You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Milestones: How to Tell That You're Improving

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

Of course it takes regular practice to become a better musician, but what's the point if you don't feel like you're making progress? Today, Peter and Adam give you some advice on how to track your musical growth.Milestones:Memorized your first tuneTranscribed your first full soloRecognized a chord change or melodySat in at a jam sessionPlayed your first gigLearned a tune on the flyGot lost and got backLinks From This Episode:For a comprehensive collection of piano lessons, save money by purchasing the Piano Access Pass - every piano course past, present, and future from Open StudioToday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested 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.

Hey, Peter. Hey. I have one question for you. Yep. Get to be so good. Well, let's do a little podcast about that, buddy. I'm Adam Aniston. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. And yeah, so I got my, dude, I got my sampler back. I just want to put a call out to our You'll Hear at listeners. I have some famous jazz musicians here saying some funny things that we want to start including. Yes. I don't know what they're talking about and I don't care to. like in our in our regular podcast so send me your audio clips yes uh and we'll uh we'll include

them in our in our hilarious samples here but now you're asking them to send audio clips not of them no like that was miles yeah our first one the first one in the intro was j ross famous j ross tv i just saw j ross at forest park the other day he's doing no way man doing really doing really good that's great yeah cool uh so today we're talking about milestones no not the tune not the record. We're talking about how to tell when you're improving. What are some landmarks that you can track your improvement with? We talked yesterday about some effective habits and we talked a lot about effective. Oh, yes, they were effective. Highly, highly, highly effective. But we also talked about the fact that being a better player is often a lagging indicator of the habits we're putting in.

And so I thought we could talk today about, you know, some of the things you might notice, some of the milestones along the way that you can reflect on and be like, oh, hey, that's pretty cool that I just did that. Like, that means I am growing as a musician. Yep. And so we'll start from kind of the very beginning of someone's progress, maybe even to more advanced stuff. I just want to show, I totally understand what we're talking about.

So number one is you've learned milestones, the tune, right? That's right. No, number one that we have here is that you've memorized your first tune. I think this is actually a pretty important step in every musician's process, right? that we start out gathering information by seeing, especially if you're, you know, if you're raised with more classical music or more like a, you know, quote-unquote Western way to learn music, the written music is sort of king. Right. Right. And so the first time that you use your ears to memorize a tune or that you just have it from memory from listening to it, I think that's a huge step in a jazz musician's progress. I agree. I mean, it's when you start to, as we say, get off the page and get into your interpretation and you've internalized the music to the point where now it begins.

You know, it's not like a lot of times, you know, the classical mentality is like once you've got it memorized, you know, yeah, you've been working on the musicality and the flow of it the whole way. You're ready to perform it. No, once you've memorized a jazz tune now is when the fun starts. can start learning how to improvise, how to make it your own, how to fit in with others and all that good stuff. Yeah, when I say the tune, I mean the melody, I mean the chord changes the form so that you don't have to read a real book or you don't have to figure out the core that it's just ingrained in you. That's a huge first step. Yeah, and I think for people to think about going next level with this, and I'm glad you said, you know, memorized your first tune because that first milestone.

But like later on, what this becomes is when you become more confident with it is knowing the tune. So you've got to memorize. and then you know it. It's like somebody wakes you up in the middle of the night. It's like play milestones. I know that's a little confusing because we're talking about milestones. And then you just put your hands down and start playing it. You don't even have to think about it.

Yeah, not only you have it memorized, you know it. But that's for later. So our number two is that you've transcribed your first full solo. And I know we have some people listening right now who are probably all right musicians who might not have transcribed their first full solo. Right. Realize that this is an important milestone. That there aren't.

many great jazz musicians that haven't transcribed at least one solo from a legend. That's right, right, right. And, I mean, there's probably different ways to get there without doing this, but it's going to be a lot harder. It's not going to be as fun. And you're not going to get that great milestone of being like, wow, I've, you know, I've transcribed the solo and I've learned the solo, and that is normally going to be a more intricate and involved process than any tune that you're learning, you know, because you

Got an know the tune. Dot us? Or? Any tune. Any tune. Anytime. Tune. slash you'll hear it. Exactly.

