if you, as you go to a higher level, you start to associate the way things feel and the shapes of them with how they sound. and that becomes like a pattern that's identifiable in your playing.

But every instrument, you know, drums and it, you know, you can learn a little bit about it, but if you transcribe a solo from a different instrument from yours, you're going to be thrown into a world of different kinds of patterns. And that's a great way to get out of that more. The other kind of pattern.

We should come up with two different kind of names for patterns, the bad kind and the good kind. That would make it easier, right? Yeah, I like the idea of shapes. Shapes to me fits more about what we're talking about here because you can take a shape and apply it over any melodic, you know, scale, you can change the rhythm. A pattern to me, are you using a jackhammer?

No, I gotta show you what I'm doing it. It's a little sunny, man. I gotta get the brella up here, man. What's up? There you go. Look at that pattern. It's nice out though. Yeah. Are the shapes visualize while playing? So that's the cool thing about the piano is that you can kind of see it. It's a great way to apply it in the practice room where you're just taking a shape. And that way you can move it around any scale or even like change the exact intervals, you know, in the shape itself. As long as the shape kind of keeps the general shape of it, you still get that same feeling. So even if it's just like like up, little jump, big jump, down little, that can be different

intervals. Those can all be different intervals, but that same pattern can still be applied. And that's what I'm talking about, about changing the way you think about, you know, practicing patterns. you're really thinking about like laying shapes over different kinds of situations. And that's when I think a lot of real great improvisers shine with this kind of stuff, Kenny Kirkland especially. Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean, can we talk a little bit about rhythmic patterns? You know, it's always the assumption that it's a melodic pattern. And obviously, you know, for improvisation, any kind of pattern that you set up, whether you're copying it, creating it, conscious, unconscious is going to, you know, we're going to be thinking about it as a melodic thing. but there's rhythm and there's harmony that's always involved with that too. But just really learning about rhythmic patterns and how, and that's great to get from different drummers and interacting with them.

That's one way, but just Herbie Hancock, the way he comps and patterns. There's very much comps. There's obviously a lot of harmony and a lot of things going on, but he has a whole rhythmic pattern concept that he uses for comping. And I mean, Kenny Kirkland for sure. Somebody, I can't even say his name. Young bleep. You know, Kenny Kirkland is lit.

And if you look at his rhythmic patterns that he uses, very advanced and a real kind of entry point there as well. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. I think we got another of the official questions, perhaps. Oh, yeah. Can I read one from the Jumping Monkey? Jumping Monkey, what's up? What are the first 15 standards someone should learn in your opinion?

Ooh, this is a good, this is a good you'll hear. This is the kind of thing that we are poised to be supposed experts in such a thing. And so let's see if we can. Maybe we can go back and forth. and see if we can get up to 50. Okay? Yep. Yep.

Go ahead. It depends. No, just, I'm saying, why don't you name one standard? And then I'll name one. They'll go, oh, it depends. Okay. So what's it to depend on? So this is one of these questions we get asked a lot about, and I've evolved over the years

because we've talked about sort of regional standards. And so now I think more on the along lines of like, what are the people that you want to play with playing? because I feel like that is something to consider. Now, if you're a real, real beginner, something like obviously autumn leaves is something that a lot of people start with, something like that.

So that's your one? Okay. That's my one. Okay, go ahead. No, no, you can finish. I just don't want you to start naming more because that might mess up some of mind, you know what I'm saying? No, but just a general learning new tunes thing.

Like, if you want to be better, you have to play with other people and you have to be on a scene and you have to learn from people from people who are your peers and learn from people who are just a little bit better than you, And to do that, you're going to want to play with them.

And to play with them, you're going to want to play the music they're playing. So I would say, even if it's not anything that we're going to mention right now, if everybody on the scene you want to be a part of is playing some kind of tune, learn that tune. Like, simple. So, all right, well, why don't we try to do this? Autumn leaves a good one. Let's try to do 15 that are not even getting into the regional ones, perhaps, too.

Or the ones that would pretty much hit every region of the world, you know? Sure. Because there's probably going to be more than 15 of that. So autumn leaves, I'm going to say all the things you are. Yeah, I will say straight-no chaser. Blue Monk. That's probably better. And just a quick thing, too, the way I'm thinking about this,

and I think is useful as far as must-know jazz standards, like these are almost like tunes if you go to a jam session at any level that no one should be saying, oh, do you know? Like, this would be just your call, or again, where you're calling a tune. And really it should be, it will be a lot more than 15. But these should all be ones where there's not like, I mean, if you go to look, I think Lush Life is a must-no standard because I think it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written. But I would never go to a jam session and be like, Lush Life, let's go one, two, three.

I mean, that's, no, come on. It's happened. It's happened. I'm going to say, for my next one, what are we on like eight, six? No, that's like four. I'm going to say, oh, shoot. I'll say Yardbird sweet. Hmm, interesting. Okay.

