You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - More About Practice Routines - #136

Episode Date: June 15, 2018

In today's episode, jazz pianists Peter Martin and Adam Maness discuss practicing. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adamanis and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast daily jazz advice coming at you that is right why are we putting so many pauses I'm a jazz robot today you know jazz robots come in well we got jazz bot we do have jazz bot on our website but I'm saying like actual algorithmic jazz robots that are probably going to outplay us all I've been hearing them for years they've been around I don't want to name names but believe me I was it talking about people but that's good Oh, right. I mean, a well-thought-out algorithmic jazz robot will be better than the jazz robots I've been listening to since the early 80s. Damn. Whoa, shady. Shady time. So how's everybody doing? Good to, uh, good to see you.

Yeah, we're not seeing anybody, man. You know what? But I always feel like I'm seeing people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? I imagine the audience out there. Totally. And folks from around the world, we're getting a lot of love for the podcast.

So it's fun, keeps us going. So today we're going to answer a listener. question. Yeah, this is from a listener named Anthony. This is about practice time and about finding a balance of practice time. Anthony asks, between touring, running the website, family responsibilities, do you still stick to a daily practice routine? If you go five days without practicing, do you experience anxiety about staying in shape or has your playing reached a level where only minimal upkeep is needed to maintain the standard that's acceptable to you? Thanks for shedding some light on this topic. You put that in quotes. It seemed like my kind of guy there, Anthony. You

guys are awesome. Well, thank you, and you're awesome as well. And yeah, what do you think? You have an incredibly insane schedule, both of touring and of, you know, running a business here. Yeah, I think, well, let's tackle the first part first. Yeah. Do you still stick to a daily practice routine? That would be no. Although I do go through stretches where I'm very disciplined about this. and you know whenever I do have time at the piano I really do kind of just default into a really pretty good routine there so I would say the days that I do practice

I do stick to a routine for sure and I think that that's important especially as you start to have less time it's funny the times in your life which are you normally you're young when you have the most amount of time is usually when you have the least amount of experience in being disciplined and having a routine

and then once you kind of develop the knowledge of how important that is and the ability to execute on that. You have the least amount of time at the instrument. I think it definitely forces you into that as you get older. It forces you because you realize, like, I can't do it how I was doing it because it's so inefficient. Right. You know what I mean?

Yes. It's like, wow, I wasted a lot of time. But I think that, you know, the routine is, well, the other part of the question as far as minimal upkeep is needed. Yeah, I mean, for me, I think in a lot of ways, minimal, minimal, time is needed to kind of stay at the same level, but it's not none. Like, when I go like a week or so, although I don't know that I've gone for a while, like what I do is the times when I actually don't play at all is when I go on vacation. Yeah. Like I do not touch a piano. I don't even actually

think about music a lot. I do listen to music kind of always, but it's more like just recreationally. Recharging. But I really try to like recharge because normally if I'm like touring, even if I'm not practicing, I'm playing a lot. And then usually when I'm at home, I'm practicing at least 30, 45 minutes. it's not a few hours. And then even if I'm not doing that, I'm working on music at the piano, you know? I think that's what people might not understand. Once music kind of becomes your full-time career or whatever,

like you have all these different projects, you're always thinking about something that you have to work on. I am. I always have some kind of arrangement or project that's happening musically. So you almost never get a break from your own music, which is fun, but it can be a drag after a while. So that's interesting because Anthony's part about, if you go five days without practicing,

do you experience anxiety about staying in? shape. The only time I go five days without practicing is when I'm going vacation. And it's yeah, I mean, sometimes it's a week. We've gone before for a straight week. And it was really the opposite. I didn't have anxiety. I was so excited to come back to the instrument and felt so refreshed when I got to it. I may have had a little bit of rustiness, but not much. I mean, because for whatever physically from being away from the instrument that I maybe lost a little bit, Although I really think, as you've been playing the piano for years, going seven days now at the piano physically, you don't lose that much, you know.

