Music, Romance, and Friendships: What do they have in common?

When a person decides to take music seriously, the process starts with finding a teacher who possesses the musical qualities that they’d like to emulate. And this vetting process is done through a combination of watching said teacher perform live, as well as listening to them on any available recordings. So while the recordings represent their past body of work, the live shows indicate how well their musical philosophies have stood the test of time.

In the realm of romance, however, this becomes a little more problematic. Meaning that when you’re young, and are trying to figure out how this works, what teacher do you turn to in order to observe how the art of intimate relationships work? And in a sustainable way? A natural assumption would be your parents or grandparents, as they’d generally be the closest example you’d have for what this type of human expression/practice can look like. But that still doesn’t speak to the quality of those relationships. And unlike music, you can’t pay a cover charge to stand in someone else’s house to observe how a masters-level relationship can look either. So like many, you’re forced to assemble a patch work of strategies from past personal circumstances and other people’s testimonies. But the fact of the matter is that unless your eyeballs have been able to personally witness anything done at a high level, and over a prolonged span of time, then most of your ideas or strategies will be speculative. I for one can recall a number of times in my youth where my musical choices where mostly speculative. And it was simply due to the fact that I didn’t have an adequate framework for contextualizing how my musical heroes were able to sound so good, as well as to maintain their level of proficiency. But after investing the time to engage with enough of their recordings, interviews, and sometimes them, I was then able to graduate past my old ill-informed framework for how I used to evaluate myself. That said, the question now becomes “is there an equivalent strategy within the arena of intimacy?”

One of the best perspectives I got in college was from one of my old teachers [Victor Lewis], where he said that often times when things go awry on the bandstand, everyone becomes hyper focused on analyzing what’s broken. The irony, however, is that we rarely apply the same focus to when things are going great. Therefore, if we never define what the variables are that make music really work, then how are we supposed to fix things when they break? It’s like trying to assemble a jig saw puzzle without a picture of what you’re supposed to be replicating. Therefore, when things are going great, that’s the time to start stock piling a running list of all the little variables you think are at play so that when things change, it’ll take you less time to identify what happened so that you can restore the balance.

Regarding friendships, this is another area that we haphazardly stumble through because like thinking, it’s assumed that it should be easier than it really is. And as a result, we may find that many of our relationships have actually been predicated upon the convenience of proximity. Which of course, requires as much thoughtfulness as living to 21 to earn the status of “adult.” So again, if we aren’t privy to seeing how master-level friendships can be created, then we’re literally left to our own uninformed ideas for how to do so. And for those who lack the patience to become more proficient at relationship building, they tend to be the ones who might opt to retreat from most social settings when they can, as they quietly justify why most relationships are overrated.

Suggested Takeaways…

a) The best relationships are the ones that are built on purpose, as opposed to through the convenience of proximity.

b) If you weren’t fortunate enough to grow up in a home where the art of intimate relationship building was practiced on a high level, then you’ll have to make it a point to be intentional about seeking out the examples you need. This will be hard to do, but worth the effort.

c) The importance of relationship building should be a staple subject matter that’s reinforced in every grade from kindergarten all the way up through high school and beyond.   

Foundation: We are what we eat!

If you find yourself in a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake, your mission is to take cover under whatever set of surfaces are sturdy enough to help you weather said storm. So when you find yourself stuck in the middle of an economic, health, or social storm, your only recourse is to identify a set of reliable principles that can support your well-being until (and after) the ground settles. And I can’t think of a more intuitive path towards the embodiment of success principles than through the body, as this is where all knowledge begins. After all, just think about the developmental process of babies. All of their intellectual knowledge happens after they’ve learned to control their limbs and their mouths. So if you don’t value the insights that are to be gleaned from how the human body works, then I think you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to realize that you already have the tools to change your life. Meaning that if your future successes are predicated upon your daily habits, then there’s no better place to test the efficacy of this idea than to observe what can happen to your body when you change your physical and dietary habits. So here’s a quick story to explain what I mean.

