The Power of Sound

We’ve all heard that the reptilian part of our brain is hardwired for survival, as it seeks to establish predictable patterns that can be used to give us shortcut answers on how to best respond to these patterns for our safety. And a simple illustration of this is the skeptical nature of young babies towards strangers. Meaning that as the child becomes older, they’re able to make faster calculations on the relative safety of a stranger that’s based on more complex environmental factors. But until then, their framework is pretty primitive. So why am I bringing this up? Well, it’s to shine a light on the importance of sound and how it influences so many of the decisions we make about anything. And like the relative assessment of threat levels, how we decipher incoming information will influence how we respond to that information (for better or worse).

According to Neuroscientist Seth Horowitz, author of the book The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind, we hear 20 to 100 times faster than we see. That everything we perceive with our ears colors/modifies every other perception we have. Therefore, in the same way that the world has gotten a big eye-opening look at what the long term effects can be from the use of things like smoking, cocaine, mercury, bloodletting, etc., many researchers can draw pretty compelling arguments now towards the positive and negative effects that certain sounds can have on our physical and mental states. And in this case, I’m referring to the power that music and lyrics can have on the subconscious when you listen to them over and over again.

Here’s a list a popular phrases from songs that have been uttered throughout the years that make up the lexicon of American speech and subsequent thought:

“I’m black and I’m proud.” -James Brown

“YOLO (You Only Live Once).” -Drake

“I like big butts and I cannot lie.” –Sir Mix a lot

“It ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none.” -Snoop

“Drop it like it’s hot.” -Snoop

“Shoulda put a ring on it.” -Beyonce

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror.” -Michael Jackson

“Don’t Stop Believing.” -Journey

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” -Aretha Franklin

“Don’t worry, be happy.” -Bobby McFerrin

“What’s love got to do with it.” -Tina Turner

“Girls just wanna have fun.” -Cyndi Lauper

“Get rich or die trying.” -50 Cent

“Straighten Up and Fly right.” -Nat King Cole

As you can see, lyrics such as these are instructive in both the literal sense and along value lines. Meaning, they can give a person a sense of direction for what to value if their values have yet to be defined. Now here’s the interesting thing. Because most of the music that has dominated our consciousness since the 1980’s has been associated with a video, it becomes almost impossible to disassociate a particular sound (whether purely instrumental or with lyrics) with a particular image in your head at this point if you’re under the age of perhaps 55. And as such, these sounds tend to get judged more by their imagined cultural associations than by the artistic merits of the song itself. In other words, if a hip-hop artist decides to do a country record, their hip hop fans might discount the merits of the recording strictly along culturally associative lines (and vice versa). The caveat, however, is that people who tend to be more open minded in this regard are usually well trained musicians (within any genre), as musicians are always on the hunt for musical ideas that they’d like to use, regardless of where they emanate—which this type of cross-cultural collaboration has been seen within the world of Jazz ever since its inception.

So the point here is that just like we should be mindful of our air quality, we should also be cognizant of the subtle triggering effects that certain sounds can have on our disposition when we immerse ourselves in them (think a combat vet every 4th of July). And there’s no demographic where the effects can be more readily observed than within adolescents, as they tend to connect more over shared music interests than anything else. And the reason being is the portability factor of it. Unlike something you have to stand still to look at on a screen, music can always be consumed, whether one is consciously focusing on it or not. And because it’s so readily accessible, music tends to serve as an efficient means of establishing clear social boundaries in the sand. Meaning, “people like me (who make me feel safe and validated), listen to things like this.” Another important notion to point out about the effect of music on the psyche is that anything that makes one feel seen, understood/heard, and validated, can greatly influence us. No different than the way we allow ourselves to be influenced by the assessments of a physician who we feel has done a thorough examination on our state of health to show that they really do see our situation for what it is and can validate why our point of view about our condition is what it is. Therefore, when you see a kid who appears to be more influenced by celebrities they don’t even have a relationship with, over the parents or guardians that they interact with daily, it’s because those celebrities are checking all three of these aforementioned boxes for them (for better or for worse).

