You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What We Hate About Our Own Playing

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Adam and Peter go down a rabbit hole of identifying things they, well let's just say, wish were different about their own playing. Can you identify what you need to grow to the next stage of your playing? Join us for the discussion. 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, man. What do you hate about your own playing? Oh, well, it's interesting. You say that I have a list here. How long is the list of things you hate about your own playing? Well, I felt like I had a pretty good self-image, but after making this list, I'm feeling pretty down. All right, well, we're going to try to build you back up.

Please. And then we might cut you down again. We'll see how goes. Okay, good. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music advice coming at you.

Coming at you today. It brought to Open Studio. Go to Open Studiojad. for deeper dive on all of this. Peter, what's going on, man? Not much. I'm doing pretty good. Yeah, me too. How are you doing? I'm doing okay. I don't know how good I'm going to be doing after we do this episode because it's called things we hate about our own playing. Right, but we're not going to use the word hate. Hopefully this will be the last time we use the word hate. Yeah, let's not, let's not get like. Of course, it'll probably be capitalized in the title. It will be. It'll be

super click baby, but let's, let's keep it, let's keep it somewhat positive as we're going through there. How about things that we're growing with. Yay. There we go. Areas of growth. Areas of growth. growth elements. No, the idea, I think the idea behind this was that, you know, you and I, we've been doing this a long time. Yeah. We've, we've had some pretty incredible experiences playing. By this, we're not even talking about the podcast, but we've been doing this for a long time

too. We've been playing piano for our whole lives. How old were you when you started? I got my first little air organ when I was five and really took to it. Air organ. That dude is boozy A-F. A-O-G. A-O-O-G.

Oh, Air-O. You know, you know, one of those little things that's got little chords on the side? Yeah. Cored buttons. And then, I mean, you plugged it into the wall and you made sound with, you turn it on and go, right. Man, your parents were so smart to get you something that was cool. It was my Aunt Barbara got it for me.

Aunt Barbara. Yeah. God bless you, Aunt Barbara. I know. And, but I was thinking about this a few, a few weeks ago that, you know, had these chords, major, minor, and dominant chords on the side. And then you could play single notes on a keyboard here. I was like, that's pretty much still what I do.

Like, just these major minor dominant chords. them over here and then my single number press more than one button to make the chords. Oh yeah, you could you could add like do triads together and make like upper extensions. Yeah, it was fun. But then I started, I didn't start classical lessons until I was 10 which is a little late, you know.

Oh, yeah. How about you? When'd you start? I mean, I think I started when I was three, although there's some, my mom and dad. I mean, I was playing, you know, you know what it was? I have an older sister. Big shout out to Nancy. Yeah.

Nancy Martin. And she was playing piano. and like taking lessons from a friend. It's funny because both my parents play piano. My dad especially is a really good pianist to this day. And so I heard it a lot. And it was like, it was the internet of our house.

That older sibling, man. So can I just say, I just have watched in the last couple weeks. I rewatched The Last Dance, the documentary about the 90s Bulls with Michael George. Oh, I thought it was about the disco era. That's a different one. It's called The Last Sniff.

Anyway. No, it was the song Last Dance. I know. No, I got a sniff. My name was a cocaine reference. Then I watched this Arnold documentary on Netflix. Arnold. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Big shout out to what is the town he's from in Austria. Oh, I forget. Ironically, he couldn't wait to get out of that town. It looks like a place every American would want to retire too. It's like sound of music. It's so beautiful. Yeah, but he went, but he's like, I had to go to the big city, Graz. Yeah, exactly.

Not even Vienna. I know. But anyway, no, you just mentioned your older sister, Nancy. Yeah. and how she was playing piano. Both Michael Jordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, they had older brothers who they were incredibly competitive with, and that's probably what made them so great, so young.

Right. It's because they're competing with someone who's a year and a half older than them always, and they're trying to live up to that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's an important thing. And I think Arnold and Jordan were both close in age

because that makes it even more competitive, right? Weren't the older? Yeah, like a year and a half or something. Yeah, that's close. I mean, Winton and Brantford, Marsalis? I know. Friends of the pod, Just putting that, I mean, they're real close, like a year and a, like, within a year and a half.

I think it makes a difference. I think so, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and actually, for me, it wasn't, I don't think as much of a competitor thing because my sister's three years older, and she ended up playing violin, too. And then trumpet kind of became her main instrument. But just, I connected with the instrument. And, like, I looked up to her for sure, but I liked the sound. I kind of, you see how it's done.

