You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The 7 Habits of a Highly Effective Jazz Musician (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

In this two-part episode, Peter and Adam list off some good habits you need to integrate into your musical life right away.7 Habits of a Highly Effective Jazz MusicianListenPracticeBe socialBroad world viewExecution and completionGrooveEmpathyLinks From This Episode:Purchase a copy of Atomic Habits by James Clear right hereFor 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)3:00 PM - Adam hosts a non-members only Guided Practice Session on YouTube4:00 PM - Open Studio Demo & Tour - register here8:00 PM - Peter and Adam's weekly Listening Sesh on YouTube - this week's album: Thelonious Monk's UndergroundFor 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.

Let's fly through these next four Since you've already said That they're not as good as the first three We better pack up there So number four, broad worldview Number five, no Broad worldview Yeah, so this one's yours

What did you mean by broad worldview? So I think this is having the habit of developing the habit Of looking at the world as The glass is half full As opposed to half empty That the world is looking at the world In an expansive way

In that you're from a cultural standpoint From a musical standpoint From an artistic standpoint So there's other ways of thinking besides how you're thinking. We are not robots that can only do things one way. You're interested in philosophy and how to improve and what you can learn from things that are not just within the jazz world. And so this one I really took kind of reverse engineering from just great, all the great jazz musicians that we know, including yourself, Adam. Like you're somebody that's very interested in learning things from wherever you can get them.

And you're in the habit of that. So it's not like you have to work at it. That's the great thing about a habit. It's like you just do it. And look, we're not all going to be great at all these. It doesn't matter. It's just you're in the habit of doing it. You're like, it's part of the process.

So I think there's so much that we can learn from looking, you know, to other, especially within the artistic world, looking at other areas. And you see the history of that, you know, John Coltrane and Philoni's Monk and Miles Davis and like, you know, being interested in the different arts and then being able to bring that back. Once you become habitual about that, you're going to find your own path with that, and you're going to find a way for that to inform you as a great improviser. Yeah, the key with any habit like this, and especially with something like a broad worldview, about really being curious is what you're talking about here.

The key is you have to convince yourself why this is important, and you have to balance, like, you know, does this in the long room, does this make me net, you know, you can say happier or have more well-being? and for me, I've already approached this question, and there's no doubt about it, that I know that if I'm curious, if I'm looking into things that I am interested in, if I really go on deep dives that I know I love to do,

it makes me happier in the long run, even if it's a little more work in the short run or whatever. So if you can convince your, whatever, of any of these habits or whatever, if you can talk your subconscious into the fact that this actually does me a net good, even though this might be, the net good might not be,

the obvious in the short term, but in the long term it does. That's the key to maintaining regular habits. Yeah. And I think part of this one, too, is just like, it's not being in a box of, like, everything we have to know to be a great jazz player is in the jazz records. You know what I mean? I mean, I know we talked about that the first three, but this is why I wanted us to get out of that.

It's like, if there's a, I mean, like, I'm very influenced by some of the podcasts, which I almost think are like listening to old time radio in a way where you got the spoken word, books that we read. We're not always reading. I mean, yeah, we're reading about music. we're reading about arts, but we're reading about other things. You know, the habit of a great, effective jazz musician is can take all these things and boil them down to not only improving themselves, but informing their art so that our story

is more interesting that we have to tell. Yeah, we're using the practice and listening to figure out how to translate into that, the music. But if we don't have anything to say by having a broad, broad, expansive worldview, then we're not going to have anything to say. That's so true, man. Number five, have the habit of execution. and completion.

You have to fully learn your craft so that you have the freedom in the moment to be a complete and confident improviser. Yeah, I couldn't have said it any better. You said it exactly right. Yeah, I mean, it's like,

no, that's really it. Like sometimes we think about, you know, like people always ask about learning solos and I know you're doing with the GPS group, you know, working on specific solos and stuff. How much do I have to learn? How much do I have to do?

You know, I think in general, we want to really execute to completion. Now, your goal might be just one course or whatever, but this is not the kind of stuff in general, or say learning scales and stuff, that you're rewarded for having the habit of like getting 80% right or 70% right.

You really want to try to hit 100% on most things because once you're in the moment, remember we're always talking about, you're going to throw all that out the window. You're not throwing it out. You're throwing out the conscious usage of it. So the better that you know your scales, your technique, the tunes, the form, oh, bad.

This one really applies to learning tunes. Like, do you want to learn a tune 90%? Now, we've all done that because we get rushed or whatever. It's not as fun, right? It's when you know it 100%. Like you really know it like the back of your hand. Then you've got freedom. Then you can really live in the moment and be a great improviser.