When I was living back in New Brunswick, NJ. my best friend Owen had moved himself and his family 45 min away to Easton, PA. So since he was further away, I knew that I’d have to really make the most of my time with him whenever I made the trek out to his house. That said, I remember spending the night at his place one winter, where the following day we went outside in his back yard to toss his football around. And since he’s also my Sifu within Ving Tsun Kung Fu, I didn’t want to leave without some kind of gold-nugget takeaway that I could internalize to make the trip feel that much more worth it. And as soon as I had this thought, the answer appeared. Meaning, whenever I’d throw the ball to him, he’d catch it with little negative impact. But when he’d throw it to me, my fingers would sting because we were outside in the snow without gloves on. So the simple lesson I took from this interaction was that unlike myself, Owen was more comfortable putting himself in vulnerable positions to gain the insight needed to react to situations appropriately. Therefore, since how we do anything is roughly how we do everything, I thought to see where there might be a connection between this idea about vulnerability and music. And what I realized was that not only did my drum solo’s make little sense back then, but the way I spoke to people also wasn’t much different. So since my thinking was the problem, I thought to fix it by writing. I’d think of a question and then defend my answer through numerous rounds of editing until my argument was what I’d consider to be air-tight. Ironically enough, this process of having to clarify my thoughts like this improved my soloing without ever touching an instrument first. And to be more specific, it was because I suddenly became hypersensitive to the value of developing singular narratives as opposed to being all over the place.

Suggested Takeaway’s…

a) It’s tough to be an effective “human doing” before you can become an effective “human being.” And as such, nothing will ever be more foundational to our learning than physical experiences.

b) All building blocks to self-awareness start with the relationships we have with our bodies. So learn what the building blocks are for the body that support its basic functioning.

c) Above ALL else, our most important asset in life will always be the health of our bodies, because even if we fall on hard times, we’ll still have the strength, flexibility, and stamina to re-org so we can live to fight another day. But without these attributes, our capacity to be of service to our fellow man/woman will be greatly limited.

Transcribing: Turning raw data into useful information.

I currently subscribe to a newsletter by a friend named Cathey Armillas, who appears to have developed much of her reputation as a coach for TED Talk speakers. And one of the things I’ve enjoyed about her content is her “52 Marketing Tips” blog where she’s able to share some quick wisdom in about a paragraph and a half. So since the most recent one I read is called “Tip #43: Don’t Confuse the Process with the Goal,” I thought I’d share one of the parallels that this statement made me think about with respect to music. And that connection has to do with the way in which many musicians have been conditioned to approach transcribing solos. Meaning that they tend to overlook or undervalue a concern for pacing and circumstance, both of which are the context under which a solo takes place. So if the specific ideas of a soloist can be regarded as 1/3rd of the matter, then the remaining 2/3rds relate to pacing and circumstance.

Pacing: Unlike visual art, where you can see the entire structure of a piece immediately, the entire narrative of a solo (like reading a book) is only fully understood after it’s over. So when analyzing a solo, you have to consider when certain ideas are introduced over the entire length of the solo. And to a lesser degree, where they land with respect to the total running time of a song. For example, there have been many times at a Jazz jam session where a more experienced soloist has come up on stage to take a solo that’s substantially shorter than everyone else’s, just to prove the point that a quality solo can be played in a truncated amount of time, as well as to subtly communicate that the song being played has been played long enough. So that would be an example of how someone might also be motivated to solo if they were taking into consideration the length of a song itself.

Circumstance: Since the goal of music is to create a set of feelings that’ll move a listener, the impact of those feelings will be reflective of the quality and frequency of unexpected moments in music. Therefore, the way in which musicians create these moments is by using alternate paths towards the inevitable points of rhythmic and harmonic resolution that the listener expects to hear. Now that aside, as you look at a transcription of someone’s solo, you’ll want to start by highlighting all recurring trends so as to ascertain if those ideas are strategic or arbitrary. And you’ll do this by balancing this question against the length of the solo, input from other musicians, and the length of the song itself, so as to extract useful insights for your own soloing. And I bring this up because if you try to play some of the ideas from your transcription before the other musicians have created a similar atmosphere under which your transcription is representative of, it’ll be like recalling a joke that falls flat when you use it. You might recall it correctly, but the circumstances under which you tell it might not be conducive for the reaction you imagine, such as the race, sex, age, region, religion, etc. of your audience. So context always matters, as a respect for it is always what separates amateurs from the professionals in any domain.

Suggested Takeaways…

a) Most solos don’t exist in a vacuum. There are usually other musicians accompanying the person soloing. Therefore, you must take into account the degree of influence they might be having on the soloist, in addition to the introduction of certain ideas by the soloist, as per the total running time of a song.

b) Unlike visual art, music (like a book) takes time for the form to reveal itself. So it’s best to suspend judgment until a song is over. This, of course, being easier said than done.

c) Transcription is a form of musical research. And like all research, the goal is to identify the existence of as many patterns as possible, and to ascertain the reason behind their existence.

A Leap of Faith: No One Leaps Without A Clear Target.

