You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Best Musicians All Share This One Trait

Episode Date: November 20, 2020

Anyone can be a good musician, but what does it take to reach levels of greatness? Peter and Adam discuss the one trait all great players need.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.Friday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Masterclass with Billy Childs (for members only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam on YouTube8:00 PM - Shelter in Place solo piano concert with Peter on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet 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. You want to know what all the best musicians have in common? I, yes. Stay tuned. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily music advice and inspiration coming at you.

Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Hey, did you know, Peter, we're doing a little sneak preview of our Black Friday. I know, we can't really tell anybody, but we're going to tell these thousands of people on our podcast. Oh, we are. Okay. Yeah, yeah. If you go to Open StudioJ.com slash YHI right now, you can choose what you pay. on the Piano Access Pass and the All-Axas Pass.

We're out here hocking the Piano Access Pass every episode and you can actually choose what you pay for it on a monthly basis. That's the first time we've ever done that for a subscription. We've done it before for standalone courses, but this is everything. This is everything. And I think that obviously the subscriptions, the memberships are the place, if you want to really dive into our community, everything from a daily guided practice session to the litany, of course,

that we have. It's just a great way to get involved with our community and at a fantastic price that you'll be choosing. We were going to do like discounts. Everyone's tired of like 30% off 70%. Like we couldn't even, we're like, you know what? You choose because we really believe, especially on the memberships, once you're in, you're going to want to stay in. And so the great thing about it is whatever price you come in, as long as you stay a member and there's no, never an obligation to stay. We're not one of those kind of organization. You know, like when you sign up and you try. Yeah, it's not like a gym where we try to like strong arm you into staying. Yeah.

Corner you in a room and pump you up with steroids. We're not going to do that. Well, you know another reason why we wanted to do, choose what you pay? Why? Because there ain't no gigs. That's right. Nobody has any money. I know.

So we're trying to help our, help our buddies out here. So go to open studio jazz.com. But the way this works. Yes. Slash Y. I. The way this works, though, is don't be like, don't be coming in at the billionaire level, your personal billionaire and what you choose, but you're choosing at the

out-of-work musician level. You've got to choose kind of at least within your range of what you can afford. Yeah, the billionaires. That's the way it works for everybody. The billionaires here are helping to support the out-of-work, just regular millionaire jazz musicians. Exactly. Exactly. So today we're talking about the best musicians all share this one trait.

I love this. The best musicians all share this one trait. I love this idea, yeah, because it's coming off of us talking about the piano axis pass and the all-axis pass. And one of the great things about what we've done here at Open Studio is that we've done all these great courses by all these amazing musicians. I mean, they're all very different players and different people. I'm talking about you and Jeffrey Keiser and Christian McBride, Sean Jones, Warren Wolf, Steve Wilson, Gregory Hutchinson, Rubin Rogers. I mean, just the list of amazing Bob Dubu. Bob Dubu now.

All these amazing Romero Lubombo, Alves, Diane Reeves. Diane Reeves. I mean, it's just the list gets crazy. but there are a few traits actually it's not even just one although we did say just one but you could actually your title

you could narrow down almost it's not even a it's not really a personality type but they all have some strong characteristics that they share and I have one in mind yeah and I think you have one in mind and I just want to see maybe what the what the difference is and if we can find some common ground and some agreement possibly

on what makes these top tier players top tier certainly it's a level of musicianship But I think there's more than that, actually. I think so, too. And I always feel like, you know, if you look at any group, like we're looking at sort of a specific niche

of great jazz musicians. But you could look, you know, you can widen it out, you can make it smaller, you could be like jazz soprano saxophonists. That's like a niche within a niche. I think he's going to talk about Kenny G. No, come on, big shout out to Kenny.

