You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Do You Do When Things Don't Go Your Way?

Episode Date: December 15, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions. Today, Peter and Adam talk about rolling with the changes whenever things go wrong.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.Tuesday's Open Studio Live Events (All Times EST):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam on YouTube8:00 PM - Listening Sesh with Peter and Adam 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.

What's up, Peter? Monday. I'm glad I stopped it. You were muted, man. What's up? Happy Monday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Happy Monday.

It's happening. It's happening. Cheers. We are physically separated, socially distancing. But we are spiritually connected here through the music. And what's going on, man? I had to make my own coffee today like an a hole. Oh, gosh.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, watch it. Hey, it's tough out here. We want to welcome everybody to, um, to our little Monday get together where we get the week started out right. And one thing we're going to talk about in particular, in addition to our regular, regularly scheduled program, Mr. Manus, is what do you do when things don't quite go your way in practice or on a gig or in life or whatever? Now, why would I be proposing such a topic, Adam? I don't know, but I can tell you right now, what I usually do is sulk.

Oh, I love it. I love it. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we're dealing with a few tech issues here. So I want everybody in the comments here if you get a chance to do something to lift up Adam Spiris. Because, you know, I know how to roll with it. I've been around a few more years than Manus. So I've had more failures than Manus has.

Manus is just starting to learn how to fail correctly. There's nothing that can set me off like audiovisual technical problems. I'm just not designed for that kind of patience. And it's equally frustrating now because, you know, I wake up at like 6, 5, 36 a.m. every morning so that I can peacefully meditate and work on my equanimity. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then all of a sudden, can't figure out how to route the outputs to a stream.

And I will lose it. Well, look at that. That should cheer up. You see that there. There you go. Thank you, Paul. So we were in here. we were playing music and we couldn't can you guys hear that?

I'm playing. Can you hear that, Adam? I can hear it. Yeah, can you hear this? Yes, I can hear that. Yeah, you can hear that. I can't hear that. How's can you guys hear the acoustic piano.

You can't hear it? I can't hear it. It sounds great, man. Can hear the piano and you can hear the, they can hear the roads. Adam seems more chill than Peter. Not today, buddy. So, all right, so this is actually good. So everybody can hear both of our situations here and maybe even, yeah, maybe even some of that.

You got your cordy going soon? Oh, man. I mean, I don't know. Hold on, hold on. Wait, I forgot about this, man. Put up your cordy again. Okay. Put up your cordy.

Yeah. So, I mean, I could put it up here. You're going to have to hit me to how you get that, the cordy in the picture. picture. I don't know. Because I can put mine up here. Oh, this is great because I'll actually know what I'm playing. So this will be, this is beyond just equanimity. Check this out, folks. We're going to learn something today. I'm going to learn something today. We are going to, we're going to talk about how you can play without being able to hear what you're playing. Because this is actually a skill, believe it or not. So right, let me just explain.

for those who are just coming on welcome. But what's happening here is you can hear Adam. I can hear Adam. I can hear me. You can hear me. Everybody can hear everybody, except Adam cannot hear himself apparently. So this is not unlike,

remember we were talking about a couple weeks ago, the Stevie Wonder video where he was at the, in Detroit a couple months ago at the Biden rally, and he was playing and singing and it was cold out. And you could tell his monitor wasn't working. And he was like, people honking their horns and stuff but he was killing it and i was watching it i was like okay this is the ultimate level of equanimity because he was just like doing his thing first

of all it's so hard to sing when you you can't even tell if you're in pitch or whatever and he was nailing the original keys that he wrote that stuff when he was in a teenager you know and he's 65 or whatever now it was pretty amazing but maybe this would be a time for you to be able to rise to the occasion adam and play some stuff you know it's like you have to have the confidence to play not knowing what it sounds like but you're using your ear, hence the name you'll hear it and all that kind of good stuff. Is this middle C? Is that middle C?

Yes. That's like sad and all. It sounds beautiful. Oh, no, no, no. It wasn't supposed to be. I can hear it in my head, but it's not. It's very strange. Yeah.

No, but this is the thing. And, you know, a lot of times we talk about hearing things when you're playing. I mean, that becomes a very, you know, play what you hear. And don't play it until the moment that you hear it is the art of improvisation. But this really kind of puts it to the test because what we do when we practice a lot of times different exercises, be them technical, be the improvisation, playing a tune, learning, a solo, all the different things we go through and practice as jazz musicians. It's just improvising musicians, I think, is about developing that skill of getting clarity and a connection

between what we're hearing and the reality of what we're playing. I don't know that we ever get to 100%, but the closer you get, you know, like back when you were like learning, your first voicing or maybe you knew some voices but you're trying to play all the ones and you play something you know like some kind of voicing and it'd be like uh i don't like the way that sounds or like you know it just or sometimes it sounds good but it wasn't what you were expecting you know and i think and i think that like the key is to be able to learn how to in the instant know what something sounds like as soon as you're playing it not necessarily in advance but as soon as you're playing it because you hear it and then you you go to your repertoire of different

possibilities not that you're planning it in advance that that's the key part i think but the fact that you know you're hearing something you're executing and you know pretty much exactly what it's going sound like that little bit of maybe one to two percent surprise or whatever can be that interesting area but what you don't want to be as you develop well it's not even what you don't want to be it's just like kind of the goal is not to be 50 50 where you play a voicing or you play something and you're like well and then half the time you're like oh yeah yeah and it's not even if it sounds good or not, it's just like how much does it surprise you what you're going to be doing? Yeah, that's great, man.