Yeah. And really, that piano, and it's still at my parents' house, this Yamaha, upright was like the internet of our house. You know, it was the most exciting thing with buttons on it at the time. Because we had like a black and white TV with like, you know, mid-70s crap living in Florida or whatever. He-ha. Oh my God, that was the most exciting thing that would come on television.

Remember he-ha. Oh, wow. So we thought today we would just talk about what are the things that we're- Is this an example of you trying to get us back on track? A little bit. Today we're talking about things. Oh, by the way, leave us in the comments. Should we tell them about our little back and forth about this?

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. See, I got you off track. Going down another path, folks. That's right. Leave us in the comments. So see if you can figure out which of us wants to guide the pod more towards the tactical things that we say we're going to deliver on in the title. I mean, is anybody going to say Peter in this instance?

Come on. It could be occasionally. And which of us. Big squirrel energy over here. Which of us says, you know what? People are going to love us no matter what we talk about. Listen, I am confident that the banter is solid, Peter. But there's

some things that we just we promised we would get to. That's true. And I don't want to let down our gorgeous, intelligent listeners that are so crucial to this. And now that I'm looking at the clock, I actually have a flight to catch in three hours.

I was going to say, you're the one who's like, we got to be out of you right at 1130. Okay, so let's do this. All right. So what are we talking about? Well, we thought we would just go through some things that even after all these decades.

You know, I started when I was five. You started when you were three. We still are, you know, we say, we hate, but it's just areas of growth. And by the way, most of the things on my list are things I've been working on since I've been in an adult. Like, I definitely have my strengths that I don't, that I still work towards, but they're sort of natural. I think every player is like this. You have your thing that you just somehow get more than maybe someone else does,

and you can just kind of run with that and really enjoy that. But sometimes maybe we take that for granted. A little bit. Yeah. You get a little bit. You got to be brought down. Whatever comes easy is easier to let go of sometimes. But honestly, there's the things that for me that I, the number one thing that I keep working on, and this is, there's two categories here. We'll talk about the head game and we'll talk about nuts and bolts technique stuff. Yeah. So for me, the number one nuts and bolts technique stuff out of the gate is my cross under on my going up a scale.

So you can actually hear it in my C major scale still. And I've put in, God knows how many hours on this. Now, folks on the pod, the audio pod, let me describe. Adam has a look of forlorn disappointment now. Because now I'm nervous about playing my C major scales in front of our audience. But it is my cross under on my thumb. I mean, I remember I had a lesson when I was a kid when I was like 20 with Ted Rosenthal, great pianist.

And that's the first thing. Shout out. You know, I'm playing all this stuff. I'm trying to be as soulful as I can and play my monk language because he's like a monk expert. And the first thing he goes is play a B major scale. And he's like, you're a cross under sucks. Man, what a great teacher. It's a really good.

To focus, I mean, to identify that. But that is something that for me, when I can get that rolling and the more time I spend working on it, and I have to be regular with my work on that specific things. For arpeggios as well, it's the same thing of really slow practice with my cross unders. It's a technical thing that when I have that on point and dialed in, it makes everything so much easier. So that's my first, like, real nuts and bolts thing. Okay.

So I'll go with a nuts and bolts one for my first. too then. And that is that I rush. I'm a rusher. You're on, you could be on the front foot. I'm on the front foot. But a lot of great players are on the front foot. Have you noticed that? Yeah, but a lot of great players, you know, get control of it too. I mean, I know there's the whole thing of like better to rush than to drag. Yeah, for sure. Better to be early than to be late. But it's something that like I've heard in my playing. You know, I did a fair amount. I don't know who, it might have been my dad, but I think it was somebody else really, you know, like you get advice, like great advice has to happen at the right time. There's some people that have a talent for it always being the

right time. They're kind of just lifelong learners. They're open. They're able to take advantage and filter, you know, great information. But most of us kind of are not always open to something. So I was probably told this at different times. But for whatever reason, I got it at the right time that recording yourself when you're practicing is a really important. It really is important. It really is important. You know, so whenever I did get that, I did, it was relatively early, so I always kind of was able to, because things like rushing, playing ahead of the beat, which actually

are two different things. Yep. But they're very hard to identify in real time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or else you wouldn't be doing it? Right, right. You ever catch yourself doing it though?

