You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Musicians Can Learn From Sports Psychology

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Adam and Peter take you through what it takes to get in the right mindset for playing music and draw a lot of parallels to sports psychology. Want to check out Adam's new course "Hearing Great Harmony"? Check out it right here. 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 Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. It's the fourth quarter. Yeah. There's a minute and a half left on the scoreboard. Yeah. It's a Thai football game. You're at your five-yard line.

You've got to get down to at least the 30, so your kicker has a chance at a game-winning field goal. Okay. How are you feeling? Well, let me just get this straight. Fourth quarter. You're the quarterback. I'm the quarterback. Yep.

I'm at the five-yard line. Yep. Time is. Wait, how many more quarters are there? That's it. Oh, there's only four quarters? Buddy. I'm Adam Manus.

I'm Peter Martin. You got to explain that part. You're going to be like... You'll hear a podcast. What part? Music advice coming at you. I don't watch the NFL anymore. That's why I got confused.

I do know math. I remember the moment it happened. I remember watching the game that it happened. I wasn't even with you, but I remember being like, that's going to be it for Peter. And it was the non-pass interference call. That's right. NFC championship game. With the Saints.

Playoff game. Yeah, with the Saints. It was a horrible non-call. It was a horrible call. Awful. They played the Rams? They might have been playing. No, I think it was the Packers.

I think it was the Packers. Okay, I just remember the no call. I can still remember that referee what he looked like and the anger. Yeah, basically they tackled the receiver before the ball got there and they were like, no call. Yeah, they're like, I mean, it was like,

it was like, you know, when your friend that doesn't tip is not even reaching for the flag, you know, reaching for their wallet to share, you know. But on a positive note, it's done amazing things for my open studio

and my piano career and all this kind of things. It's freed up quite a few hours. I mean, the number of hours I spent watching the NFL over the years being a Saints fan, it kind of adds up. Yeah. I mean when the DVR came out, remember that? Yeah. That kind of helped because I started going past.

I didn't realize that they're not three and a half hours long. They're only 60 minutes long if you have a DVR. I just, you know, I follow this. I follow a bunch of interesting, I think, interesting folks on Instagram. And one of them is this podcaster. He's actually a business professor at New York University. University. Scott Galloway. Have you ever heard of Scott Galloway? He's got a lot of good stuff. He's got a great Instagram. But he was just saying, I could tell how happy someone is by the ratio between how much they sweat versus how much they watch other people sweat. In other words, if you spend your whole Sunday just watching other people moving and you never move yourself, you're probably not going to have as much well-being as someone who moves a lot more than they watch other people move, which I thought was a really interesting way to frame it because usually you can shame someone by saying like, oh, you should get off the couch

or you're watching too much TV or whatever. But like psychologically thinking about it, how much you watch people sweat versus how much you sweat yourself, I thought was really inspiring and a pretty interesting take on it. And it rolls right into what we're going to be talking about. Well, and the health outcomes from that probably would be well documented. Oh, for sure. Yeah. But think about this too before you, I just wanted to highlight something that I think we

mentioned on here, maybe it was one of the Open Studio courses, big shout to our sponsor, Open Studio as well. because we have some wonderful new course. I think I talked about this. Yeah, one of the courses I just recorded. Hearing Great Harmony is out. My new course.

Here in Great Harmony. We got jazz attitudes coming. We got more. Anyway, the idea that if you are consuming more artistic content than you're creating, if you're a creator, I mean, if you're a YouTuber,

if you're a jazz pianist, if you find it upon, it's been put upon your heart that part of your time on this earth, or maybe even your primary reason for being, here is to create art that will be edifying to yourself and to your family, to an audience, maybe, to whatever, that you want to be part of that artistic process, which I think a lot of people that listen to the pod here are in that position. I know we're in that position, that we have to check ourselves in that same way. It's like, okay, it's fun to consume content, but are we

creating? Are we putting love into the world? Yeah, number one, listen for sure, as your practice routine. Number one, consume. You have to make a lot of stuff to make good stuff. You just do. You have to make high volume quantity of things to make quality of things. It's not exclusive. What are we talking about today? Well, we're talking about psychology, actually. We're talking about how sports psychology can be really beneficial to all performers, including musicians.

