You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Why Aren't I Motivated To Practice?

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

Adam and Peter take a SpeakPipe question about why we occasionally don't feel motivated to practice and progress.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. You ready to go? I'm ready. You motivated? Motivated for what? You activated? Activated for what?

You provocative. Provocative? No. Provocated? Provocated. Some things never change. Look at all those snowflakes outside. Oh, my gosh.

Everybody's so sensitive outside. Look at how beautiful it looks. We've got some new blinds in the studio. If you're on the audio podcast, you can't see any of this. Well, no, we do. We've been known to. paint an audio picture for our listening. Paint them a picture, Peter. We're known for that. Okay, I'll paint your picture. It is

soft snowing out. There's very little traffic behind us. We both have our beanies on. I'm going Carhart today in case you're wondering. Producer Caleb is going some kind of hat. I'm going Amazon basics. There's a lot of hoodies and wool because we're in the bomb cyclone. I've got to tell you so far, this thing is the bomb. I'm having fun, man. I'm having fun in the bomb cyclone. Because you got that nice four-wheel drive vehicle. Oh, it's really nice. It's all wheel drive. I don't know the difference, but...

How many wheels you got? I got four. Okay. Well, that will explain. They all drive somehow. I don't know. What I really like about my new car is that I got a little button and it says snow. And I go, boop.

And it goes, snow, activated. Yeah. And all of a sudden... We went for a nice ride today to lunch and I felt totally safe. It's a very nice feeling, right? Shut up Subaru. But, yeah, we do have the beautiful snow and a little bit gray skies, but I love this kind of weather. It's my jam.

And this is my jam. And this is my jam. And this kind of weather makes me think of like writing music. Motivated. Okay, now I get the intro. Sorry, I'm a little slow. There's one thing that we forgot it with the intro. Yes.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Question mark, question mark, because we have some exciting things coming. How to not hate. Well, we'll see. Two guys talking about the greatest. It's definitely going to be two guys talking.

Well, even though. Even though. We might see. Was it just a little bit of a sneak peek on the You'll Hear podcast? We've got some exciting things that we can't talk about yet because they have not been fully decided. Yeah, we're going to actually, our next episode is going to be, get this, folks, number 999.

That's our next episode. I don't know. And we're going to talk about some of the challenges. You know, we're going to have some kind of celebration on number 1,000 for sure. Challenge number one. We care too much. We have any fault. If we work too hard,

is that we make these episodes too good. We prepare too much. But I will tell you. And so 999 is going to be about the challenges of making this podcast. and our challenges of keeping it going, and we're going to have a bit of a therapy couch session here about the podcast on the next podcast. But this podcast,

bread and butter. Bread and butter, and I'm so happy because this is a speak pipe from one of our listeners. And if this podcast is about anything, Peter, it's about our dear listener. It's about our... It's about jazz piano.

Yeah, but you would think that, wouldn't you? But really, it's about you, our listener, and we couldn't have gotten, of course, to a thousand without you. And we really, we appreciate, appreciate you, we respect you. If we do any changes or we do any tweaks, or Peter keeps changing the tagline, it's only because we want to hold your attention and we want to help you and entertain you. We act like these changes. We've been changing the podcast since it started. I was going to say, I know. I'm surprised that it's remained cohesa. But you know what? Our friendship and our love of

music is what's held things together. It's timeless. Yes, it's timeless. For now. It's tired. It's tired, yet timeless. Well, this is about our dear listener. Speak pipes have been around for a while. I don't see those going anywhere. Since year two is when SpeakPipe. I don't even think the SpeakPipe Corporation exists anymore, but we're holding on to their errant technology.

We're their lone customer, and they should really... We're not customer. There's one, yeah, we get the free version, but there's 100% chance that no one else has branded SpeakPipe. Look at! Scoops of joy. Is that going to be possible today? Literally an ice cream truck just went by through the deep snow.

I don't see any. Now, by deep, we mean saying it was deep. It's three inches, yeah. No, but that was funny. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's listen to the speak pipe.

Here we go. If you want to leave us a speak pipe, can they still do that? Yes. Go to you'll hear it.com. You'll hear it.com. Leave us a question at any time. Yeah. Would that be something you might be interested in?

Yes. All right. Here's our question. Hey, guys. It's Paul from Japan. I'm big fan of the podcast. I've been listening for a while now. And my question is, how do you get motivated for practicing?

And, I mean, just getting motivated in playing in general, because I'm a beginner. I've been playing for one year, one year and a half. And I've been practicing every day, and I don't feel like I'm growing. It sometimes just gets me unmotivated to play anymore. It feels like I want to quit. But I've made it this far. Why stop now?

