You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Why Am I Not Getting Any Better?

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Adam and Peter try to work out why some people can't seem to progress in their practice sessions even though they are consistently working on things. 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, let's pretend like I practice all the time. Okay. Let's pretend I've been practicing for years. Yes. Let's pretend like I'm not getting any better. Okay. We don't like this. I don't like this pretend game. It's a horrible game. Well, the title of this episode, everyone can see here. But I'm looking at the title. The way I wrote it is hilarious. Yeah. Why am I not getting beater? I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll hear podcast. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you today. We are sponsored by Open Studio. Of course, go to Open Studio.Jas.com. For all of your jazz lesson needs. Peter, we've been doing some special episodes, taking some questions, but this one is a question we're asking ourselves. Yes. Why am I not getting beater? You need to eat more beats. And I even wrote it like B-E-E-T-E-R. That's not right, is it? Puns. If you're a pun, you're a pickpocket. That's right. Let's frame it up here. So this is if you're asking yourself. I think it's pretty clear. Yeah, if you've been practicing for years, right? And you just don't see the progress, right? Wait, wait. Wait, wait. You're saying they got to go for years? I'm talking about for days. No, I mean, it could be anything.

It could be for months, years, days, whatever. I think a lot of people get frustrated well before years. Yeah, but I think there are people who have been practicing for decades and feel like I'm the same way I was in the 80s or something. You know, like there are plenty of people like that. And this might be some reason why you're not growing. We talked about this before in what we call the sermon video, about why kids progress at this massive rate.

There's some biology in this, for sure, to be certain. But there's also things you can do to sort of mimic that idea. Well, I just, you know what? You just kind of unlocked by framing it that way. Like one idea here that I'm thinking is, okay, I'm, I haven't got, like I feel sometimes like I haven't changed since the 90s. I've heard some stuff that I've played. But I wouldn't say that I do feel like I've gotten better.

And so that would be the first thing is think about, like, if you've been doing this for decades, it's okay if sometimes you feel like you're at the same level. You know, if you really look at it and look at your whole skill set, you probably if you've been engaged with the music. But there's certain parts of your musical personality that I think should stay the same. When I listen to Herbie Hancock, ever heard of him? From when he was in his early 20s to now when he's late 70s or 80s, I guess, you know, there's a, it's still Herbie.

And so in a certain sense, you can be like, why, he hasn't got any better because he was great back then. He's great now. Of course, if you peel back the layers, you could probably see a lot of nuances where, but he wasn't bad back then. So, I mean, I think that progress is measured as an artist in a way that's very different than science. Agreed. In terms of, or mathematics in terms of like just adding points up.

There's so many different, you know, the algorithm to getting better as a musician is so complex that I think that we don't want to get confused with what your musical personality. Because if you're lucky enough to kind of hit on your musical personality relatively young in life, and I don't think anyone does it when they're seven or nine or 11 or even 15, that's very, very good. hard to do but but as it starts to evolve you know hold on to that and don't get frustrated by like oh my i'm playing the same licks is well are they good though do they sound good do they you know really explain who you what your musical personality and storytelling is then then always have that a part of it but look for progress in other areas yeah and maybe look for like a lot of us have this sort of like this curve of progress right where with this when we start and then it just

sort of tapers and tapers and then it might flat line and then there's there's there's bumps and peaks in valleys than once you reach a certain level. But those first four, five, six years as we're learning our instrument, obviously there's all these technical things that happen as you just get the mechanics down of your instrument and then that slows down. But you can still hang on to that spirit of like, okay, there's a skill I need to learn, right? And that's what we kind of lose, I think, once we have like our sort of baseline set of skills.

But a lot of people don't even have a baseline set of skills yet that they could actually learn. So like we talked about it a little bit on our last. last batch of shows about like yeah baseline you did the same pun then too of like I'm not of like just evaluating your fundamentals right what is how is your relationship to time how is your relationship to things like you know facility and and technique what's your relationship like to your repertoire and those are usually the things that people just let go by the wayside and they think I'm going to work on high concepts but really the fundamentals are things that you could actually expand on first so if you're not progressing think like

like really truthfully identify the holes in your playing that are those fundamental things that you think, oh, I got these up to a certain level and I just need to be working on high outside pentatonic concepts. No, no, no, no, no. Like, address the fundamentals always. That will definitely, like, you'll see results from that even now, even if you've been playing for 30 years. You'll see results from work on fundamentals. Now, the issue then is to, and this will bring me something to, I think Peter, you're definitely passionate about. The issue then is, how do I?

I know if I'm if I'm practicing it right. Well, there is going to have to be a certain level of discomfort if you're doing it right and you're growing. And that's something that's another thing that we tend to shy away from as we get older and we get more experience. We think like, oh, like I can play so I should be able to just play whatever and I practicing is more about knowing it. No, like when you're starting out and when you're learning how to do this and when you're progressing at a fast pace, there's a ton of discomfort because you don't know how to do anything. Yeah.

Right. So you have to actually find that discomfort. Absolutely. And you have to go through that in order to get better. Every practice session should have several moments and several periods of time where you are uncomfortable when you are not in your comfort zone, literally. Yeah. You have to, and I think you have to seek out that discomfort.

And it's almost, it could seem counterintuitive to some folks. But as you get better, as you get closer, you know, to you and your graph where like the is smaller and harder to see because you've got a lot of your shit together. It becomes even more important to seek out that discomfort just to be able to maintain. You know, and I mean, you can talk about, you know, progress then. We're in danger. Like, once you get really good, and I mean, what is really good? That's a silly thing.