We were just talking about our favorite sports documentaries that we're watching. I'm watching this great tennis documentary on Netflix called Breakpoint, and there's a lot of sports psychology going on in this documentary. We're talking a little bit about NBA basketball playoffs or upon us. You still watch that. I'm very up on that. Yeah, and how important psychology has been to some of the great NBA players. And how you kind of recognize when you see these sports psychologists talk to their players or you hear about sort of the attitudes that are involved in having success at these sports,

there's a straight line almost directly to the bandstand, to what it's like to perform anything at any level. Even at a humble level, if you're just sitting in a jam session, the same things psychologically are going on there that go on in the NBA finals. Like the same fears happen, the same triggers can happen where anxiety can happen and the same results can happen where you can succeed or you can fail and how you treat that can be the same. So there's a lot of similarities I think that we can draw upon. And I thought we could just have a conversation today, Peter, about sort of what we've learned from great athletes and sports psychologists and how that could be applicable to some of our dear listeners here if they haven't already applied that kind of stuff. It can be really, really beneficial, not just to your performance, but even to your practice routine. I think we may even discover that that's where a lot of it is, that process stuff. But I like the way you're framing this as performers, as performers, because I think that's where the commonality.

can really be, it's one lens that we can see the commonality between an athlete and a musician. What is it that is similar? What can be learned on both sides? And I think that both are performers, you know, and this idea that an athletic event be that a solo athletic event where somebody, you know, if it's Alex Honnold trying to climb a mountain without any tethers or whatever free solo, that's the free solo guy. Yeah. Friend of the pod.

I don't know that. He would be, though. He'd love our concepts. It would be amazing. He's an improviser. But that's an athletic endeavor that is done on his own. And it's kind of like if he climbs a mountain on the mountain and nobody sees it didn't still happen.

Oh, yeah. But also, you know, the more common athletic events in which there's an audience there. Audience? Is that what you call them? Yeah. That's like at a football game? A crowd. Yeah. A bunch of drunken NASCAR fans.

That's an audience, man. That's an audience, okay. So that, but that's the thing is like, are they playing the game to beat each other or to be the best themselves or to be part of something bigger than them or are they performing for the audience? Well, there's no line between those things. And it's the same thing as jazz musicians,

as visual artists, as dancers or whatever, right? So we're doing it for the audience, but we're doing it for ourselves. We're doing it for the world. We're doing it because it's fun, because it's exhilarating, whatever. But there's that performance, part of it, even if you're like, I'm not a performer. When Serena Williams is out there playing tennis, although I've hearing that she may, I got some insider information, she may be retiring.

I'm just saying, keep your ear to the ground. That's what I heard. You heard it here last, folks. You'll hear it. But, you know, when she's out there, is she thinking I'm doing this for the audience, for the crowd? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not, but that's the end result of it. You know, we're there to watch, to cheer her along to participate. And I think that that's sort of the the the the the the getting above the clouds and looking down and seeing some commonality between i think what we do and it can kind of be a reason to be like okay well let's think about the process then let's think about the process of practicing is there some things that we can learn from the way that athletes practice and we talk about professional athletes versus amateur the process is the

same the level may be different and how many times have we said that as as a jazz pianist as well yeah Yeah, as I was watching that tennis documentary, which was, it's really great. I can't recommend it enough. I was, it was one of the coaches was talking about, you know, the difference between the people who are at the top of their game, the serenas, the Roger Federer, the Raphael Nadal's, and sort of the mid-level folks.

And he talked about basically effort. And you would think like, oh, and wanting it, right? Oh, like, how badly do they want it? and you would think like, oh, the people at the top, they won it the most, right? And he was like, not necessarily. Like, there's a level of holding on too tight that can happen where your entire identity is wrapped up into whether you win this point or not, where you tighten up.

And if you're playing out of fear, that can be detrimental to your performance. If you're, if you're, it's basically what he was saying is you need the right amount of fear. You need the amount of fear. You need the amount of fear. that sort of gets you up in the morning to work on fundamentals, even at the highest level, to get up and do like the, you know, the ball exercises that they do, the little footwork exercises that even the pros do. It's the same as the kids do. And they do it, you know, the same way. And you got to, you got it. It's just like us, you know, working on scales or time or voicing or rhythm. There's no professional level scales and amateur level scales.

It's all about, yeah. And the higher you get, of course, the more detail you can get, the more nuanced you can get. But it's a lifelong pursuit, those sort of very fundamental things that we all have to work on. You need enough. Basically, you need to care enough to want to get up and actually put in the time to do it because all it takes for that stuff,

spoiler alert, is time. You need to put time and energy into fundamentals, but you need to not have too much fear that it hinders your freedom to where you're not taking risks. You're not really going for winners

because you're trying to play it too safe, right? You get in that performance anxiety. You're in a performance. Right, exactly. And the equivalent of that is you get on stage, you try to just play things that are safe. You're not actually exploring anything. You're playing things you already know.