And you're like, come on. Yeah, yeah. I do that on gigs sometimes. Absolutely. The thing is for me, like, because I've always had this really, you know, one of the talents I have had is to be able to sort of turn off the practice mode and be like, like, you be like, I'm just going to play. Like a confidence is just not that I've got all my stuff together, but that it's going to be

good enough for this time and that it's an important element of being in the moment and performing at the highest level is to really go into performance mode. So the problem with that is I don't in real time hear things like rush. I do when I practice. I definitely do when I hear myself recorded and stuff. Interesting. But I have trouble really regulating that. And I think that that's kind of helped me back a little bit.

I do think it's within the margin of error. hate to even, you know, use that kind of a thing. But it's, yeah, it's something that I do work. I mean, actually, I keep it in the margin of error by practicing it and paying attention to it. Not when I'm performing necessarily, but doing things, which is really practicing with the metronome at this point for me. That's about being able to hear, you know, and not necessarily practicing jazz stuff, just scales, just, you know, I'm just putting it on. What was the hand independent stuff I was doing last week? It doesn't matter really what you're doing. As long as you're, you're lining it up with the metronome and then, and then like trying to regulate that to the

metronome. That's really all metronome practice could be good for. And that's, you know, that's really what you need it for. You know, don't, don't, don't sleep on that. That doesn't mean you have to always have it, but it's really good to check that. Yeah. Yeah. Another one of my nuts and bowls thing is I want to put sound production and dynamics as something. And actually, I think about you a lot. I was just playing a string of gigs here, like at jazz St. Louis over the weekend, a really great show called Billy and Ella. revisited with Erica Johnson and Anita Jackson singing. We had a great time.

Caleb's playing drums. Yeah. Is that live stream still up? It'll be up. Yeah. Check it out on YouTube on the Jen. Let's put a link Caleb to that because I would love for our listeners to hear you guys. I watched the stream on Saturday.

It's really good. Thanks, yeah. So, but you know, when I'm playing ballads, if I listened to a recording of myself from when I was in my 20s, like the hardest thing for me to hear isn't, you know, soloing or ideas. That's fine. but like my dynamics was so out of whack to what I consider good dynamics. And it feels like something that a lot of people get, although you get, you realize the importance of sound and dynamics and how powerful it could be. So when I hear you, and this is going to be so hard on this keyboard with this sound, but like when I hear you do a ballad, your bell tones, they're so quiet.

And I think 22 year old me would be like, well, how is anybody ever going to hear that? and 44-year-old me is like, that is just where it needs to be within the mix of everything. It's like such a great choice. That and then like being around people, especially the courses we've made with Fred Hirsch and being around Fred and hearing... Does Fred like dynamics?

Does he ever? But hearing the power of controlled dynamics within your hands and the swing and the expression you can get from that is more impactful to any power and chops or like, you know, fast eighth note lines to me. At this point in my life, it's like way harder, by the way, to do. And it's so much more rewarding.

There's so much you can get out of it. So it's been something that I'm always working on. Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, that's interesting because I had on my list for my deficiencies is not using dynamics enough. You're kidding. No, I'm serious.

I consider you a dynamic pianist. Well, it's interesting. So maybe this goes, I'll combine this with another one, which is just sort of a lack of progress overall all since my early 20s that I actually see as sort of my primary, I wouldn't say deficient, just sort of a point of frustration for me a little bit, a point of disappointment, let's say. I'm a little, like, and that's like, I think especially recently because there's stuff that

surfaces that I haven't heard in years, people send me like, oh, have you seen this YouTube? I'm like, or it'll just come up in the algorithm. Mostly people send and recent postings of like when I was playing with Betty Carter, which I had never seen any videos. That sounds so good. And, you know, stuff with Roy Hargway. It's so great that we've got, I was just at the edge of, like, you know, videos being made at these,

I mean, of course, there was videos made in movies. Yeah. Many years before I was long. But, I mean, the stuff is there. So I'm seeing that. And I get a little bit forlorn, I think, and just a little disappointed in that. I'm like, wow, I did sound good then. And I don't really sound that different now in some ways.

Like, I wonder if you are not the best judge of that, though. Well, hopefully not. Because I feel like, of course, we're going to be our own worst critic in terms of progress. And the main thing is I don't listen to myself a lot. I never have. I think most people don't. I mean, it's painful for me. It's hard.

