You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The 7 Kinds of Practicers

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

Today, Peter and Adam describe the different categories of practicers. Which one are you?The 7 Kinds of PracticersThe One and DoneThe Overly ScriptedThe One-UpperThe JammerThe YouTuberThe Just Found Out About Coltrane ChangesThe Jaded ProBONUSIn light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.Have you checked out the latest course from Open Studio? Jazz Chords for Beginners features Adam Maness running through 6 essential chords every jazz pianist should know. And, in keeping with our new pricing structure for these trying times, Choose What You Pay is available for this course. To learn more, follow this link.Interested 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, Adam. What kind of practiser are you? Ooh, I'm, well, you know what? I'm more of a practitioner than a practiser. But if I had to choose from the seven types of practicers, I'm going to have to listen to find out what they are. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Music Advice coming at you remote. That's how we do it now. Coming at you today from each other's houses, not each other's, from our own houses. I'm not at your house. I'm coming from Adam's house. We got so bored. We switched houses. Yeah, we're still sheltering from home, as we hope all of you are safely. Yes.

But we got our live stream game going, and we have our podcast game going. And we're streaming also on Instagram as we record this. So as people are listening to this tomorrow, I think, is when this is going to air, right? Is it tomorrow? I hope so. That would be fun. I think right straight away. Yeah.

Yeah, you should have been live on Instagram to check. check this out. And so today we're going to talk about, I have this little funny list of maybe seven different kinds of practices. Now, caveat, I have been, or am currently, one of these seven kinds of practicers at some point. Yes. And I think we all have been at some point one of these kinds of practices. But have you ever been all seven of these types at the same time or even two or three? That would be crazy. I've been a couple at the same practice session. Yeah. Ah, for sure. Okay.

That's kind of, that's sort of like my cabling problem I'm having in my studio right now. That's a lot of stuff going on at the same time, right? Yeah, you have, you know, some people have like a rat's nest of cables. You have like a bear trap. Man, it's so bad.

I didn't even show you the other side of, I showed some of the Instagram folks for those you guys listen on the podcast. You know what? I have a studio, a little basement studio now that I, the thing about it is, is everyone's been having to kind of adapt, of course, and this is very minor what I'm dealing with compared to many.

but it's not like you can call up somebody like say Adam Manus my friend and be like can you come over here and help me you know so we're like I'm like showing FaceTime and he's trying to show me how to set up stuff I'm not other people I'm not going anywhere near you right now but the idea is that I have a studio set up now that's made for an audio podcast I mean it's hopefully sounds great you don't want to see it though all right let's get into it we're talking about seven kinds of practicers today yeah these are just kind of character that we've all been and personas that we possibly take on as we deal with the lifelong pursuit of excellence in music. Lifelong pursuit means that we're practicing on the regular and that means that we have a relationship with practicing that changes as we age, as we're in different stages, as we live in different cities, whatever it may be. And I don't know, these were just some funny ones I thought of just like characters. So the first one, I'll go first. The first one, the number one is the one and done. This is the practiser who says something like, well, that ought to do it for the year.

You know, maybe you practice once a month and you feel pretty good about it. You know, no shame. We've all not had a lot of time. Right. And not had time to practice. I'm not sure about the no shame part, though. Hold on. There should be shame.

I mean, I know they were in a global pandemic and there's a crisis going on, but we can still throw shame at people, right? Yeah, man, everybody's practicing like crazy right now. I know, that's true. But it's funny, when you said the one and done, I was thinking of the other, maybe it's kind of the other side of this, which is the, you know, like the great young basketball phenom

that goes to Duke University, like Zion Williams. We have a lot of one-and-duns because they're levels so high, they're ready to go pro, but they have to play one year of college. So I was thinking of that. But this type of practice is usually not at the elite level,

wouldn't you say? I would agree. I mean, if you're at the elite level, might be the zero and done. Yeah, this is someone who thinks they're really good and only needs to practice once a week, once a month, once a year. That'll do it for the year. Yeah, one and done.

Yeah, Zion practices every day. So just so you know. All right, number two. Number two is the overly scripted practicer. I just need to write out exactly how staccato I'm going to practice my staccato. And then I'm ready to practice. And this kind of goes with the overly prepared or that never actually getting, the overly scripted actually never gets into practice.

They do a lot of things around practicing, like the preparation, the finishing, the documentation. They're likely to have the most beautiful leather or pleather or vegan leatherette bullet journal in which to script out, right? The overly scripted. But in terms of actual practice, they're actually doing less than the one and done most likely, right? I think so. I think that's a correct assumption, yeah. Right. All right.