As a young kid, the issue of what I was going to do as an adult used to weigh heavy on my mind. And it was because every adult conversation I’d hear seemed to hinge upon the demands of both their jobs and life itself. But with no marketable skills at the time, it was hard for me to imagine what my developmental process would have to look like in order to shoulder the types of adult responsibilities I kept hearing about. So at 12, after having realized that I might have some kind of natural aptitude for playing drums, I decided that I was going to attempt to see where life would lead me if I dedicated the majority of my time towards becoming a real contributor to the lifeblood and preservation of Jazz music. And so between the ages of 12 and 22 there were three major moments that required a leap of faith that have invariably lead me to the life I lead today.

The first happened when I was about 15. A friend at the time had introduced me to Wynton Marsalis’ “Black Codes from the Underground” record. This record completely stopped me in my tracks! I had never heard rhythms, grooves, harmonies, moods, and interplay like that before. And upon hearing it for the first time, I was suddenly reminded of that same youthful feeling of inadequacy I once had regarding my capacity for growth. This time, however, the potential fear for future regret for not investigating those sounds and their underlying philosophies scared me more than having to confront where my competency level REALLY was, with respect to music as a whole. And so just like Miles Davis’ trek to NYC as a youngster to find Charlie Parker, I too felt compelled to make it to NYC somehow so I could be around people like those on Wynton’s “Black Codes” record.

The second was joining the Marine Corps out of high school. And the leap had to do with the fact that while I had just learned that I could continue to play music in the Corps, there were still no guarantees that my time with them would manifest a path for me to not only make it out there, but to stay out there.

The third came in 1998 when the Corps was nice enough to send me to NYC for the now defunct IAJE (International Association for Jazz Educators) conference. And upon that first visit to the city, I instantly fell in love with everything about it. So again, the future fear of regret for playing it safe if I moved home to Oregon after the military was what motivated me to accept the fear of the unknown and to try to enjoy as much of the journey as I could. Besides, if it didn’t work out, I always knew I could just move back home to Portland. But with my first substantial leap of faith in life under my belt (i.e. joining the Marines), it gave me the confidence that I could negotiate whatever unknowns lay ahead in a place like NYC for a young 22 year old.

Suggested Takeaways…

a) A few key phrases to live by are…

“You can’t get an A if you’re afraid to get an F.”

“Be willing to live like others won’t, so you can later live like others can’t.”

“You have to be willing to crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet.”

b) The stronger your vision the smaller most of your obstacles will appear.

c) Every leap of faith requires a reconciling of emotions, which looks like a willingness to accept responsibility for if a plan doesn’t pan out.

Inspection Ready: The Real Meaning Behind Responsibility

As a former Marine and Soldier in the Army, we adhere to motto’s like “if you stay ready you never have to get ready” to promote a high state of readiness with respect to our bodies, work and personal spaces. In fact, in the military we have RDF’s (Rapid Deployment Forces) and QRF’s (Quick Response Forces) that are capable of being “wheels up” in as short as 18 hours for an overseas deployment (RDF), or less for local responses (QRF). So I bring all of this up because in order to maintain this type of readiness, units like this are subjected to many inspections, so as to ensure that they can in fact be counted upon to mobilize at a moments notice. Also, another way to think about these random and frequent inspections is that they’re a form of progress tracking, which is what this blog post is really all about.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to see the word responsibility as response-ability. So by this assertion, for example, responsible parenting would refer to a parents ability to respond to all of the crucial needs that a child has, so as to grow into a self-sufficient human who’s also concerned for the well-being of more people than just themselves. And in regards to music, I’m always trying to maintain a high state of readiness in all areas of my life so that I can just focus on sounding the best I can every time I perform. And to do this, I have to make sure I’m not juggling too many commitments in life that would not only preclude me from investing the R&D time needed to improve before every performance, but to also stay organized in all the other non-musical areas so that when I perform, I can be 100% in the moment, and not distracted by other unfinished business.

So if you were someone else, and tasked with doing a surprise inspection on your response-ability to life, how might you score yourself within the following areas:

Health: Flexibility, speed, strength, and vital stats (as per the findings of a doctor and dentist), in addition to an adequate amount of the right kinds of foods, supplements, and daily water intake.

Emotional Intelligence: Evenness of temperament and logic filters.

Social: Contextual insight into the history of more cultures than one’s own, so as to better interpret the important symbolic cues common today. Also, the development of a solid network of true friends who represent the best versions of yourself.

