You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Want to be a jazz musician? Be inquisitive. Be curious.

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

It's Speakpipe Wednesday! Peter and Adam respond to listeners' question on starting his jazz education journey.Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested 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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Yes. I have a confession to make. Ooh, a confession. Yeah. Well, not quite that kind of confession, but carry on. It sounds beautiful. So, you know, I'm a creative director here at Open Studio.

I'm a jazz pianist, but I only know, like, two tunes. I've been faking it this whole time. Ah, this isn't right. Sounds like Speak Pipe Wednesday, though. Yeah, that's more like it. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast.

Music, advice, inspiration, answers. and much more. You've got questions. We've got answers. It's Speak Pipe Wednesday. This is when we take voice messages from you. You can go to You'll Hear.com and leave us a message. We've got a lot of great messages over the last couple weeks, Peter.

This isn't the only time we take their questions. This is the only time we answer their questions. Yeah, yeah. We take them 24-7. Yeah, don't wait until Wednesday. That's right, yeah, yeah. And so we've got a question today from a young man named Wyatt. Let's listen to Wyatt's question here.

What up, Wyatt? Hey, guys. A new listener to your show. It's pretty good. I'm now a regular listener. It's nice to hear actual real advice from people who have the credentials to back up what they're saying. Anyway, my question is, recently I got accepted into a pretty competitive jazz school in the South. And I'm transferring from a community college. And the thing is, I'm not really a jazz player. I learned two jazz songs. I got them down good. I'll remember April and there'll be another be another you.

And so I got in kind of on the basis because that's kind of what they believe, how I play. And then they put in a piece of she music in front of me, and I was really struggling to stumble through just take the A train. So my question is just kind of, as someone who's not really a real jazz guitarist, Is there a place for me in the jazz world coming in so late as someone who's played country all his life? I'm 20 years old, by the way. Thank you. Well, Wyatt, it's a great question.

Thank you so much. It's a very funny question, man. I'm not laughing at Wyatt. I'm just laugh. It's such a great question. Like, he gave us so much information about himself and his life. I know. Which is great.

I know. Well, he's struggling. He got into a jazz college and he's like, I don't even know if I'm so honest. I know, I know, yeah. That's going to serve you why. Don't lose that at all. He's a country, okay, tell me if I'm misconstruing what I picked on. Yeah, yeah.

You know, country guitarist. Yep. And as he said, he got in, he learned these two tunes, talented guy most likely. I would think so. If he got into a good jazz school, even if it was only two tunes he knows, if he can play them and fool somebody, then you're not actually fooling them because you had to play it. You must be pretty talented to, because you can't fake the feel. a really good feel.

You probably have a good time. You probably have a pretty good sound. Right. Probably not a huge repertoire. It doesn't sound like it. By the way, I just want to just say, I'm at the gate here, White, take the A train while it's like a quote unquote beginner tune.

That's a difficult tune to play well. It's very, very hard, actually, even for experienced musicians. That's right. But then I think what happened was once Wyatt felt like he was exposed by the Take the A Train episode. Yeah.

He went directly to this podcast. Yeah, which he... Somebody told him, like, check out the pot. Or he served. Which he thinks is pretty good. He said it's only pretty good. But he is very desperate, apparently, because he's coming up. So, anyway, this is great.

It's awesome. And there's probably a lot of people actually listening that are in similar situations, right? I would say, because here's, man, here's the honest truth about it. There's a lot of jazz programs. Yes. There's a lot of jazz schools. Yes. He says a competitive jazz school in the south.

In the south. Like South Jersey or like the deep South? North Texas, maybe? Could be. I don't know. I don't know. I get kicked out of North Texas if you can't play Take the A train, though. You might.

But I'll say this, Wyatt. I'll say this. I have a question that you might ask yourself, do you like jazz? Exactly. Do you even like jazz? Exactly. I mean, if it's not something you're into, you might consider transferring out of here in a semester and going somewhere that maybe has a program that's closer to what you want to learn. If you don't listen to a lot of jazz, you're not super into it.