So you could think about, I got to tell you from one of my podcast, I listened to it. They actually made a funny, well, maybe if you remind me, I'll tell you this story, a funny Kenny G. referenced on a non-music podcast

the other day. Nice. But identifying within any group, be it very small or even a wider group all the way up to all of humanity, but things that people that are successful at an endeavor,

what traits do they share is such a valuable thing. I mean, that's a lot of what, I think people that really study biography, say, and just read, be a biography of Ben Franklin and Angela Davis and just I mean different people from different times people that really love biographies and want to learn from them and

almost use them as a self-help tool not in a not in a corny way but just in a life enhancement improvement way what makes these people so special right right very much like our friend Rick Biotto what makes you know the what makes this wait does he do the what makes this song great yeah he does yeah right it's a great feature it is yeah or like the 20 greatest guitar intros of all time it might be like like West Montgomery and then Eddie Van Halen. But it's like finding these things that are in common. Because those are things that if you latch on to,

like your chances of being successful with that trait, with that attribute, with that practice technique, whatever it is that you can glean from that situation, there's safety in numbers, right? And so just like I always was like, you know, when I would meet other musicians my age or older or younger or whatever,

but they could play good. I'd always ask them, like, what do you practice on? And if they said, oh, every morning I get up and I practice a Thelonious Monk solo backwards in retrograde, switching my hands up, no matter how much I love that pianist,

I'm not going to go do that unless I start to hear from a couple of others as well. Exactly. Because some things work for somebody individually. For sure. But when we talk about shared traits, now we're getting into something that has a high probability

that it's going to be able to apply to your situation. That's right. Yeah. And I think it's, I'm glad you brought up that musical example because he's switching the cameras. We're not even on YouTube. We're not, but it's fun. Look, there you are. It's ridiculous.

And here I am. No, he's practicing. That's what he's good. No, but we can very much look at this along the same lines of how you would learn the music of these people. It's a very similar thing because the personality traits, right, how they behave and interact with others and themselves, I think tells you a lot. lot about sort of the bigger picture of what it means to be a great artist. And so I'll get into mine. I'll start with mine. Have we buried the lead yet? No, no, no, no, no. Do we lose anybody? No, it's a relevant set up. So, uh, I think the thing that I've noticed the most in all of

these great players and musicians, Diane Reeves and Gregory Hutchinson and Christian McBride and yourself and Jeffrey Keese are you, I hear them make mistakes. when we record the courses and I get to be around them on live shows and even get to play sometimes with them or around them, I hear them make mistakes just like every other musician does. I hear them have troubles with their career, like professionally, just like every music. That doesn't end just because you get to a certain level.

I hear them have issues musically struggle with, you know, what is the right thing to do here in this musical situation? I even can see sometimes that they struggle with maybe the amount of knowledge that they have about music. You think that some of these top-tier artists, they must know everything about everything, but that's not

often the case, actually. In fact, oftentimes, almost every time, there's a knowledge gap between them and what you would think is a lesser player. Yeah. on certain things. Now, certain things they're, you know, the world-class expert on, but, you know, not every musician knows everything about everything, right? So they struggle with the same things that, you know,

I see around here in St. Louis with some local musicians, technically. The biggest difference that I see, though, is the amount of resilience that these top-tier players have. They'll miss a note, and it will not ruin their day. Right. They will have maybe not even the most easy solo, or even easy gig, and it will not ruin their weak. Right.

And I see players that struggle with this that will have maybe not the greatest, you know, even a section of the solo, or they'll play, they'll miss something, right? Like they'll go for something and they'll miss it. And it just, you could. Yeah, I like that. That sounds not bad, right? You could see them get in their head. Yeah.

Or they won't get a gig, and you could see them second guess themselves, and it affects them in a way. Listen, not that those people don't, it doesn't affect them or that they're not conscious of it or that doesn't upset them, but they're resilient to a level that most other people I know aren't in that they get up the next day and they still go to work and they do their thing and they do not let it. Like it's corny to say like steal their joy. Yeah. But they don't let it steal their joy. The next solo after they have a bum solo is better. than any solo they've had that night.

Right. They bring it. And actually, you know, there's some stuff that's been studied about, I think it was one of the Malcolm Gladwell books about like the difference between pro golfers and amateur golfers. Like an amateur golfer's heart rate goes up when they're about to sink a birdie, something that's really good. And when a pro golfer is about to sink a birdie, their heart rate is like super low.