Well, all right. I feel better now already. I think I've gotten it back. I've unhooked from the anger that was spewing up. And I'm very accepting right now with the fact that I can't hear myself speak or play. And I'm just going to have to deal with. Well, you can hear yourself speak, though. I mean, that's coming through your head, right?

Yeah, yeah, I got to take the one ear off there. Oh, that's much better. That's much better. That's much better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've been doing a couple of like regular features here. You know, like we've been doing our, what were you calling it? Like our health and wellness check-in?

Oh, you seem so disinterested in the normalcy now. I love the normalcy. It's a rock. Oh, you don't have your sheet. Yeah, you left your sheet here in the office here. Oh, look, just so you guys know, Adam is at home. It is beautiful home with south side of St. Louis. at an undisclosed address that we will not say the street name Flyer Avenue.

But, okay, we'll say that. But we won't say the number, which I believe is two. No, no, we're not even going to say that. But he's at home, but check this out. What do you know about that? How did you do that? Oh, that's me. That's your seat.

I just wanted you to know I didn't replace you just because you're not in here. See, and now you can see this is, see, it's so sad I'm here by myself. I got Sean Jones. I got Christian McBride, but no Adam. But that's how we do a COVID style. We're trying to stay safe here. because this virus is going crazy all over St. Louis. I love it.

Our old friend Joe here. Take both ears off. Then you'll be in heaven of not hearing Peter. Oh, throw in shade. Well, okay, that's fine. Whatever, Joe. But I do appreciate it. This is what I like Joe more.

Not when he's throwing shade at me, but when he's more giving good information. That's right. Stevie's 70. I said 65. So let's keep it to the facts, Mr. Muscarra. Oh, this is cool. Milano my daughter

Kaya says hi to you both four year old jazz lover What's up Kaya? How are you doing? I love the name I mean the word the the name that's always been one of my I should have named one of my kids Kaya I think it's a beautiful name yeah I think part of his I'm connecting it with her merro you know her Mero Loubo's song Song for Kaya yeah yeah beautiful song beautiful ballad yeah so I always think Kyas so Milano if I'm Milano Ritchie if I'm saying your name correctly

Maybe check out, if you look on YouTube for Romero Lou Bumbo, I'll put it here in the chat the second, a song for Kaya, you can play that for your four-year-old, beautiful daughter, daughter or son. I think it's usually daughter, Kaya, but you can play that song, which is kind of fun. Not in that. So, yes, we're going to get to the thing, Romero, Lou, you know, it always spell checks that incorrectly. Romero, Lubbombo. Like it doesn't like Kaya.

very much. I don't know. Lubombo. It doesn't like Lubombo. It's okay with. Kai, it's okay. Yeah, so we've got some

segments here. So just to refresh you, Mr. Manus. And if the real Mr. Manus and Mrs. Manus happened to be on here,

big shout out to mom and dad, as always, to the Manus is out in High Ridge if you're tuning in. Hope you're doing well. Practice check-in. Let's talk about practice.

Let's talk about some practice. We're talking about practice. Who's that? Alan Iverson, man. That's Island Iverson. Kind of 90s kid doesn't know that. So it's actually a great kind of segue here. So those of you don't know, there was a famous press conference,

which is an interview kind of which was great with Alan Iverson, where they're kind of grilling him about missing a practice. And actually, I think this is a nice segue because, you know, he was very controversial figure in a lot of ways, but not for his playing on the court, one of the all-time greats, especially one of the all-time greats, especially one of the all-time under six-foot grades in the NBA ever. And, I mean, beyond, not only under six feet, just amazing player.

But that whole thing came out of this thing of practicing versus playing. And it's something I think that we can take a lesson from as musicians. Practice is so important, but there's a curve. There's like maybe it's a parabolic curve, I'm not sure. Or there's some kind of a curve that occurs in terms of like how much you're practicing versus how much you're playing in the moment. And I think what Iverson was referring to was like, this is just practice. I'm at the level where I'm competing in the game.