Although, I would just interject this, Adam. Sure. I was always agreeing with that. But I've been thinking lately, too. too about this thing of like a lot of maybe we're in a situation now where jazz programs are kind of the catch-all for non-classical. Well, it is kind of, it is turning into that situation. Like if you want to play funk or country, whatever, there's no really, there's not a lot of

programs for that. So it's like, jazz will have you cover. This is why it's going to all turn into like a black American music program because that's what this is heading towards. And that's a good thing, I think, to think about it that way as opposed to like, and we're in jazz bands. Right. And then you might have some of these really focus.

kind of, you know, elitist or elite, I shouldn't say elitist, although being elite often, you know, trends towards becoming elitist, but these like very narrow in scope jazz where we only do swinging jazz from 59 through 67. Yeah. Maybe there'll be programs like that, and all that'll attract a certain kind, but I think, yes, like more inclusive things. I mean, look, isn't Berkeley sort of the template for this? Yes.

It's not a jazz conservatory, but that's probably, if somebody's like, I'm going to Berkeley, oh, do you play jazz guitar? You know, it's kind of like, there's a lot of things. I mean, even classical, they include, not because they're Boston Conservatory. It's part of Berkeley now. Yeah. And so that's a great point. And that's something to consider, too, Wyatt, is that, and I, man, we probably both know people, actually, that went to jazz.

Well, you didn't go to jazz school. We went to Juilliard before it was jazz school. Yeah. But you went to classical school, and you probably know people that were there that also didn't turn out to be classical musicians. You are one of them. Right. You know what I mean?

Right. And I went to the new school in New York, and I went to school with a ton of people who ended up doing amazing things with all kinds of different genres of artists and becoming their own genre of artists. But when they were there, when you were there, we're working on bebop. Right. But everybody thought they were going to be like, I'm going to be like working within four block radius at the club. You know what? I mean, that was the dream, right?

I think all of them, including me, by the way, kind of were working that out as we were there. Some of them were just like, this is what I do. This is what I'm going to be. And they are that, right? Yeah. And some of us were like, you know what? I love music. I love improvising.

I love jazz, but I don't know if that's like straight down. Like, I don't know if that's my wheelhouse. I don't know if that's exactly what I want to be doing. I want to be, like, I love this world, but I have these other things I can do. I mean, for me too, man, like, you know, there's not, it's not an accident that I ended up, you know, doing the things with like Aaron Bodey that I did, the 442s and stuff like that aren't exactly. You're well-rounded musician. I like other things that aren't just straight ahead jazz. And so I.

Sue me. I'm versatile. That's quote Adam Manus. I will never, like, learning. that music has done nothing but great things for every kind of music I play, including country music, Wyatt, that I've been a part of,

like learning how to learn how to music is the important part here. Well, I wonder if it's sort of like, I'm sorry, go ahead. You're about to say, no, I'm just saying you might take this opportunity to just be like,

you know what, I'm going to hang here for a year, I'm going to learn how to learn, and then I'm going to kind of reevaluate what I want to do, which might be more of a traditional music school. It might be something like Berkeley or somewhere where there's a little bit more versatile program. Yeah,

maybe we are entering or in or hopefully could get to a point where it's almost like the liberal arts education mentality and template. Like we can embrace that in terms of going to jazz, any kind of conservatory, classical jazz. What else is there, though, besides? Like, what can you major in music at a conservatory now? There are some places in Kentucky, I think, where you can major in bluegrass. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah.

So, but like, in other words, like what, like, you're going to conservatory. This is not about, okay, I want to be. trained up to be a such a narrow thing of a jazz musician. But you might study that. So it's almost like, I want to be an entrepreneur, but you don't have to go to an entrepreneurship program. No.

You could study philosophy. You could study, you know, English writing, English literature. I mean, there's like a lot of things that are going to give you the skills to expand your mind, expand your experience, you know, that are not as directly related to exactly. I almost feel like if we're doing what's directly related. It's like I want to be a modern bebop pianist. So I'm going to go study bebop and major in modern.