Suggested Takeaways…

a) Music is central to the life of an adolescent because a job hasn’t become the central driving force in the structure of their day yet. Therefore, they’ll connect to one another through the shared symbolism of a genre sooner than they’ll connect over anything else, as again, the faucet of musical sound is always on, no matter where they are.    

b) Most people don’t take into account that most human learning is incidental and happens more frequently in places that are outside of dedicated spaces for learning. And much of that learning is absorbed through the innocuous and repetitive reinforcement of thoughts that are usually being inadvertently paired with certain sonic textures and visual cues.

c) When you consider how many hours our youth are listening to music on a daily and weekly basis, an argument can be made that it’s more than any other activity. Therefore, the role that it plays in their lives cannot be discounted. In fact, to know very little about the music a child listens to, and why, could suggest that you don’t know as much about that child as you’d like to think; in that it supplies them with not only a great deal of the vocabulary they connect to others with, but it also helps to alter or amplify the moods they may find themselves in. And lastly, the artist they subscribe to can also serve as significant models for how to think about attire, conduct, and social circles.

The Value of Culture

Everything we invest our time, energy, and resources into is driven by the value we expect to receive on the back end of said investments. And like the age-old adage of “price is what you pay, value is what you get,” just means that we value what we think is valuable. Therefore, since common sense tells us that music, just like fashion, will always function as a medium for amplifying the sensibilities and visibility of the cultures they come from, means that when we embrace a style of music, what we’re really embracing are certain cultural tenants that undergird that music.

With that said, the direction that I want to take this post has to do with the idea of the unsung heroes that have contributed mightily to the health of certain cultural activities, because when you look at the history of various art forms, and the artists that have received high praise from their culture for serving as an exemplary model for that culture, it’s important to also give credit to the lesser-known benefactors that have played critical roles within the sustainment of the cultural ecosystems that produce the art that we consume. And personally, I’d rather see these people and institutions recognized well within their lifetime. So I want to start by highlighting three important benefactors within the greater Portland, OR area that have served as important linchpins within the various efforts that have been made since the start of the 2020 shutdown to preserve the cache of Jazz music here. Which, as we know, was undoubtedly the most challenging year that the world has seen within any of our lifetimes.

The first person I want to highlight is Kent Lewis, owner of Tavern on Kruse in Lake Oswego, OR. And like the other two names that I’ll highlight, he understands the value of cultural support, because when you improve the standards of culture, behavior is soon to follow. And as such, the entrepreneurial spirit that permeates the life that he has built with his equally talented wife Joelle, is continuously inspiring him to intentionally look for new ways of supporting great cultural initiatives wherever they are. Which of course was made evident two months into the initial shutdown when he found a clever way to lean into the artistic culture that he subscribes to as a way to help stabilize his business amidst all of the economic uncertainty that surrounded him. After all, if culture is what built his business, it would be culture that he’d have to lean into to keep it afloat. And sure enough, his bet paid off. By hosting Jazz seven days a week, he found himself having quickly cornered the market on live Jazz in less than two weeks, due to the serendipitous nature of the physical layout of his business. And with the world craving connection, he was able to scratch that itch and ride that wave better than probably anyone else in the entire state of Oregon.

Second on this list is Amalfi’s in N.E. Portland. Amalfi’s is a legacy restaurant in the sense that it has been serving the area that it resides since 1959, which coincidentally is considered one of the most important years within the history of Jazz, as several seminal recordings between Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman came out that year—one of which was Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue,” which is still the highest purchased Jazz recording of all times. Owner Kiauna Floyd is someone who also cares deeply about the power of culture, and what good can come of it when you harness it for all of the right reasons. And as such, she too recognized that she was in a unique position to capitalize on the tremendous amount of space that she had to provide culture with high quality live Jazz three days a week, which in turn allowed her to virtually corner the market on live music here on the East side of Portland. Also, given the great marketing work that her husband Rashad does within the world of professional sports, it has helped this dynamic duo to further solidify their reputations as well-known and highly respected people who so desperately want to help push the culture of Portland forward with a new and improved narrative.