A lot of times people kind of misconstrue being a jazz musician and like, oh, you don't have to really know it because you're making it up, dude. Why am I talking like a West? Coast dude. I don't know. The truth is, though, is great improvisers know more about the inner workings of the music going on than almost any, really more than any other kind of musician. They know exactly what everybody's doing. Exactly. Exactly the options, every single option that the music contains, you know, the masters do. I'm always amazed, like when I'll talk to somebody like Christian McBride or whatever. Like the recordings that he knows, which is a lot,

like he knows every like drum field. Like he could, I mean, he just knows it. He's gotten in that habit. And so if you want to be like a great jazz musician, getting that. habit of really executing and completing your learning. And, you know, if you go through these early ones listening and practice, that's going to happen. One caveat to this, though, is you brought it up during the first part of this number five. And that's, you know, this is where short-term goals become very important, right? Because it's not like you have to execute and complete the entire system of drop two chords over every chord before you could move on to something else. That's not what we're talking about here. But if you say, I want to learn, you know, these five drop-two

chords on D minor. Yeah. Make sure you know them. Like really spend your time and that's your short term goal. And now you have those on D minor. Right. Set your longer term goals after that. Well, now I want them for G minor and C minor and F minor.

Okay, cool. But then tick those boxes when you get them. You don't have to learn the entire breadth of one subject before you move on to the others. But set short term goals for these things. Like, all right, I need to learn, like I want to learn 30 tunes this year. That doesn't mean you have to learn 30 tunes today. No. You know, you can learn one tune every two.

two weeks and get close to that. You know what I mean? And that's, if you're ticking off that, that short-term goal box, that's execution and completion. Yeah. And actually, if you're doing this, right, it's going to feel like you're going slower than maybe you could. But by completely learning things, by necessity, you're going to go slower, but you're

going to learn it deeper and more completely. Number six, I love it because, you know, we know it in St. Louis, man. Oh, come on. We know what number six is all about. It's a groove town. They know it in Orleans. Yeah. They know whatever.

Number six is groove. Yeah. There is no substitute for having a strong groove. There just isn't. No. No. It's, and the habit that really gets you this and keeps it for you is,

is the habit of listening and learning and being able to dance to and to sit in different kinds of groups. So you have to pay attention and listen and practice and like just prioritize is really what it is. Because it's kind of like this is an area where people think, oh, this is not like it's a habit. you're born with it or not. O contrary, Montfaire, if you don't mind me slipping into the habit

of French, as I occasionally do. But, you know, this is something that you have to spend the time honoring it. And as you say, yeah, certain places in the world,

St. Louis, New Orleans, Brazil, Italy, different places that it's like, wow, those people are so musical. No, they just pay attention to groove and their music more than other places.

It's just, they just put more priority of it. And I would say a lot of beginner and intermediate students that I deal with, they're probably 70-30 like theory scales

harmony 70 rhythm and time and groove 30 and I always advise you need to flip that like you need to spend 70% on rhythm on groove on making it feel good and you can play the freaking blues scale over all that it's going to sound awesome that's right yeah and so like you know like you say

they're they're prioritizing theory scales and that's all great stuff but if you If you prioritize that too much and you don't give equal, if not even more, priority to groove, that part of, you know, you're not going to be in the habit of prioritizing it. And then it's just not going to be something that you're confident in. And yeah, that's it. What we got for number seven? Number seven is empathy.

Now, this one is a tough one because this means you got to work on yourself as a person. That's not fun. Right. But I, yeah, exactly. But I think this is the one. This links in. And I wanted to have it at the end, number seven, because it really links in with number one listen the most because it's the ability to understand and sharing the feelings of others. And how can you do that if you can't listen to them, you know, on a musical level.

So this is so important because this is, and this is not just when you're playing with other people. This is if you're playing solo piano, solo guitar or or with others, it's even more important. But it's all about like how you can interpret a story, your story, which really becomes, you know what it is? It's like the difference between I'm telling my story instead of I'm telling our story. And that's like you can never really connect with an audience until you're telling our story. It might be your story, your improvised story. But if you're not willing to share it and you have to have empathy for other people and be able to connect with them in that way in order to do that. Then you're inviting the listener in, right?

So but that takes listening. It takes, you know, learning from all. I mean, it's a lot of things. But empathy in general is definitely something that we can get in the habit of. And it takes confidence. It takes confidence to be able to tell. your story in the context of something that's universal for everybody else. I think that's such a great thing.

That's a very high-level artistic thing, man. And you're so great at that. That's awesome. I wasn't listening to you. I'm not being very empathetic, so I didn't hear what you just said. So let's just give it a rundown here. The seven habits of highly effective jazz musicians. Number one, listen.

Number two, practice. Number three, be social. Number four, have a broad worldview. number five have the habit of execution and completion get down give me 20 I'm sorry number six the groove right and number seven is to have empathy I think that's a fantastic list yeah well this was fun we're also brought to you by open studio go to open

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