You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Are You Thinking?

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

On this episode, Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe on what their thinking process is while performing. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Sign up for You'll Hear It Premium to access our SpeakPipe hotline! Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhi for more info.And for the rest of this week, you can still sign up for the Charter Member Special. You'll Hear It Premium and all the benefits that come along with it for only $5. Go to http://youllhearit.com/podcast/ to sign up.Tune in this Friday at 2:00 PM CDT for a very special YHI Live! Watch Peter and Adam record some episodes live from the PodCave while they take user questions in between episodes. Plus, we just might have some giveaways to offer during the livestream. Check out our YouTube channel, and don't forget to subscribe while you're there!Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? What are you thinking? I'm Adam Anis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Here at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you today, we got another speak pipe,

and we're going to be talking about our thoughts. You have any thoughts right now about anything? Nope. Nothing? I'm a total blank slate. I'm an open book. Well, I asked you what you were thinking. You seem like a little bit of a blank slate there.

Honestly, that question caught me off guard. I don't think a lot. That's the title of the episode today. Would have thought you were a little bit tuned into it. Before we get going, though, The podcast is sponsored by Open Studio. Open Studio. But hey, we just want to reiterate that we just launched last week.

You'll hear it premium. If you want to get on board, are we still doing the charter membership or is that done? Yeah, no, no, it's going to be through Friday. Through Friday. Through the live stream. Then we're shutting that bad boy down. You're going to get a very, very good deal. 50% for life, right?

For life. Well, I mean. Wait, are we doing this for our lives? No, no, no. No, I hope not. But. Yeah, for life. As long as you want to stay and as long as we want to have you.

And with that, you get all the archive, you get to leave us a speak pipe of your question. You get to see the, you'll hear premium content. We already have the first one up. That's right. Worksheet up, transcribed and everything. Yeah, a bunch of comments on that. For sure. At the piano episode, we're kind of calling, we're not officially calling them that because they may not all be at the piano.

Isn't that right? Yeah, but they probably will be. They'll mostly be at the piano. We'll mostly be talking about some hard-hitting things. Well, yeah, some politics and stuff. We'll do all that. No, but would it be overstating it to say that our at the piano episodes are some of our most beloved, especially on the YouTube's because they got the video. Yeah, of course, because we're giving it all the way.

Yeah, but you're only going to be able to get that henceforth as a premium member. But we have it very attractively priced, as we would say. You go to, you'll hear it.com, you can learn all about that. Let's check out this speak pipe from Joran. All right. Jeroen. Sorry, Jeroen. Jeroon.

All right, guys. This is Jerome from the Netherlands. I'm an intermediate jazz pianist, I would say. My question to you is about your thinking process. When you play, you have all this knowledge about chords and scales and modes. How do you bring that all together when performing? What is going on in your brain when you actually perform? curious to hear what you can share with us and give any guidance as to what I should be focused

on when playing. Thanks guys and love your show. Thanks. Great question, Jerome. And thanks for leaving that. Is it Jerome or Jerome? Jerome with an end at the end. Okay. I was going to say Jerome because I love that name, but I like Jerome too. From the Netherlands. That's one of my favorite favorite little parts of the world. Yeah, so that, of course, this is a great question. And, you know, we've talked about this and I always think, you know, it's so important for us to, I think, to repeat things that we say. There's so much like just information flying around.

And it's, we're not saying that our information is any more important than others or any more right. Mine is. Mine is, of course. I said ours. The royal we, you know. No, but I think that, you know, repeating things, sometimes you think you say something. It's kind of like sending somebody an email. Like you think, oh, I sent the email.

You didn't see that? Yeah. It was like, no, it was in my inbox, along with 900 other emails that I saw one of, you know? I got distracted and bought some new running shoes. Yeah, it's like if you're not looking at something in the eye talking to them connecting sometimes. So I feel like sometimes we don't repeat ourselves enough because I know we've talked about this, but probably not enough. Yeah. I think because we talk about all this stuff that can kind of get in the way, I think when you're on a performance situation.

like he mentioned, you know, chords and scales and modes and fingerings and transcriptions and approaches and pentatonic and all these fun great things. But, you know, to me, the simplest way to think about this is think about nothing. Think about being in the moment. Think about the same way you think about nothing, I would say, is like when you're meditating. And I know we've both been, you know, experimenting and, well, participating and trying to get into meditating and actually meditating. and it's not like you ever sit there when you're meditating and actually clear out all your thoughts. I don't even think somebody who does it from what I've heard for decades gets to that point. But the point is like how can you relax and be still and when one of those, when any thought does come into your mind, just relax and say, push it away.