Financial: At least six months of savings in the bank (i.e. “Job Insurance”), zero debt outside of a mortgage (preferably zero there as well), and enough asset income to outpace your job income by at least 1.5 times over, regardless as to if you work for someone else or not. FYI: This also has implications regarding your ability to respond to the needs of those around you in real ways that are greater than prayers and well-wishes.

Home: Preparing your home for all the seasonal changes your area undergoes every year, through major appliance updates/servicing and landscape/curb appeal development and maintenance.

Transportation: Updated service recommendations throughout all areas of your vehicle.

Suggested Takeaways…

a) Evaluate your growth in terms of weekly, monthly, and yearly progress. And if the trajectory doesn’t look like you want it to, then you’re at least in a better position to hold yourself accountable for changing your strategies.

b) Responsibility can be best articulated as response-ability.

c) Responding to situations in the moment with 100% of your focus, requires a reconciling of all other tasks and concerns. Therefore, the less plates you allow yourself to juggle in life, the fewer of them you stand to drop when you need to be in a place that requires all of your attention.

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.

Pathways: How to find a sustainable narrative in life to follow.

If we look at life through a utilitarian lens, it’s safe to conclude that our collective purpose is to simply maintain the existence of our species. Which means that at the individual level we simply have to leverage our creative capacities to this end. Therefore, in my opinion, this train of thought is what all 18-22+ year old’s should embrace as the begin to draw out the blueprints for their future and how to best “show up” in that future.

As you can imagine, we humans think in terms of narratives. Meaning that our internal story-telling is always guiding us like a set of conveyor belts towards a destination of some sort (i.e. destiny). Therefore, we should want to stay critical of the stories we tell ourselves so that any calcified beliefs we hold aren’t inadvertently inhibiting our ability to take advantage of certain opportunities—especially if they turn out to be better suited for getting us to where we’re trying to go in life than our original plans.

In getting back to this 18-22+ year old demographic, the narrative that many of them are forced to entertain starts with a question that sounds like “what do you want to do for the rest of your life?” Which I think is too often heard as a call-to-action for finding a job that’s tolerable enough to preoccupy ones time with until they can ride off into the sunset of their retirement years. Now while this question at face value may sound innocuous, I believe that if the vision one gets from it doesn’t include a cause that’s bigger than themselves, then the ramifications of such a narrative can lead to the types of existential crises where if or when the honeymoon phase of a given job wears off, and a realization sets in that the commitment made towards said job was really to a bio-chemical feeling, then it’s easy to feel like a ship lost at sea without a compass when that feeling goes away. It’s like with music…yes it’s fun to play, but that aspect alone is not why I still play it. It’s the vision for how I want to use my musical acumen and social influence from it to help others, that compels me to stay up to 3-4am on most nights without complaint to practice, write music, self-educate on a variety of topics, and to devise strategies that I think have a possibility for affecting change in all of the ways that I imagine being able to do so at the local, state, regional, and potentially national level. So again, to accept this notion that our basic function as humans is to be of service to all the practical and meta ways that we define survival, is where we begin to expand the base of our energetic fuel tank, so as to hedge against physical and mental burnout (which I think is most people’s chief concern for the work they do). And lastly, once a person can identify at least one aspect of this survival issue that they’d like to assume responsibility for affecting, then they can get on with the process of identifying all of the fun and creative ways that they might like to design an enjoyable and interesting work experience that should rarely feel like they’d ever need a vacation from.

Suggested Takeaways…

a) Ladders of success are only as relevant as the walls they lean against. So identify a target (i.e. wall), a projected time frame to hit said target, and reverse engineer with any set of “vehicles” (i.e. jobs, tasks, businesses, investments, etc.) to get you where you’re trying to go.

b) While the narratives we entertain are always given to us by others, books, or the media, we still have autonomy over the level of scrutiny we choose to place those thoughts under. 

c) The physical purpose of life is to sustain itself. Therefore, if you can’t figure out how to find your purpose, it means you haven’t identified a problem yet that you feel compelled to solve for the benefit of anyone greater than yourself.

Improvisation: Redefining the process.

When you take the word Improvisation and split it down the middle, you get the word Improve minus the letter E. And what’s in need of improving is the melody, as it’s always played before you’re free to “improve” upon it. Now logic says that if you want to learn to do something, simply find a good model to emulate. However, it should also go without saying that your comprehension of what you hear is of greater importance than simply the sound itself. Therefore, what you listen for matters more than what you listen to. So before getting to the crux of this post, I want to point out that the best improvisers always embody the three elements, which as you’ll see, will play an important role in how this post concludes.

a) They have a myopic concern for self-expression.

b) They have a concern for their fellow musicians’ ability to adequately support them within the functional areas of time, intonation, and harmony.

c) They have a concern for their band’s collective effort in servicing the emotional integrity of the music they’re playing.