I'm having fun, but there's just times where it's hard. And yeah, I just want to hear your opinions. Thanks. Yeah, Paul. Great question. So first out of the gate. Yeah, out of the gate. Paul from Japan.

And that's, by the way, our second speak pipe from Japan that we got today, which is awesome. But Paul, so, okay, just out of the gate. one thing you should know is that you were not alone in this, that everybody goes through this. Kind of play a song? Oh, we're not alone. A little 90s, MJ. Melody? Yeah.

Oh, it's kind of a... Spread your wings and fly. No, can't do that. Okay, sorry, go ahead. No, but Paul, so you were not alone in this. There are other people going through this. In fact, all other musicians, and I would even venture to say all of their artists, and you might even say all other humans are going through some form of this.

The struggle is real. The struggle is the human struggle, Paul, and you sound like you're a young man. And so the good news is, is the older you get, the wiser, you get to that first struggle of like... The older you get the harder he gets. No, I mean, well, some things do get harder. The more self-awareness potentially, not willing, if we make it there. You get way more, luckily, if you get anything. You get a greater chance of heart disease, but you also get a greater sense of self-awareness,

which is helpful. And the self-awarest does not mean it's attached to there's no more struggle. It's just that you're better equipped to deal with it. You're expecting it. You know how to manage it. Perhaps know how to minimize it. A lot of what we talk about, I think it goes along there. But there's not the expectation that there isn't a struggle or that it's not going to be hard

at times. Or you're not going to feel unmotivated. Or you're not going to feel like quitting sometimes. Yeah. That never goes away. The first big framing you might want to be. to do, Paul, to help you with this is to think about a couple things here. Struggle doesn't happen without expectations that aren't met. So what that means is you are only struggling

because you have expectations on yourself for, I should be sounding like this, I should be playing these gigs, I should be progressing in this way, and you are not meeting what you think you should be doing. Now, those expectations are conditioned in you by either teachers or parents or society in general. There is, again, no avoiding those expectations. They happen to everybody. But that struggle that you're feeling is not real. It's an illusion. There's no real struggle here. Paul, it doesn't matter if you progress at jazz piano or not. And I say this with all due love, nobody cares. And it sounds harsh, but actually, it's a very freeing sentiment in that you now have the freedom to go do what you want with it. Nobody really cares. It's both

the notes don't matter. The notes don't matter. No, but that, the notes don't is part of this. The notes no matter is a freeing sentiment that it doesn't matter if you play wrong notes. That's the goal of it. It's like, go have fun finding the right notes now. So when I say, Paul, that the struggle is an illusion that it doesn't matter if you play jazz piano or if you get good at it. Now you get to go with freedom. If you really can kind of work that into your daily existence, you get to go with freedom and have fun getting better at jazz piano and doing what you want to do with it. So just realize every time you feel unmotivated or like, am I doing the right thing, that's your expectation talking, right? And that expectation is 100% an illusion. It doesn't,

it's not real. If you're in your, if you observe your daily experience, it's not actually there. Yeah. The only thing that is there is you in music. Yeah. You know, and so if you focus on what do I want to be doing with music today, there's no struggle. There's because there's no expectation. Now, go have fun and do something that makes you happy. Yeah. You know, that's like, for me, that was, a huge lesson that I'm still learning to this day. You know what I mean? We've been talking about this podcast a lot this week, Peter, as we approach 1,000. It's something we talk about with this.

It's like, what is the struggle, is it, you know, as we feel a struggle with anything we're doing, including making things for open studio or whatever, it's really just our own expectations. It should be this. We should hit this numbers. We should be helping these amount of people. We should be connecting in this way. Those are all shoulds that we're putting on ourselves, and they're not real. It's just what we're deciding should be real.

It could be whatever the hell we want. We could say, I only want a podcast that unicorns listen to, and it's about the same thing. You know what I mean? Hold on. Let me write that down. I just want to put that out there. By the way, this is nothing new.

There's some pretty well-worn treads in a lot of religious circles and spiritual circles. But just know that that struggle that you feel is actually not real. It's just something you have conditions. It's a construct. It's a construct that we're in control. of how we interact with it. It's going to be there. It's already out there in the world, but our interaction with it, and I think that that speaks very much to self-awareness. There's no getting rid of it, by the way, either. You can observe it and realize.