Push it away. So it's not about being perfectly, you know, devoid of any thought. That would be called an idiot. We all know some of those, right? No, but I mean, the idea is I really think that we can apply this to a performance. situation in that, at least this is the ideal situation. Yeah, totally. You know, like if you don't know what you're playing or you're not quite prepared, of course,

you're going to have to think about what are the chords, what measure am I in? What am I supposed to do? But I would say that the goal, and this is an achievable goal, is to be able to get to the point where you know what's happening, the general form so that you can be in the moment and react to what's happening around you, but not in a way of thinking, oh, it's the seventh bar. The drummer just went, bam, so what's the mode I'm supposed to play? Yeah.

No, just like literally react. just like you're talking to somebody without a script. Absolutely. You know, this is why I think it's so important. First of all, step one on this is, that's why I don't really like playing jazz gigs where I'm having to read a chart of any kind or don't know the music that well,

because then I'm thinking too much about the nuts and bolts of the tune, right? So, you know, that's number one, Dron. If you're about to do a gig and you don't know all the music, memorize all the music as much as you can so you don't have to think about it and you can just play. That's number one. Can I just jump in there for a second? And let's say you memorize like at 80% go without the chart.

That sounds crazy. But you'll figure it out. You'll have to be 100%. Definitely if you're at 90 to 95%. You will figure it out. You're better off like. Hell, I do it at 50%. I know.

Yeah. Well, that pro level you can go even lower. But the idea is that you don't have to have it perfectly memorized. Don't use that as a crutch. I totally agree. And you're going to play so much better. You're going to be freer. You're not going to be thinking about the changes.

or what the first ending is or, you know, any of that stuff. Really, really try to soak up what you're going to play before you play it so that you don't have to think about that. That's like entry level to this. That's getting that off of your brain. Some other things that you can try or some other strategies is to practice performance. We talk about that, but we can preach this a little more. Make performance part of your practice routine.

At the end of your routine, turn on your voice recorder on your phone, pretend like that's the audience you're playing for, even if no one else is going to hear it. and just perform a piece on solo piano or whatever your instrument is that is, you know, where you're fooling yourself into believing that this is an actual performance,

an actual audience with stakes. And that will help you get out of thinking about the pressure performance. That's kind of one of the goals for that is to not think about things, to practice, not thinking about the nuts and bolts. Play something you know, you know, like I said.

And then one thing that, a little kind of pro tip here, that something I do a lot of is what I call a swing thought. Now, this is like something I learned when I was younger playing golf is there's so much that can go wrong in a golf swing. It's your whole body. It's, you know, every joint that bends, your knees, your hips, your waist, your elbows, your wrists, your fingers even are all, could all mess it up at any time, right?

So if you're thinking about everything you have to do, you're not going to do any of it, right? Right. If you think about, if you pick one thing that you can, can focus on during that swing. The swing just kind of takes care of itself. And I find that sometimes when I'm performing, I'll have a swing thought, which is ironic because I'm trying to swing. But if I just concentrate on one thing, like, sometimes I'll think about just like, I want to try to keep my short, my phrases short, this solo right now.

And that's all I'll think about. I won't think about any harmony or melody or rhythm or whatever. Just thinking about the length of my phrases. Or maybe it's something else. It can change. It could be like, I'm just going to think about, you know, composing some kind of rhythmic composition

with my left hand as I'm comping for myself. Like whatever to take me out of that. Maybe it's a little simplify and isolate. It's totally that's what it is. You're picking one thing that won't even really shape your solo per se. But it's just something to,

it's like a mantra when you meditate, right? It's like something that you're focus on so that other things just happen. Could you even maybe think about your putting game, your putting stroke as you play that G minor? That might take you out of the situation You can't go that far. You can't think about food I've tried.