As mentioned, what we listen for is more important than what we listen to. And when I listen to many of the ideas that people reference, it sounds like they simply focused on the sound of those ideas at the expense of questioning why those ideas were ever played in the first place. And because texture and function are the only two reasons why we play anything, the unfortunate trend these days (especially within the education system) has been that people have become more bullish in their investment towards self-serving ideas (i.e. texture) as opposed to unifying ones (i.e. function). And just to be clear, this has less to do with character defects as it has to do with flaws in how they were taught to think about improvisation. But here’s the irony. When we listen to the agreed upon masters, especially in their later years, they all tend to express themselves in a way where they can satisfy both the issue of texture and function at the same time. Therefore, this leads me to believe that if you can focus on being functional in a way that also allows you to express yourself with the textures you like, you’ll finally become free to shrink your circle of concern down to just one thread of thought. Which, when accomplished, can greatly decrease the amount of incessant mind chatter that keeps many musicians confused about what to play, and how to play it. So here’s my remedy for this.

If practicing is a form of situational preparedness, and the ideas you hear on a record are simply tactics for negotiating those particular situations, then the goal is to simply decide if you want to adopt those same tactics for similar situations. And once you’ve listened to, and have learned to emulate a number of these tactics, it’ll reduce the chances that you’ll be caught off guard as to what to play in any given situation. Therefore, once a melody has been played and the real improvisation starts, it’ll increase the chances that your ideas will be framed through the lens of wanting to help everyone else’s performance, despite you being the soloist (think Miles Davis)! So once you can develop the faith that a focus on others can still yield extreme satisfaction for yourself, it’ll not only revolutionize your growth potential as a musician, but as a citizen of society as well.

Suggested Takeaway’s…

a) While the quality of what we listen to matters, what we focus on when we’re listening matters more.

b) There are two types of ideas: self-serving and functional. Self-serving are textures that satisfy only the soloist, while more functional ideas are specifically meant to help others. Therefore, to satisfy yourself through the aid of others means you “win.”

c) Oftentimes we listen to the improvisations of our heroes as if their ideas sprang up from out of nowhere. But we always forget to ask the critical question of how this concept of improvising even started in the first place. And the answer is that in the beginning, success meant being able to play a well worked-out arrangement, which had much less to do with how we think about soloing today. Therefore, through the knowledge of the many tactical ways in which the masters thought to negotiate an arrangement, is where you’ll find the raw materials needed for you to play through all other arrangements, as well as when it’s time for you to improvise.  

Self-Awareness: What music can teach us about self-awareness

A common phenomenon among musicians is that when we hear recordings of ourselves, we tend to hear versions of our ideas that sound different from how we remembered playing them. And as such, this disconnect between our intentions and reality—which isn’t exclusive to just the world of music—compels me to peel back a few layers on this issue to offer a perspective on why this happens and how to address it.

Since all decisions are informed by a point of reference, it’s important that we stay critical of the substance of those references, as such a critique is in fact the bedrock of self-awareness. For example, all musicians will naturally latch onto the broader strokes of music at the expense of the finer details if no one ever articulates the value of those details to them. And the longer it takes to identify those details, the longer it will take to move past the trivializing stages of the musical heroes they seek to reference during their performances (I’m suddenly reminded of how I used to approximate my father’s style of dress when I was 11 years old). So if I were to draw a target around this issue of self-awareness—and in this case, for how someone sounds on their instrument—the bullseye would look like one or more critical questions that have yet to be entertained that relate to those fine details. And since it’s the job of every artist to learn how to articulate their point of view within their artistic endeavors, means that they’ll need a compelling set of reasons (for themselves) for why they make the choices they make. But it’s through the stress-testing of ideas through questioning that will allow them to feel confident that the intent behind their ideas will in fact be interpreted as intended. And in the specific case of music, that refers to the execution of an idea to sound in reality the way it was intended to sound. And if you’re not used to having to “defend” your point of view (even if just in your own head) for why you play the ideas you do, that uncomfortably vulnerable feeling will persist either until you clarify your belief system, or choose different associates who won’t challenge you to elevate yourself in this way.

So again, self-awareness is ultimately about having enough regard for yourself and others to take a substantive look at the quality of the questions you typically entertain before making decisions.

