You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The #1 Way to Quickly Improve as a Jazz Musician - #66

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

In today's episode, Peter and Adam discuss the main ingredient needed to make improvements in your playing. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Yo, Adam. Yeah, what's up? How was you at Thanksgiving? It was really great, actually. Good food. You lost a lot of weight. You're the only person I ever know that's lost weight over Thanksgiving.

Congrats. Thanks. I'll share my hack with you in a minute. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz advice is coming at you. Coming at you the Monday after Thanksgiving here in the U.S.

And this is my favorite time of year, man. I love Thanksgiving. My wife is a great cook and like she goes crazy on Thanksgiving. It's her Super Bowl. It's her World Cup. now, man. Are you cool with that? I'm cool with that because I'll have leftovers for at least the next few days. And she kind of just keeps it rolling through Christmas. So I'm down. Cool. Yeah, man. Well, happy post Thanksgiving. Happy Monday. Yeah, you too. Good to be in here talking about music.

And what's our topic today? Today we're talking about the number one way to quickly improve as a jazz musician. And I'm so glad we are because I really would like to quickly improve. Yeah, so nothing like a little clickbait to get everyone back with us on Monday after the big holiday weekend, right? ABCB buddy. always be clickbaiting. No, that's not a thing. Well, it's like, you know, we were talking about this, and we live in a time where everybody wants to improve, which is great. Everybody wants to learn.

Not everybody, but a lot of folks do. I think a lot of our listeners do. And so, like, we're all about that, you know, hashtag ABL, always be learning. ABG, always be growing. I mean, you can come up with a lot of them, man. I miss your hashtag. But no, but the thing about it is, is there's a line that you cross in terms of learning and growing, becoming a better musician, becoming more well-round.

and then this idea of like you want to hack your way to be in a great jazz player. And I think that's kind of a dangerous territory. So when we talk about getting better quickly, sometimes you want to hack and optimize and skip over steps. And I think that that can be a dangerous thing. That's why we wanted to talk about this today. Yeah, you know, the ironic thing about our clickbait title here

is that, you know, there's really no super quick way to learn anything the right way. But there are ways that you can optimize it, like you were saying. and speed up the pace of your development. Right. You know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as we go on here. But for me, it's like, you know, patience, determination. Those things are the most important thing.

Absolutely. For getting better quickly. Now, that seems like an oxymour and like, oh, I have to be patient to get better quickly. Well, that's why it's called clickbait, because we only give half of the answer. We answer a different question. No, but this is actually something of real value, though,

because I think a lot of people feel like, oh, if I just learn this voicing, or if I just, you know, do this or next year I'm going to go into the woodshed for eight hours every day. Right. You know, that's not how this works at all. Right. You know, the fact of the matter is that you have to have grit and you have to have determination. You have to have the patience to set up your life in a way that you can grow as both a person and a musician.

I don't think there's anybody I know who's a great musician who actually doesn't have like really strong sense of their own person. You know what I'm saying? even if people who may not be like the most outwardly organized or whatever have a system. Yeah. For themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I love that, you know, patience, grit, determination. You know, I would add into that too. And I think that this could fit in with those is that, look, first of all, you're not going to get better overnight. It just doesn't happen because being a great artist, being a great musician, being a great jazz player is there's too much depth that needs to be there. You shouldn't even want to get better overnight. If you could do that, it wouldn't be that interesting. We're trying to get to the point where we have the technique and the ears and the life experience and all these things to be able to tell a compelling and interesting story to a listener through our instruments,

through these complicated instruments. There's no way you can do that overnight or even in a week or in a month. This is years on years. But the number one way to get there as quickly as possible is to start today, I think. So, yes, we have to have the patience. But if you wait to start, if you're like, well, I want to know the best method to do it. I want to know the best hack first. I want to read about how to practice.

Spend your time practicing. That's right. You know, don't let the, what is it? Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Totally true. You know, bad practice. Look, playing the piano, playing the trumpet, playing any of these instruments, well, I was about to say don't have any physical challenges.

I mean, they don't have any physical dangers, I should say. They, of course, have physical challenges. Oh, man, my shoulder kind of hurts. Yeah. But this is not like, okay, I want to become a, bodybuilder so I don't need to learn anything. I can just get in there and put as many weights on. No, you could actually hurt yourself. That's right. Most likely, even if you're not practicing right or perfectly, first of all, you're not going to be practicing perfectly. You know, we've been doing this for

many years. I know people that have been doing it 30, 40 more years than me, they still aren't practicing perfectly. They're better than me. Yeah. But we want to, we want to get in there and start doing the work getting into that habit so that you enjoy the process. I think the most important thing to take away from this patient's thing, this number one way to improve quickly. And why you improve quickly is because if you truly develop this patience and set your life up in a way that the process is what it's all about, you quickly realize that there is no real end goal. There's no time where it's like, and now I'm good. Right. You're just always you. Exactly. And you always need to be working on this part of your life, you know, on your playing, on your music, if you want to