Okay, so I'm going to say all blues, which is on my mind because I played it last night on the gig, but I think it's important because it's so many people, I mean, it's such a, it's from such a popular album. That's probably the only, oh no, there's one other one. I'm not even going to say it on there. Okay, all blues. Go ahead. Rhythmining. Okay, so what? Solar. impressions

come on I mean you gotta know that come on you don't know impressions you're gonna make a jam session yeah yeah footprints yeah exactly song for my father oh my gosh

bluebossum oh yeah I'll record a me you're like oh yeah uh yeah uh uh uh

uh this ends with one of us can't think of something I know I'm trying to think of like the right body and soul body and soul take the a train that's good one uh don't get around much anymore oh good sat and doll all of me oh all of you i knew it stella by stirlight there will never be another you i got a little help from young yeah yeah oh is that your answer okay uh yeah there is

There is no greater love. Oh, that's good. Caravan. Oh, that is a good one. Juan Tiesel in the house. Juan Tiesel in the his house. Jeez. If I were a bell.

If I were a bell. Embraceable you. Is that a month? Yeah, that's, is that one you, yeah, you could call that. It's like, it's like, it's. on a string that's on a string of ballads embracable you, the very thought of you. Like there's a bunch

of... In an area where you wouldn't, you wouldn't, I mean, you want to know them, but you wouldn't just come in with the assumption that everybody knows it unless they were kind of seasoned professionals. So... Made voyage. That's... Made voyage. Oh, and... Green Dolphin Street. Canterlob Island, of course.

And then, well, we won't get into it deep, but then we always have fun talking about tunes that are like standards now. Like what's the Roy Hargrove tune? Strausburg St. Denis? Yeah, exactly. I didn't realize that.

Yeah, that's kind of a certain areas, especially, a lot of places. For sure. Cool. Cool. Does anybody want to come on for a question? While you're pondering that, let me just see that another. Oh, this is a good one from that boy, Tom, another one.

What is Peter? Yeah, if you guys want to come on, just a drop-up message or make a request to come on, I think, is what it is. What is Peter and Adam's dream lineup, past or current? Now, do you think that means dream lineup as far as to listen to or to play with? What do you think, Adam? I don't know. It's a good question. Oh, Maroon's asking after all blue.

Yeah, Adam said rhythm a ning. The Flonnie's my... Bop boop boop boobaboo-doo-doo-doob. He says to play with. It's a tough one. Okay, I'm going to go to play with a dream lineup, and I'm kind of thinking of a combination that would work well, too.

I'm going to go with Wayne Shorter on the saxophone. Young up-and-coming saxophones from Newark, New Jersey. Tony Williams on the drums out of Boston. Miles Davis on the trumpet and Ron Carter on the bass. So basically I would be supplanting myself in Herbie Hancock's spot there. I'm going to flip the script a little bit. I'm going to go Paul Chambers on the bass, Elvin Jones on the drums,

John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Roy Hargrove on trumpet. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah, it is. That'd be awesome. Cool.

Record to me, some Rob said. Yeah, didn't we said recording, isn't it? And Herbie Hancock on piano. We play Rhodes. Exactly. Cool. Let's see. All right.

Yeah, if anybody wants to come on, let's do it. Okay. Jumpy Monkey says top five Wayne Shorter Tunes. Asked about those. Top five, Wayne Shorter Tunes. You know what tune I love is, and I remember the name in the minute. Scoo da, do you da, da, da, da. This is for Albert.

Doobo do be free, scuba do be free dow, a ski down. Is that? Yeah, this for Alba. I was just having fun singing. I like that. I like one by one. Oh. Bo da-du-du-ba-bo-bo-bo-ba-bo.

Yeah. Killing. Okay, now that felt like we were singing together just now, to me. I also love, actually, you know what I used to have in my repertoire that I don't play? I haven't probably played it in 10 years. need to get it back is Pinocchio, one of my favorite tunes of all time. Be it. Yeah. Oh, man.

Man, what a lyrical, melodic writer, Wayne is. Then there's some tunes on, you know what? I was listened to recently, and I've always, for some reason, I've never focused on the names of the tunes. And some of them actually aren't Wayne's, but he had a record called Native Dancer in, like, the early mid-80s, which is amazing. He actually did this Milton National Mentot tune on there, and then he had some of his tunes that are amazing. And then some of his stuff with weather report. And I was, because of when I

started listening to those records, and I was so deep into them for a while, I never really knew what Joe Zavinal wrote and what was Wains and what was, I know, Miroslav wrote some of that stuff. But definitely, I love, I love his, I mean, Wayne's stuff is so, talk about pattern. He had a pattern of writing badass tune

that continues to. It was more of a... Aliguria, what was that record? He had some beautiful compositions on there, from Mike years ago. Yeah, speak no evil. Evil, of course. Yeah.

Nefertiti. Yeah. Scooby-de-d-be-d-d-d-d-d- It's all good, man. It's all good. Now, he had some bad ones, but he didn't release them. You know what I mean? Everybody's got bad things.

They just didn't put them out. Black Nile, of course. Black Nile, yeah. If you could go back in time and spend a night, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, dude's a national treasure, Wayne Shorter. Yeah, he really is. He really is.