Because you got to already know the tune. I mean, it's very hard to transcribe a solo if you don't know the tune. So, and then there's just a lot more notes and there's rhythms and all the idiosyncrac. Idiotio, jazzy, jazzy, you know, whatever it is that's in the solo that that's personalized from that person that you're extracting. Our third milestone to tell that you're improving. is when you hear a core change or melody or anything, a voicing, anything, a lick that you maybe know in theory,

but when you hear it kind of in the wild, right? Maybe you're at a store and you hear a 251 over the house music or whatever. And you're like, that's a 251. The first time you recognize that stuff, you know, take a step back and realize, like, that is real growth. That's a sign that you're getting better.

That's right. And I remember when I kind of got this and it was during my, you know, maybe teenage, you know, possibly dating period. And I would blur it out, you know, at the wrong time. time. Don't do this. This does not help you with the ladies or the guys.

Were you making out with a girl and you were like, that's a 251? I mean, something kind of like that. They were not, I mean, it was just, jazz nerd. Get out. You know, it's not as, it doesn't come across as interesting as you think it's going to. Make a mental. Try to concentrate. Exactly.

Exactly. All right, what's number four? Number four of our milestones to tell that you're improving as a jazz musician is that you sat in at a jam session. Now, this is a big one. This is a big one. But notice we said, we didn't say sit in successfully.

We didn't say get asked to sit in again. We just said sit in, right? That's the first step. And you have to put yourself out there. You know, that's just, I mean, we're talking about our dating careers. It's that, like, are you going to make the call? Careers. Careers.

Yeah. Unsuccessful. Well, successful once for both of us. We're both married to pretty terrific people. I think they were. That counts as a. Yeah, yeah, but the early, it was a lot of practicing. But I mean, no, but it's like that thing of saying like asking somebody out,

when you go out with me. So I think that's what it is, a jam session. You're putting yourself out there and saying, like, I want to sit in. You might not know what's going to be played or whatever. But once you've done it, that first time, you're good. Hey, actually, you know, if you think about it, man, it takes a lot more courage for someone who's sitting in their first jam session to sit in than it does for me or you to go to a jam session and sit in.

You know what I mean? It takes a lot of guts to get up. and try something that you're very new at and probably suck at and do it in front of other people for the first time. So, you know, bite the bullet. You got to do it. And then you will get better from that. And that's a great sign that you are improving.

You know, both socially and with your music, when you're confident to do that, it's awesome. And the sooner or the better. Yeah, and I think, you know, I look back. There were some pivotal times that I sat in that were terrifying and that were not very successful in general for me, but I learned the most like those are some of the biggest learning markers so it's it's like those kinds of things that when you when you fail or fall down those are the biggest learning experiences but you got to put yourself out there totally true and number five is that you played your first gig now this is a milestone for a few reasons first of all there's no I mean jam sessions are cool but there is no substitute also for actually playing for money for playing a concert for an audience that is not there to be. also play at a jam session, but is there to experience music in some capacity.

It's also a milestone in that, you know, someone's paying you. Someone decided that you are good enough to hand money to to play music. And so acknowledge that this is a milestone. It is. This is a big deal. Most people actually do. This is a pretty obvious one. But, you know, it takes some time to celebrate a little bit.

Yeah. Well, I mean, think about all the other things that we do as hobbies or we might even think that it might be something we spend a lot of time on that we never get paid for. You know. Yeah. Do you remember your very first paid gig? I think I do. Yeah.

So it was at, it's just a couple blocks from here at Commerce Bank. Woo. Yeah. We threw somebody in the community. That's a hot spot. Yeah. We had a little band and we were, and this was like seventh or, no. Yeah, seventh or eighth grade.

We had a little band at the middle school. Chris Thomas. Jeremy Davenport, David Berger on drums. And we wanted to do some gigs. And somebody was like, oh, we're having like, I think it was the opening of the bank up in the loop, the Commerce Bank. And they're like, we want you to play at it. Okay, cool. So we play. And, you know, we were like, oh, this is great. We were going to do the gig.

We didn't know what it was paying. But we had it in our minds. We're like, man, it's in a bank. So we're going to make a lot of money because you know what banks have money. And I remember at the end of the gig, they gave us individual envelopes. Like with our names printed. We were like, oh, man, this is even better than we thought. Hell yeah. Yeah. And we opened it. It was a check for $10 in each one of them. It's not bad. It's actually not bad. I mean, for back in, you know, 1985 or whatever.