I'm in shape. I'm ready to go. Why are you guys focusing on the practice point part? Focus on the playing. And I think for us, one of the most difficult things, us as in jazz musicians, all of us watching here and jazz lovers, is to think about like how do we put our efforts into practicing versus playing. and like where's the overlap and how do we deal with that, especially during a period where there's hardly any gigs. And, you know, I think that one of the most important parts of that now

is to look at a portion of your practice as performance, as the game, as it were, as opposed to waiting like saying, okay, I'm going to practice for nine months or for one year or however the hell long this is going. You're going to go on. And then I'm going to come out and be killing it in the game on the gig. I think I would caution everybody against this. And I'd be interested to see what you think about this at, It's kind of uncharted territory for all of us.

But I would caution everyone from getting too far away from the mentality of the game, from the mentality of the gig. Because that's the real thing. And I think that's the Alan Iverson attitude. And it's not that he was not a very well-practiced player. He was. He was one of those skilled players, if not the most skilled player of his time. So he definitely knew how to practice. But it's like how do you take your efforts, especially in season when it's game time, to really focus on that, you know?

And I think it's an important thing for us to think about. Well, it's very timely topic to think about right now because of, as you said, like, we're all kind of hunkered down. There's not a lot of gigs going on for most of us. And so it's been a great time of practice. But, you know, to your point, are we missing out on that opportunity to practice performance? For me personally, I mean, you have a weekly Friday night gig that you can certainly practice performing with. It's not even practice. You are performing and have kept a weekly performance, which has got to have kept that muscle. in shape. But if you don't have a weekly gig, I suggest, you know, what I've been doing is two things. I record at least one song of all of my practice session. So I'll end a practice session by saying, okay, I'm at Smalls right now and I'm about to play with a quartet and I'll practice like comping through a tune. Really like trying to imagine that I'm playing in a band and then practice soloing or maybe playing a melody and then soloing but it's still it's still like has to be a major concept that you wrap your head around you know even during a regular practice solo um session sorry and then the other

thing i do is i will just post like me performing a song to instagram or to facebook or something or to youtube right or in the in the day they got a practice session i'll just i'll be like oh i'm going to demonstrate the song but i'm going to actually like play you know as if i were performing it and that has helped keep me sharp of all things because you have to. I think one of the things you learn really early on as a performer is there just is a difference in having skin in the game, you know, and actually having some kind of risk involved where people hear you and what you're about to do is in real time, you know, and there's no editing it and you have to just do it. That's a muscle that you have to work out. And so I encourage everybody, if you're not doing that kind of work,

out in your regular routine, like put it in there. It's so good for you. It's good for just all of your playing. Yeah, I love that. And that really speaks to the, you know, to the concept that we can exercise that muscle at any time. And that's kind of what I was, you know, talking about at the beginning in terms of like, don't wait until you're in a performance situation to know how to perform. Don't take this time to like not take advantage of really thinking of, about putting yourself in that moment. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, a virtual marathon versus a so-called real marathon. Either way, you're running 26 miles.

So don't think that just because you're running on your own to be safe means that it's not the same thing. And in fact, you know, what you have to do to, it kind of will end up working in the converse eventually, I think, in terms of music. Because I think about some of the really great older musicians or just more skilled musicians than me that I got. got a chance to play with and still get a chance to play with, but especially when I was younger, and I would marvel at how relaxed they were, even before, like, a huge gig. I remember I got a chance to play with Stanley Turinteen when I was, like, 24 years old, and it was, you know, I mean, it was just amazing. I mean, he was just so, like, I mean, he was playing his Stanley Turinteen stuff so well.

He truly had mastered his Stanley stuff, of course. But, you know, we were like doing this big concert or whatever. I thought it was a big concert. I mean, it was a concert with Stanley Turinteen, so it was big. But I mean, his whole demeanor and attitude and everything, it wasn't like, okay, let's get going. Let's get hyped up for the gig. It was just like, let's play some music, just like we were playing a few minutes ago at the sound check. You know, getting to that point where, you know, and I know folks are talking about effortless mastery.

You know, I would extend that concept into performing where, you know, you're really, it's effortless and it's no different. It's a muscle, as you say, and it's been so well developed that you can just, bam, pull it. it out at any time. Yeah, and I mean, to, and people are referencing in the, in the chat there, the Kenny Warner and his live streams and his book, Effortless Mastery. And, you know, that's kind of where we're going here when we talk about being able to perform the things you practice, um, and not be affected, uh, by the audience. Um, it's something that Fred Hirsch talked about in his master class just this last time around and his first master class with Open Studio. Fred Hirsch. You ever heard of him? Oh, Fred

Yeah, of course. Thanks for this info, Joe. And maybe I missed it, but you want to let me know. I like, we've seen Joe every week. And how am I just hearing this from you, Joe, now, though, now that it's finished for the year. All right. I'm going to remember for January, though. Live Zoom on Wednesday.