Man, what a sweet guy to. It's funny, like, it's been so rare in meeting, you know, jazz musicians, elder statesmen, legends, you know, like Betty Carter, all these people that I've had the chance to meet. Really, none of them have been, I mean, there's, I guess, some subpar players that are kind of apples, but basically they've all been, like, really interesting and super nice and kind, just genuine people. So I guess it goes hand in the end. I think you can be an asshole and get to a certain level, but I think if you're going for like that wane shorter level,

there's a certain amount of being a good human being that just requires to be that open. You know what I mean? That's right. That's right. Like not a lot of hate in that man's playing at all. What I'm saying? DRIZEGES says nothing.

Oh, sorry. What is it? No, you got it. Oh, okay. If you could go back in time, if I could go back in time and spend a night hanging with something. someone who would it be like a musician or yeah I think we're talking about a musician

hanging with oh I want to say buddy bolding because I want to know if he was actually existed in that there's you know and I played the buddy bolden thing I mean this is just all stuff that's kind of on my mind but yeah I would like to go back to that you know the kind of origins of jazz and all this legendary stuff that there's been a lot of stories kind of convoluted just because it was coming out of that time period of New Orleans yeah the socioeconomic thing I'd love to go back and hang with now if i chose that it's like the genius bottle i might go back and then okay i'm gonna meet you know you can go back with anybody in time you're gonna meet at this club at a bar

i might be sent to the bar and nobody's there because buddy bolden maybe didn't exist so i might be overplaying my hand as it were but i'm gonna say buddy bolden i you know what along those similar lines i bet fats waller would be a good hang he seemed like he would you would have a you would have a memorable night if you were hanging with fats waller right absolutely uh do do do do da da uh uh Drys Van Nothing says, how did you start playing? Did your parents get you lessons since you were small, or did you start by yourselves? I'm still small. I started by myself when I was five, just picking out stuff in the radio, but I know, Peter, you had musician parents, so it was more of a family operation for you.

Yeah, and they were kind of my first teachers, although I also had, there was a woman, I'm trying to remember her name. I was, I was really young, but she was a really good piano. teacher and she had like kids about me and my sister's age and I know my mom arranged the thing where she taught them violin and then she this was back in the 70s everything was bartered you know what I'm saying and it was the big oil oil crunch man one one carton of cigarettes one carton of cigarettes for a month of violin lessons exactly it was kind of like that no but it was like you know so I had some really good I mean a much better teacher than I should have had for being so young and unaccomplished So I had a very musically kind of

Especially for piano and violin too I mean I was playing with my mom when I was really young Because she was teaching Suzuki to the little kids And before I was in school I was always with her And she was giving me the violin And I'm seeing it and then playing so Now when you say you started when you were five Adam

On your own that means but you had a piano in the house So my aunt bought me a little air organ You know that you plugged in But it had like a fan And it had these buttons on the side Kind of like accordion buttons where you would have major, minor, and dominant seven chords and a bass. It was almost like if an accordion were a keyboard.

These are still pretty common, actually. You plugged it in, you turned it on, and it had probably three octaves of piano keys and then a bunch of chords. And I used to just, like, pick songs off the radio, Beach Boy songs from a tape my dad had or whatever, and just pick the tune out and sing it and learn the melody and learn the chords and all that stuff. That's awesome. All right.

Are all jazz musicians funny? No. Obviously not. I mean, we're really only at 50-50 on this little podcast, you know. Dead space. Did you think, here's a question. Do you think that Keith Jarrett has an amazing sense of humor? He's an amazing musician, a genius.

I've spoken with him twice very briefly, and I can tell you there was nothing funny that he said. But that could have just been, you know, I've had bad luck. But yeah, I'm going to say. Well, you know what? He probably does. He probably has a dry, a dry wish. To his, like, people he thinks deserve his humor. It's, like, amazing. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I mean, are all jazz musicians funny? I mean, are all jazz musicians buffoons like us? Thankfully, no. But there is a range between Keith Jarrett, you know, and buffoonery. And I think that one thing I have noticed about, I'm very interested in jazz musicians, especially when I was younger and, like, meeting a lot of musicians for the first. time from different, like I kind of grew up with a group of players like when I was in middle school and high school. So I always had this, you know, a lot of jazz musicians kind of grew up on their

own, like isolated and then go to New York or go to Berkeley or go to Paris or whatever. But I had kind of a group of musicians, then older musicians in St. Louis that I was around. But I was always interested in what made, what attributes and practice habits and just what was the commonality between really good players, you know? And so certain things I started to recognize because I wanted to, you know, kind of adopt them because I had really good training and piano and stuff, but when I got into jazz, I had some good teachers there too,

but it was a lot of it was just sort of on my own. So I would start to see musicians, you know, that weren't pianists that were really good, almost always could play piano. So I started to make that as a thing as what I would teach and recommend to people, not because I was biased as a piano, just because I'm like, look, all these guys are me, Roy Hargrove and Nicholas

and I'm meeting all these great players, and they're all, like, unusually good at the piano. I'm like, that must be a key to something, you know? But in terms of, like, humor and stuff, I noticed, like, definitely, like, a wittiness about a lot of jazz musicians, definitely kind of thinking quick on their feet, you know, really, like, quick. Now, whether or not, obviously Keith Jarrett is very quick, very intelligent stuff, whether or not they apply that to humor or not, not always. But there's definitely kind of a wit, if not a rapier's wit that's a possibility with a lot of musicians. I've noticed there seems to be, especially as I've gotten to know, like, you and your friends who are, I would consider, like, on the top echelon of sort of, you know, of jazz musicians and then also, like, you know, have played with everybody or whatever.