And last but not least, The 1905 responded by hosting livestreamed events out of their space. And while the owner Aaron Barnes recognized that his space could not meet the safety requirements needed to continue hosting live Jazz shows, while still making the revenue needed to keep his doors open, he was quick to respond by setting up virtual performances instead, which has allowed him to expand his brand awareness globally while simultaneously reducing his entertainment costs, which really came in handy throughout the winter months when it was too cold for anyone to perform outside. And as such, his live streamed events were able to fill the cultural entertainment gap until the weather could finally break. And now as we move closer to summer, he’s able to satisfy both an in-person audience while simultaneously offering a livestreamed option for people to partake in, no matter where they are in the world. Also, it’s worth noting that as of October 2018, his venue sits on the list of the top 100 venues world-wide to hear live Jazz via the famed Downbeat Magazine.

Suggested Takeways…

a) The invisible hand of the market that shapes the world we live in is driven by the way businesses react to the ebbing and flowing of culture. And if you don’t lean into culture to know how to communicate with it, then you’re going to find yourself always reacting clumsily when market shifts occur, as opposed to already having the insight needed to get in front of those shifts when they happen.

b) Music preferences are one of the most reliable indicators for how and when cultural shifts will happen.

c) The world of music owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to all of the lesser known individual and organizational benefactors that have never received their rightful due. And as such, they should be exalted whenever possible.  

Growth & Goals

Given how common it is to hear people bemoan where they are in life or their careers, you’d think that conversations about growth and goals would be more commonplace. So my hope is that by the end of this post you’ll either develop a new interest in this subject matter, or at least leave with yet another way to think about it.

In the macro sense, the goals we choose to embrace represent visible and evolutionary mile-markers within our lives. And at the micro level, they represent experiments that we conduct to test the theories we have on anything that’s important to us. So since one of my greatest goals has always been to sound as great as my musical heroes, it means that I’m going to have to learn how to think like them—which is a growth issue—in order to play like them, which is a goal issue. And like I like to say these days, “the quality of our doing will always be a lagging measure of the quality of our being.”

Recently I came up with a simple iceberg concept that’s great for explaining why great musicians sound the way they do. And the gist of the concept is that if the visible part of their playing represents feelings, and the part just below the water’s surface represents moments, then the bottom of the iceberg represents function. In other words, if the potency of a listener’s feelings is reflective of the number and quality of memorable moments, then the solidity of a bands musical foundation is what makes it possible to create those moments. Now by this logic, it clearly says that the more moments you make, the more potent the feelings should be for the listener. However, there’s an important caveat to this perspective that can invalidate this theory if it’s not pointed out. Which I honestly believe separates the good from the great.

Story time…

A few years ago, bassist Chuck Israels said something to me that I’ll never forget. He said that back in his day everyone learned to play the same songs a million different ways, whereas today people learn to play a million songs the exact same way. And he’s absolutely correct! But the reason why is because in his youth he had more opportunities to learn how to maintain the attention of a typical non-music playing and paying audience, which tends to be the bulk of the attendees at most music events. And like the military, we musicians should be training for the types of battlefields we’re inevitably going to have to encounter. But when musicians aren’t put in enough of these environments to learn how to play for an everchanging audience—unlike the same faces they encounter among their peers in perhaps a scholastic environment— many important lessons go unlearned.

As mentioned earlier, moments create feelings. But if embraced at face value, this statement can derail even the most well-intentioned of musicians. Meaning that like the reciting of a script, it’s not hard to play an idea without regard to how it affects anyone else. But when it comes to the rhythmic timing/placement of an idea, it can only be understood within the context of how it affects the feeling of a groove for everyone else. So as you can see one is me focused whereas the other is we focused. And when I learned to place a higher premium on the integrity of a groove for the benefit of others, it suddenly became the musical differentiator that I was missing for how to make a song sound unique, and not like a million other songs that I know how to play. But to sustain this type of focus required me to become the kind of person that could see the value in caring more about what I could do for others than what I could do for the sole benefit of myself. And that perspective is one of the most quintessential hallmarks of personal growth, as in this scenario the quality of my being needed to be what it needed to become in order to improve the quality of my performances.  

So again, while goals are great for helping us to focus our energy on a productive set of purposes—so as to prevent ourselves from spinning aimlessly in life without direction—remember that the true value of our goals is that they reflect back to us the extent to which we’ve matured in life. And the extent to which we mature is the extent to which we travel inward to learn more about how to improve our outlook on life, so as to ultimately improve the way we show up in the world.