I don't even know if you can, I don't think you can do that. But it's like I'm going to major. Exactly. Without being the close. But it's still going to be like a jazz performance degree. Right. But like how many, what's the percentage of graduates of the new school or any program that graduate with a degree in jazz performance that their primary profession and source of income is performing jazz music exclusively? So I'll tell you my primary.

profession is performing jazz music exclusively, and I didn't graduate with the degree. And I know a lot of people that just left, too. Right. And that's also something to consider here, Wyatt, you know, not to dissuade you from going to college, but like, to Peter's point, you don't actually have to go to music school. And you want to be a musician. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because, yeah, I mean, being inclusive in your studies of just the music world, but beyond that, the world of arts and just the world of exploring, expanding your mind, being inquisitive, being,

curious of this world and like learning things because you don't know I know like a lot of what I do is is is very close to kind of what my dream was when I was 18 or even 16 or whatever yeah in terms of like I want to go to New York and be a I mean like that's exactly what I wanted to do and so I kind of did that and I am a jazz musician but then I've been involved with a lot of other things that I was lucky enough that some curiosity in like for instance classical music in general I never really had this dream of being like a classical pianist. I don't know. I wasn't against it,

but I never was trying to set myself up for that because I kind of got focused on the jazz thing. But I kept playing classical music because I liked it. It's kind of your family business too. It's kind of the fact. Yeah, but there was not a lot of pressure from them about it. But it was just always around. It was around.

It was around. But I liked a lot. So I was like the same way, it's just maybe jazz I connect with or liked more. But then like, you know, I really got into Bartox music. It was never like, I want to be a Bartok Scholar or whatever.

But I read, about him and things that I didn't have just because I was interested in doing it and so I think that when you find things that are... Greatest string quartets ever, man.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I never was like, am I going to be able to use this in my jazz career or music career? Maybe, maybe not. I mean,

I kind of have, actually, with some arranging or whatever. Yeah. But I love the idea of being a little bit less, you know, tactical about our studies

and a little bit more passionate. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like the tactical thing is like, I'm going to go to, I want to be an accountant, so I'm going to go to a professional school. I'm not going to take any classes that are not required or like I'm only going to go to a program.

I'm definitely not going to go to liberal arts school because then you take things that are, a lot of these schools require you to take things that are not in your core curriculum or whatever. And so like I'm just going to go learn accounting. Well, I mean, then you can just go to trade school, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think being a musician, being in the arts, it requires, it rewards curiosity. It rewards an open mind. It rewards learning about all these different things.

and it's fun, so why not do it? Well, okay, let's talk strategies for Wyatt here who's going to be starting. I'm guessing. Did he say that? I think so. I don't know. He did the audition. He did the audition.

But what about to take the A train incident? So he must have started something. I think, well, no, he said that was at the audition. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe he's already there. I don't know. Well, wherever you are, Wyatt. He might be trapped.

Wyatt. Blinked two times. Yeah, Blinked two times. Save you. No, Wyatt, so, yeah. But it's like you said, it sounds like he's a talented guy and probably has some stuff together. So strategies for Wyatt at jazz school that he might not want to be at. So I would say why.

He didn't really say that. He sounds like he's scared about being exposed as a fraud. Right. But you're not a fraud. You can play two tunes. Be yourself. Yeah. Just yeah.

Embrace that. You know what? Maybe you're the country guy who does everything country. I mean, I think this is a cool story. Like we like Wyatt already. I like Wyatt better than some 20 year old that's like, I know everything. I can't learn anything at this school. Help me.

Totally. You know. Totally. But I would say that like it's such a. an easier problem to solve where why it likely is, as opposed to the inverse of that, where you're like, I know so many different tunes, but I can't play

anything good. Yeah. Like, it's so much easier to solve, and it sounds like he has a reading problem, not a reading problem. Just he can't read music very well, because he said they put something in front of him and he froze up. Well, he might not be able to improvise over, take the a train very well. Right. But he may literally not be able to, maybe he can only read tab.

