You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Right (And Wrong) Way To Listen

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

As a musician, there's nothing more important than listening - that's why Peter and Adam are here to give you a walkthrough on the best way to do it.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 - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam Maness on YouTube8:00 PM - Shelter in Place solo piano concert with Peter Martin 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, is this right? Hold on, let me listen. Let me listen. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Uly Here podcast. Music, advice, and inspiration coming at you every day.

Coming at you today. Monday through Friday. Monday through Friday, yeah. We got to qualify. Well, we got to qualify. But today, Peter, we're sponsored by Open Studio. And I just want to talk about something, but we can't talk about it yet. Well, maybe we're far enough in advance.

Should we go to future Peter and future Adam? I don't think we're there yet. Well, we might be. Open Studio Pro. We're not... I'll put the name out there. There it is. Open Studio.

We're not going to talk about any of it. Yeah. But check it out. It's going to be great. Yeah, it's going to be great. Okay. All right. So what are we talking about

in terms of like the tutelage that we are bringing? The knowledge, as it were, that we will be dropping upon our dear listeners. Just like the dear leader of North Korea. So wait. I don't know what that has to do.

So wait, wait. Are you talking about the podcast episode? Yes. Or the thing that we're not talking about. No, no. The podcast. Yeah, yeah. that's what we talked about.

I was like, we can't talk about that yet. The subject for today. The subject today is the right way and the wrong way to listen. So, and that's, that's, yeah. Well, now that I hear that, I'm thinking, I think I screwed this up because I came up with this title. Let me just be clear. We're going to tell you the right way.

We're going to tell you a bunch of right ways. Okay, okay, okay. And we're going to tell you a bunch of wrong ways. Because when you said it, I realize it sounds like the right and the wrong way. Like it's the same thing that has two different sides to the coin. Yeah. But we're going to go back and forth. Right.

I love it too. Good bad. Good bad. When we do things that are so dogmatic that are so like we're drawn aligned in the sand, like the right way to do anything, we get a ton of emails. So, which we love, by the way. So feel free to email us your grievances to Peter at. Send them to Adam at open studio pro. com.

No, you know what? We love to. Because sometimes we, I feel like, I don't know about you, but I feel like sometimes our podcast, we get a little wishy-washy. We get a little bit like, everybody gets a trophy. Yeah, no. Not everybody gets a trophy. And sometimes we- There's the right way and there's the wrong way. Yeah.

So to listen, though, that's a big one because we love listening. But this is also good because we're an election season here in the United States. Oh, here we go. Here we go. And when you go to vote, there's no like, oh, let me vote for both. And, you know, no, you got to put your stake in the ground. None of that Nambi, Pambi, Pambi, yeah. You got a Green Party nonsense this year, huh?

No. Fun fact, the candidate in the last gubernatorial Missouri election, or maybe it was the one before that, for the Green Party, lives across the street for me. No way. Yes. I actually really like the Green Party. I just, I need, I need some, we need some leadership, you know what I'm saying? Wasted vote, though.

Of course, green. I'm all about the green. Anyway. What if we did a whole episode where the, one of us talked while the other one accompanied what they thought was going on. Express. Let's try it. Okay.

But not today. No, not today. No, because today we're talking about the right in the wrong way to listen. I'm going to kick it off. Is that okay? Okay. And these are in no particular order, but they're all. I don't know how we able to help myself.

There's no problem with that. We always do that. Okay. The right way to listen. Communal listening. Listen with friends. Listen with loved ones. Listen with people that love music.

Use the power of people to be communal in your listening. Much as we do every Tuesday night, 8 p.m. Eastern on the Open Studio YouTube channel, free to all called the Sesh. So you're talking about the SESH. Yeah. It's one of my favorite nights of the week. I'll be honest. Every Tuesday, Peter and I listen to a album or,

Or as in the case of this past Tuesday, a collection of songs that we feel strongly about. Which is very rare. It's usually a complete out. But one of the great things about communal listening is it's actually a great learning experience. Like it's a way to grow as a musician because you get to hear what other musicians are hearing.

Yes. And I think it's like going to a concert, which is not something that happens a whole lot nowadays. I know. So you, there's, I mean, if you can sit alone in a concert hall and listen to a great orchestra, that would be great.

But how much better when there's a bunch of people around you? There's something about the energy of communal listening that just is the right way to listen to music. So that's the right way. The wrong way is distracted listening. Yeah. Well, a wrong way. We've got a bunch of wrong ways.

Right. A wrong way. And this is like direct pushback to the communal listening. We're talking about it. Yeah. Because you can try to combine these. That's not good. You can distract others in a communal listening situation, which would be wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's go with another right one. Why don't you go positive this time? The right way? Yeah. don't overthink listing.

Just do it a lot. So I've been referencing this really awesome audiobook that I listened to a couple weeks ago and it's like, oh yeah, see this, I'm telling you. I don't know this, but it's being in a great mood though. So I actually forget the name of the book. And I've talked about it on the podcast before, but the scientists sort of gathered all this information

about famous historical artists. Famous historical articles. That is distracted. Yeah, you said play a little music behind you. No, no, no. So, like, people like Da Vinci. Leonardo. This is like, what up with that from S&L?