You're not having fun. You're worried about how you sound, right? Your identity is caught up in, you know, the next solo that you take or the next, you know, tune you play or the next gig you have. Yeah. That is. Or who's there, the audience watching. Oh, my gosh.

It's endless what can happen. Yeah. You have to have enough, you know, desire and, fear to want to get those fundamentals down, but not too much that it hinders your performance and you're too wrapped up in that, you know, achievement self, right? Yeah. And there's a delicate balance here. And the unfortunate thing, the fortunate thing is it's not really a talent thing or a playing

thing. The unfortunate thing is it's a personality thing. And sometimes the best way through that is actually to work on your personality, you know. Yeah. It's a tough one. This is why psychology can play such a huge role. we were talking about, like, if you're really struggling with this stuff, sometimes the best musical training you can do is actually to go, like, talk to a therapist or someone who can help you with this performance stuff. You know what I mean? Specifically. Because it can be really challenging to work on your own. It can be hard to talk about with other musicians. Well, performance, you know, anxiety can be totally debilitating to an athlete. And we see with some of the young athletes and older, I mean, a lot of times as they get older, they start to go to the therapist or talk.

talk to people and like figure these things out. It's very hard when you're highly skilled. You've practiced a lot and you're highly talented. You've got all the different things going. And I mean, tennis is such a one-on-one normally. Yeah. Sport. But also as being a jazz musician, the same kinds of anxiety can be triggered at different times.

If we don't get out of our head or get into our head at the right time or whatever, like those. And we'll talk a little bit about the physicality too because a lot of times people think, oh, well, that's where it's different. Obviously, an athlete is using their body as their instrument, but a musician is using playing their instrument. It's like, ah, but what are we using to play the instrument, our body? So there's even some similarities there. But I think that this concept, I think what you were just kind of talking about,

we could look at it through the lens of like, can you practice these fundamentals as a tennis player or as a jazz pianist? It's just two examples, like where you're very focused, you have a very keen understanding. Basically what we talk about with Open Studio Pro, practice like a pro. Not think about like what level am I at, whatever. No, you're practicing the same things. You're a basketball doing the same drills that you did in the third grade and that

Steph Curry is doing tonight before the game. We're all practicing this with the same 12 notes. That's right. And you are like doing that and you are like, you know, you're regimented, but you're also finding joy in that process. You're not every day and every minute, right? But you're not afraid to go for stuff when you perform. You're not afraid to express yourself.

That's right. The same as like, you know, a runner's out there putting one foot in front of the other. It might be a little faster, might be slower, but they have the same issues of like some days like, oh, this is a grind or whatever. But they still find that joy. That's the top level. Find that joy in that grind, whatever. But it's like you're doing that. But then that switch, talk about psychology, that switch to game time, gig time.

Like, what is it? Is it like, and so you kind of alluded to this in a fantastic way. It's like, oh, the pros know how to just like get in the zone and stuff. Yeah, maybe, but what is that zone? Is that getting into like, it's time to have fun? And performing at a high level is fun. You know what I mean? So Serena Williams is out there, Roger Federer out there.

It's like you see that joy. They're serious, but there's also a joy. And like, that's when you get some interesting things that happen in athletics where sometimes a fierce competitor, like, acknowledges their opponent because they find joy when they're doing great. And when, like, they rise and there's that back and forth. And sometimes you're like, oh, they're not a great competitor because they smiled to acknowledge it's like, no, they're having so much fun playing.

I mean, a volley back and you need two great players to do that. Yeah. That's not a solitary act, you know. And so I think that with music where it's really more of a collaborative thing and it's not a directly competitive thing, that's a, that's a thing that we obviously do not want to take from athletics where it's like where we're coming to compete against the other players on the stage. No, you're part of the process.

Yeah. But to be able to like make that switch from performance time, from practice time to really like, okay, I'm going to put the fundamental. You're not putting them aside, but you're going to let them come out naturally. I mean, if Roger Federer is out there thinking about the speed and the angle that he's coming on his forehand as he's doing that, he's already lost, right? But that has to happen. Now, he's thought about that and practiced it, repetitive. And then he's like, okay, let's go out and make the magic happen.