Suggested Takeaways…

a) Goals are temporary, growth is forever.

b) Good musicians rely on formulaic moments to drive the end feeling, whereas great musicians rely on the contextual feeling of a song to dictate the substance of the moments that can drive the end feeling.    

c) The goals we choose to embrace represent visible and evolutionary mile-markers within our lives. And like a mirror, they reflect back to us where we are along the continuous spectrum of our internal growth. 

Improvising and leadership: You Can't Have One Without the Other.

To paraphrase a funny quote by John C. Maxwell, “if you call yourself a leader, and no one is following, you’re not leading, you’re just taking a walk.” And I make mention of this because it’s important for musicians to see the correlation between soloing and leadership. Meaning that leaders have to be able to project clear visions in order to elicit buy-in from those in their charge. And the clearer the steps are for how to accomplish a mission, the easier it’ll also be for others to offer up relevant ideas that may be even better than what the leader has proposed.

Now I bring this up because if you want to accomplish anything big, you’ll need the help of a team. And a good example of this would be the difference between a great solo that’s performed to a metronome click as opposed to the same solo being performed with a world-class band behind them. You’ll only get so far on your own. And to quote Maxwell once again, “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with a group.” So in the case of music, the downside of not moving in lockstep with your band is that if when you’re soloing you don’t know how to communicate the direction you’re trying to go, the other musicians might either dig in their heels by offering minimal amounts of support, or worse, attempt to sabotage you by temporarily refusing to play behind you, or by playing tricky ideas to disorient you as a way to express their frustration. So now let’s look at the hidden mechanisms behind what actually makes a quality solo.   

When we talk about quality within any area of music, the yard stick is always clarity. As in clarity of intent, both rhythmically and harmonically. So just because a soloist thinks to play an idea, it doesn’t mean that its execution will always translate as clear to the listener as it was perceived in the mind of the performer. A clear example of this is the way your voice occurs to you when you hear it on a recording. For many people, the rhythm and tone of their voice tends to not match the memory they have of themselves speaking into the recorded device. That said, while clarity of rhythm is merely an issue of sound-separation, harmonic clarity involves a few more layers of insight.

Over the years I’ve concluded that there are three harmonic levels to soloing. And to be aware of these levels allows you to use them like manual gears on a bike or in a vehicle, so that you can shift to the gear you need when the terrain dictates it.

Gear #1 (diatonic/horizontal playing): This means that the notes you use will either be scales that belong to the chord you’re addressing (i.e. diatonic = belonging to), or you’re going to assemble the chord tones of each chord in such a way that it creates the illusion of a domino effect where each one sounds like they’re falling into the next, much like reading words horizontally in a book from left to right.

Gear #2 (diatonic/vertical playing): This combines diatonic playing with chord stacking. Therefore, you can either arpeggiate the notes of only one chord or superimpose another chord on top of the chord you’re supposed to be playing to make another chord. And this works best when chords ring out long enough for the listener to figure out that you want them to focus on how well you can go up and down harmonically as opposed to going across horizontally. This would be analogous to a gymnast who wants you to marvel at how well they can do a series of back handsprings in one spot (vertical), as opposed to across a floor (horizontal) where your hands and feet have to be positioned in such a way to propel yourself.

Gear #3: This is just like gear #1. However, you get to superimpose the outlining of whatever chord progression you want, so long as it resolves back into the fray of the song’s original chord progression. This would be analogous to a 007 scene where Bond is chasing a bad guy across the top of a train but is too far away to easily catch him. So instead, he gets the good fortune of being picked up by a helicopter and then sat back down on the train just a little closer to the person he’s chasing. So again, it matters less about where you start your chord substitutions, and more about how you resolve them back into the original harmonic structure of a song.

What’s great about this idea is that it gives your solo structure. Too many times I’ve either heard people solo where it sounded like their solo ended too early or too late. And since these three gears follow an order of least to most tension, it makes sense to know where you want to start so that you know what direction to go in.

