You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - When Practice Pays Off

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Adam and Peter take a Speakpipe question about when and how to utilize what you've practiced. 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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. It's payday. Is it Humpty or payday? Payday. I always get confused. Nope, payday. Let's get paid.

I'm Adam Manis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Jazz, explained. Explain away, Peter. We have a great speak pipe. My voice is cracking. We got a speak pipe.

I'm so excited from... Adam is going through puberty. Finally. We got a speak pipe from Matt from Montreal. Before we do, though, hey, folks, just want to remind you, you can leave us a rating and review. And in fact, we relish. in ratings and reviews.

Wherever you're listening to this, just leave us a little little seven star rating. Leave us a little rating. Because my little voice would be so excited about that. And, you know, yeah, leave us a review. We love your reviews.

I can't talk. You're getting nervous all of a sudden. Well, I am. Everything's changing. So where would they leave us a rating or review? Well, anywhere you're listening to this, as I was just saying. In your car?

You could leave it in your car? I'll pull over first. Right, right. Yeah. Apple or Spotify, we prefer. Because we see those. Yeah, we do. Do we see them? Yes, we do.

Yeah, yeah. We get a notification. And we get excited. We get a little dopamine hit every time we get a review positive or negative. Yeah. And don't leave us a review like this. I'm not a fan of jazz. I mean, only if you're a fan of what we're doing here.

Yeah. We're not going to tell you what to say. But, no, it really helps us. It's been probably the number one mechanism by which the pod has been spread to all corners of the world, excluding two countries that we are not popular. which are North Korea unavailable due to the current dictatorship Yes

And I think there's another country No I think we're on in Iran Are we really? I believe so I think I've seen some downloads in Iran Oh shout out to my saying it correctly Iran Iran Iran Iran Iran Iran

Those are all ways to say it If we have any listeners in Iran Perhaps the capital city of Tehran Have you seen that show We need to start doing a segment This will be totally unrelated to jazz Oh good a new segment Oh, great.

No. Would that be something you might be interesting? Yes, it will be. No, about what you've been watching or what you've been listening to. Oh, okay. People might be interested.

I've been watching a show called Tehran. Oh, Tehran. That's why Iran is kind of on my mind. Nice. Brilliant show. Israeli show. Nice. About, yeah.

Anyway, I've been watching a show called What We Do in the Shadows. Very funny. Oh. Very good. Yeah. Anyway, we've got a speak pipe from Matt from Montreal. Montreal.

That's a beautiful place. Right. You know how they say it there. Monreal. Monreal, which is weird, because there's a big T in the middle. Right there in the center of it. All right.

Hey, guys. So people talk a lot about, you know, the notes that you use, phrases, you learn phrases, core progressions, voicings and stuff, and a very technical way of thinking about how you approach your instrument. But I was wondering if you guys could talk about how all this practice that we do and these very specific technical things actually apply when you're playing with other people. people and they do something that you didn't see coming. And how is all that practice preparing you to deal with that kind of situation? And what do you do in that kind of situation?

Thanks. So that's what all that practice is actually for. Yes. Like you're not going through and playing, you know, on Green Dolphin Street in all 12 keys because there's a chance that someone's going to call it in G-flat. There's probably like a 3% chance in your whole life you'll be on a gig and someone will call it in G-flat. I'd put it at 2.5%.

But go ahead. You're doing it because someone might, at some point, do something unexpected and somehow something goes into the key of G flat. And there's a similar change. You know what I mean? As the change that you learned on Green Doff, or you've just spent time in that general realm. Stuff like that. It's with literally everything we do. What it's all about here, Matt, is focusing on, we focus on these little details, these little seemingly insignificant minutia for ultimate freedom.

You know, for the ability to just be completely. free and in the moment and not worry about it. Yeah. You know, it's kind of the paradox of it is you have to go into into major thinking mode, put everything in the back of your mind so that you can stop thinking when you play and just talk. Well, well put. Episode over. Great.