be as good as you can be. That has to be like your goal should be to fall in love with the process. We've talked about this before. And make that. a part of your routine, a part of your life that's so deeply ingrained that music becomes who you are. You know what I mean? And that's, I think when you kind of have that freedom, when you know like, oh, okay, if I practice this year, the next year I'm going to move to New York and whatever. Like when you look at things that way, it's not, you're never going to do it. You never can get off your couch. No. But if you can look at it in a way of like, I'm a musician, I'll always be a musician. It's part of me.

And so I care about that. And so I'm going to take the time every day just as I shower or read or do things for me that, I know helps me become, you know, the person I am, then I also practice every morning. You know, like that's part of it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, a musician plays music. That's right. A pianist plays the piano. A saxonist plays the saxophone.

They don't talk about it. Well, they may talk about it, which is ironic coming from a couple guys that talk every day about it. But, I mean, we just want to encourage everybody to, you know, to get in there. Now, what we do try to do, of course, is give, you know, some techniques in terms of what we practice. We want to be improving the process of practice every day, and you can. And it's smart to have a game. I mean, all the things we talk about, have a game playing. Like the great thing I learned from you that I'd done years ago and started doing again,

you reminded me about is to keep in the journal. I think we talked about that last year, which is such a great thing because that actually encourages you to just either continue what you're doing or jump right in there and just keep track of what you're doing because it's almost like you know you're going to be improving. That's right. You know you're going to be optimizing. You're going to be, you know, doing that quality control as far as. as the actual practice routine, but you've got to know where you're coming.

How do we know where we're going if we don't know where coming from? A man much greater than me said that. That's right. No, have a game plan. Also, you know, take the time and the energy to set up your practice space. I think that's a part of practicing. You can consider that. Right.

And to groom it as you're going. Wait, hold on. We'll get into a dangerous area, though. What? Because we're getting into that like, wait, I can't start practicing yet until I have the perfect space. Some people suffer from that. You don't be like that.

But you need to make. So here's, but here's why I say this, right? Because if you hang out long enough in a barbershop, eventually you're going to get a haircut. Right. You know what I'm saying? Not me, but if you have a piano, like for me, like having a place where I have my piano that I know I have that solitude that I know I can have access to it that's just for me, makes me want to practice more. It makes it easier for me to get in there and practice more. You know, make sure that you can, if you have the opportunity to like groom a space where it's like your sanctuary for this kind of thing.

No, I like that. And so what I would say for people, because I can already see people saying, oh, I don't have the perfect piano. I don't have whatever. This is a thing. Give yourself a deadline. Actually, give yourself a deadline of today that I'm going to create. And you might say, like, let's say that you have two hours to practice, but I mean, to your point of having a nice thing.

Maybe you're going to say, I'm going to take 20 minutes to clean it up and to make it to put a plant there or to move the piano or whatever you need to do to make it. Not perfect, but better. Take 20 minutes to do that. And then you give yourself a deadline at 120. I will start practicing. And I do that with a bunch of things all the time. You got to give yourself deadlines, you know. And that's also going to get you in that routine of practice.

And you're going to become, you know, like the whole thing of patience, having patients. You have to be doing something to be patient with. We're not talking about have patience until you start. No, no, no. Because then you're never going to get better. Like, you have to have patience in terms of the process. You can't say, okay, I'm going to set up for 20 minutes. I'm going to do an hour and 40 minutes of practice.

And then you're done. And you're like, man, I still suck. You know, that's not patience. No. You know, but you want to. And maybe you're not like, oh, I didn't enjoy the process. that much and I didn't actually know what I was doing except for five minutes out of that hour and 40 minutes. That's fine. Fine. Now, yeah, now make a note of that in your journal and try to

figure out that five minutes. Let's see if you can get six minutes. Come back tomorrow. That's, that's the freedom that this kind of flip of a switch of your mind of being like, you know, I'm not trying to get better at music. I just am a musician and this is what I do every day. That's that freedom that comes with it. If you have a bad practice session, your whole life's not ruined. You know what I'm saying? It's like it's not, your plan to move to New York isn't thrown for next year. that's because it's just a part of you. Yeah, and I think, you know, anything that's really worthwhile, look, this is, we're getting

into some corny, but essential. Necessarily corny. But necessarily and necessarily essential territory here, and that anything that is worthwhile, and look, we're preaching to the choir here, I already know, like, to become a great jazz player is one of the most personally satisfying things. It can lead to a lifestyle that's extremely satisfying in terms of meeting people and meeting audiences and other musicians, all these great things. But look, it's not going to be easy, you know, but you can be doing stuff every day.