Well, but that doesn't help. If you acknowledge it, that helps. If you say, oh, here's this construct again of my expectations of what I should be. Can't we look, can't we start to better control where we lie or rest within that context? struck. Like we can't be like, oh, no, I'm not part of that. That's part of the human. It's just like, no, I'm not a human. Yeah, that's like, exactly. It's like saying I don't, I'm not a person. Right. But also the other end of it, we don't have to just submit totally to it. We're just like this, you know, piece of cardboard floating in the ocean that that has no muscles or movement or mind or whatever. Yeah. So maybe the self-awareness is like, okay, we can't change it today, but what can we do today? Not only for my playing, but for my self-awareness and my control over where I fall in the continuum of this construct that you're talking about and then start to see like, wow, I've got not total control, but I'm not just a feather floating in the air. Absolutely. And maybe that's enlightenment. I don't know if we'll be able to help folks to enlightenment by the end of today's episode, but perhaps by a thousand we will. I mean, we've tried so hard. No, but think

about it like this. I mean, we love to think about our favorite musicians with music, but think about Herbie Hancock. He must feel Herbie Hancock, have you heard of Chicago's own. He's he must have when he was a young man and people like Chick Correa and Keith Jarrett were around his same age coming up around the same time he must have felt some pressure internally of like

oh my gosh listen how good chick sounds but when but Herbie also who is you can from his autobiography he's thought about this kind of stuff a lot sure and he's been around people that think about this stuff and talk about this stuff and work on this stuff you can tell by his approach to his own self

and when he plays with people like Chick, that he is not caught up in that. Right. You know what I mean? He's not caught up like, oh my gosh. He's aware of it. He's aware of it. There's no, because you couldn't be. There's no way you could be. He seems to as much as you can freed himself. He's a human being, and when he gets on stage with Chick, there's a lot of cool shit happening,

and there's a bit of an interesting competition. They can tell that they're like, they love. It's like the most positive competition. It's amazing. Both those guys, beautiful souls, right? I don't think either one of them would say there is no competitive joie de vie there. And as the listeners, where the beneficiary. We get rewarded.

But they wouldn't be human if that was true. But it's not a destructive kind that it elevates the artistry as opposed to diminishing it. But I think part of that is their work acknowledging that. When you acknowledge, like, oh, here's this construct again of my expectations. I've been playing for a year and a half, as you said, Paul. I should be here or why am I not getting better here or whatever? That's your construct talking to you. Yeah.

Like, recognize it. You can't ignore it. But be like, oh, here that is. And then go have fun and go do what you want. Right. You know? That's, I mean, look, that's great stuff. And some people may be like, oh, well, that's easier said than done.

No, that's hard. What you're talking about is hard, but the beautiful thing about it is you don't have to, it's worthless for you to be like, I can't do all that today. No, nobody can. Not the strongest person ever. But you don't have to. if you start to understand the nuances of what you're talking about in this construct

and like where we lie in it and start to make adjustments, little things. Any little things that you do in terms of awareness with this is going to help you. That's part of the human experience. That's part of growth.

That's part of serving others with our art by learning how to serve ourselves, you know, to make this development. And so I think, Paul, you are, the only thing I want to add is that you're saying things that make me understand that you are further alive.

on the journey than you realize. So that's encouraging. Like you're saying that you're already kind of like acknowledging that sometimes it's fun and you feel like you're progressing and other times it's hard.

For a year in, that's mature. Exactly. So that's great. But what I want to add to this and to kind of Adam's concept that he laid out really beautifully is that we need to remember

as artists and I'm very inclusive in that. I'm like anybody's an artist that is, is making art. So that could be your first day that you start an instrument. It's more of a mentality

to say, I'm a creator. You know, I'm a creator of art. You're not, all you're doing is placing yourself into a group that includes Vincent Van Gogh, Thelonious Monk, and about a billion, or I don't know, hundreds of millions of other,

I don't know, I don't know how many people. There's been a lot of folks around. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, that's a decision that we can make, like just like you can say, I'm a runner if you can run one or two steps. You don't have to run. run a mile. You don't, you know, that's the beginning of it. And so part of like understanding that

is that art is a lot of it is craft, but a big part of it is commitment because you don't just commit one time at the beginning of the journey. Yep. That's actually the easiest time because you're like, wow, like when you're a little kid, oh, I want to play the piano. You don't even have to understand what art is. And I want to play the piano. Saying I want to play the piano is not even saying I want to be an artist. You don't understand that till later. You're already an artist before you start to understand what it is. You may doubt if you're that many different times. But if you, especially if you come later in life to learn, like where you can actually think about these things, we sometimes get twisted. Like we get it backwards and are like, well, you start to question whether or not you can

even be an artist. That being an artist is actually the easy part because all you have to do is make that commitment. Sticking to it can be difficult. Being a great artist is not easy. But I mean, in terms of saying I'm going to be an artist, it's about saying that I'm going to serve, I am going to entertain, I am going to uplift, I'm going to tell my story as opposed to I'm just going to sit back and consume, right? Most people go through this world as consumers, you know, not to say that they don't work or do different things, but in terms of their interaction with art and art in the very, you know, inclusive term, you know, music, poetry, words, videos, movies, different genres, you know, all the different things that, you know, artistic endeavors that uplift people.