I would, thanks for another great one. Ashton answered. I would add into that, really in line with that is this type of practice gives you confidence. Totally. So that when somebody throws something at you unexpected, yeah, it's not going to be exactly what you, you know, 3% chance is going to be exactly what you practice. But at least you're covered for that. That's good. But it also gives you confidence and not a false sense of confidence, like a very realistic kind of confidence that can be coupled with the natural, you know, adrenaline of being in the moment, the excitement of it being a live.

performance of having the audience there, having other players do unexpected things. I think that the adrenaline and the confidence that you bring to it. And then the accompanying skills that you've developed with your ear training, with your technique, with your facility at different registers of the instrument, with all these things that effective practice gives you very real anyway, that combination is really everything that you need for an effective performance. Totally. It's not everything you need for a perfect performance,

but it doesn't need to be. Like, that's not what we're going for. We're not going for perfection in a performance. We're going for, like, what a winning performance is. And look, whenever we make these warning, we should do, you know, they have like trigger warning for fluorescent lights coming. Trigger warning, athletic comparison to music, which can be dangerous. But I would say this, that in order to,

what is somewhere between like a athletic game where you have two teams playing against each other. the part that's kind of the same is the team that's playing together, right? So you've got a basketball team, a volleyball team. So you've all practiced the elements separately and together also. But the unexpected element, which is similar within jazz in terms of like is that you're playing against another team that's trying to win also. So we're playing with other players. But the great thing is we're all trying to win together.

But to make that a fun thing for the audience and for each other is unexpected things are going to happen. So we've got the skills there. And just like a great volleyball team doesn't. have to play perfectly. They just have to play better than the other team and play really well at the right time. So they have that confidence. They have the physical attributes. The physical attributes, the equivalent to that would, for us, would be the actual musical skills, the technical skills that we've developed. Yeah. And the confidence part is just what can potentially make things really fun. Because, like, you know you've got not everything under your belt, but enough.

You're confident in what your skills are so that you can come to this situation and handle anything. a lot of people get scared because when they hear that, they're like, I'm never going to be there. You don't have to be there. You just have to get over that hump where you're like, oh, I can do this. I can say my thing. I can interact with others. I can make a fun performance and entertaining performance for the audience. Nearly anything that comes at me, I have the facility, the knowledge, the experience to handle and make a statement on it back.

Yeah. That's the confidence that you're talking about. And it's honestly, I would say it's what separates this music that we play from pretty much anything else. you know, not completely, and it's not like there's not spontaneity in other forms of music, but this music is, you know, the unexpected things. It's subtler, often in other forms of music. It's much subtler, but to Matt's point of like, what do you do when unexpected things happen or get thrown at you by other players?

Get excited. That's the whole gig. That is really when it gets good. If we're checked out in our own little zones and not throwing unexpected things and things don't take a turn because of a vibe in the room or because something happened, you know, this is like the most causality that can ever happen. and it's in the moment always and that's why we work on these little things

and also I would like to just add throw this too like it's why I think daily practice is so important in this music because that daily touch provides confidence that daily touch provides a sure footedness that can only happen we can't emphasize that enough

yeah I mean like analogy to making this podcast Peter it's been three weeks and I'm you know we're just taking us we're struggling here you look like you're struggling I mean I am very much struggling to just keep up here Like I keep forgetting to do this. No, but think about this. See what I'm saying?

Yeah. No, but think about this. Oh, should we do it now? Do you see how clunky and awkward that was? No, but think about this. To your daily point, I think that this is super important because when you do something daily and you don't have to do it actually forever, kind of like what we did with this podcast.