Suggested Takeaways…

a) Another critical element to self-awareness is motive. And it’s through the constant practice of improving the quality of our questioning that the true nature of motives are identified.

b) The impact of the broad strokes in music are always reflective of the quality of the smaller elements at work. The better the quality, the bigger the payoff.

c)  Self-awareness comes from caring enough about yourself and others to maintain a critical eye towards the line of questioning you habitually entertain, so as to become increasingly more appropriate in your responses within all situations.  

Stage Fright: The Art of Public Speaking

As most people know, public speaking is right up there with some of the greatest fears that people have. So as always, I want to offer a sense of clarity about this issue and its remedy through the lens of Jazz.  

Simply put, stage fright shows up when our point of view is in a position to be questioned, and we know it hasn’t been sufficiently battle-tested by enough disagreeable people.

Years ago, when a brilliant pianist named John Chin answered a question I had about the application of chord substitutions, the answer he gave me was simply “conviction and symmetry.” What he meant was that while conviction can command one’s attention, symmetry is what keeps it (i.e. clear lines of logic). So what I’m calling into focus here is a believability factor. And the first person that needs to be convinced is yourself! So when the “math” in your head makes sense, it becomes much easier to present your point of view with the confidence needed for an audience to let you lead them along the journey of wherever your thoughts take them. So when speaking in public, the trick is to only speak about what you actually believe in, as when you tell your truth, you don’t have to remember anything. But when you try to overcompensate by punching above your intellectual weight to gain more credibility in a room, it’s anyone’s guess (especially your own) as to if you’ll accidentally talk yourself into a corner that you can’t dig yourself out of without egg on your face. So if you still don’t believe me that public speaking ain’t that hard, then imagine if I offered you $100 to get in front of 1,000 people to simply recite your name? You’d do so with no hesitation because there’s nothing to memorize, as you’re not confused about how to properly pronounce your name.

Suggested takeaways…

a) Before presenting your ideas in front of large gatherings of people, stress test your assertions in smaller settings with people who are willing to challenge your POV. *Start with respectable people.

b) Anxiousness comes from uncertainty about the future. And since the first thing you have to contend with is simply the sound of your voice, it’ll be helpful to record it enough times so you can predict how it’ll sound if you haven’t done so already. Because if the sound coming out doesn’t match what you hear in your head, it’ll distract you from being present with your audience. And if an audience thinks you’re distracted, they’ll be too distracted by your distractions to focus on the merit of your content. Thus diluting the impact of your message.

c) Since much of the fear and anxiousness we experience in life comes from the stories we’ve allowed ourselves to entertain in our heads—which is usually related to our projection of other people’s opinion of us—a good way to quell that feeling before having to speak is to introduce yourself to as many people as possible so that when you do speak it feels like you’re talking to a group of people you’re already familiar with. Also, when you’ve met enough people before your talk, you’ll be able to better personalize certain parts of your talk so that it becomes more engaging than that of a memorized script.

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.

Self-Image: What Does It Really Mean?

I heard someone say once that people don’t rise to occasions as much as they fall to their level of competency. And from my experiences, I wholeheartedly agree, because when push comes to shove, and we find ourselves having to navigate the “fog of war” from time to time within whatever we’re doing, it’ll be our physical, intellectual, and/or emotional foundation that we’ll be forced to lean upon to navigate the unknown. So in moving forward, I think this idea of “fog of war” can be useful for helping us to re-contextualize our idea of the phrase self-image.

Fog obfuscates our vision. And when we can’t see where we’re going, we’re forced to wait until the fog lifts. Therefore, to talk about self-image without having a serious conversation about vision, is where I feel this fog comes from (i.e. cart before the horse). But because symptoms come second to systems—and our view of our current selves is in fact a symptom—means that our vision of our highest selves is the system. After all, you can’t plan for tomorrow without seeing something in your minds-eye first.  

A popular talking point around the idea of self-image is authenticity. But again, because there are two ways of thinking about this (i.e. a fixed set of attributes vs. an alignment with a higher vision of oneself), is why many feel foggy, due to not knowing which side to embrace. After all, you can’t hit a target you’re not sighted in on. So when your vision of your highest self is a composite of the best role models you can see (system of thought/mindset), you’ll naturally reverse engineer your behavior and habits (symptom) to map to this vision you have. But when you really think about it, it’s not the latter group that’s stuck in a fog, it’s the former! And it’s because they’re asking themselves “if I’m being authentic like all these gurus have suggested I do, why haven’t I reached my version of the promised land like they have?” The funny thing, however, is that while both sides are as equally committed to their understanding of authenticity, the fixed group will continue to incur more headaches as a result of fighting for the right to stay the same (i.e. “keeping it real”), as opposed to the growth-group who wants to maintain their flexibility so that they don’t fall apart when future shifts take place in society. So as an artist, I’m much more interested in defining my intrinsic value by the vision I have of myself in the future, as opposed to allowing my relevancy to be solely dictated by my past successes, which time will always take a toll on.  

