You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Mistakes Happen, You got this!

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Adam and Peter discuss what it takes to navigate problems and making mistakes while staying focused and keeping a level head.Have 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 

Hey, Peter, I just... Oh, boy. Oh, wow. Ouch. Everything's falling. This is not going well. There's knives flying through the air. Shut it down.

I'm Adam Menace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Jazz. Explain. Bam, he got it. First take. Love it.

Oh, that's great, man. Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it. Jazz, explain. That's what we're doing here. Why are you boxing me in, man? No, I've been working on that. I love it.

I love it. So what are we explaining today? We are explaining what to do when things go awry. You look very serious. We've been recording for a while. In the last episode, you were leaning back yet.

You had your feet up on the table. I did have my feet up. And now you're hunched forward. I mean, you know, my blood was rushing down in an awkward way because I had to go above the keyboard here. But no,

I'm kind of excited about this. I'm not excited, but I'm passionate. I'm passionate about it. I'm not excited about things going wrong, but they do go wrong. Well, they're going to go wrong. They're going to go wrong.

Nothing. I don't know if you noticed this. But life, it's not like it's just like, eh, we're tidy. and everything will be fine from here and out. Now, it will be sometimes, which just heightens our predictability that it's not going to be later.

And it kind of makes it more difficult to deal with as, you know, the more things go right, you know. But if you're like me and my family, Peter, my lineage, if things start going right for too long, you get a little suspicious. Oh, no, that's, that's called human nature. The other shoe is about to drop here on us. Well, I'll give a terrible analogy that's super dark and, but the darker the better. Well, it's like, you know, an airline that brags, they don't do this anymore, but if they brag, about we haven't had an accident in, oh, no, we don't even say an airline. Okay, we'll talk about, you know, a factory.

A factory where they're like X number of days without, I was like, don't break, because it's going to happen. Yeah, yeah. There will be an accident. There will be. You're better off right after the accident and then you're starting to build up again. That's right. Yeah.

So mistakes are going to be made. Disasters will happen. Yeah. Fingers will be chopped off. Well, let's hope for that. But we were just talking about this because we've had a couple of, recently as we were doing, we've been, I don't know if you know this, Peter. We've been making a lot of stuff lately.

We have been. And like we haven't been releasing a lot of stuff yet in 2022, but get ready, folks, because we've been making so much cool stuff here in the first quarter of the year that is going to be released in the second quarter and the third quarter. I think a lot of people are going to flip out. And of course, tune in for the next four weeks where we're using recycled old. You'll hear it episodes on another note. Hey, listen, man, it takes time to make this stuff. But I'm so excited about this year and everything we're making. But in making, there's been actually three incidents, and we don't have to name them specifically, but three incidents in the last week where.

we had a plan. Yeah. And the plan just got completely demolished by some happening or the other. Things that happened. Things out of our control. Things out of our control. Things that we couldn't account for. And I'm super proud of us and everybody at Open Studio as we've been managing these things because

pivoting as they say. We pivoted kind of seamlessly on all three of the things that went wrong. And, you know, one of them was someone changed a schedule last minute. One of them, one, someone forgot a schedule. last minute. One of them, a piece of equipment didn't work right. Like, these are things that are just going to happen, right? People are going to miss dates. People are going to reschedule things when it's inconvenient for you.

People are going to get confused on the times. It starts at 1 o'clock. Eastern, Central or West Coast? There's going to be confusion. Mikes are going to fail, you know, in the middle of recording. And what are you going to do about it? It's the same thing on a gig. Right. You know what I mean? Like, you're going to start a tune. The singer's going to come in on a wrong key at some point.

Hey, hey, hey, why you got to put it. That's true. Well, they do sometimes. Yeah. Or, like, you're going to start a bass line. with the bass player, some kind of like repetitive thing, and the drummer's gonna flip the beat and not know where you are,

because it's this first time here in the tune. You know what I mean? Not Greg Hutchinson last night. No, not Greg Hudson like that. But that kind of stuff does happen, and how you react is paramount, because that's the only thing that you have control of. It's not what just happened,

but how you respond to it will really dictate how good your night is for the rest of the night. Exactly, and I think that that is the exact place to start with this. So is like how quickly can you get away from the problem, from the mistake, from the unexpected, unforced error, whatever it is? Like a lot of people focus in on that and like, why did you do that? Well, why, you know, and start to try to fix that. And the fix is in what are you going to do? Now, you might have caused the problem and need to be the solution or it could be It doesn't really matter, actually, because, you know, it depends if it's a solo thing, if it's a team, if you're in a band.