And I think if we can pull some of that over, it can be really exciting. I know I've experienced that. I know you have. A lot of people have. And that's open to everybody. That's not just at the pro top of it. Yeah. Yeah, when you're at the performance level, when you're ready to perform, you need to forget about the fundamentals and just be exploring what can happen and just be playing and just be focused on being free and seeing what you can add to the situation.

And that's easier said than done, you know, just to, again, to kind of go back a little bit to fear. Remember those, like, corny T-shirts from the 90s, no fear? You would see the bumper stickers. Like, I feel like that's such bullshit. It's total bullshit. There's never any lack of fear, right? And fear can be an incredibly positive experience if you aren't caught up in it, right? It can be a fuel to help you perform better and actually help you focus in the moment.

Like as long as you don't push the fear away or you don't identify with it, like it becomes your identity, like, oh, and I'm scared to do whatever. As long as you recognize, okay, there's fear here, right? Well, it's the meditative approach. You can acknowledge it without putting it on your back. You have distance from it. You're not identified with it. It's not you. But you're also not saying, I don't, you're not real.

There's no fear, whatever. Like you're like, oh, fear is here. But I'm going to use that here to stay present with what's going on. And now it's like, oh, there's fear here. You know? Think about the time as a, as a musician that you're most likely that folks, all of us encounter fear or anxiety. It's like it's way worse before you're playing no matter what. I mean, like if you let it.

it debilitates you get to the point of disabling you want to mean be able to play yeah but but you're normally not even at the or you're about to play and then you're like uh like once you get into it you might not love everything you're doing it it might fall apart but the fear it's like well i'm in it now yeah it's happening yeah yeah and so i think that that time before whether that's hours before right before whatever this thing of like the fear come is going to come in for almost everybody when it comes in just be like oh wow that's fear like you don't have to adopt it though yeah you know it's and obviously meditation and a lot of these things can help you to really be able to use your mind to control those things. It's helped me, but just know that it's a common thing.

And there's no getting around it. Well, and that's the biggest part, right? Is knowing that it's there and knowing that it's coming, like, that's a great way to kind of slay it down. We talked about it. I've used to have like, this used to be a real struggle for me, especially my 20s when I was first kind of like playing a lot, traveling a lot, touring a lot. I would have panic attacks on the regular, you know, like right before, like either backstage. right before a gig. Yeah.

Sometimes being out there and like the first song, I would have like, things would start closing in, get the drop down the spine, you know, where the adrenaline starts pumping or whatever. It's your body,

chemicals are being released in your brain to protect you. 100%, yeah. It's terrifying. And then you're also, you feel like, but no fear, though, no fear.

No fear. And that's what I thought. I also, you know, was like not treating the physical part of myself the way that it deserves. You've spoken a pack of cigarettes before? I was drinking coffee up until 10 p.m. You know, as much as I could.

So definitely not helping the situation. But it can be, you know, that can then cause fear. It can spiral. And so, you know, yeah, for me, like meditation therapy can be really helpful for getting out of that, getting some distance from that. And then really being able to perform at a place where you're comfortable, where you are, you're comfortable with dealing with fear. And I think, you know, listening to the sports psychologists talk about that, too,

about how tightly you're holding on to your. identity as this next shot is me. I'm wrapped up into this. All these people are watching, which with, with, you know, having enough of like, I want this to go well. Right. I want to, you know, have a career in music, but also like my worth as a human being is not dependent on this next solo. I'm good no matter what. People are going to love me no matter what. Right. That can be hard for a lot of people to get to, but I promise you, the work you do on that gets you playing better on the band. It gets you playing more freely, more creatively, and it lets the fundamentals that hopefully you work on come out. We should do a next episode. Let's do a fundamentals episode.

I want to put the fun and do mentals. I know you do. Well, I think this thing too of fear is something that you really, you know, you can just take your favorite sport if that's walking or running or playing tennis or ping pong. I love a walk. I love a walk. But I mean, anything where you're pushing your body a little bit, I find that some of these things, it's a easier to bring back these lessons to playing music kind of my primary thing professionally I want to do when I experienced them in other places. So this idea of like the last thing that you said in terms of like getting perspective, like our, like we were genetically programmed to experience fear and then for chemicals to come out

in adrenaline. Like this thing of like saying your spine and stuff, that was so that you would be big so that the other tribe that was coming in, you could kill them if or like like you would look more menacing. Like there's all these things that we don't really. need anymore, at least not to be playing music or even playing tennis. I mean, I play some gigs where you want to puff up your chest a little bit. Well, yeah, I know, right, right.