Food or the bartender or anything like that. You have to think about something that you can actually have control over and then you kind of forget about everything else. I think that's great because sometimes we need to train our minds to, well, we train it when we practice and we talk about simplifying and isolated within our practice. I think part of that is the applications that come and are manifested in our performance because it's like anything, I mean, no matter how relaxed and meditative you are, if you can't, at least when you're, you know, kind of ideal situations by yourself,

practicing, performing, execute something. Don't expect that no matter how many thoughts you put out of your mind, you can be able to just magically, you know, it's not ignorance is bliss. It's not about that. Like, you got to know this stuff. You got to know the modes. You got to know the courts. For sure.

All this stuff. But the idea is that you know it so well that you're not having, you know, you can actually be self-aware and in the moment you're not having to lie to yourself and be like that's going to be fine you know like somebody else can tell you that for sure and you're like man I don't know I gotta get in front of this audience and speak oh no no you're going to be great how do you know

only I know are you gonna convince me how do you know I don't know what the hell I'm talking about you're so right though you have to know it so you're not thinking about it think about most pianists who've been playing for a while don't think about how they use the sustained pedal at all the mechanics of it right it just happens as you're like sustained whatever you're just using it that has to be like that with everything. Everything technical, everything musical has to be at that intuitive level.

Right. But I think it's possible to, I know it's possible to be, you know, doing things, you know, on purpose and with purpose without having to consciously think about it if you practice with purpose. For sure. You know, like, be intentional. Be intentional. Like we're always talking about this with the pedal. It's like, don't just press it like it's a pedal. You know, I mean, if you were in your car and you're like, woo, this is cool. And like you're sitting behind another guy. Look at the gas. You're going to have a crash so you won't do it but some people treat a lot of pianos treat the pet the piano pedal like that it's just a random thing to mash down so be intentional with your with your you know pedal practice just like everything so that when you get on the gig you don't have to be in you you will be intentional but not consciously well that's just that's just it's just you can't be intentional on the gig that's not going to happen it's too late that it's too late things to think about so don't even try to be intentional with that stuff you know what i mean just just have a broader thought of of either something artistic or something even like something generally technical that you want to do. I'll do like curve your fingers.

That'll be my thought. Just keep your fingers curved and let everything else happen. Yeah. And have fun. I mean like how much do we forget about that? For sure. Because that is the thing. Like I shouldn't have been so hardcore about like you got to be prepared or else it's not going to come out.

I would say that even if you're 80% or 90% you're never going to feel like there's always going to be something like, oh, I wish I could have really got this together. For sure. Like the adrenaline, the excitement. If you've trained yourself and like really being able to concentrate, a lot of things can take you over the edge. And then there's things that are going to happen on a live performance situation that don't happen in the practice room. Audience energy and all these different kind of things that can propel you. So as long as you're in the zone, you know, in the realm close to being in the zone of knowing what you're doing, you're going to be okay. You know, so it's like if you focus on the having fun part, like that's when it's most likely in my experience for these things to actually come out and be manifested that you have practiced.

If you're so much into the thing of like, oh, I didn't do this. I like if you have any kind of like negativity negative ned kind of feelings no offense any ned's listening uh big shout out to nude but i mean the idea is that like anything kind of negative thoughts as opposed to really being not falsely positive you know because we are who we are we get up to play but but but the positivity springs forth from the fun that you're having like and also gratitude you know like when you get up to play don't be like what i mean don't be negative because like you don't have the right. That's an entitlement kind of thing to be like that you even have the right to be negative. You're on a gig being paid or even if you're not being paid for free, who cares?

It's fun. This is great. I often think as I'm walking up on a stage like, okay, I only get so many hours of this in my life. Yeah. Until I die, right? And I'm not going to be anything but, but grateful to be there. Absolutely. And I mean, we know this because we've experienced it, but I mean, millions of people have experienced the magic of music. It's not the only magical thing in the world, but it's as good as good as any. For sure. And like when you have realized and have a gratitude for the gift of music

and this is not the gift of I'm so talented, no, the gift that you are included in this world and music and have been able to a participant in that, like you realize like that's better than being a billionaire. For sure. I mean, it literally is better than that. You cannot buy that. How many rich guys do we know that wish they could do?

Oh, man. You know, what we get to do. It's super lucky on some. of that end. You know what I'm saying? Awesome. Thank you, Jerome, for the question. Awesome question. We're happy to talk about it. That was another premium level question. I'm just saying, we're going two for two so far. I mean, premium level with the quality of the question. Really, really good. From a premium member. If you want to become a premium member, it's very, very cheap.

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