It's not as hard as it used to be. So I know I've progressed, but there's not a lot of things that I've done that I can put on for enjoyment the same way I would your recordings or a lot of different things that I like. So I think personal progression, especially once you get to a certain age, it does, like the large brushstrokes of it slow down quite a bit. naturally you're finding success in a sound you're finding your own voice but yeah and i wouldn't usually make a comparison game but because this is i meant to lift you up a little bit and

reassure you that what's that you are progressing and that it's perfect like perfectly natural is like think about some great players that made it a long way down the road our own ron carter sonny rollins uh amma jemal people who recorded well into their 70s yeah and they still sounded like Amma Jamal and Sonny Rollins and Ron Carter, who's in his 80s and still sounds like Ron Carter that we knew from Miles Davis's bands in the 60s. But there has been growth. It's just your signature stays with you, your fingerprint stays with you your whole life. The growth isn't as obvious as when you hear from the time you're 12 to the time you're 20. Right.

That's like the rocket ship growth that everybody gets when they're young. Right. As you're learning the language. But to me, I hear growth when I, you know, obviously, one of the, of the most famous recordings people know you for peter is the joshra rather than spirit of the moment live at the village vanguard when i hear that there was some rushing i hear i hear i hear a way more i mean i hear lots of young brilliance but you're way more of an immature artist than you are at this point you know what i mean it's it's a lot of that young bravado that we have so much in young players

but that's not what you know people listen for uh throughout their whole lives or just one thing you know that's so this one gear that you had when you were super young and now there's i feel like you have six more gears that you employ than from them. Good. I'm feeling better. Yeah, you should. My posture's getting better. Well, this one might be a good time to segue. You know what might be good since we've, you know,

bashed ourselves enough now? Maybe we could just go through a few things since you've already kind of started doing that anyway. I could pick up on this that we really... Oh, a little positive information. About each other. Okay. No, like you hit on a good point in that it is so hard for us.

It would not be something that might be interesting. 100%. Yeah, yeah. Adam is glowing. you guys. But in the same way that we probably are not, we definitely are not the best judge of our deficiencies. Well, we are the best judges in a way

because we know those deep, dark secrets about ourselves and our playing. And even things like... Yeah, all of us are impostors here, right? Yeah, exactly. So... They don't deserve to be here. But in terms of like the relative importance

and visibility of these things in our playing, we're a horrible judge of that. Like you mentioned about your, you know, the crossender and you just got so, like, defeated about that. And like, I've never noticed that. You're kidding. No.

I mean, I would have said something. A little hitch. You don't hear the little hitch? No, it's like somebody that's got some food on their face. I'm not the, I'm going to tell you. Honestly, that little cross under hitch is the loudest thing in my playing to me. Like, that's all I hear. I mean, and I consider myself, you know, a fairly observant teacher.

Yeah, you are. Yeah, yeah. But no. I mean, so if I really thought about it, but I mean, you know, how big that is is going to seem massive to you. Well, sometimes I comfort myself with a little hitch. And I'll just say this with other people so they don't freak out like, oh, what if I have a little hitch or whatever. Sometimes I hear a hitch in other people's playing. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, that's such a great sound. What personality. Well, I know. It's like, it's like their little sound. It's like their

little, because it's not part of my thing. Exactly. Yeah, it's interesting. Plus, I don't sit there list. Well, I do hear you playing scales because we're doing teaching and stuff together. But I mean, that's not the kind of thing that I think is even noticeable in you're playing, even when you go to a scalar kind of situation. Yeah. But I will say, so something I really admire about you and your progress is your ability, kind of what we were just talking about, like my fear of like, not on my best days behind me, but am I really progressing like I did in during that time? And you're right, look, from that age 10 to 18 or 12 to 16 or 15 to 20, I mean, it's different to everybody, but there's that special time when like light bulbs are going up every day. You're practicing,

you've got a passion, you generally don't have to pay rent or take care of a kid. You know, there's a lot of things good happening in your life, potentially for a lot of development. but I think that you have such a great, I've seen, you have such a great ability to, and capacity to grow as a pianist, as an artist, as a jazz musician, as a teacher, not later in life, but in kind of middle life at a time when most people are at best staying the same. So like, I think that's, this speaks as much to anything as your mindset of being not only a lifelong learner, but in a believer that anything's, possible.

Oh, thanks, man. You know what I mean? And so, like, I mean, I've seen this. Like, you probably progressed in a more linear fashion than almost anybody that I've seen within this music. And that even I thought, just because, you know, it's like it's hard to believe something, even if you theoretically believe it until you see somebody do it, especially something that's like artistic.