Yeah, you probably only need maybe one or two practice sessions to feel like connected to it again. Yeah, yeah. It's not like going to totally change you. But I still think that playing the piano is, you know, 90% mental game, 10% physical. So when I'm able to really recharge on vacation, coming back, I'm in such better mental shape to approach the instrument and have so many different ideas and things I want to try out, that that sort of dwarfs, the, you know, the, can I say that? Is that politically correct, Dorff?

No, it's good. Okay, sorry. I think it's the only way you can say it, actually. Be careful. You know, whatever, a little bit of physical rustiness, you know, muscular or whatever. Yeah. You know, for me, so I'm extremely busy with young children in open studio and somewhat of a music career, but I still find time.

I wake up early and I practice four or five days a week. usually before I come here, I have, my piano is across the street here at a different studio, and I'll go and practice usually 45 minutes to an hour, like I said, four or five days a week. And that hasn't always been like that. You know, sometimes I'll have, I'll practice less. But, you know, I'm in the middle of kind of like developing my own trio again and making it a record. So I'm kind of like actively working on this part of it of my music. For years, I did more writing than this.

So I would spend a lot more time writing and reading scores and practicing arranging and orchestration and stuff like that and getting into that. But right now is a piano heavy time for me. So I am working on some concepts that I've been meaning to work on for a couple of years. And so I think everybody goes through that too where it's just like, you know, okay, this is like a growth period for me. So I'm just going to go for it.

Right. And that's great that you have the discipline to do that at a point where, you know, even if you didn't do that, you'd get up and sound damn good on the gig. Yeah, yeah. And so that's very important because the part of the question of like only minimal upkeep is needed, that's probably true for both of us. But that doesn't mean that there aren't things, maybe even if they're not noticeable to the audience or even to other musicians that they aren't important to us.

And I know for me, like I keep a little part of my journal, which is now a bullet journal. Did I mention that? I'm bullet journaling now. You've mentioned that several times. I have, yeah. Are you a bullet journaler? I did it for about a month. I really liked it.

Yeah. But I cut it off. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's all good. I still don't totally know what it is. I'm just like using the word. I put little dots in there. No, but I've always sort of kept some sort of written journal over it.

I mean, since I was like a teenager at different times, like practice logs. But it's almost more like practice ideas and things that I want to do. And then I've gotten a little bit more organized over the years as far as the times when I'll notice things that are needed. that are needed that are more than minimal upkeep. Like little things I see slipping in my playing, and this is usually when I'm on the road performing a whole lot more than I'm practicing. I'll notice something,

and I never wanted to get to the point where it's noticeable to somebody else, but it's noticeable to me. So I'll make a note of that, because usually at that time when I notice that deficiency, I have a really good idea about what I need to practice and exercise, a scale, some classical things, or some patterns or something that's going to be the remedy.

I just don't have the time then. So it's almost like you make a shopping list for later. Yeah. And then when I get time to practice and I'm like, okay, instead of just going into the normal kind of routine that I have, maybe I'll do the warm-up routine or whatever, but then I'll go get that list out and I'll kind of look and prioritize based on that. I was like, oh, yeah, that's something I really wanted to do because you'll forget otherwise. And then you won't remember until you have that same deficiency. And then if you don't address it, those are the things that kind of add up and you become a little bit sloppy with your playing.

And then at a certain point it does become noticeable. This is one advantage that I think you get, as you get more experienced in this and you get better, is that it's cool that to me now that like, I know everything I can do to fix deficiencies, right? Or when I feel slipping. And that wasn't always the case. So it's like good that like it's just a matter of finding the time to do it. Right. And the will to do it.

Such a different. Yeah. I mean, we remember the time when we knew more, we knew deficiencies and there was more of them. We knew the problems and we had plenty of time to do. We didn't know what to do. We were bored. You didn't know what to work on. Yeah, it's just bored.

But now it's, yeah, we don't have the time. It's very easy to identify. But I do find it's easy to lose track of them. Yep. Or even the urgency of them because you only know that urgency of it in the performance situation. Like once you're under the fire. I mean, you can sometimes in practice you can kind of identify some of them. But I really find for myself, I identify those.