But, I mean, the funny thing was we couldn't do anything. We had to, like, give them to our moms to get them, we couldn't even do them. But it wasn't quite the pay day we were hoping. But, yeah. My first gig was 10 years later, equally as awkward. In 1995, it was when the L.A. Rams moved to St. Louis. There was, for some reason, a Shell Station in Baldwin, Missouri, way out west, was holding a Rams kickoff party with the Rams cheerleaders and a car.

couple of tents. And for another weird reason, they hired some weird, literally called like the St. Louis Dixieland All-Stars or something to play the gig. And my high school band director, you know, was a friend of the trombone player. Of course, run by the trombone player. Right. And hired me from my very, that's right. Hired me from my very first gig. I'd only, by the way, played like jazz band charts up to that point. You know what I mean? I had no idea what New Orleans music or quote Dixieland sounded like it was so awkward and terrible

my dad had to drive me it was terrible Oh yeah but you know what big shout out to all the high school and middle school band directors out there First of all you know You and I wouldn't be where we are if we weren't for our high school programs and you know so many musicians And just music lovers man I mean music educators are really the backbone

Of the artistic education and it's a dying breed But there's so many great I love you guys and thank you for the work you're doing Because it's so important but also like Jeff Melcia for sure yeah but I mean think about like I mean you know there's nothing like a high school band director

that'll just throw a kid like like you know get up there and play some dixie I mean I love that you'll be fine yeah man it's such a cool thing and like you hear so many stories we used to do gigs like that too where you know I mean he was right he was right it was a gas station it was having a football kickoff party

no one cared that I was there it was perfect first gig yeah yeah but that's education that's education what's number six number six number six one two three four five six bam oh this is a good one that you learned a tune on the fly that now what what does that mean what would you what does that mean to you so i'm talking about this this this this this is gonna you need some deceit to make this happen in other words someone's going to call the tune they're going to say hey do you know uh all of you and you go yeah i know so you need some deceit and some conceit that's right yeah you have to say like yeah i know it

and you don't know it. No. And then they just, because you don't want to seem like you don't know it, right? And then they just start playing it and you pick it up. Right.

You are able to pick it up through the first chorus, the first two choruses. Maybe you have, you know, maybe after the first chorus because it's an A, A, A, B. Right.

You kind of got the A's mostly. And then by the second chorus, you got the B. Yeah. You know, that is a big milestone. And actually happens more than you might think. I know, I know. Well, once you get better,

this is not as impressive, but there's, but during that in between period. Like, by better, I mean, just more experience like where you've basically heard everything. So even if you don't know it, you can kind of fill in the blanks. But this one, now for piano players, obviously this is a different situation. Like if you're playing a trio or like with, I mean, we're so used to playing with either horn players or a singer and being able to do this because you're like, it's almost easier than being a bass player and doing this in a way, right?

Because you can just sort of lay out and listen. Like I remember doing this and learning a lot of tunes. like this by just listening to what they, because I had pretty good ears, so I'd listen to what the bass player's playing. And Steve Kirby, I learned so much from playing with him, and he was a little older than me and knew way more than me. But I knew he was going to play the right note.

So I was like, okay, I could always hear the root note. And so I just have to figure out the rest, and I knew how to kind of fake my way in between. But, I mean, when you learn it on the fly and they realize you can do it, it opens up a whole new world of bullshit. Yeah, if you ever hear Adam Manus on a gig, playing a bunch of, like, octave,

That means I'm figuring it out Like descending chromatic You know if you play I'm feeling it Uh huh Oh yeah yeah Oh no this doesn't This note doesn't work

I'll just keep going down chromatically Until it does Yeah And then what the other side of this Learning a tune on the fly Is learning a tune in another key on the fly Yeah And I had the opportunity to do that

Really probably the first time I felt Somewhat No I guess I'd done it before But I was like I mean this was with Hold on Ray Brown Bam fell on the floor My bad

But he was like I mean, you know, because I played that short period of time with him, you know, one gig and a couple of rehearsals. But he, it's trio. So it's like, do you know such and such? Yeah, you either know it or you don't. Wait, you got to play the melody. You can't fake your way through it. So he was like, you know, Stella.