Food, clothes. Food, clothes. Everything culturally. Yeah. Yeah. So most people are, are consumers only of that, right? So once we make the commitment to say, I'm going to make something, I'm going to play something, I'm going to create something. You're putting yourself out there as a server. You're a servant to the music, but you also have to serve people. If that's one person, if that's yourself, if that's your family, if that's 100,000 people if that's a million. That doesn't really matter because you're in that bucket. So put that hat on and then understand then once you're doing that, it's work. It's like if you're at a restaurant. It's great to sit there and eat at a great restaurant. We had a nice lunch today and to be served, right? And it's also great to be a star chef where everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're so amazing.

But there's a whole team of creators that do that that don't get the accolades that do or whatever. But they've made the commitment to, I'm going to make something and provide this, you know. And we need to think about that as artists so that when we work, we're not like, Oh man, this is hard. This is like, whoa, wait a second. You decided to be an artist. So it's going to include work. There will be joy along with that, but not all the time.

You know, there will be accolades, but not all the time. There will be money, but not all the time. Maybe never. Like, are you willing to do it? Are you willing to go through the grind to be like, I'm doing this for the better good? You know, it's a very kind of monk-like, both real monks and Thelonious Muck, like kind of thing that kind of hat, the helmet that you put on to do this and it may sound a little bit altruistic and aspirational but it's something that

I've come back to in my low points when I'm like damn what am I doing this for like especially when you when you're in a position where people say to you well easy for you because everyone's always saying how great you are and I'm like first of all not everyone's always saying like it may seem like that that's what I said just the other day yeah yeah and I mean there's always going to be somebody that seems like it's being said you know but it but the struggle is real we acknowledge that but then we have an understanding and we talk to other people we listen to Paga like

we try to get with the community of other artists and creators to like commiserate about these things so that we can be like man damn it is hard let's find some ways to navigate this let's find some ways to soldier up but communities all about yeah I mean because we're at war I mean the war of art that's a great book we got to talk about

ooh that might end up in when people here's stockings but if it wasn't whatever December 23rd there'd be a better chance of that but a little late Jeff Bezos, can I get you on the horn? What is this going out? The 26th, Caleb? Oh, this is post-Christmas, right?

Or this going out like Friday. We don't know. It might be going out on the 23rd, so... Could be. But the idea is that, you know, being an artist is war, but it's not, like, we're not having guns shot at us. Okay, so let's keep this all in perspective. Not yet.

Not yet. Well, when we do our episode on dissonance, we'll talk about that. Yeah, but I mean, some art, but look, there's been artists that have been literally under the gun to stand up for their art. So, I mean, this stuff is real. And so we should use that as inspiration. When we put ourselves into that group,

we're joining a bunch of noble people that are trying to help the world. You know what I mean? And so use that energy to keep you going, to keep getting better. And then just look at it more like on those days when everything's clicking and it's fun and you're getting better,

just know it's not going to be every day. And so love it on those days, you know? I mean, that's why for me, the running practice is so helpful to keep this stuff in perspective because when you run every day, it's not all unicorns. I'm not always just running and I look over

and a unicorn comes and hands me a beer. Oh, that'd be great. I love that. That's two unicorn references in one episode too. We're doing a good podcast when that happens. Didn't we have a unicorn? Corde. Unicorn.

That was nice. None of that next year, though. Can I get, can I just, I want to just topping, I want to put some sprinkles on it. Just a couple, Paul, this is such a great, no, it's more like a beanie on a hat. Paul, which is the thing. Paul, so a couple of practical things.

that you might just put on this, because the high level stuff, Peter, is, I think it's where it's at. But yeah, so first of all, is everything we're talking about here and those feelings that you have of doubt or whatever? So I have a practice journal and I definitely keep track of like,

I'm learning this tune and this drop two voicing through this key or whatever. But most of my practice journal is me writing, like how I feel after I practice or before I practice or like when I'm struggling with the things you're talking about, Peter as an artist or Paul as a practiser, when I have those feelings of doubt, hit your journal and just like, like, just start writing, whatever it is.

