You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - To Be Taught or to Self-Teach?

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Peter and Adam debate! Adam and Peter talk about the pros and cons of having a private teacher in these modern times. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, man. Topic. Yes. Torrey or labor? Table. Lori. I don't know.

I'm Adam Menace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Jazz explained and debated. Debated. Did you like my little hot, hot take 80s British? It was a UK, like imagine a UK 80s debate show. Right.

Topic. Topic. Topic. Tori are the British teeth substundered. I'm sorry. That really is an 80s joke, Peter. Congrats. Very, very, Benny Hillis.

Okay. That's interesting that you're saying a lot about yourself when we say, talk about debate and you immediately think of English people with powdered wings. I think of like, I think of an SNL sketch essentially. That's good. Yeah. So we're going to, we're going to do a debate. We haven't done one of these in a while. If ever.

If ever, we're so if we have any faults, it's that we are agreeable to a fault. I just try too hard. I care too much. I care too much. I play too well. My ears are too well attuned and trained. It's always held me back how great my ears are. Yes, but this debate could turn into a love fest very quickly.

Let's be honest. Well, we'll see. We'll see. Because this is one of our less prepared episodes. So are we going to do a classic debate team style here where one of us takes one position, no matter if we truly agree with it or not and just tries to argue against it? Let's do that. Okay, that would be good.

It doesn't matter because we both probably feel pretty strongly the same way. Exactly. Right. On a lot of this. But, so, okay, so the topic of the debate is, should you get a teacher? That's a great topic. Which one, which side would you like to take? Well, I'm going to take yes.

I knew it. But no, no, no, I'm okay. I can go, I can go dark. I'll take no. I can go dark too. No, no, I got it. Okay, we're going to go yes. I'm going to go yes.

Okay. Okay. And look, we're talking about as a musician here. Let's be clear on that. We might reference some other things. Should you get a music teacher? Not a martial artist or dancer. Yeah.

I'm not sure a lot of this would apply, but that's outside of ours. Pretty much the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So I know you remember, will you remember your debate team in high school or anything? Not at all. Neither was I.

I don't even know how these things are going to be a train wreck. So we should probably do just some opening statements. So please, why don't you know more than me? Why don't you pause it why you think you see that? I'm going to be Googling how to debate. Why don't and I, I'll start with my opening statement. Okay. Okay.

So here's my. My opening statement, I don't think of the right terminology. I'm so dumb, everybody. Sorry. Here's my opening statement on why you shouldn't get a teacher. It's not even why you shouldn't get a teacher, because I do think you should get a teacher, but I will say you do not need an in-person teacher,

traditional piano every week teacher. And why you might ask, Peter? Because you run a little program called Open Studio Pro per show. You don't even have to be an open. in studio pro member, Peter. There's a thing called YouTube. There's a thing called podcast. Peter, what we're doing.

There's a thing called Vimeo. Vidler too. Vindler. Wow. No, even if we just take, I'm getting all debating right now. Yeah. Perhaps we should just take YouTube as our first example. What could you learn from an in-person weekly teacher that you couldn't learn from an expert on

YouTube? In fact, I would go as far to say, as if you are in a, say, rural part of, of North America, and there's not a lot of jazz piano happening in your small town, YouTube is going to offer you better instruction in the improvised arts than a local teacher. Peter. Can I counter now? Rebuttal, yes. Rebuttal.

Okay. Can YouTube teach you how to hold your hand the proper position in three dimensions at the piano, for instance? No, but you can watch very skilled piano professors well-versed. in the Russian piano technique give you very detailed and lots of camera angles on what you should be doing with you. And personalized feedback?

Well, no. Okay. No, but this is actually where I kind of open. Are you prepared to come over to Arslaught? Not quite yet. Because I still think that in certain cases, you do not need an in-person teacher. You can get as much from YouTube.

If you are Brad Meldow, you do not need to get a teacher. That's what you're saying. No, I'm saying even if you're starting from scratch. Really? Well, yeah. You think a rank beginner? I think YouTube is...

Oboist could learn... We're talking about piano here, T. We are not. We didn't say... No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. You were changing the debate in the middle. Referee.