Suggested Takeaways…  

a) The difference between horizontal and vertical playing is the difference between a series of back handsprings across a floor as opposed to in one spot.

b) The utilitarian goal of soloing is to guide the listener along a logical sounding harmonic path, with the aid of clearly articulated rhythms and harmony.

c) To understand the three harmonic gears allows a soloist to not only take more ownership over when they choose to shift gears, but also allows them to know which appropriate gear to shift to when they need to. So the longer the solo, the more gears it helps to have. The shorter, you’re better off choosing a gear and making the most of it.

What is Style, and how important is it?

One of the biggest challenges we face as musicians is how to make sense of the duality between music as a team sport and our desire to stand out as an individual. So allow me to quickly explain the cause of this tension and how to reconcile it.

Common sense dictates that the “goal should always be greater than the role.” However, when solitary achievement is continuously exalted over collective efforts, it’s hard to not get seduced by the allure of feeling special when you stand out. Not to mention, if you largely see success in your field as being a zero-sum game, then of course you’re going to favor self-serving tactics. But to be honest with you, I think the subtext behind this type of mentality falls under the misguided lens of “job security.” After all, if your value makes you irreplaceable in the eyes of others, then you’ll always have employment. That said, however, if you have enough cash-flow producing assets that you own, then you won’t have to entertain the idea of “job security,” as your survival wouldn’t be contingent upon someone else’s valuation of you. And in such situations, any pressure you might feel to overcompensate for attention would lose its allure.

I often say that music is 98% preconceived and 2% inspiration. So like a conversation, where all the words we use are known to us before we use them, the order in which they come out is where this 2% comes into focus. And it’s that 2% (style) that makes us memorable enough to stand out. Therefore, the impact of your style in music, fashion, speaking, etc., is really predicated upon the strength of your fundamentals, as your style is simply your point of view about those fundamentals. Therefore, if your style is simply a natural byproduct of your interpretation of your fundamentals, then by simply focusing on those basic principles, it allows you to let your stylistic chips fall where they may, without the fear that they’ll fall in an unflattering way. 

Suggested Takeaways…

a) An incessant interest in maintaining “your style” at all times forces you to turn your focus inward as opposed to the outward concern for the good of the band.

b) Actively seek out as many examples of team-oriented successes as possible to believe that that can be an attractive option to pursue.

c) If real success is “significance,” and significance is measured by the effect you have on others, then this is how your name will truly outlive you.

Point of View: Social Media Tactics for Artists

When faced with uncertainty, everyone reaches for anything that can be construed as stable. And while we can’t control outcomes, we can control how we react to situations through our investments of time, energy, and resources.

You’ve probably heard that there are three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what just happened. You’ve also probably heard the adage of “good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them.” Well, it’s pretty clear that the most admirable person would be the one who makes things happen. And as you might assume, this person would be engaged in the exercise of producing more and consuming less. Therefore, if we’re to maximize the concentration of our energy towards a worthwhile outcome, then we need to be mindful of how much input is coming in versus our output. And if you think about it, the majority of our input comes from social media these days. Which, when you think about it, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. However, the problem is that we’re generally not good at filtering what comes in. And as such, we find ourselves accidentally investing more time into the task of having to scroll through all the non-value adding posts in order to get to the value adding ones. But at this point, we may have just lost 30+ minutes in order to find something suitable that only took us 2 minutes to read through, or 30 seconds to look at.

When we consume other people’s content, we do so in order to get inspired, distract ourselves, or to evaluate our creative output to that of others. However, if you’re a true artist, your job is to create and present YOUR point of view, not other people’s point of view. So while this will sound super counter intuitive, a worthwhile practice for us artists is to actually consume less content from others, starting with the cleaning up of our social media feeds. So what this means is that you’d have to audit your entire account in the same way that you would if you owned a media company—which, ironically enough, you already do, by the virtue that your personal account serves the same function as an actual media company. So this means that you’ll need to go through and make sure that everything you’ve posted, or have allowed to occupy space on your pages, are congruent with the brand that you’re trying to amplify. And this goes for people as well, “as you shall know a company by the company it keeps.” So once you’ve audited your friends list as well, then hide everything and everyone from your news feed. Now that you’ve eliminated all distractions, allow only the people and pages that are inspiring to you to come through your feed. That said, this doesn’t mean that you should go on and stalk their pages for more inspiration as a daily practice, as that would nullify everything I’m telling you to do. You only need to check in with them when you NEED some new input from those particular sources because you need a quick boost of inspiration from a different perspective. Aside from that, just post you own content and interact with those who engage with it. After all, the purpose of what you post serves as a honing beacon for your real audience to find you. As for those other folks, who may very well be near and dear to you, simply call them or go visit them if you really want to connect. If not, hide their content as well if it’s not a source of valuable input to you. I promise you, you’ll be SHOCKED as to how many more hours throughout the day you’ll have to engage in the work that’s the most meaningful to you.