But I mean, once you kind of, and I think with the thing is in athletics and in sports, you can get a little bit more in touch with your body in ways that I find I can bring back to music, which is nice. Yeah. And it's the same thing. Like, you know, when you're running and you hit certain endurance, you know, limits that you think you're at, you're kind of like, okay, wait a second now. Am I actually about to die or is this just fear of like?

Yeah. And then the other thing I wanted to mention that goes along with that that we take back at the same time is this talking about no fear is a fallacy. No pain, no gain. How many times do we hear that growing up? Yeah. You know, being coached or whatever. And that's like with actual high level pro athletes, that is actually not a thing. That's an interesting thing.

That's a thing for like parents that are too hyped up about the good, no pain, no gain. That actually doesn't work. And the same thing in music. Yeah. And we have to acknowledge, especially like for piano, but I mean, you know, trumpet players. That doesn't mean everything's easy. No, no, no. Discomfort is great. Yeah. But pain, like, if you can't learn the difference between discomfort and pain,

and so, like, with running, with tennis, with these different sports, basketball, like you can really get in touch with your body and start to experience that. And we have to have that, especially when you want to really be practicing longer or something. And so discomfort can come in the form of, see, that's pain right there. That's not discomfort. But you have to know the difference. And, like, for effective practice, because a lot of times your mind will start messing with you. You'd be like, oh, well, that's painful, so I'm not going to.

And if it is, you have to stop. But sometimes it's just discomfort from playing a new key or fingering. Discomfort should be a regular part of your. Embrace discomfort. Like, it should be a daily part of your practice experience. You don't get growth without discomfort. It has to be there. So embrace it, like you said.

So I wonder if we could talk a little bit about some strategies. If you are feeling the fear, if you are feeling too caught up, you know, we just had Aaron Parks do our last masterclass last month. And it was a brilliant master class. He was a great teacher. Yeah. You got great ones. And he brought this up because, you know, actually I think almost every masterclass teacher we've had from Fred Hirsch to Gerald Clayton to Aaron Parks to a bunch of people. Hey.

Talk about this kind of idea. You know, the fear, Aaron Parks mentioned called it like seeing red. We've all been playing where it's like you're just seeing red. You can't really. Fred Hirsch has talked about being caught up in it and not being free. And Aaron Parks had a great strategy, one that I've used myself. and you'll hear a lot of people like Kenny Warner and Fred Hirsch talk about this. It's a mindful approach as you're performing.

And he just mentioned just feeling your fingertips on the piano. Like literally just noting a bit of mindfulness of the feeling of that, feeling your seat on your seat, right? Feeling your bottom on your seat, feeling your feet on the floor. Hearing the sounds that are in your room, the total of the sounds. And just acknowledging that, just that little bit of mindfulness can be incredible. I'll also add something that I got from, great Buddhist master Tickna Han,

which was the sort of way to get out of this is a feeling of gratitude. Like literally noting something you're grateful for is an amazing tool. It seems so simple and stupid, but like if I'm nervous and I just think of like something I'm legitimately authentically grateful for in that moment, where they're like,

I can't believe I'm here right now, playing piano with Peter Martin, or whatever it is. Like just that note, it brings this level of playfulness and joy and mindfulness and presence to the moment that is so helpful and gets you out of this the criticism of the inner mind, the guy who's in there going like, you're going to miss this shot. Or you suck if you don't make this. No pain again.

Yeah, you're just like, oh, you know what? This is great. This is great to be here. Well, I mean, they've proven this. It releases certain, you know, chemicals, not chemicals, whatever, things in your brain, it activates parts of your brain that are needs. needed to be able to perform when you do things like, you know, gratitude exercises and, um, you know, serotonin.

Yeah. And acknowledging, um, attitude of gratitude. Attitude of gratitude for sure. But these things too, you know, like the tactile things where you're feeling, you know, those touch points. And that's the same kinds of things that if you kind of figure those out from your athletic pursuits and then you're like, wow, it kind of works here. Well, I can take this back there. Because I find like with the running, that's an opportunity for me to meditate.

Because I don't listen to things anymore or whatever. And so that is so helpful when I come back to the music. I mean, there's the physical stuff. There's the actual process-driven things that we talked about. But just the meditative time for that. And then I come back and I'm like, well, you know, I really should be really good at being able to meditate while I practice or while I perform.