Like, just write what you're feeling. Because sometimes it, like, puts into perspective, like, oh, shit, I'm a year and a half into it. And it's not that bad. Like, I, that's huge. The, the, is part of that too, do you look and see like two days before? You're like, wow. I never read it afterwards. Oh, you don't.

It's more in the moment. It's really just for the function of, of, I got to get my journal game. Get your journal game going, man. It's really good for our psychology as musicians, as practices, people that have tasks that are, arduous and attached to our statement on the world, it's great to have an outlet for that, for our brains. So I recommend doing that. And then also just keep some practical things like tempos you want to hit, you know, keep track of shit you keep messing up. That's really important. Just keep your shit organized so that you can document, wait, am I getting back? Oh, actually,

I am. Because a lot of times we get down on ourselves, but we actually are making more progress than we realize. You can actually, and you, I do read it sometimes from like, I'll read journals from like years ago because those are fun because then you're like I remember when I couldn't do that or whatever those are good. The other practical thing is, and I've been saying this to a lot of people lately, is look on your, whatever you use to listen to music, whether that's

Spotify or Google Play or Apple Music. Look at what you've been listening to the most in the last two months. Do you know that music? Can you play that music? If you can't, that should be at the top of your list of things to work on. Because it's going to be your easiest entry point and your most passionate.

You've been listening to it naturally without Peter Martin saying you should listen to this. Right. Maybe it is something Peter said you should listen to. But if it's not, then don't do what Peter says you should be listening to. Follow your passions. Like follow what you are interested in listening to. The reason why we preach ear training and learning things by ear so much here at Open Studio is because if you acquire those skills and you develop them,

whatever is on your Spotify playlist from most listen to, go learn it with your ears and go figure it out. and you will always be rewarded with that because you're into it and you're motivated to do it. For me, that's number one practical motivation is like, what am I truly into? I've even done this with like TV show themes. Like, I'll be like, I love this theme.

I'm just going to learn it. Yeah, I'm just going to go learn it because I really like this court change or whatever. Like, I need to know that. You know what I mean? Go do that. Yeah, and I mean, just to put one more little Russian cap upon a wooden hat is that

Remember that when we are progressing, progressing, we're not, exactly. We're not, I mean, we don't always realize that. So don't get too caught up in like, oh, I'm not, like, we're getting better. Like our understanding and appreciation and the manifestation of our. Oh, he's manifesting now. Yeah, yeah. Of our progress is rarely right in line with our perception of it. And that's okay.

So trust the process. Hey. a great podcast. RIP process. Thank you, Paul. If you would like to leave us to speak pipe, go to you'll hear it.com. There's a good chance.

Also known as how not to hate jazz. We'll see if we answer these in 2023, but we've really enjoyed having them. And Paul, this is an excellent question, Peter, excellent episode. Yes. Thank you to. We self-rated that.

You know, that's going to be a new segment we're going to do. Let's give this a rating. Seven stars. Seven stars. Seven stars. Oh, we've got to talk about that. Please leave us a rating review. Like the reviews.

Reviews have fallen off so badly. It's been abysmal. Right. If you enjoy this podcast, Oh my God. You have two choices. Send us $7,777. Oh, boy.

To Adam Manus and Peter Martin. Actually, just send it to Peter Martin because I have a bank account. I'll give them half of it. But you can either do that or you can leave us a rating review, which is free. Takes a little bit of time. Go to Apple. I don't think you can do it on another place. Wherever you're listening to this, go and leave us a seven-star review.

That is difficult. to do. It is impossible. Well, nothing's impossible. Growth mindset. Sorry, sorry. If for some reason, you can't do it for seven. Wait, camera back on me, there we go. And if you're on YouTube, just give us a thumbs up.

But also, give us a review because that helps spread the podcast. We're trying to grow the podcast. If the podcast does grow, the podcast is going to end. Let's put that. Ooh. Wait, what do we talk about? Hashtag real talk? Wow. Hashtag real talk. The podcast. And so you can help us do that in just this

little way. I'm kind of serious here. leave us a rating review. I've actually been doing this for some big podcasts and I mean, just ones that I love recently. He talks to talk. He walks to walk.

Christmas time. Yeah. I'm not going to send $7,000, but I will give a seven-star review to something. So please do that because we've been getting, this is embarrassing. We've got a lot of,

we've got thousands of people listen to the podcast. We're over a million, downloads. Two million downloads. Oh, two million downloads. Yeah. But we've been getting like one rating and review per month.

Pathetic. Last thing. And it's been all, it's been both of our moms. they just keep going back. Actually, they couldn't figure out how to do it. I know. I don't think they did do it.

Well, you had to have an account, so. I will. Until next time. You'll hear it.