From that moment forward, it doesn't matter, though. It doesn't matter. Like, are you going to be part of the solution or be part of the problem? And a lot of people think that means, well, oh, I can identify what the problem was. I didn't cause that problem. But if you're focusing on the problem after it happened, especially we talk about a musical contact where time is moving all the time. Yeah. You know, even if you're playing Roboto.

Yeah. Time, like, there's no give back. Takeovers. You're now extending the problem. doovers. You're making the problem worse. Now you are part of the problem. Yeah.

Anytime you're not focusing on what's before you, which is the music, you're making the music worse. Yeah. So if you're dwelling on the problem or you're pissed off that the problem happened, you're going to lose out in the end. Like it's not going to be good. And I think that when we look at the musical context that we would find ourselves in if something goes around.

Like you mentioned your drummer turning the beat over. So I kind of joke Hutchton. I mean, he didn't last night. We talked about the last episode. What a great performance. But believe it or not, I have seen, now this is super rare. This is more just because I played with him so much.

I've seen Hutch turn the beat over, believe it or not. No. Yes. But he, I mean, super rare. I mean, rare than any drummen. I played with some great drummers. Do I need to draw. No, I mean, listen, it happens to everybody.

It happens to everybody. I've seen some of the best musicians in the world do it. But I'll say this. Absolutely. But he becomes a part of the solution so quickly that most people wouldn't notice it. Yeah. Certainly not the audience. Even a lot of people that play with him.

So like that's kind of, I think speaking to what our point is. It's like he doesn't get bogged down in like, no, I'm at the right place. Like he's listening. Find it. His listening is so attenuated to the moment that he is constantly thinking about right where we are and what's about to happen. Yeah. And so and then his confidence and his skill level is such that he's not going to get rattled by making a mistake. You think he would.

Like people think, oh, Greg Hutchinson must, because he's. never makes mistakes. If he ever does, he gets rattled. No, not at all. Not at all. And the only reason you think he never makes mistake is because he not covers them up, but moves away from them so quickly and so effortlessly. And just goes into, well, let's figure this out mode. Yes. And then that happens. The more you do that, the better you get at figuring it out and fixing it and flipping it back or whatever it is you need to do. Yeah. And I think that, you know, great musicians, what I've identified and seen them do in these situations, is like kind of one of two big areas.

One, they back off so that they can kind of hear what's happening as opposed to like forcing their way through whether they were part of the problem or not. Now, if you're a bass player or drummer or depending on the situation, you may need to, you can't just like pull the rug out from everybody.

But I mean, you do something to back off and like listen and like make a quick, like how can you make a decision on how to fix something if you can't listen and like identify where you're at. You have to be there.

Yeah. So they either do that or they have such a great feel for what the, what needs to be done anyway that they take control in a way that eases and solves the problem for everyone immediately.

Now, for drummers, that's a really important thing. Pianists too, like, you know, if you're a horn player, sometimes you don't have sort of the power of what's happening in the arrangement to do that. But at any time, but maybe you do, you know, at certain points, but I think we have to all be open to that moment. And again, it's not about like,

okay, well, you turn the beat over, so you fix it. I hate that kind of. I mean, nobody says that, but some people act like that. Yeah. Some people act like that. It's not a contest for this.

Because of the low-level musicians, really. Yeah. No matter how good they are. If you can't, if you can't be part of the team like that and a problem solver, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think that's really the key is don't fixate on the problem. You know, just, you know, again, stay present. That's what we've been saying a lot of lately.

Yeah. Stay present. Work on the solution. And really, like, so speaking of that, that Betty Green Hutch McBride concert, there was a moment I heard actually last night where, it was after one of Benny's solos and the crowd was erupting as they did after almost all the solos for everybody

but there was some I forget which tune it was but there was some kind of complicated hit that they were doing as part of the arrangement you know part of the form and the applause was such that you could tell they couldn't hear what was because it was also a very soft thing that was happening yeah yeah and then Hunch

and McBride kind of missed the hit a little bit and they looked at each other and smiled and it immediately locked up and you know what no one said was I can't leave. Yeah. Those two great players just missed that hit.