Suggested Takeaways…

a) To define yourself by a set of attributes you think you need to embody to achieve and maintain your vision of success, is much more useful than that of a fixed mindset about your capabilities, as embedded in this idea is the knowledge that you can fall short of your goal for as long as it takes to reach if you don’t quit.

b) If the value of anything has more to do with what something does, as opposed to what it is, then what exactly is the value of having a fixed mindset if you’re already frustrated with your lot in life?

c) Every time you learn something about someone else (especially those you look up to), you earn a new lens by which to see the world through. So if we can only see the world as we are, and not as it truly is, then it means that it would be advantageous to us all to procure as many “lens’” as we can, so that it strengthens our prescription, and subsequent view of the world.

Music & Sleep: What wind instruments can teach us about our sleep habits.

While sleep is crucial for the rejuvenation of our health each day, it’s obviously the quality of our rest that matters more than the length. So while the impractical notion of condensing 8 hours of sleep into 1 would be attractive for overachievers, there’s still a decent amount of wiggle room for us all to move the needle ever so slightly towards this end.

Depending upon who you are, you may not know that the sole purpose of a tuning slide on a brass instrument, or mouth piece on a wood wind instrument, is to simply get you within a range where you can comfortably blow your horn without having to overcompensate with your embouchure to keep a note in tune. However, the stronger your embouchure and air support is (think force of air against a door frame), the easier it’ll be to keep a note in tune, regardless of the number of mechanical defects a horn has. Case in point, when a friend of mine let me borrow his soprano sax years ago, I didn’t realize until I sat in on someone’s gig that the ENTIRE upper register of his horn was a ½ step flat! Luckily I figured it out quickly, and was able to adjust on the fly. But had I not had the strength of my embouchure to keep notes half way in tune, it would have turned out much worse.

Now as an advanced society, it’s clear that we’re always seeking ways to maximize our effectiveness without sacrificing sustainability. So just like a musician who has to toy around with figuring out where the sweet spot is between maximum sound and control of said sound, I also believe that we have to toy around with finding where the sweet spot is between the least number of hours we can afford to sleep without sacrificing our alertness throughout the day. Therefore, if the position of our tuning slides and mouth pieces are like the duration of our sleep, then our embouchure and air support would be analogous to the blood flow needed to function properly throughout the day. And having tested this theory on myself over the past 20 years, I have found that the results are still consistent, in that when I personally get 5 to 6 hours of sleep, coupled with my morning routine of:

1) Drink one bottle of water

2) Full body stretch (30 minutes)

3) 100 sit ups, 100 oblique crunches (both sides), 100 flutter kicks, 100 standing twists, 50 side leg raises (for lower back support), and 50 push ups.

I can still stay awake for the rest of the day, even if on a rare occasion it involves me getting as little as one hour of sleep over a 24+ hour stretch. That said, filling my nutritional gaps with supplements for the past 18 years has been critical to my ability to maintain this kind of pace. So again, while the amount of sleep you get just gets you within firing range for being functional on a given day, it’s ultimately a mixture of diet and exercise (blood flow) that will carry you through your day with the alertness you want.   

Suggested Takeaways…

a) It’s not the amount of sleep you get, it’s the quality of sleep you get. So after you’ve ruled out that your nutrition, exercise, and bed are on point, it’ll become much easier to draw a bullseye around the number of hours you can realistically afford to get by on for your body to repair itself.

b) The number of hours you sleep are to your mouth piece or tuning slide position, what adequate blood flow and nutrition is to your embouchure and air support.

c) To dial in your exercise, nutrition, sleep, and bed situation is truly a forward failing proposition. But the number of insights you’ll learn along the way about yourself and why your tendencies are what they are, will yield dividends for years to come.

Sort by Price: The Value of Artistic Expression

An inability to assess the real value of something leaves us with no other recourse but to evaluate it against something more familiar. And in a world where speed is a virtue, the idea of stopping to smell the roses (long enough to assess value) sounds more like a cliché than a practical habit. Therefore, when you can’t ascertain the value of one thing over another, a race to the bottom where the lowest price wins ends up being the deciding factor.