And if you're patient, you will get there. You really will. That's great advice, man. I actually, I love this clickbait topic of the one, because I love how you've really turned it on your head, on your head. We're talking a lot about hair and heads today. Now, I love how you turn on its head of like, what's the one thing I should practice to get, or one thing I can do to get better quickly. And that's to be patient.

I think it's awesome, man, because it's so true. So the quicker that you learn that kind of patience and perseverance, like you'll start getting better much faster. It's so ironic. And you'll enjoy it. And you'll enjoy it. And the other part of it is you're never going to get there if you're not patient. I mean, you can wait until later to learn it, but then you're going to actually miss some time and you're going to put back yourself into a little bit more of a corner. So it's better off just kind of putting on that patience mindset now.

But then think of the fact that there really is no there. As soon as that clicks in that it's part of you, you start playing like you too. I think it could actually affect performances. If you're trying to play like something you're not and trying too hard or whatever, let you come through, realize that you're the music, you're the musician. And look, all the actual little hacks and optimizations that we give out all the time and talk about still can apply within this. So, yeah, you have to be patient, but that doesn't mean you can't have some deadlines within the music. And you feel like, okay, I want to learn this tune this week.

So I'm going to do X on Monday, X on Tuesday. And then I'm going to have it on Friday. But what we're talking about patience as far as like the grandiose. development of your playing and all that kind of thing. But that's all going to be coming. You're going to be having so much fun as you go through that process of incrementally getting better. And then you're going to start to enjoy the patient part of it.

There's no, yeah, there's no shortage. That's called getting old. And it's true, though. But there's no shortage of things to practice. It's one of the beautiful things about playing this music. And for us playing the piano, you know, the fact that it's such a challenging instrument, lifetime of work ahead of us. Well, it's just like when you're thinking about now, like when you're young,

when you're a kid, basically, and even a young adult, you know, it's very hard to be patient. Like when you're looking forward to something good, you're like, I can't wait until to get here. Now when you get older, you're like, oh, I can wait for it to get. Like, you still look forward to it, but you're like, oh, no, I'm cool.

Why is everybody rushing? Yeah, there's no rush to get there. It'll be there. My kids keep getting taller. Let's calm this down a little bit. Exactly. Exactly. Well, man, I love this episode.

Thanks for bringing up this topic. Hope you all got something out of this. And, you know, it's Cyber Monday. It is Cyber Monday. It is Cyber Monday. We talked all last week about Black Friday. We did. And, you know, if you are, if you're now patient and you have things you want to practice, we might have some things you could practice.

That's right. Here at Open Studio. We don't usually go full pitch as we have this past week. Let's do it like last week. We did last week, but we decided to extend, well, we have kind of a little different sale to just today. Yeah. Today and it might float until tomorrow because of people in different time zones. That's right.

Like Tuesday morning. But really what this is about is trying to make all of our course offerings. the most accessible that we can for people that want to get gifts maybe for somebody, gifts for yourself, nothing wrong with that. But these are all things to help you along on your jazz journey. These are not things, this is not the magic bullet that you're going to buy a course from us and then you're going to be amazing by the end of the week. Be patient.

Be patient, yeah, but these are going to be things that hopefully inspire you a little bit. Maybe you're down or looking for an idea. You know, Christian McBride can throw a little idea or just, you know, you can enjoy the plane there. Peter Martin, maybe, you know, and just something. for you to work on if you don't have access to a local teacher. That's right. And so, you know, are we going to tell what the deal is for Cyber Monday? I mean, the cat's out of the bag. 50% off. It's 50% off. Everything is 50% well, I think most everything.

Most everything is 50% off. All the lifetime courses. Yeah, we have subscriptions that are 25% off, which is actually a really great deal if you're into one of these annuals. These are biggest savings of the year. Yeah. And that's why we're really telling you about this. Not to hawk it too much. But if you've been on the fence, if you've been wanting to buy something. Do not be patient. Do it today. do it today just because you're going to save a bunch of money. Unless you're rich, do it whatever.

Don't worry about it. You can't be giving this stuff away all the time. If you were met like a really rich woman or man that's like, you know, you're talking to them and I mean, I've been around. I'm talking about some like really, I mean, you know, richer than me. That's like a lot of people. That's a lot of folks for me too. Yeah.

You're talking to them and you're like, man, I got this great deal. They're kind of looking at you like, what's a deal about that? All right. So if you're independently wealthy ways, So tomorrow or Wednesday. But if not. If not, or you like to save money anyway, just for the sport. Hit us up.

Join us today at openstitial network.com. Slash BF. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There we go. All right. Well, until tomorrow. We'll hear it.