Number three, the one upper. This is, you know this one from music school. Anybody's ever been to jazz school knows. It's the person who's like, oh, you practice three hours a day? Cool, cool, cool. Today was a light day for me, so only 13 hours. Right. Yeah, so that, when I was at Juilliard, that was the, this is, I think the only, especially for the pianists and they had the special air with the piano rooms.

This was like, if somebody saw you coming out, like if you walk by and you saw somebody coming out of the practice, like starting to get up, they'd go right back because no one wanted to be seen. leaving a piano. They were only playing the piano at all times. So the one upper, that's, that leads to a lot of injuries, I would say, right? Yeah, I think so. With people trying to outdo themselves, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, number four, we've got the jammer. This is kind of like the, you know, I should work on some fundamentals right after I blow through 150 choruses of the F blues. No head. So this is like they're all about, you know, we've talked about before on here how important it is to practice performing, especially when there's no gigs, like right now, right?

But, you know, this is more like they're doing this pandemic or not. They're all about the jam. They're all about the performance. They're not about the, definitely not about scripting anything or one up anyone. They just want to, they love the music. So I like this one actually. And you can go in and out of this. But if you get stuck as the jammer, you are not going to make a lot of progress.

You're going to gain a lot of confidence in what you already know how to do. I would say. But you're not going to make a lot of progress. You're going to have a lot of fun. You can be very connected with the music. But you better hope you're like Chickoria before you become the jammer. And are you really practicing performance

if you play 150 choruses of F blues with no head? No. I mean, would you ever perform 150 choruses of F blues with no head? Exactly. So, I mean, you know, it's fun, but I think you've got to be careful. If you're spending every session just like heading into there will never be another you,

it's not going to be good. Right, exactly. Yeah, I was just looking at you over on the Instagram, and I'm sorry, I told you before. This will be super interesting for the podcast listeners, but I still hear you coming out of that, and that was me with that.

I'm sorry about that, Adam. I falsely accused you before, but I've got the volume all the way down, so what can I do? It's all good, man. I plugged in my headphones. Oh, good. That's a good idea.

This is such good podcasting right now. It's awesome. What kind of beverages you have there? See, I can see you there. Is that a cranberry and vodka? No, well, cranberry and soda with no vodka. Okay, cool. Not as fun.

Okay. Number five. Oh, I love this one. This is a classic. The YouTuber. This one maybe cuts a little close to the bone for us, possibly. This is the guy who's, he starts off every practice session with, hey guys, like and subscribe to watch all of my drop two practice videos. Um, yeah.

And yeah, that's me. It was only you yesterday in selected days. We're not going to say that's always you, right? Um, no, but, but this is like, yeah, but you're producing, you're helping out. You're actually practicing separately. And then you're helping others to practice. So I wouldn't say you're the YouTuber that I was thinking when you first put this down.

The YouTuber is like they can only practice along if somebody is doing it holding their hand. And I know you did a wonderful thing with the guy to practice live yesterday. That was so awesome. And literally, I was like in my mind, you know, how we might have to have a different type for this. I'm the type of practiser that's not on the seven list at times where it's like I'm done for the day. You know,

like you feel like you've gotten a certain amount accomplished and you're like, cool. I'm done with practicing for the day. But I was so inspired by your guided practice session. I was like, ah, shizzy. I got to go back and jump in a little bit of that drop to with that calming, you know, GPS voice, man. What was I going to do? What were you going to do? Hey, Pete, we got a lot of questions here on the Instagram.

Oh, awesome. We're going to go offline after this podcast recording and take some questions. Cool. But not now. Not now. We're going to continue on here with number six. Okay. Number six, one, two, three, four, five, six.

Oh, this is the, of our seven kinds of practices. This is the just found out about cold train changes or just found out about anything cyclical or just found out about the George Coleman 36251 substitution. It's like, you know, they got to figure out a way to throw some of those coal chain changes. on anything, even if it's, you know, embracable you or misty or whatever. And they put it on everything, the one thing that they practiced. So they do that on the gig, but they also do that when they practice, and that's why it comes out on the gig.

Every single turnaround is cold train changes. Every two five is this cold train changes. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that could be anything. All right, and we have one more number seven of our list of seven kinds of practices. This is the jaded pro, and it's simply a work it out on the bandstand. It doesn't practice.

Right, right, right. So that is a type of, it's more of a type of non-practice or right? But this could also be, it's the jaded pro, but it could also be the ultra pro, right? Yeah, I mean, actually there are a lot of pros who do this because you don't have time. You're traveling and then you're playing. And then you're traveling and then you're playing. If you can get half an hour, you got it. Yeah, I'm thinking like, you know, a gentleman like Herbie Hancock ever heard of him.