Suggested takeaways….

a) Spend over 90% of your time posting your own content and responding to those who engage with it.

b) The point of posting your own content is so it makes it easier for your potential audience to find you like a flag on a flag pole. And by doing so, it’ll prevent you from having to spam the world with your ideas. Instead, it’ll allow you to spend more time honing your craft while attracting those to you who actually care about what you’re putting out into the world. Again, this will be a huge time saver!

c) Being vulnerable enough to post your own content will get you more comfortable with accepting the responsibility for owning your truth, as opposed to merely backing someone else’s. Furthermore, in doing this exercise of marketing your point of view, it forces you to have to keep having real experiences to report a point of view about, because if you don’t, you’ll never have anything to talk about. Also, the process of engaging in real experiences creates a layer of credibility for your assertions. So even if someone doesn’t agree with your takeaway, they can never invalidate a lived point of view.

Fighting for the Soul of Jazz

There’s a phrase that says that the poignancy of anything has more to do with what something does as opposed to what it is. Thus, when conversations about musical purity emerge, and what the mechanics are for fostering it, I’m always fascinated as to where people land on this seemingly broad spectrum of understanding.

I’m writing about this because I came across an interesting FB thread today that touches on this very idea. And it had to do with the usefulness of certain terms that we’ve been conditioned to use as musicians. But what became apparent to me was that the comments people were making had less to do with defending their use of these terms as much as they were about the defense of their idea of themselves. And even though words are technically an arbitrary collection of sounds, our defense of certain words has to do with our subconscious defense of those who gave us those words, as well as what it must say about us for having aligned ourselves with those people. After all, if someone you don’t like uses a certain word, chances are you might go out of your way to avoid using it just to further distance yourself from them, as I believe the most telling symbol of alignment that exists between humans is in fact the words we use. So to be specific, the thread had to do with the idea of what it means to have “soul,” as well as what it means to play “mechanical sounding.” Now I’m sure there are a few others that could get added to the list, but for the sake of brevity, we’ll just focus on these.

One of the points that the author of the post made was that these terms are lazy stand-in’s for more specific terms that could be used if people took the time to find them. And I say lazy because these words have been in the ether forever. After all, it’s not like people just got hip to these terms yesterday and haven’t had a chance to flush out any better alternatives. So the response I offered up on the thread was that these terms were actually tangential to a more important conversation that relates to what it means to create music that connects with people. And that conversation has to do with musical intent.

When people are assessing the amount of “soul” in a person’s performance, I believe that what’s really being communicated is the degree to which one believes that the artist believes in what they’re doing. Case in point, when you find yourself in a debate with someone, the x-factor that the other person has that convinces you of their argument has to do with the way you can tell that every fiber of their being stands behind their argument; that they’d defend their position in a court of law, or be willing to physically fight someone over it if need be (which of course would be aided by the intensity of their non-verbal cues as well). So again, when we talk about musical “soul,” I believe it’s reflective of the degree of congruency that exists between what someone is doing and what they believe to be true deep down in their actual soul. As for the phrase “mechanical sounding,” this is what we focus on when the musical intent is cloudy. When the intent is clear, and the technique used is in support of that intent, we don’t question the use of said technique. But when the intent isn’t clear, we have no context by which to understand the use of the technique; no different than someone watching tv while clutching a hammer.

So in closing, if you’re someone who has ever thought about how to reconcile terms like these before, and especially these two, then hopefully this blog was useful.