That's awesome. And we also have another friend in here. Hold on way up at the top. People saying, ugh, Facebook. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, it's the worst. Oh, this is good. Check that out.

Yeah. Ethan Iverson, yeah. Same thing. Ethan Iverson is the Alan Irison of Jazz. Did you know that? Or is it the other way around? No, not at all. That was, okay, I thought I was being funny.

That was, that was, that was, the irony of my statement. He's kind of the John Stockton. Hey, hey, hey, watch it. In a good way. I mean, that's a huge. compliment. Okay. Also, what is Pete eating?

Okay, well, this will work with my, with our fitness and diet check-in. How about that? Winston's asking what I'm eating. This is an Aloha. Can we get a close-up on that? No, we don't need a close-up. This is an aloha bar, which is relatively clean. You know, I like to have some snacks here because I was instructed to be getting some more,

some more clean calories in me as I'm up in the running my. which is part of maybe our fitness check-in. And so I'm here in the studio usually by myself, always by myself. And I get, you know, we used to walk down here. It's a blueprint. Everything's closed and the city's kind of shut down right now as it needs to be. But so you got to provide snacks. So I got a big box of these.

It's very, it's all non-GMO, vegan. It's got a little bit of protein, just a little bit of chocolate, peanut butter, pumpkin seed protein, vanilla, pumpkin seeds. Yeah, it's just a clean do-gooder. kind of situation. Aloha is what it's called. I'm not endorsed by them and they're not paying me to review this. I bought it.

So I'm down to like five, five meat filled, if we're doing health and wellness check in. We are doing health and wellness check in. I'm down to six meat meals a week and everything else is plant based. And I also, you know, not to do a little comparison shopping here between our plant base,

but I also do completely non-processed foods. That's like a huge. Wait, every day, 100%, not Sundays. Sundays, I take that day off and I have pizza. We call that process Sundays. Sunday, the process. The process of Sunday. Yeah, yeah.

That's amazing, man. Congrats on that. That's actually huge. I mean, the no process, that's kind of my next. We're definitely doing very little, but I'm far from, from at the actual no process, but I feel so much better when I'm staying away from the processed foods, you know?

It's a huge thing, man. And you know what? People might be like, why are these jazz musicians talking about this? Like, when we talk about things like performance and staying, you know, present and being able to listen and stay focused, man, for me,

cutting out like those sugary processed foods, it's huge for that, you know? It's just, it really helps me, even if it's just like I can stay, I can stay, my attention, my attention can stay focused for like 10 or 15 second longer periods, which is actually an enormous amount of time as far as focused attention goes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's so worth it for me. That's so, so worth it.

I think, too, it's important for us to forge our own paths and, you know, us kind of doing the same thing and working together and being friends. We have a lot of overlap because we help each other and give information as we're doing with everybody. but it's important to like really forge your own path in terms of like thinking about how can how can I best put myself in this situation to be able to contribute within this music you know so it's like the elements that are needed never change you know from Louis Armstrong to Jelly Roe Morton to Herbie Hancock you know to Bill Evans to Adam Manus or whatever like the framework is a same, but it's kind of like, you know, the Olympics or something, the sprinter a hundred years ago that was in, you know, wearing some leather shoes with no foam on the bottom, you know, if they were around today, what would they be doing? They'd be wearing the Nike, Alpha Flies or whatever, you know, they're going to use the technology, the know-how, the information, the advancement.

And so I think, you know, when we talk about playing jazz, what you just mentioned there in terms of being able to have more attention in terms of how that, you know, comes out of what you're eating, what you're thinking about, how you're processing your day, your family, your friends, your world, like how, what is your worldview? What, what, how are you going to put yourself in a position that when you get to your instrument, you have the best chance of being able to succeed? And we look at these elements that are needed that are so acute and refined that are necessary to play jazz well, the things like diet and fitness.

That's why I think we're getting into them. It's not about like, oh, this is something separate from music. No, no, this is, this is about. trying to put ourselves in the best possible position to be able to get better. Because, I mean, the things that we can do musically, it's an extension of a lot of the things we've been doing since we were kids in terms of practicing the instrument and learning. Then you get some more information. You learn another tune.

We're always going to do that. But then it's also like, what are the details around that that just make me, you know, a healthier person so that we can keep playing this music for a long time? And so, like, as opposed to looking at, you know, Bill Evan, and being like, wow, well, Bill Evans smoked cigarettes for 30 years. So maybe that's the key to, you know, being able to play great eight-node voicings, probably totally unrelated to that, you know. Yeah, we can learn a lot from Bill Evans, but the lifestyle choices might not be the best.

Exactly, exactly. So we're, you know, we're trying to, and we're living at a time when we have access to information and things in a way that I think we should use, you know, certainly to our benefit. And you're seeing that with a lot of the young jazz positions. too, which is great. A lot of, you know, better lifestyle choices and stuff.