There is a certain amount, and I've kind of took this to heart the last couple years of just, like, there's not a lot of, like, sitting around and being like, oh, did that, that sound good? you know like I wish I wouldn't have played that there's not a lot of that there's a lot of like okay that wasn't great there's a lot of actually it's like a very like Buddhist kind of thing like okay not my best

but I'm gonna fix that and move on you know what I mean and not dwelling as opposed to you know sometimes like musicians who have such a long way to go can be so hard on themselves and I'm like you know you're just beginning like you there's so much growth

that you can apply here if you just, you know, you know what needs to be worked on. Just work on it and move on, you know, and just kind of don't dwell on any failures that happens. That's the one thing I've noticed with a lot of top-tier musicians is that it's not that they don't fail as much. I mean, obviously, you get to be really good. You don't make as many mistakes.

And the mistakes you do make aren't very noticeable because you know how to, like, have fun with it or whatever. But I've noticed that they don't dwell on those mistakes as much. They fix them. They address them. They recognize them. It's not like they turn a blind eye to them. but they seem to have this this personality that is like okay you know not great there

let's make that better instead of like uh that was you know this is the worst and we're the worst and we're going to get all you know super dark now not that that never happens but you know what I mean in general they're they're much more prone for like a growth mindset what we call in like tech speak now but that's it's a real thing right that's great okay so young just sent a request and I'm going to pull you in, but can I trust you? Because you got a, you got a little bit of a sketchy, uh, young man. And I know, I'm going to refresh my drink. I'm going to go. Okay, good. So I'm going to bring you on, but I'm going to have my finger ready here. This is a, okay, hold on a second. We're going to get rid of that guy, Adam. Remove Adam. Bam, gone. And we're going

add young oh josh good you have a name that's not okay here you go here is the famous the infamous josh who would like to ask a question with the possibility of being uh featured on a coming episode of the you'll hear it podcast what's up oh what's up josh you hear me yeah what's going on man how you doing good good how you living i'm Pretty good. I have a question. I've been shutting a lot since I have all this time and whatnot. And sometimes I'll learn a new thing and I'll say like, all right, I'm going to put that in like the daily routine of stuff I want to practice every day. Yeah. And now I'm realizing like there's so much stuff in the daily routine that like some is going to have to get out of this daily routine. Yep. You know what I mean? So like how do you make that decision of what to take out of the daily routine?

So do you mean like during this time when you have more time, you feel like you can handle it, but you're afraid once life starts to go back to normal, you're going to be accustomed to having the time and not know what to remove, that kind of thing? That, but also just as I add more stuff, you know, eventually there's not going to be enough time in the day, you know. Right, got it. Okay. Cool. I'm going to bring back in Adams. I want to talk of this too. Thanks for the question.

We're going to answer you. Sounds good. I appreciate it. Cool. So that's a really great question, Josh, and thank you. You know, and I think, you know, we're probably kind of to fault in a lot of ways because we're always throwing so many ideas out there. And we should give a little bit more of a disclaimer in terms of don't try all this at one time. You know, so I think, you know, one thing that I found very helpful is, and first of all, like, everybody has this problem. I mean, I know I do. I'm assuming everybody. does. You get excited about a bunch of different things just within the realm of music and developing on your instrument, developing as a jazz musician. And, you know, it can lead to overwhelm, but it can also lead to trying to kind of push the faders up in too many areas at the same time. So if we think about it like, you know, breaking your practice up into areas as opposed to time, I can find

that works really good. So you're going to have to push something. off to other times. So that means that if you have eight hours a day to practice or one hour a day, you're still hitting those primary areas. And then you use the other things that you want to do as kind of bonus. If you feel like you've gotten through and really gotten done what you need to, you can bring those in. And I'm not talking about specific things of practice. I'm talking about areas of practice. So that can give you a little bit more structure than just this endless list. So one of them would be repertoire, you know, learning tunes, unless you feel like, oh, I know enough tunes, whoever feels that, probably nobody.

So that could be one of the area. And this is not necessarily in the order you would practice it, but then technique, that's definitely something for every instrument that you're going to want to be doing every day. So repertoire technique, and then something related to ear training, and depending on where you're at, that could be learning a solo, that could be maybe practicing a tune in a new key,

learning some phrases, learning your intervals, learning new scales, you know, wherever you're at, but something that's really activating your ears. And then the fourth area, I would say, would be practicing performing, just playing. And this can potentially be the shortest part of your practice time in that, you know, in five minutes you can play a tune. And that could be just that part or you could do a 30-minute whole set or whatever.