You know, I have specific parts kind of within the practice and like activate those same kinds of feelings and getting touch with those that are really universal, you know. It can be so helpful for your playing. And just for your experience. We always talk about fall in love with the process, love your practice. And I know that sometimes that's like, yeah, well, that's easy for you to say because you're good or whatever. And it's like, no.

I mean, that's the level that you're at is it's much smaller part in the same way we talk about talent is not. And you have to be careful because then you say, well, talent doesn't matter. It's all about how hard you work. Well, that's not true. But it's also not. It's all about talent. And like, I think the exciting thing about that is really up. to you.

Yeah. So there's no like it's 90% talent and 10% work. And like you can look at any top level performer and have a different, and there will be a different analysis of that. But the reality is most of us are not going, going to be or going, trying to be LeBron James if we go out of the basketball courts or Herbie Hancock, if we sit at the piano. And so there is like, but there is a very high level for you that you can attain if you get your mind right.

You know what I mean? And so we spend so much. energy on these other things, worried about talent versus, I mean, what the talent that you have is the talent that you have, the body that you have, and it's more than enough. It's more than enough probably for you to do anything you've ever dreamed to do at the piano, the talent that everybody has. Yeah. So don't waste any of your time worried about that or waste as little as you can because your opportunity for growth and for joy within the music and the joy at the piano, just like your opportunity for joy and growth as a basketball player, no matter what level

you think you're at is not limited by your time. I can tell you that. It's limited probably by access to accord or time or many other things that you can control. Yeah, that's good stuff. I love these. Really? I wasn't sure if this was going to be up here. I could do a whole podcast. We should start a separate podcast, separate YouTube channel. Get your mind right. Get your mind right. I just this is my favorite stuff to think about. You'll feel it. You'll feel it. I love it. Well, if you have a question for us, Peter, well, first of all, if you have a review or a rating, Wait, before you go into this, because this is the time, this has been proven where a lot of people turn us off. Stop, don't.

If you're on YouTube or if you're listening, we got something really exciting at this spot to happen. Because you guys, the gentleman's agreement. We're going to talk about that after. The gentleman's agreement. But go on with what you were doing. I'm trying to keep you. I was going to say, please leave us a rating in review. Seven star reviews only, please.

Wow. And it's impossible. But please do that. And yeah, if you want to leave us a question, we've still been taking some speak pipes. We've been taking quite a few. They've been flowing in. Yeah, they're great. So you go to you'll hear it.com and ask us your question on the voicemail, and you might get on the show.

And in terms of leaving us a rating review, the gentleman's agreement, and this is for men and women. We're a gentleman. So that's the reason I'm calling it a gentleman's agreement. I'm not trying to be sexist or non-inclusive. It's just the gentleman's agreement is based upon us being gentlemen in that we're extending our knowledge and our work and our thought output and thought leadership per chance. if you'd like to look at it that way. Like, this is the deal, in other words. We give you a podcast twice a week on the YouTube's

or wherever you're consuming this, and all you have to do is go to subscribe with the YouTube channel. That's the agreement. That's the gentleman's agreement. We're making it simpler. So the gentleman's agreement is we're shaking on that. Now, if you guys choose not to uphold your part of it,

that's on you, we've already delivered on that. Yeah, we've already kept our end of the gentleman's agreement. Dogmatic enough. I want to share a couple of the recent reviews because we're saying we're doing this. Okay. This is the good part of the internet. This was a review given on the Apple podcast.

Thanks for this podcast. I love it. It's so satisfying to hear accomplished musicians discuss, examine, explore the realm of jazz theory. This podcast is just what I want to listen to. It's piano focused, but it's relevant for any musician. Much appreciated. That's from Jofman 68.

I'm going to do one more. We're getting so many. We're going to have to save them for next night. 10 star gratitude. Peter Adam, I'm super grateful to have stumbled upon you guys while searching for inspiration as I reconnect with the piano and the creative process of playing after many years of dormancy.

Stoked that I'm on the musical journey again, and it's remarkable I can learn from you both as a student of open studio and yet live in Australia. Well, good day, might. Oh, boy. Oh, that was bad. That's very ungentlemanly of it. This content and wisdom you bring to your podcast is always helpful and insightful and your energy. Woo-hoo!

And love of your craft is infectious. I draw much inspiration from you both as a purser life filled with more creative. creativity and music. And the Australians, down under, they got it right. Much gratitude. Ash. They have great names, too. Love it. And proven fact.

Everyone in Australia is attractive. That's true, actually. It's weird. Every single one. How is that possible? Well, you'll hear it. You'll hear it. You'll see it.