Wow. You know what I mean? And it's like, I think that was the case. But it was like this flip. of how they frame things to themselves. I think it's the same thing with these top tier players. I think when the pressure is on,

they're ready to step it up and they do not let mistakes get them down. They don't let setbacks deter their joy of playing music. And I see with musicians that struggle with this, they really struggle with this. Yeah.

That's my... And actually, I'm passionate about this because it's something that I want to work on and get better at in my own playing is developing more. resilience when things go wrong when setbacks happen. Well, that's good. I mean, look, talking about it, identifying it in others or as an

attribute you want to work on, that's how we get better, you know. And then that's how we begin to have the opportunity to apply it to our playing, to our practice, to our lifestyle really. I mean, these are like, and I mean, hopefully mine is going to be that same kind of top level thing where you better bring it. I know. But I mean, yeah, so resilience It's meaning, of course, you were talking about it with specific group of musicians, great musicians, which you could widen that out to all different styles, just a great musician, maybe even great artists, certainly sharing this kind of resilience. And, you know, both at the micro level and the macro level, like you mentioned in solos, like the next soul is going to come back, hitting it after they. But sometimes it's even like a phrase trails off and then the next phrase, like there's all different ways. Sometimes it's a gig.

Sometimes it's a tour, but it's like all these opportunities. but I think what's great about identifying these traits and thinking about them and how you want to apply them and use them to improve your playing is that oftentimes these kind of character traits, attributes go well beyond just music.

So you'll probably be able to identify any of us could identify maybe areas like, wow, I wish I was more resilient like, you know, Sean Jones or whatever. So in my playing, I wish I could have that ability. I'm going to really work on that. you can look at another part of your life.

It's like, okay, wait, what part of my life? Maybe I do have the ability to be, like, what is something that I've been resilient with my life? Maybe it's a relationship. Yeah. You know, they've had some setbacks, but you've stuck it out and now everything's going really good. Yeah, yeah.

So I think oftentimes we can find these. And then that can embolden us to say with confidence, okay, I'm going to really work for the next month, for the next three months, six months on resilience specifically within my playing. but I know that I actually already have an ability within me. This is not something I just have to steal or take from others or learn from zero. It's already here. It's already here.

I just need to learn how to apply it to a different part of my life. I love that holistic way of looking at things because it makes it so much easier. And it connects our music and our art with who we are as people, which makes our story as improvisers and as players so much more authentic, I think. So it can be a very deep thing. I love your one. And I was looking at it up again because I'm like resilience. I know exactly what you're saying, but I wanted to get a definition.

So I went to a little place called the Oxford Dictionary, which I happen to have access to you. Yeah, they know what they're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Yeah. And then another one, toughness. Totally. Yeah.

Totally. And then the second definition, I never understand these alternate definitions or just secondary ones. I don't know. The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape, elasticity. So that's cool because it's like tough. but it's also elasticity so there's like a flexibility to it so sometimes like really understanding these words

and concepts and then thinking about inspirations as it were certain musicians that you like people that you like might even not be a musician think about who's like the most resilient person you know somebody you know I don't I don't know but we all know those kind of people we can take inspiration from a lot of places

sure sure yeah now I'm thinking as we talk about Sean and there's a big picture of Sean Jones right here I'm thinking we're not obsessed with Sean I might be probably you got to understand There's huge pictures of them. I mean, there's literally life-sized banners of them in this room, which is fun. Yeah.

No, I was directing one of our live streams over at Jazz St. Louis when Sean's band was there. And I don't even remember what tune was. He was taking a solo. And, you know, he's working it. And he does one of these. Uh. Yeah. And then he does it again.

Right. Ah! And he like audibly like grunts. Like, er, damn it, you know, is kind of the vibe. And then he doesn't do what you hear a lot. of people do, which is then shrink back or whatever, he ends up ripping the best second half of the solo you've ever heard.