So, you know, Adam was there and he left. He give it and he goeth. Then you can have that other list going, but it's additive. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know you're hitting those main areas. And so if it's four areas, maybe you're saying, like, you know, two hours to play. practice, so I'm going to break it up 30 minutes, 30 minutes, 30 minutes 30 or 30, 40, whatever. But that gives you a framework for before you start to practice. Like when we get

into practicing, then you're trying to organize these things, I find that that leads to less productive practice where you're just kind of running around randomly. Oh, I still got to do this. And then you don't feel like you've really gotten, I mean, you are accomplishing stuff because you're at your instrument, but it's not as productive practice. So having said that, you still want to keep flexibility, I believe, into your routine. that that means if you're in one area of practice and you really feel like you're in that flow state, you're making a lot of progress, but you're at the end of the 30 minutes that you've allocated.

Don't let the clock, don't be a slave to the clock. Just keep going with that because it's all about progress. You might miss another area. You've got to be flexible. As jazz musicians, that should come naturally to us, you know, I hope. So there you go. I'm going to see if Adam has anything to say about that, but he keeps drifting off. much as he does on the actual podcast.

No, I'm just kidding. He's always there. What's up, Flavia? He's back. What's up, Adam? It's up. I'm having sound issues. Oh, I don't know anything about that.

Yeah. Can you hear now? Not really, but I'll make it work. Okay. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know if you heard Josh question. He had a great question, and I gave one kind of angle on it. but if you wanted to add anything, he was basically asking about overwhelm in practice.

Like you have all these things that you want to hit. He's concerned because he's got all this time to practice now, but then it's like getting all these different ideas. And so I was just talking about kind of a framework of sort of the minimal viable practice routine, we could call it, and then bring in other things without feeling like you have to get to all those things so that you don't get spread too thin within your practice. Because the whole thing is like every day we want to be making progress, but you're not going to make progress. It's never like this. It's always going to be up and down. And once you

accept that, the failures and the triumphs of practicing and music, everything starts to get to be easier and you can stop being so hard on yourself. So like I'm very hard on myself just in terms of like putting in the work. But in terms of like how much I progress on a certain day, I know that some days it's going to be none. But then other days it's going to be a whole lot. And so the days where you don't feel like you make any progress, that all contributes to what you're going to get down the road so you got to be patient and and just keep putting the work in you know yeah i think this is where having some kind of regular technical practice routine like some kind of set things of like well if i don't do anything else today i know i can get in this technical practice where i can push

the metronome where i can push you know uh my hands or my brain in a way that is is confusing them and making them better right because yeah for me it's like there's an ebb and flow between like i'll get really excited about maybe a concept or an idea or a tune or a solo, right? And I'll want to like really shed hard on say like, you know, whatever, pentatonic and taking them outside, the new way to find, you know, my way back home and all this stuff. And I'll be like, oh, okay. And that might last for two weeks, right? Or a new voicing structure. And now it last for a week. And I've run it through, you know, all the tunes that I feel like I want to run it through in the keys. And I feel like pretty good about it. But I start getting burnt on it. And this is where having something like,

you know, the Phillips exercises, which we've been doing a lot in the daily practice routine, scales and arpeggios and different things that I can, I know that my whole life, I'm always going to be able to go back to them. And they're always going to be able to provide me with, first of all, a level of like gauging where I'm at technically. Like when I go back to some of those Phillips exercises, it's like a wake-up call of like, oh, snap, like this is not together. Like my finger dependence has gone downhill this year because I haven't hit these in a while or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So it's a good thing to just check in with yourself. Or even like a C major scale. Like if you haven't played a C major scale both hands in a bunch of different ways in a while, go to the piano and try it. And if anything is really challenging, okay. So that's cool. Like we can work on that a little bit. It's just something to like kind of, it's like, you know, with meditation practice, right? You can always go back to just paying attention to your breath.

Like the most basic, basic berry meditation practice. is just trying to pay attention to breath and bring yourself back. That's kind of what scales and arpeggios are to me on the piano. It's like if I'm not feeling any kind of particular artistic technique or idea that I want to shed, I have these technical things in my back pocket that I can go to. I can get some kind of growth

and I can at least connect with the piano in a way that keeps me centered at it and keeps my chops up. Yeah. Like a, yeah, back to basics, Bob, we call that. Back to basics bob. Basics bow. You know what I'm saying? Whatever other bee names we have.

Basic Bonnie. So I was just thinking about that. Basic Biden. Basic Biden. Where is Joe? Joe's laying low. Come on Joe. We need you.

So I was just looking out at our beautiful virtual garden. And I was thinking about, if you think about the practice, and hopefully this will help a little bit as, you know, tending to a garden in that you go into specific. areas and you really want to build up this little flower bed. And if you've got a lot of space, you always every day, no matter what you're working on, you've got to look at the overall. You can't tend to the whole garden every day unless you have a huge staff. But that's okay. Like you're, you might want to go into this area because the sun's hitting it.