I mean, in the artistic world, because so much of this stuff is a combination of things that have been done and things that we just manifest. Right. And it's a weird combination. think that everybody potentially on this planet could understand when you put on your artistic hat, whether you're an artist or not. I think everybody's an artist is really my belief, but I think that we stamp that out of people by saying, you're into math, you're into art, no, we can all be into them. We have our different talents. We have the things that we need

to develop. But I think that like this ability within jazz, it becomes, it's really a fable or a myth or something that you have to hit a certain level by a certain age. Oh, we see it all the time here at Open Studio. Absolutely. We have so many students that are growing, you know, 40 plus, you know. And so that's actually to tell you the truth in seeing you be able to progress the way that you have is both frustrating and inspiring to me, frustrating in that sometimes I listen back and I'm like, wow, okay, give me some of that growth, but it's also inspiring.

And I think it has led to some really growth, you know, some real growth for myself to say that like at any time that we get passionate, that's what it is. It's like to have the passion for that kind of a growth, can be. really come in handy. Yeah, I'll say for you, I mean, there's so many, obviously most of our listeners are huge fans of you are playing, Peter. So I'm sure most people's first thing when they think of you is just the incredibly pronounced and dynamic eighth note right hand line you have. I mean, talk about no hitch. It's just up and down effortlessly and seemingly powerfully, but I know that you're not banging super hard just from the tone production that you get.

Big shout out to the three strings I broke in Nashville. Sorry about that last weekend on that Steinway. you really? Yeah. I mean, you know, Pete's got heavy hands. But that's actually not, that was, I'm sure what everybody, you know, first thinks about with your sound. But I would say having done, having been fortunate enough to play so many duo situations with you, and it's just us from this podcast, even some performances we've done. I will say about Peter, you're one of the, the most, if not, the most present musician on stage to play with, giving, listening, like hanging out with. Hanging out with. Peter is the same as playing with Peter. So like he just wants to have a good time and have a conversation and it's a party, right? And it's not, you're not trying to take over the stage, even though you totally could. You're not, you know, you're not trying to like teach, teach anybody a lesson or overplay. You really want to have the back and forth just like we do here in this conversation. And not everybody's like that. And it's really a joy to play in, and on the same stage with you because you are present and attentive and wanting to play and have a conversation

with the other players. It's really, it's really cool. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Okay, I'm going to throw in just one more for you and then you're not allowed to do anymore. No, let's stop there. No, no, no, we got it. No, I want to. Really? That's it? Okay, okay. No. If you have to, I guess. So, okay, something that I think that I really recognize and admire that comes out in your playing, Actually similar what you're just saying, but in terms of like your technique at the piano, but also your technique as a composer as an arranger, like a real holistic understanding and technical ability within music that goes well beyond jazz. You have, you've attuned these different skills so well to represent your personality and your music, whether it's composing, arranging, improvising, playing something that's very simple, playing something that's just like traditional,

and bebop or whatever, like your personality comes out. And luckily, you've got a great personality. See, so for some people, be like, no, how do you suppress your personality? But- Are we recording this one? Is this one? Okay, no, come on, man. Caleb's over there puking in the corner as we compliment each other.

No, but I mean, that's the ultimate level that we're all trying to get to. Like, I think that's the purpose of working on technique, of learning how to arrange. Of course, yeah, we're trying to get gigs and make money and impress. girls or what i mean there's all these different reasons to play music but it's like ultimately is to tell a story and that's coming from you as a person um so i feel the same way about you honestly it's it's no no no no we're supposed to end after my i know i'm gonna put a hat on a hat no thank you that really it's coming from you that means a lot buddy it's it's super fun to uh i love that we should do this at the end of every episode we just have a love somebody's listening still everyone's throwing up yeah

and i just want to give a quick shout out to um adam who's one of the the the the the the founder and owner of Rudy's Jazz in Nashville. Because I did break those strings. Not me. No, different Adam. Different Adam. And Adam, it was my first time meeting him. He actually fixed on the break, the string.

No. First of all, I've never met a jazz club owner that could tune and service a piano. By the way, if you're in Nashville, Rudy's is killing. Rudy's is killing. Right. You have been there.

And this was my first time. But what's so cool about that is he was saying he learned to do this because he's like, well, after running a jazz club, I saw the hardest to get the tuners to come back and it's needed. It's so expensive. Like, I figured, so he just learned it because it was important. So I was very impressed with that.

That's a good club owner right there. All right. Well, this was super fun. Yeah. More positive than negative. Man, my self-esteem is like, I know. Let's go get some ice cream. Let's do it. Till next time. You'll hear it.