Beethoven. Ludwig, we love here. I was hoping you can kind of pull out some moon nights and out of there. But, and then just, you know, miles, like, miles from the east side, yeah. But, wow. But no, so they collected all their personal journals and diaries and sort of analyzed how they spent their day. Everybody, all of them, averaged three hours a day ingesting whatever art form that they created. They ingested, but they didn't digest.

Sorry. I just got to say, boo-wee. What up with that? What up with that? That's what it's like. I feel like Bob De Niro. So three hours a day ingesting, whatever the medium was that they work on. So if you're a musician...

They had indigestion from all that diet. I now regret suggesting providing soundtracks to each other. Really? I think so. Okay. Okay. That was good. Lesson learned.

So anyway, so but don't overthink the listing. Just do it. Think about these grates. They average three hours a day. And just like you're in a Nike commercial. Just do it. Oh my gosh. Could I please get to Joe Biden's basement, please?

Okay. Are you done? Yeah, I'm done. Okay, we got a lot on the list here, buddy. I know I kind of push it along. Okay, wrong way of listening. And these are actually kind of unrelated at the point. Just right, right, wrong, wrong.

Background listening. I just want to see how you liked it. I love it. I love it, man. It's all about the distract. Okay, background listening. We're musicians. Concentrate.

Okay, actually, well, now I think about this background we've fallen apart we've fallen apart we're not going to just play a concert at this point this one's too too dogmatic

but anyway I just feel like background music you know I learned this from my dad he used to have a thing back in the days of like going out to eat when I was a kid we'd only go out to eat when it was like a special occasion

you know like now with our spoiled little kids well they'd never go out to eat but you know if there was any music play like this used to be a big thing around St. Louis when I was growing up

you'd go to a Mexican restaurant like I don't know if you remember hacienda I'm doing before on Woodson Road. Well, you probably went to one in wherever you live. But they would sometimes have like a Mexican musical trio playing. If they were and my dad walked in there, he would say, let's get out of here immediately. Not that he didn't like the music.

He could not stand to listen to good music or any music being performed when that wasn't the main thing to do was to listen to it. So I kind of adopted a little bit of that. Do you like the ambient music? I can't. I can't. It's too much background music. Too much background music. All right?

You want to do the right one now? So the right one is to focus on, this is the right way to listen. Focus in on one instrument in time. This is great, especially for beginners. If you don't understand sort of the mechanics of how jazz works, to say, okay, I'm going to listen to this track, and I'm just going to pick out the bass. Or I'm just going to pick out, you know what I like to do?

Try this. Pick out the kick drum or the hi-hat, not the drums. Pick out the kick drum like Adam, Uncle Adams. Okay, that sounds horrible. Why am I singing this? Sorry. It was my key. Sorry, go ahead.

Did I distract you? Pick out the kick drum, pick out the high head. Pick out the kick drum, pick out the high head like Uncle Adam told you. That sounds horrible. No, but focusing on one instrument works. What's the wrong way, Peter? Wrong ways to focus on only one instrument at a time. Wait, that was the right way.

Okay, so this is the duality of this one. if you're not supposed to focus, if you are supposed to focus on one instrument, you got to listen to the whole thing. All right way. Now we're just trying to distract each other. The right way is to listen. Oh, I love this one.

This is mine. And I love everything about me. No, this is the right way is to listen to a mix of new and old music. Again, from that book that I was referencing about the three hours a day, not only were they listening to three hours of music days, to read.

He likes to reference books. I enjoy. He's like the Steve Gutenberg of chess. Lots of thick mahogany, leather-bound books. That's not vegan at all, my brother. But they would listen to a mix of new and old music. Like they had a percentage where they would listen to things that they were very familiar with or old from the canon, and they would listen to music of their contemporaries that was new.

I think this is actually a pretty awesome thing to do. I actually create daily Spotify playlist now. Just like, damn, daily? Yeah, every morning I wake up. It's fun. Send me those. Do I follow you on Spotify? You don't.

You should because they're great. But what I do is I get up every morning and I just put in 10 tracks or 12 tracks or something of like something I love that I know really well. And then something that I maybe have been meaning to listen to but don't know or maybe then something that suggested to me. Just have a nice mix. And then something that I know really well. Just something I've been really liking the last couple months. And the wrong of this, of course, is to listen to. Only the same old, all the time.

All right, don't do that. Adam loves to leverage technology in a useful way to listen to music in the right, not the wrong way. You'll hear it. No, we got two more, right? I met my old podcast on the street last night. I logged into my Spotify account with the wrong password. Okay, right way to listen to music These are our last two, the right and wrong

I sure hope so Man, people, I like God bless anybody still listen to this They're gonna be like, unlike, unlike, unlike Distractive Okay, right way Listen to the music inside you What does that mean?

Oh No, so this is one that we've been talking about A lot on the Daily Guy to practice session There you go To not ignore the music that you're actually hearing, right? Like we call it clear the path We want to clear that path from the music that's inside us out to our instrument. Oftentimes we play by ego, we play things we think other people would want to hear.

And that sounds like crap. So see if you can hear the music that's inside you. The wrong way to listen to the music inside you is to think about what will this audience want to hear. That will only get you a crappy audience or crappy music to a good audience. Think about what you want to hear and just try to listen to what's happening in the moment. Peter is now playing something in the moment. It's an F. Adam says, get a little x-ray to look inside yourself

so you can see what you need to listen to. Get your x-ray on. You'll hear it.