It's really good and you're passionate about it. And that's okay. But the C major scale, the Phillips exercises, find those things. They give you that overall thing so that you're hitting that so that you're seeing the whole garden. And then I love that like just kind of playing to, because it's a major scale. that's that connection with music practicing, performing, as we call it. That gives you a nice overall thing too. But don't be afraid to not tend to some areas on certain days. That's okay, because you can't get to everything. But look at them. Look at the whole garden because if some

area is starting to be untended for long enough, you're going to have to get to that even if you don't want to. And then something that I've learned working here at Open Studio, you know, some techniques have transferred really well to the practice room like prioritizing, right? Like make a list of the things that are the most practical to you. Like maybe that's, you know, five note, two-handed voicings, right? That you would use literally on every gig. Right. If you don't know those voicings that you love in every key, you got two years worth of work there, my friend. And that's like really, like every gig you go to, if you worked on that, would be better than the last, right? Because you'd be getting those and all those keys and you'd just be a more

solid player. Or maybe it's your time. Maybe it's like, that's one thing. Every time you hear, or you don't like your time, prioritize the most practical things in your playing that you can work on today and you will make huge strides. Because usually we overlook those for some kind of aspirational, I want to play like, you know, Kenny Kirkland right now or whatever. Well, Kenny Kirkland spent a lot of time on some fundamentals. And like if you don't have those fundamentals prioritized and then shed it, it's not going to do the, you know, Phersinian man anytime soon. Kenny Kirkland put the fun in Dementals. You know what I'm saying? Okay. But the Cool.

Flavia asks, and I think this segue is nicely with what we're talking about, so you think two hours in a day is enough? Some days, no. Some days, yes. I'm very, I'm always reticent to say how much time. I can tell you that if you don't go through some pretty serious periods where you're hitting two hours minimum per day practicing, then it's very difficult to like, to very,

difficult to kind of get to that next level, you know, but an hour of very disciplined and, like this is why it's difficult to talk about time. Some people, amount of time to practice, some people practice for two hours and they get about seven minutes accomplished during that time, if you know what I mean. You know, and I've been guilty to that before. I got a lot of experience in this. So, you know, I really try to think about it at this point in terms of what I want to get accomplished. The time comes in. if I don't have enough time, which is normal. A lot of people are experiencing for the first time and a long time,

presently, more time than they've ever had to practice. So you can have a problem that's going to be very uncommon. I have not been experiencing that, although I've been actually having more time to practice, but it's still been, like, within constraints. So I'm very much about maximizing that time, but also thinking about things like, for me, two hours of practice at the right time of day,

like when I'm very mentally and creatively engaged at that peak level, is at least 100% better than two hours at another time. I mean, two hours at the wrong time is almost worthless for me. But I've kind of started to learn about that. And it's gotten so much easier during this time because I'm not traveling. Travel is the main thing that would mess that up. So I would say two hours a day is enough, but allow yourself to go more when you can.

And then don't beat yourself up if you can't do two hours. Just look at maximizing that hour or 30 minutes. Or didn't we officially say five minutes was an acceptable amount of time where you could progress done correctly. I can get something done in five minutes. Yeah. If you have the right mindset and if you're like you said, like for me too, time of day is super important.

I will get more done between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. than I will between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. If I had that time, you know what I mean? Like that one hour could be more productive than four or five hours later for me because I'm exhausted. Well, whiskey drinking during those hours. You're very productive with that. I can attest to that. Those are good hours for you there. Word. But yeah. I mean, that just depends.

And then and then what you do with that. time, how you structure it is just important. You know, we talk about this all the time. Don't play things that you already are good at playing. You know, those you're going to play as you are at your instrument, as you perform. Those are naturally your ego can't help but want to play some of those things you can already do really, really well. So use that time in the practice room to work on things that need improvement. And they can be things that are really close, you know, like I was just saying about like voicings or something like that. You kind of are like 60% there on, that's where you should be focusing your energy on that 40% that is left

to go for those. Yep, absolutely. Okay, if anybody else wants to come on in case you can't find how to request, I think it is possible because Josh did it. You can also drop into where it says questions on. I just say, I want to come on and I'll try to find you. We got a couple of cool questions from Jazz Licks lesson. Well, I'm not familiar.