Remember when we were doing it daily? We built it up to a point where we can take off three weeks and come in and be a little rusty, but not too bad. And I think that like when you practice every day, you line yourself up with something with like a rhythm of this humanity and the earth and like the sun going what goes around every day

no the sun goes every year the moon goes around every you know what I'm saying month something happens every day oh really what happens every day the earth you really are jet lag exactly so it's like we line ourselves up with a cyclical phenomenon that gives us the ability

to you know, form habits and develop in a way that's bigger than just ourselves. So it's kind of, because it doesn't work like if you say, oh, well, daily practice is great. Well, what about twice daily practice? Well, if you're practicing twice a day, it's still really just daily practice. You're just taking a break or doing it at different times. But I mean, doing something, I mean, think about what do we do every day. We eat every day, most people, unless you're fasting.

And like then that becomes a very specific thing where you're disrupting for a specific purpose. Yeah. So I think that those same kind of things, like whenever you ride the wave of something that's existed for millennia, then and attach yourself to that kind of rhythm of humanity, really effective things can happen. So it's not just randomly like, yeah, practice every day. But this thing of like practice six days a week or five, I'm like, that's weird. You know what I mean? Because you go to work five days a week because there's a rhythm to how we work and then how we recreate or whatever. But most musicians don't look at playing music.

music as work actually. It's a language. It's like, you speak every day, right? Speak Italian six days a week. Yeah, you know, you speak in Italian. Right. You're just, yeah, and I just. Plurius unum, unum, I don't know, I speak Latin every day.

Take Latin. But just to get back to, to Matt, to like, the, the value of going into little things and details. So our, the way we learn things is, I heard this great phrase from one of our OSPro members, Chela, and she said, everything we do is, is, we're teaching. ourselves that thing. So wherever you put the spotlight of your attention, you are teaching yourself that thing. And what we do when we focus on little minutia, like if I just focus on, you know, I've been working really all year, Peter, on loosening up my wrist a little more.

It's a bugaboo in my, in my technique, my piano technique. It's a bad habit I've had for, you know, I don't, I don't have horrible technique at all. But like I want a, I want a nice more relaxed, solid, flowy legato. Yeah. So, and I have to think about it. Yeah. You know, I really have to try. I'm spending a lot of practice time this whole year on little stupid minutia, like this chromatic scale, just thinking about my wrist being loose and low. Scales aren't stupid.

Jazz is stupid. I mean, just play the right notes. Exactly. No, but I put that spotlight on it so that when I go to the gig, I don't have to put that spotlight in. Yeah. Like, that's what you do the practice for

so that whatever gets thrown your way, you can handle. is something that is thrown my way because it's an artistic choice that I want to make. It's a sound that I want more of. Yeah. And so I can put that spotlight on it. But things like, and this is why recording yourself can be so handy because there are oftentimes where you don't even know you have these blind spots of like, oh, I rush triplets or I can't handle the key of D major.

I didn't know that. You know what I mean? Yeah, because there's nothing like you're in a situation like, wow, I can react and handle. I mean, that's almost like the opposite of the question. I killed it on that. And you're like, eh, did I know? Yeah.

I really thought I had a G. in my bag, but I guess I don't. Those kind of things can be answered by recording yourself. But that idea of spending time on the minutiaa, on the very, very nitty-gritty details, again, whatever we do, we're teaching our brains. That's what we're doing. So keep that in mind. And I think that last part you were talking about really comes out of a certain maturity

and experience that one develops. And you don't have to be old. Some people, you know, look back and regret not getting this early. you can do this at any age, but it's definitely, like, because you're pretty much saying, you know, I want to work on something. It's like delayed gratification with you're playing. Right. It's like I want to be prepared.

I want it, like what you're talking about with your rest and stuff. Like I've experienced, you know, something that I want to have on my playing and it can't happen overnight. And I know that because either I just hadn't worked on it or had developed bad habit or or different habit. And so like I'm willing to put that time in. And knowing that doing it daily is the only way that that's going to happen. Yes.