He might be a combination of the jammer and the jaded pro and he'd have no problem sounding incredible all the time. like I'm sure he's playing a lot because he loves music, but he might just be jamming. And then he definitely can work it out on the bands then. I've seen him do that very successfully. And he could certainly layer in number one, the one and done. He'd have no problem with that. All right, we got a bonus on this?

Yeah, I threw a little bonus on there. Before we do the bonus, though, let's talk about openstudiojazz.com. Go to openstudiojazz.com to get all of our courses. Check out our new course, jazz piano chords for beginners. I don't know if you know this, Peter, but it's pop. and off. It is. And get your, well, it's hot off the presses there. Jazz Chores for beginners. I break down some very basic chords for all of y'all. You can go to OpenStudiojazz.com. Yeah. And that's part of our, is that part of our choose what you pay. It's part of our choose

what you pay initiative. Yeah, every single thing that we're offering over at Open StudioJazz.com, you can choose what you pay. Just send us an email and pick your price and we will make it happen. Including private to our Skype lessons with Adam Manus, right? Is that part of our Chewit That is, nope, not going to happen. Yeah, but we're super excited about that. And you know what? I have a little theory about the jazz courts for beginners, Adam. The reason it's popping off so much.

I think we have a lot of horn players and a lot of singers, drummers. In fact, I know we do because some of them have been talking to us about that. But I think there's even more than we realize, which is so cool because, you know, that really opens it up to not just beginner jazz players. You know, if you're an advanced jazz pianist, there's probably. it's definitely going to be a little bit, it's definitely going to be basic for you. But if you're, you know, a saxophone player is that really good and needs to kind of brush up or wants to further develop and kind of go back to basics in terms of voicing and stuff, it's a pretty good fit, I would say. Agreed.

Yeah. All right. What's our bonus? Okay. Our bonus is of our seven kinds of practicers is the kind that wakes until there is some kind of global crisis to start practicing. Now, I never knew about this type until about a month ago, like most people. But they're everywhere. They're everywhere.

But it's, you know what? It's, you know, we're joking and we don't want to make light of this, this horrible situation the world finds us in. But we do want to kind of keep things, you know, positive here as one would do if you are one of the co-hosts of the Yule here podcast, you and I. And that is, you know, the few little silver linings like they talk about, you know, cities aren't as polluted because people aren't driving around. You know, families are kind of bonding. but I think that really people have waited until this time to get deep into practice. And so this almost covers everybody. I think even really good practices, you've been a great practiser for a while.

I've been kind of in and out of it pretty good lately. But I mean, you've been very disciplined about it. But I think that, you know, you can always go next level with just sort of more time and more like a reset. This has been a giant reset. Not everybody has been able to take advantage of it to practice. But we've definitely talked to a lot of people that are like, wow, I'm getting time to practice and like really good players too that are like I don't have any gigs I mean Greg Hutchinson we we did an episode uh is that one aired yet I don't even remember but we did a nice little

episode with Greg I think for the podcast and he was talking about his regimen starting at 730 a.m. And I'm like dude you're good man what do you talk about but it's like you know going back to some real basic kind of things you know scenario and stuff or whatever else it is he's practicing. So that's been kind of a beautiful thing is these practitioners that have waited until a pandemic. Should we call them pandemic practices? let's not judge, Peter. We're all on our own journey here. I'm judging positively, is what I'm saying.

No, it's good. Any practice is good practice, pandemic or not. That's right. Whatever the circumstance, it's all good. That's right. All right. I think that does it. That does it.

You got anything else? Yeah. No, that's it. We just want to send a lot of love. And thank you guys for listening to us. And we're very excited to be here with you. We hope that you are strong and healthy. and we ask that you, you know, look out for your brother and for your sister, for your others,

for all the humans around you. You know, this is a time for that through music and through family and through neighbors and stay low as much as you can, man. We got to beat this thing and it's on all of us and just that energy and global community. I mean, you're joking about John Coltrane changes, but if you think about, I've been listening to some train lately. I've been going back and just checking out stuff that, you know, I hadn't listened to to in a while.

and like, you know, that's, that the beauty that that represents the power of that music, I really believe is the kind of energy that if we, we manifest that ourselves as musicians, that can really help out with solving what's happening in the world today. So we just ask everybody to do that. Lay low, social distancing, and let's flatten the curve. That's right. And until tomorrow. You'll hear it.