Oh, that's true. I don't know. But the thing is to learn. I just know. Calls back, right? Speak pipe. here at that kind. We ain't giving you our number. But it's not like those skills are so much easier than being able to play, you know, I'll remember April and there'll never be another. Those aren't easy tunes. I mean, they're standards, but they're not like beginner beginner, beginner soon.

Absolutely not. If you can pull those off. Yeah. There's a lot of other tunes. You are a little bit behind maybe for your stage, but the areas that you're behind are the easiest and quickest way things to remedy, I think. So there's another question. I would say to why the strategy you might have.

implore here at school is to find a guitarist or any instrumentalist actually that you really love and just shadow them especially if someone who might have like the same influence as you just shadow them you know and and try to learn from them as much as you can at least on your instrument even if you are not like a huge jazz fan right now you know learn how to play the guitar as well as you can so to one of why its other question was the last question was is there a place in jazz for a guitarist who doesn't know, I think it was something like, there's a lot about jazz.

So there's, I mean, there's a place in music for anything, right? Like, I wouldn't be so restrictive here as like, I have to be now in the jazz world. But that's part of the problem. This is a problem in the jazz world is that we put that on, especially younger people. We make it like, it's an ivory tower,

and it's just like classical, like, you have to. That's our problem. That's not why it's problem. No, no, but I can feel his, like, I can feel his thing that this is not inclusive enough to somebody that just knows a couple of tunes. Oh yeah, you're going to get vibed, but you should get used to that. I like that.

You're supportive of this. I mean, well, yeah, I mean, you're like, we had to go through it, so he's going to have to go through it. You're going to fail, why? That's how we all do it. I mean, that's learning. That's called learning. It's failing and then failing forward is what, failing up. But I wonder if you're, the original thing that you mentioned, Adam, too, that is going to come into play, which is about,

you do have to find a passion for this music because it's not going to be any fun. Although you can learn so much in learning jazz that applies, I mean, it's probably the most instructive music when you study it to be able to play different styles. Because, like, if you learn classical music, you're going to learn a lot of things, and it's going to help you, like, as a guitarist, but you're not going to expand in the way if you have a comprehensive jazz education in terms of your ear training. Yep. That's really required of it. Absolutely.

Your understanding of harmony, form, I mean, blah, blah, blah. Everything that we talk about on this podcast. Time. Everything is covered there. So you might get some good musicianship. But, right, I would just, and I'll say this to anybody, especially some of the, who's thinking about going to music school of any kind or getting a jazz degree is like, check your Spotify. We're getting all these year-end lists of what you listen to.

Right. If you're not listening to a lot of jazz, you might consider just moving to Nashville. Exactly. Or like going to San Diego and like hanging out with like Chris Steeley. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Exactly. Something like that follow your passion to where it logically ends, not just because you're on some path.

Now, don't tell your parents. I told you not to go to college. Well, you might be, I mean, you might be saving them about half a million dollars. Well, no, I'm just saying, man, like, there's easier and cheaper ways and paths to do this. And really, it's all about just figuring that out as early as possible. Who are your people? Who do you listen to? Follow them.

That's super important. I mean, I think in terms of your peers, your, you know, who you like for you to be your mentors. If you're at the school and you only know two tunes, but like you kind of like the other jazz nerds there, or you consider yourself one of them. Yeah. Or just like kind of pursuing the same. thing, then you're in the right spot. Even if you feel like you're at the bottom rung.

Who are your favorite guitarists and what did they do? Yeah. And maybe think about that. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Good. Man, these schools should hire us for, like, entrance exam. Like, we won't be having them play tunes or anything.

I'll play it and tell you what it is later. Don't do that to Wyatt. Well, you do it two times. Just two times for Wyatt. Good stuff, Peter. Thank you, Wyatt, for the speakpipe. If you want to leave us to speakpipe, go to you'll hear it.com. and leave us a message.

We want to hear from you. And yeah. Until next time. You'll hear it.