You know, is, I mean, it's kind of like flossing your teeth. Nobody likes to do that. But they like the end result, which might take weeks or months or whatever to get to a healthy thing or whatever. And you're willing to put that in because you understand how joyful it can be to have that end result, you know. Yeah. And that's a really interesting and just super like mature way, I think, of looking at anything that you want to develop in your life. Another analogy that you might use that I know you'd appreciate is, is working. on little things is like if anybody works here with computers or anything like that, it's like

building a macro. So a macro is a system of events that happen to get you to a place. Like we have macros here in our video recording and our video editing. Right. Software is where we can press one button and like I know for your solo piano concerts. Like you pressed a button and it would start a camera sequence where I would switch cameras at a certain point and then would end after a certain number of minutes. Right. Yeah. And but all that took you. programming in each stroke of this is going to happen now, then after this, then after this. So like for me, like with the wrist thing, like there's never going to be a point where I'm going to be at a gig thinking about my wrist, right? Yeah. It's part of the macro of the situation,

you know, and I have to add that in with the spotlight of my practice attention. So sometimes, like, thinking about like, okay, well, what do I want the end result to be here with whatever, with learning how to play giant steps, right? What is the end result? What are the little pieces that need to come together for me to sound like that? What are those little things that need to happen. And then you can work on that. You could put your spotlight on, well, I have to be able to play in B major, G major, and, you know, E flat major, right? It's okay, so I can just practice some of those keys, some of the dominance resolving there. I need to be able to play the voicings there. Okay, I can put my energy on that. I have to be able to hit this

at a certain speed. I can put my energy on that. All of those things can come together. And then by the end of it, you have the macro of I'm more comfortable now on giant stuff. And it's a process. It takes years. Well, that's why it's always amazing. to me, and I think part of the reason that, you know, we were put on this earth and just doing the podcast and open suit is when people are, and through no fault of themselves, they're just like, I don't know what to practice because I'm kind of like, yeah, you just made a motion of like, I don't know, I don't, you know, for us, I think it's more of a matter of like, what do we cut out of, there's only 24 hours in a day.

Yeah, there's so much. What to practice? It's like what not to practice. Like, how do you prioritize those different things? But I think that's why certain tunes like Giant Steps and whatever, not only are they interesting and difficult and beautiful and like fertile for so many different things, but they do cover so many different areas. And that when you practice them, you're kind of optimizing a lot of things, not just for playing that tune. So they're very interesting things to work on. Not that you have to only practice complicated things because some of the most simple practicing, but even like simple practicing, like practicing a scale that you know and really listening, like you're working on a lot, you know, time and touch.

and evenness and tone and your ears and like a lot of things. Building that macro. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Totally. Well, thanks, Matt. Great question. That was a 37 second question that we got.

You know, look, not that you can't go longer, but, hey, nothing wrong with making a succinct question. And please go to you'll hear at dot com at your leisure, as they say, across the pond. Don't feel obligated to do it right now is what you're saying. No, but don't put it off too much, you know. Somewhere in the middle, you know. the way you said leisure seemed like,

okay, I'm gonna have some... Well, don't be that leisurely about it. Some loafer, I'm gonna have some short pants. Well, do it at your... That's what I meant. Do it right now,

but at your leisure. Those are conflicting statements. No, they're not. Do it leisurely. Oh, okay. Right now. Drop down and give me a question. No, no.

You know, whenever you... Whenever you have a question, we'd love to hear it. And the main thing is, you're helping out of others. Yeah. Well, thanks everybody. Peter, this was fun.

Yes, it was. Hey, so don't forget, we're going to be live on Monday the 25th at 4 p.m. Eastern on the Open Studio YouTube channel. That might be today, depending on when this drops. That is today. If you're listening to this Monday morning. And you made it to the end. And you made it to the end. Sorry that your thing got stuck. And if it's anywhere near 4 p.m. Eastern, come join us over on the Open Studio YouTube channel.

Just search open studio. Or you could search for Adam Maness YouTube star. It'll come up as well. Oh, geez. Here we go. Here we go. And I'm going to line you up here a whole lot. You'll hear it. Perfecto.