Are you familiar with these folks, Adam? I like the name. Jazz Licks lessons? Adam? No, he said no. Okay, so the first one is, is it useful to learn Charlie Parker's solos at the piano? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Times 10, 10x, 100x, 1,000x. I can tell you from personal experience, that's been some of the most beneficial activities I've done to learn not just bebop language. It's very easy to kind of put Charlie Parker, bebop. He was a master of bebop, and that's it. No, I mean, it's like when you invent. to genre, not single-handedly, but when I mean, when you're kind of the foremost, you know,

protagonist in something as powerful as what is called bebop, which is much bigger than that, it's the continuation of this music, really, then, you know, you, it's huge. So what it does for ear training, what it does for vocabulary, for feel, for swing, for blues, I mean, it's, it's just unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, I think for the slowed downer thing, I think it could be a useful tool actually. I think it just depends on what you're using it for. You know, and I think just like everything else, ear training is something that we want to push ourselves just outside of our comfort zone with every session. So maybe, you know, trying to transcribe cold train solo in real time is way too far out of your comfort zone right now and either find a, you know, either find a different solo that's easier or

you can use something like a slow downer and try to get it in or just outside of it. of your comfort zone, but I would always be pushing a little bit outside of that for ear training. Try to be, you know, again, try to challenge yourself, do what you're not good at already. So if you can get things easily with the slow downer, try upping the speed a little bit of it. I mean, that's what's so great about things like, you know, these audio doze is that we can, you know, have a gradient of how much we slow it down. And that helps. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I just, I always try to kind of summarize it. as, you know, try to learn in real time as much as you can, but if you're getting stuck and you're, I mean, you know, there's a difference between being stuck when you're trying to progress in anything and hitting a rough patch, you know. So you got to have some grit to transcribe and just know that as you're pushing through, like being truly stuck means like you are not moving at all.

If you're kind of slowing down and whatever. But if you're stuck, yeah, use the tools, but just get as far enough so you get out of that. rut. It's like when your car is, you know, stuck in the mud, just get out, but don't make everybody keep pushing you after you're out. For sure. Because, yeah, like Adam said, the ear training, man, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's where it's at. And that's the kind of stuff that the benefits always show up later. It's a lagging indicator of your musicianship and, and, um, you know. Well, I think a lot of people, a lot of people think of it as a way to

get new information, right? I'm just using my ear training. I'm just transcribing so I'll know what this player is playing when actually some of the most beneficial things about transcribing is the work you're doing on your ears. And so if you think about it like that, like I should be making this harder on myself, not easier on myself, because I want to be able to just hear it very, very fast, right? And so if this is easy for me to hear or if it's too slow or whatever, then I'm not, I'm not actually getting the most out of this. Yep. Stephanie asked, no, doesn't ask questions, just as hi from Germany. Hello, Stephanie.

I'm currently, this is from Sharia. Man, how come I can't read names when they're all smashed together? I don't know, man. Shire. Come on. I'm currently dealing with a hand injury. So what's the best way to practice away from the piano?

Interesting. I think listening, ear training stuff that you can do by singing because I'm assuming you're saying away from the piano you can't you know you're not wanting to use your hands you know I've heard some good things about physical therapy for and this is a tough time now though with sheltering at home and most people be in quarantine so I don't know

if you can do that on your own or some kind of telemedicine thing but you got to find like a physical therapist and I think Dr. Chuck when we interviewed him last week talked a little bit about this but that has experience with musicians, but also the kind of things that are typical. There's a lot of them that really are very good at this with piano or if it's with computer,

you know, hands, a lot of hand injury and stuff like that. But you could do some stuff to kind of help that. But while you're doing that, get your ear training stuff because that's as important as a skill as the physical things that we need. You can also learn solos by ear, not at the piano. That's a great way. And even like writing them out or whatever,

there's a lot of things you can do there. It's true. Yeah, ear training is definitely something that can replace regular physical practice. Agent Secretario is not really a question, but I got to say it, your podcast is great. Well, we agree. If we have any fault, it's a lack of humility. Man, I'm glad people are still listening to the podcast. Our numbers are down a little.

I'm not really a numbers guy when it comes to that, but I heard anecdotally from Andrew are sequestered and sheltering at home producer, our long-off producer that the numbers are down. But people, you know, nobody's commuting. That's a big thing. That's exactly right. Oh, we got bang from Botswana. I think that's our first, you'll hear an interaction from Botswana. So thank you for being here. We say Dumella. Dumella, all right. And so what's, yeah, what's up, everybody? This is a Q&A. This is a Q&A. too. So if you have any questions for us, we're here to answer. Probably for another 20 minutes or so, Pete, do you think? Yeah, my AirPod batteries just went out, so that's a little bit of a signal.

Okay. So let's take maybe two more questions. If anybody has two more questions, we're hanging on. And who wants to jump on here? Oh, yeah. I see Jeff Clap on here. We should bring on Jeff Clap. We have a very accomplished drummer in case we have any drummer questions, a brush specialist, and a swing and groove specialist. I can personally attest to. People are shy, though. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. Christian saying one comment I've gotten is that my ears move faster than my hands.

Any advice for how to get my hands to catch up with my ears? Yeah, keep doing what you're doing. I mean, you want to see progress in that area, but that's one of the, another slower kind of lagging areas. But that's good. I mean, the whole thing about it is, I don't know that your hands ever totally catch up to your ears. I know for me, I feel like, you know,

It's interesting, like, especially solo piano, that's the most exposed, and because I've been only kind of doing that performance-wise lately, that I'll hit moments in a solo piano gig where I feel like my ears and my hands are like just locked in. Like, I'm hearing stuff and it's coming, you know. But that's maybe, to be honest, maybe 10 or 20% of the time, you know. And so that that's that kind of like, in terms of for me, solo piano kind of that flow state that's happening there. and it's really exciting.