Where's the moderator? Moderator. Moderator. Okay. No, please state your case why you need a real teacher. Why you should get a teacher. Yeah. We didn't say real.

The debate today, sir, my fond, sir. We've already jumped. Is, should you get a teacher, a music teacher? I think that it is, so important, especially at the beginner level, to develop great habits. Now, there's the occasional individual, one out of a hundred, one out of a thousand. It's kind of like those, those green peppers that are... Interesting. He's putting statistics that has no, no backing of real numbers. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. You know, an infinitesimal, infinitesimal number, you know what I'm saying? Small number. Yeah. Okay.

that can nail all the different details, the granularity that is required to learn the oboe, to learn the piano, to learn the trumpet, to learn a musical instrument with all the different physical challenges that it presents at the beginning. You should get a teacher

because a great teacher is going to put you on the path of great habits, of great ways to practice. Yes, you can go to YouTube and probably get all this information on Russian piano technique, but if you're not doing it right, you're not going to get the feedback you need. And if you happen to get the wrong YouTube video that claims to be an expert,

but it's just some funny guy that got a lot of views, you're going to go down the path, waste a bunch of time. So if you don't, I should preface or make an addendum to my fine sir, to my statement, that if you want the most efficient way to learn an instrument,

you should get a teacher. It's not the only way. But for those who want to get from A to B to C and then eventually to Z, it's the best way. So it's interesting that you mentioned if you get it. That's why I started an online jazz academy. Let's be clear. It's interesting that you mentioned if you get a kind of a bummer of a YouTuber, because as I argued previously, there's as equal of a chance that you get a bummer of an in-person teacher who's also giving you bad information. That's why we're debating should you get a great teacher.

See, it's right there in the, oh, no, it's not. Well, no, now listen. Now, would you rather, say, learn about voicing from some, you know, some well-meaning, but maybe not very experienced jazz pianists in your small town? Yeah. Or would you rather have Jeffrey Keiser show you his voicing technique or Peter Martin or Fred Hirsch or Glenn Zaleski? Right.

You know? What in your, Peter. In your opinion, what would be better in that situation? Well, see, I hate to say this, my dear friend. Okay. But I have just tricked you into proving my point. Okay. See, Jeffrey Kieser, Zeletsky.

Glenn Selesky, he's really good. That's your teacher. So yes, you should get a teacher. See, they are your teacher. We didn't say in person or online. Not getting a teacher means you're not learning from anybody. Okay, so now we're... I pass it back to you, my fine sir.

Well, and if as you pass it back to me, I will just retort that we probably should have agreed upon that stipulation before we started this episode because my whole case is built around YouTube. That's right. That's right. I've got my entire thing built around online teaching. No, okay. So, let's, well, actually, that that can be. And the debate. This is, I knew this was going to become an agreement and love that. This is the gavels up. This probably should be where the delineation lies is between. It's not so much if it's online or in person. It's whether or not. it's live or watching YouTube recordings or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I think ultimately, to be honest, I believe that both can have their purpose at different stages for sure. Yeah.

But I think that, and certainly a great in-person teacher can get you to the promised land quicker in-person than they can over a Zoom call. But they can do a lot depending on, you know, I think at the very, very beginning, it's,

if you have access to a great teacher, that's going to be easier. but regardless like some one-on-one stuff. I mean, you can learn everything you want from a book. You don't even have to talk about videos, but then the book becomes your teacher. You know, it's like somebody, you can learn a lot about a lot of different things,

even how to play the piano, from reading a book, from looking at some photographs, going old school or whatever. But is that going to be the easiest way for you to get there? So let's talk about the, in our opinion, the easiest way for you to get to where you want to go.

The easiest way to get better at everything is three, three aspects, Peter. It's a three problem. Number one, nepotism. Well, yeah. Getting good at anything, but specifically piano, we've talked about this. And in fact, the entire philosophy behind Open Studio is based on these three things. And I think what I'm so proud of is that we have really been nailing these three things recently.

And I'm super happy about it. So the first is the obvious one. You need information, right? You need the right information. What do I do? What do I play? How do I hold my hand? What's the plan here, right?