But, I mean, you know, objectively or subjectively really good. or you feel like, okay, I finally got some stuff together. So maybe even just in one area if you're playing. You're actually in danger more than you think of losing that. Totally. You know what I mean? So don't get complacent, you know. And I think this is, you know, we had a lot of great feedback to our episode from a couple

weeks ago about connecting athletics, approaches to athleticism to approaches to, you know, musicality and technique and being a musician and artistry. And if there is any thing we can learn from that. But, I mean, that's one thing is like. Like when you're working out or work, you know, as a runner or specific things with your body, your body is going to tell you if you listen whether or not you're slipping. And like if you don't seek out some stress to put your body through, you're going to lose whatever muscle mal. You know, whatever.

So I think that we can apply those same things to us as musicians. And what you're talking about is these specific fundamental areas are some of the easiest ones for us to be able to identify. So you have to have that as part of your thing, even if you're an advanced player. Yeah. So like if you don't push yourself in those fundamental things that you've been practicing for 30, 40, 50, 60 years, then, you know, you're just, you're in danger of kind of slowly drifting down. Just like you have to work hard just to continue to slowly drift up. You can start. You're not going to, there's no guarantee that you just stay the same.

That's true. You know, if you're not making those good decisions. Now, the great part about it is once you learn how to differentiate discomfort from pain. That's a big word. Yeah. then you're going to be able to find, you know, get to that sort of meditative, very mindful state of like embracing discomfort. That's when it really gets to be interesting.

And I think most people that have progressed to a certain level, and we don't even need to say, you know, intermediate, mod, that doesn't matter. Just the fact that you can look back and say like, wow, I've had some progress. Typically, we're getting to a little bit of a confusion or quandary when we're like, why am I not progressing now? Why now am I not getting better now? You did get better at a certain point, or you wouldn't know what that meant.

I mean, nobody just never go, like, when you first come to the piano, you first come to an oboe or something, you go from not being able to do anything, being able to do something, and then doing something a little better, and then better. Like, you can't go lower than zero as a musician, right?

So everybody's experienced that thing, but it's kind of like, how do you optimize for ongoing growth? Not linear, not exactly the same, accepting and even reveling in, the inevitable peaks and valleys of progress and making that part of your story. How do you do that? It's by paying attention to this, making sure that you're checking in and being like,

wait, am I in a little bit of discomfort, not pain, but some discomfort. And maybe a day when I've got a lot of energy and a lot of time and a lot of focus and everything's lining up, I'm willing to take on a lot of discomfort. And that could take its way from like specific scale practice to like practicing on all keys, all the different stuff we talk about. But like embrace that discomfort, seek it out and you will get better. You know, you're not going to get better every minute, maybe not every day. But that's why I was questioned at first.

I didn't understand where you're going when you said like years. I was like, oh, hold on a second. If you're practicing, engaging, seeking out discomfort, you will get better on a weekly basis. I personally guarantee it. But that's what we're here to solve here. Why am I not getting better if I'm practicing? Solved. So you got it.

One more thing that can be very helpful for this too. I find that a lot of people let go by the wayside is getting good feedback. So getting feedback from an expert is like a cheat code to getting better. And so if you're just kind of rambling on your instrument, you know, three or four nights a week by yourself and maybe you're watching some YouTube videos, which is good for getting information, but you're not having a professional tell you if what you're doing is good for you or where you're at or even just suggesting gentle guides along your path for this, you're really missing out on an opportunity for growth. And you won't grow as fast as someone who has a good expert telling them where they're right, where they're wrong, how they can get to where they want to go and help. You even suggest like, hey, you think you want to go here, but have you seen this? Right. Have you seen this destination?

That kind of thing is good. Because I mean, it's such an opportunity. You have the automatic, even if you don't have like the greatest player or teacher or whatever, or you think that like, well, I don't want to get feedback from that person because they're as good as me. We're at the same level. But you're already going to have a net positive because you're going to get objectivity. Yep. that is very, very difficult for any of us. It's really impossible.

It's really in it. When you're in it and it's just you, it's really hard to see where you are. Somebody don't feel like you have to have only Herbie Hancock can give you if you're a great player. Could we get Herbie Hancock to give us some feedback? That would be good. Wouldn't that be amazing? It would be amazing.

Searching for Herbie? Searching for Herbie. But not, don't wait until you've only got Herbie, you know. And so, yeah, feedback's so good. And I mean, and feedback,

non-professional feedback, I think is great too. From a spouse, a friend, a child, a mother, a father, and uncle or just put your stuff out there on social media.

What do you think of this? I feel like I'm stagnant, you know. But don't do that if you're not like willing to put yourself into an uncomfortable situations practicing. You know, it's kind of like, oh, I want to be a filmmaker. So I sit around all day and watch Netflix while I'm eating popcorn sitting on the couch. I don't realize why I'm not getting better as a filmmaker. I watch really great films every day.

Well, you've nailed one piece of the puzzle, but there's a big piece that you haven't nailed. Making films. Gotta just make a bunch of bad films. And then once you make them, put them out into the world and get some feedback. That's right. Well, this was fun, Peter. I like this kind of stuff. This is my favorite, favorite subject to talk about.

I just have one more question for you. Yeah, okay. Why am I not getting better? I don't know. You personally, I don't know. In fact, I think you're getting worse, which is. I feel like it. Why are we not getting better as a pat pie case?

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