So I look forward to increasing that percentage. And I've been thinking a lot about and trying some things out. I haven't necessarily found this special sauce, but thinking about things I can specifically practice to pull that along. I think ear training is always something no matter what level you're at. I mean, for me, I've been practicing ear training for so many years. I felt like I should have been at Nirvana or 100% by now. But I still am amazed by how much progress I have to go,

how much area for growth that there is. Because what happens is as your ears get better, it's like you're climbing up a mountain and then you get to the top or even close to the top and then you start to see the really big mountain on the other side. And because your ears are getting better, you see new possibilities. And so then your hands being, you know, no matter what instrument you play, your hands kind of catching up as you say is about, you know, making sure your technique is there to be able to serve your storytelling of things that you can possibly hear now. It's so true, man. So true. Well, thank you, everybody. Oh, you said two more, man.

What's up? We don't have any more. Oh, we don't have anymore. We got some comments, though. They're not questions. I watch your playlist every morning. Keep them coming. We will.

Did we get everything? Advice for older students to speed up learning. You know what? I think I'm starting to rethink. I used to say like learning an instrument is like learning a language. And I mean, I still believe that, like learning a foreign language, in that it's easier to do when you're young. I don't think I believe that anymore.

I think it's simpler to do when you're young because you've got that mindset of like you're not thinking about it, right? You know, when we typically learn our first language, you're learning it from the minute you're born. Your brain hasn't really caught up. And then, you know, you're learning from your mother, your father, your care, you know, whatever. So you have the advantage of not having to think it through too much. When we get older, we always think, oh, we're getting dumber, we can't remember things. I don't really, I mean, I think it's more we have a hard drive, and the hard drive gets full. So you've got to offload some of that stuff, so you have room to learn a new language.

And then we have a lot of advantages when we're older. We know that time is not unlimited. When you're young, you think, oh, I can always get to that. As you get older, you're like, whoa. So you should be able to focus better, push out distractions. And, you know, so I think that it's a matter of getting that mindset of a child learning the language. being willing to try things and experiment, which is what ear training is about

as opposed to saying, I have to know what it looks like and rationalize it. That's not what music is. Act like a little kid that imitates a language where you're just like, my, my, dad, you know, literally. Just try to imitate it. It's not going to sound right.

You keep doing it until you get the food that you want or whatever. Right. You got to get on that base level. So the closer we can get to that, I think it can work really well, you know, just get that childlike mentality. That's exactly. Don't you think, too,

there's a lot of like, there's a lot of cultural beat down about like, you know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Like, so we get this mindset of like, maybe I can't learn something new. So you have to. That's actually true. I got to tell you, we have two dogs and one of them's old. And it turns out we were just trying to teach tricks. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks.

But you, but humans can learn things as we get older. And you have to believe that you can grow. That's the like first thing that a child doesn't have any knowledge that they can't learn something because their whole first 20 years is just learning things constant. You know what I mean? So they know they can grow. They're growing physically every day. There's no doubt.

Somehow around like 28, we get this thing in our head that we're done and that that's all we can do. And if you can get past that and keep a belief that I can grow here, I can grow in a year from now, I can be, you know, sharper, stronger, play better, whatever it is, you will. You'll be able to do it. I believe I can fly. You know it, man. You know it.

I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every day and I... Oh, wait. That's written by all, Kelly. Cancelled. We've got to edit this out. Cancelled! I will...

No, no, no, I'm not going to edit out Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck Classic. Yeah, I mean, it's, we want a piano re-harm of... You know what? It's funny you said. I've kind of got one, but I can't... A space jam? If I believe I can fly?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always like that, too. But so, yeah, I think that that, you cannot do it. We don't want to be like, we don't want to be, you know, pie in the sky of like, you can do anything. We know this stuff is hard, you know what I mean? And it's challenging. And so it's not binary either.

It's not like you as a child. But as you get older, I really believe that this mindset thing can help us. It's not going to be 360 degree flipping around. And it takes time, you know, because there's so many things like we can just hear messages. so much about when you're older it's hard to learn you can't do this you're supposed to do this stick in the matrix blah blah blah blah and you know the fun thing about when you getting older is like you don't care anymore you shouldn't care anymore it's like you know we're the ones kind of in charge so yeah everyone's saying that's a great team that's what i'm saying man great soon

i'm missing the comments here this is man my stuff has been janky all weekend man i'm not seeing any comments yeah i think that's totally true i think i think one of the advantages of getting older is you start you start to really whittle out things that are taking more than they're giving and you understand the importance of things that give more than they take and things like practicing piano is something that gives you way more than it takes from you you know and so you're able to focus on that a little more I got to go Pete my kids have been outside for like an hour and a half I have locked them I've locked them out of the house everybody for being here I think somebody's going to make the podcast don't you think this week oh yeah we're putting this

whole thing on the podcast look for it on Monday so oh damn there you go all right well until tomorrow you'll hear it