And you need as expert of, you need as expert of, information is possible. So, you know, we're in the age now where information is everywhere. There's everything that you can get from a teacher in person, from the greatest colleges in the world you can get on YouTube. Everything that you can get at Open Studio, you know, on Open Studio Pro, you can get on YouTube, right? But it's, you need curated information is the most efficient way, to your point of understanding what it is you need to know. Now, from that, you need feedback of some kind. And that's where the in-person teacher really shines because it's direct one-on-one

feedback. You know, you can do that now. We are so lucky that we've started Open Studio Pro, where we do live Zoom call classes every day. So we do give direct feedback there. That's a way that we found. And the feedback is from the teacher, the instructor, and from the community.

We should know. That's right. That's right. And you can share your playing. And there's all sorts of things you can do. We do feedback Friday where people play for the group. And then the coaches will coach me. and Chris Parks from the things I've learned from Barry Harris Channel.

You've done some of that. We do master classes. All of that is great opportunities for feedback. And that's crucial so that it's not just information. Because like you were saying, if it was just information, anybody who owned Mark Levine's jazz piano book would sound great. But that's just not the case. Right, right.

You need the right information and then you need the feedback about what you're doing. And then the third prong of this, which is... Let me just add one thing. The feedback part, we should note it is possible to do that yourself. Not everyone can do that. that and it's very difficult, it's very advanced. You have to be very, very, very on it. Yeah, you have to be very poised, very self-aware.

What is it, auto-dict? Pretty much, pretty much. But that is possible. So we don't want to say that that is not possible. But it's so much easier and more efficient if you have an expert. You know, whenever I do a clinic at a college, people are like, what should I work on? I'm like, there is a room full of people in the back of this room, your professors that will tell you exactly what you should work on to get better, very fast.

They know before you even finish the sentence. They've heard you play. They know exactly what you should do. So anyway, the third prong of getting better and really I think of good teaching is a community. It's having a group of peers, some who are a little better than you, some who are on your level and some who are a little worse than you, having this group for one, like you said, more feedback, right, for direction about what is good information and what is bad information

for experience, for literally the experience. of playing with other people and putting these things into practice against people who are on your level. And then maybe the most important thing that we've discovered at Open Studio Pro and at Open Studio in the last couple years is accountability.

Like you show up for the group because it's your social network now. It's your group. And so if you are looking for like, why don't I get to this next level, are you going to your jam sessions in your town? Are you reaching out to online groups like Open Studio Pro or any of the others?

or even this podcast or any sort of forum where you can interact Reddit, you know, like the Jazz Subreddit or whatever, any sort of forum where you can interact with other people who are on the same wavelength as you interested in the same heading in the same direction. That's as equal as the information and the feedback, man. That group, that social aspect, nothing has ever happened without those three things. And I love how you called it, that community aspect,

the kind of pinnacle of that, the Nadeer being the, the accountability. Totally. Because I was going to say camaraderie, which is also nice. It's part of it. But it's not as important probably as the accountability. If you think about, you know, people that do group personal, well, it's not personal. If it's group, but group training or like boot camp, you know, exercise with other people.

There's definitely, like they always list accountability and the success of showing up because you don't want to let others down. Yeah. As being a main thing. But then once you're there, there is the added benefit of camaraderie. all kind of moving towards, sailing towards the same place. That's fun. It's motivation. Yeah, it's not necessarily, you know, mandatory, but it is motivating.

It keeps you going. It keeps you showing up. So those times where you don't feel like going, it's like, well, I got to go because Jason's going to be there. And I want to see Jason and he'll like, you know, give me shit if I don't show up. Right. I got to go, you know. It's a really good aspect of it.

Sorry, we're not calling. We're not using that, that S word. We're replacing with Scheiser from now off. We are very much not doing that. All right. Well, before we end this episode, and this debate. Real quick, Peter.

Yeah. All right. All right. Good stuff. Yeah. Well, I can't, you know who won the debate today? I'm going to tell you. You're going to be happy.

Let me just say that. Who's that? Can I be the ultimate judge jury and executioner? I mean, you're going to be whether I want you to or not. Go ahead. The winner of today's debate is our dear listeners. Oh, well, you're welcome. That's right.

You're welcome. That was fun. Yeah, man. So we will. We'll see you all on Friday. Until then, you'll hear it.