Right. It was like a natural thing where two people talking will sometimes talk over each other or or like, you know, misspeak or be like, no, no, you go. You know, this is like a natural human thing. And when you're playing improvised music, that's the beauty of it. It was actually a beautiful moment. Yes. And it turned into a human moment.

A human moment. But you could also tell what the players like it gave them some energy. So I would also recommend like not just to not dwell on the mistake that was made or the disaster that's happening. but really embrace the recovery. You know what I mean? And let the energy of that like, oh, this is kind of exciting. It's an opportunity kind of.

Like a cool little pathway. Yeah, some weird shit just happened. Like, what do you want to do with it? Like this is, you know, for me, like I get a little energize. You know, it's like when you're, we just had a snowstorm rolling last week. And my kids had, they went to school on Thursday. And then we got an email that school was letting them out at like 1130. And you remember those times?

Release them to the frozen. Right. Remember those times at school when you can, you kind of know that like this is going to be a half day. Like they're going to make us go home early. We're going to have these. And that energy that happens. That's right. You're like, this is not going to be like a normal school day. Like now our routine is kind of broken and what's going to happen. It's a little bit like that. There's a disaster that just happening with like snow and ice or missing the part of a form or getting turned around on the beat or missing a change or whatever. But it's an opportunity to be like, this could be something cool and different. Let's see where this goes, you know. Well, that's, that is next level with this. Like, like kind of level one is not looking backwards, not blaming, whatever. It's like level two is like, be a part of the solution as quickly as possible. Maybe level three is like, you know, a smile is just a frown turned upside down.

No, you can take that energy as a positive thing. You could take that energy of the mistake and turn it into something positive as a building block for something interesting. Yeah. And I think for, you know, what you saw with that, and I think I even remember the moment, you know, 99% of the audience is, is, not going to know that because like you kind of have to almost be a musician so what that becomes a beautiful thing it's like a communication like but a hundred percent or 99 percent of the audience will notice them kind of connecting in a human which they love it's like man you guys seem like you're having so much fun and you're talking to each other up there through the instrument so now you've

taken you know because there's nothing more boring than as I said on the office as boring jazz you know there's a great this great reference to that on their boring jazz bass actually they say because in that episode they remember they're like they're going to hire a trio for a christmas party yeah and michael's like well we can get a trio for one hour but for the same same price we can get just the bass player for three hours and then he starts playing he's just like he was not christian mcbrian let's just say that yeah and then michael's like there's nothing worse than boring jazz bass or something he said it funnier than me but um yet i digress yeah no that's good no but it's like can we get some michael scott is i know we might be there's

so many great little jazz clothes We got AI. We're going to fix that for you right now. We got Harry. We got to get the guy from entourage. We need some Michael Scots. We need to get the jazz is stupid. Okay.

I'm working on it. We get jazz is stupid. But I mean, the thing is just that like there's that opportunity, as you say, to create something new. I think that that comes from a place of humility. Like what you said with them kind of connected like, oops, we weren't. And it wasn't like, ah, you were off with you. It was like, oh, like, can you imagine being that great and still being like, oops?

You know what I mean? Yeah. That's a human, that's a human element, but it's, humility. It's like there's a humbleness there and a service to the music that it's like, no, it's not about me. It's like, you know, and we're not going to get it right every time, but we're going to, we're going to be trying and we're going to hit it, you know, not for ourselves, but for the moment. What kind of ego, maniacal monster would never, ever admit to a mistake and think they're right about anybody. You know what I mean? Why are you looking at me? I'm not looking at me.

I was thinking of someone else. I was thinking of someone else. Oh, right. Gotcha. All right. Well, thanks everybody super fun peter yeah doc and uh go to open studio jazz com let's check out some of our stuff they're sponsoring this this darn thing they're doing a hell of a job sponsoring too yeah yeah and go to you'll hear

dot com leave us a speak pipe you've got some speak pipes queued up we're going to hit speak pipes you really have trouble saying that you become a microwering of suffering fuck attached we've got speak pipes speak pipes that's hard to say we'll hit some of those maybe in the next coming episodes yeah we'll see in a month

so until then you'll hear it