He's like, how about Stella by Starlight? Cool. I was like, oh, thank God he's calling tunes I know. And he's like, all right. Let's do it. E flat. A one, two, three, four. And then, you know, so then you got to learn, be able to play.

play in another key on the fly, that's another kind of milestone. So our number seven for milestones, how to tell you're improving, is when you get lost and you can get back. Now, a little-known secret of the pros is that even the pros get lost sometimes in the form, in solos, during drum solos. You know, most pros really care passionately about keeping the form and about supporting the other musicians and not getting lost. But listen, it happens. We're humans and we're doing things that are not preset. So sometimes you just, you can't find where the one is and it happens to all of us. But what pros don't do is to give up or not find their way back. Most pros can find the way back fairly quickly because we've had experience

by getting lost so much that we understand... Hence the name pro. Exactly. We've gotten lost hundreds of times, and so we understand exactly what to listen for to get back. And so we've done actually, I think podcasts about that, about what to listen for to get back. Kick drum is important.

The baseline is important, all of that stuff. But really, it just takes experience. It's kind of like if you're not in the middle of that tornado, it's hard to just to think your way out of it. So you've got to be able to learn how to... to feel your way out of it. And that just takes some repetitions. And that doesn't happen unless you're performing a lot.

So this is a milestone because this means you're playing a lot and you're playing interesting stuff with people who are trying stuff. And that's a great milestone. Yeah. And what's what you're saying that you've said before about you can't information your way out of a problem, you know? Yeah. You can't information your way to be in a better player.

Yeah. So that's like with this. And then the great thing about this milestone is once you've done this, this will embolden you to know that you can do it. A little warning, a little caveat. The next time you get lost, you may not make it back. This isn't like something you cross over. Then every time you're like, yeah, you still got to work at it.

But it is good. Because once you do something, like we can tell you like, like let's say that you've, can do three of these things before you can. And this is one. I'm like, or not even can't do. You just haven't done it yet. So you know, you know, if you trust us here at the end, we are eminently trustable. So you hear about something like this.

But until you experience these things, You don't really know them. You don't really believe them for yourself. So that's the fun one about this, is that once you do it once, you know you got it. That's right. Hey, Peter.

Yes. Do you have the piano access pass from Open Studio? I have the, I have a limited piano access pass. I have me a little problem because my credit card expiration, okay, I got a little over the credit line all mine. I mean, you're the CEO.

How do you not just have a gifted? You know what? I like to support the company. I like to support the company. No, I do have, of course I have the piano. Access Pass. And you know what's been so great. I mean, I've always, you know, I've produced a lot of the courses with you. I've produced some of my own or whatever. I know all of our courses, but this pandemic period, one of the silver linings is I've taken some of these courses for the first time. I delved into Elio's Brazilian jazz piano because I wanted to learn. How good is that course? And it's so like, it's so basic and simple in a way, but it's something that a pro can really use too. So it's he really, you know, I think a lot of our stuff. I mean, we have obviously with the piano access pass, you get. access to every single piano course we have from the cradle to the grave, as we would say.

You know, what I love most about Aalva's, Aalves is Brazilian jazz piano course that you're just talking about is its simplicity that he's like, here are the grooves, the Brazilian grooves you got to know. And here's exactly the rhythms that go with each grooves. And here's exactly how to play them on the piano as a piano player. Here's how to play them in a rhythm section. Here's how to do it solo piano. He just lays it out super clearly. And he's a great teacher, so knowledgeable. Great player, too. Man, just listening to play that stuff. I don't know if you were, around, there was a little bit of controversy, he lays it out so simply

that we got a call from the Brazilian consulate that he was giving away state secrets about Brazilian cultural knowledge. They're very protective about their music. They're very protective. I mean, they know they got something and they're like, you can't just give this away. And so, you know, we cut a deal with them that involved

some Kuiperinas and some exchange of rum and stuff, so we're all good. So go check out the PianoX's past. That's open studio, jazz.com. And until tomorrow, And until tomorrow You'll hear it Good save, good save

Yeah, you just froze up for a second Did I freeze up to? No, oh I didn't know I did Okay Oh yeah