Like he struggled. He bounced back in such a way that I was so inspired. And the audience gave him a huge ovation after the solo because he was working through some stuff. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, if you want to see this on the solo level, there's so many great examples. You can find

pretty much your favorite arts. There's very few flawless artists in terms of showing this. But Miles Davis, you know, on MyFutty Valentine, Stella by Starlight. And on Life in the Philharmonic is some great examples of that of just certainly resilience in a very musical way. Awesome.

Okay, so for my trait, the one trait or a trait that the best musicians share, this was hard for me because I was thinking of like confidence, humility. Confidence is a good one. You know, that are kind of easy and fun and important. But what I settled on was relentlessness. I had to look up.

I was like, wait, is Relentlessness a word? Yes, sir, it is. Relentlessness. I don't know if you're familiar with a little organization called the free dictionary.com, but they popped up on my little thing. Man, you got all the institutions just at your fingertips. Oxford probably would have been a better one,

but I went with the first one. Relentlessness. I mean, think about great artists, and again, on the micro level of, like, as they're playing. But I like to think about it somewhere in the middle in terms of like, you know, getting to be better. finishing a song, playing a great solo, like that the resilience leads to this relentless

like they work together for sure. Yeah. But great musicians are like they will not stop until they achieve greatness. Yeah. And they recognize that it's a moving target. It's not like you're a, you know, say if you are a bowler, there is a perfect score, right? Which is that 200 or 300? 300.

300. Yeah. Because I've hit 200 all the time. Yeah, obviously. A little bit more elusive. You're practically an expert. I'm relentless in my pursuit. Look at the Cambridge Bowling Dictionary and you're going to find.

But I mean, the idea is like that is an endeavor which you could achieve perfection and then you're done. I guess you'd have to do it every time you bowl. But greatness in music requires relentlessness that's on another level because that's a moving target. That 300 is different all the time. And so great musicians don't stop when they have people tell them that they're great. Like, if you're happy that people are like, oh, my God, you're such a great piano player. And you rest on your laurels, then you are not really a great musician. In my humble opinion, I am HL.

You're not, because you don't have that relentlessness. Like, you've got to go after something that maybe nobody else even recognized by you. And then start to go after something else once you achieve that. Like, you're constantly pushing the goal further and further all. I mean, it's like you're opening up a restaurant and you say, okay, I want to have six tables and I want to serve, you know, keto food and that's what I'm going to do and if I can serve 100 meals a week that's fine and I'm going to do that for the rest of my life

there's no problem with that but that's like as opposed to saying I want to open a restaurant and then have it successful then I'm going to open up a franchise another one in another state and it's going to keep growing until it takes over the world of keto restaurant so that takes a relentlessness you know that just doing one maybe

there is no finish line there is no finish line come on yeah so I think that that relentless kind of attitude and I always think about my dogs you know when you give that special treat when they go over with that bone. They're relentless. They're relentless. And then they go directly to sleep. They're very sleepy too. Also, a trait in a lot of the greatest musicians.

Rather sleepy at the end of the day. That's right. But I mean, relentless in just pursuing, you know, mastery of your instrument of, but more importantly, pursuing the goal, which is never really achievable of just a perfect musical expression. That's what we're doing as musicians. Like, we're trying to tell our story in the most interesting and perfect and just soulful way. And so that is a moving target because whenever you get to that mountain, there's another one.

And that's what makes it fun. And that's what... Can you make it, can it be easier to do? Can you be more on it? Can you go to another 11? Yeah. More 11. Yeah.

It's great, man. So this was really, really fun. If you want to learn more about Open Studio, you can go to Open StudioJadcom. And check out the piano access past and the all-exus pass for Choose What You Pay. on those two memberships today. Yes. And we would offer to you, dear listeners,

that if it sets upon your heart to get relentless about giving us a rating and a review. It sounds like it's not important, but oh, it is, dear listener. Yeah, and if you mess up the first time, be resilient. Yeah, that's right.

Come back. Elastic. Oh, he's going out. Dibidoo. Give us a rating and review. Give us a rating and review. Give us a rating and review. And I'll stop singing.

Yeah. You'll hear it.