So, like, I mean, it's so funny because after the gig, I'm always like ready to hang out and meet people or whatever. But sometimes people will see me like run over and it's like writing a list of things. And they think, if you're ever wondering what that is, that's usually like things I want to practice on it. And it's not even like the next day. It might be a month later before I get to him, but I want to know that I get to them. I think the idea of keeping a journal is a very important idea for anybody's practice routine. I do it too. Yeah.

And I think just... Do you bullet journal it? I don't bullet journal it, but I do make kind of a weekly, a monthly, weekly daily plan of kind of what I want to hit. And because, like, you said, there's so much you can hit. Yeah. But we've got to prioritize. We've got to make sure that we get to the things. As far as like getting anxiety about staying in shape

If I haven't played for five days You know usually if I'm getting anxiety about not playing for five days It's because I'm not able to prepare for a certain concert or something that needs preparation We talk about this a lot about how to You know quell nerves or make a good impression on a gig Preparation is so key to that So you know a lot of times my practice routine is really just preparing for something I have coming up Right

That's not always the case if I have a stretch where I don't have to do as much preparation because it's like with my group or groups that I'm regularly a part of and I know the music and I'm comfortable. Then I get to work on arpeggios, you know, or scales or whatever. But a lot of my routine is, you know, making sure that I'm going to sound good on the gig. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. No, Anthony. I knew it was one of the A's, Anthony, for that really, that's a great question because it had multiple parts and it's like really I think hopefully we could help because we got a little bit tactical on that which the question sort of pushed us into and I love doing that it's very very thoughtful

question and if you know Anthony if you're asking this for yourself too like if maybe how do you find time you know I've always found that if I can try to get ahead of it and we've talked about this before too but wake up you know an hour earlier half hour earlier you can find some time that way yeah you let the day get away and it's gone exactly yeah all right good stuff Do we have any fun housekeeping we're going to do? You know, just leave us a five-star review. We're not even saying leave us a rating and review anymore. We're saying leave us a five-star.

I mean, you're saying six stars. I am saying six stars. Yeah. I'm actually back on that now. Yeah, no. I go back and forth, as you know, but I really, you know what it is? When we give an episode like this where we're giving some really good tactical advice, I want the love back.

I need the love back. I demand the love back. Oh, wait, no. We can't do that. But, but, uh, we do appreciate any rating and reviews on Apple Podcasts that you may give us. And you know what? We never asked for this. This would actually be a cool thing. If you've already left a rating and or review, or if you're just too lazy to or you don't know how to do it, that's no problem. But how about share? You'll hear it with a fellow jazz lover or humor lover. Well, I don't know.

Would this hold up if you're only into humor but not jazz? I definitely not. Definitely not. Okay, well, share it with somebody you think might enjoy it. You know, you could shoot them an email or a text or snap them. Yeah. You have Snapchat? I am, but not really. Okay. What's your Snapchat handle? I have no idea.

Snap at Adam Manus. I don't know. No, but you can reach out to us. We're actually been working hard on our Twitter game the last couple of days. Let me explain that. That's in many quotes, by the way. Working hard. Yeah, we have a plan because we record this and it doesn't come out for a few days later.

I'm projecting future Adam and future Peter are masters of their Twitter game. No, but I'm kind of getting interested in Twitter game because I feel like it's a, you know, it's a place. what you could just kind of talk about, you know, whatever we want to talk about. And we're talking about these cool jazz issues. So if somebody else is there, that might be fun, just a little bit of banter back and forth. Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

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entering you'll hear at 10 in the offer code field at checkout fun stuff we have um nobody's we've never even announced this okay this i love giving folks stuff at the end of the episode like this is this is very special art of the swing art of swing art of swing art of swing not art of the swing well it could be any we haven't released yet but it's going to be one of those yeah yeah that's coming soon i mean it's been recorded this is a very exciting thing because it's kind of our first real concept well we've had concepts before no this is very specific very specific concept this is this is Ruben Rogers and Ulysses Owens Jr. In a room discussing how to hook up between a bass player and a drummer.

Yeah. How to swing. And a whole lot more. We're almost, it's almost, I mean, it's an amazing thing. I learned a lot. It was very, very inspirational for sure. So that's coming soon. We've got a lot of fun stuff.

Absolutely. So, yeah, until next time. You'll hear it.