One of the realities of freelancers is that we don’t scale, as only we can do the work that we do. Therefore, we must either trade a ton of time servicing lots of clients/customers, or we must work to obtain a smaller number of better clients/customers who have more income and a palette for the work we do. And the most tried and true way to cross this chasm has always been to market what you do for the smallest viable audience you can, as they’ll distribute all the heavy lifting among themselves to connect you to others that share their aesthetic. What’s great about this is that you don’t have to over commit both your time and resources to mass marketing strategies, as that would negate the idea of reaching the smallest viable audience. So once you determine who your audience is (i.e. people who share your beliefs), then you go all-in on talking to these people about what you do, and why they might care. Now I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight this one extra perspective, as I think it’s one that’s often overlooked.

When you think about the popularity of sports over the arts, it’s because there are a number of media outlets where practitioners of a sport have been allowed to control the narrative of their sport. And even if someone has never played a sport, they can still learn to interpret the game in a way that connects them in an authentic way to the tribes of people who actually play those sports, due to their understanding having been informed by credible sources. But when it comes to something like music, most people’s understanding of it is informed by people whose insights aren’t as well developed as that of a professional athlete giving commentary on the sport that they play. So when you compound the obscurity of this type of analysis towards music, coupled with the lack of exposure that people have to watching and hearing world-class musicians (which isn’t always synonymous with being world famous), there should be no wonder as to why there’s such a giant discrepancy between our collective imagination of what it even means to be a professional athlete versus a professional musician. So again, without the requisite understanding of what makes high level music what it is, why would the public have any other reason but to apply a sort-by-price metric to the music they choose to consume?

Suggested Takeaways…

a) It’s arguable that throughout the history of the world, all great civilizations have been weighed more by their artistic contributions as opposed to the strength of their military or GDP. So to increase the premium on our focus for high level forms of artistic expression could really shift the way we all connect to one another across cultural, political, and religious isles.

b) Developing a personal relationship with the smallest viable audience you can for your product and/or service, presupposes that that audience will tell others like themselves about you and what you do so that it gives them yet another reason to deepen their relationships to one another (i.e. tribalism).

c) If you don’t control your narrative, someone else will.

The Rhythm of Life: Rhythmic sensitivity in music, life, and business.

When I was a student at Rutgers University in the early 2000’s, my drum instructor was the great Ralph Peterson Jr. And in one of our lessons he said to me that the art of playing perfectly in time had less to do with playing perfect quantized time, and more to do with being sensitive enough to catch when the tempo starts to slip and adjusting accordingly. And from that one simple statement, I was liberated from years of having felt handcuffed by the thought of what I’d have to do if and when I ever find myself in a situation where I suddenly couldn’t trust my internal alert system to keep me on the straight and narrow. So allow me to explain how I not only solved this problem for myself, but what the larger implications can be when we extrapolate this idea into the realm of life and leadership.

The act of being sensitive enough to catch shifts in anything has to do with our familiarity of the thing we’re observing. So when I started observing how my body and mind felt about the steadiness of my ideas when practicing them in two bpm increments, I learned to identify the subtle differentiating signs of what it feels like to play tempos that are really close together. So when I take the metronome away, all I’m doing is approximating my memory of what it feels like to play ideas at a given tempo. Therefore, like any relationship, there will always be an uneasy period of having to reestablish rapport with your internal alert system (for tempo stability) when your relationship to a metronome has become estranged.

Now the life lesson here has to do with the value of consistency and measurement of progress. As they say, “winners are trackers.” For example, a friend of mine told me that his dad circumvented a major heart attack not too long ago when he admitted himself into the hospital after noticing that his body felt different on a run that he normally does. And because his routines in life were pretty consistent, he deduced that what he felt was worth investigating. And to his surprise it certainly was! For had he not done so, my buddy might be without a father today. And as for a leadership perspective, the question becomes “how familiar are you with the routines of your organization?” Are their tasks all over the place, or are they pretty streamlined to where everyone is basically handling tasks that are in line with their job/task description and strength zone? After all, the hallmark of any good leader is one where they’re able to feel the micro shifts in efficiency and morale before the people in their charge, so as to adjust accordingly.  

Suggested Takeaways…

a) When practicing with a metronome, focus on assessing your ability to detect micro shifts in your rhythmic timing as opposed to proving that you can play an idea in time. Now granted, this might sound like double talk, but the benefits of shifting your focus like this is WAY more useful.

b) The value of being sensitive to anything is that it allows you to predict how a butterfly effect might play out before anyone else.

c) Everything we do communicates something about us. And the majority of what we use to filter the messages that come our way are related to rhythmic timing (i.e. investing, cooking/baking, sex, speech patterns, crawling/walking/running, submission of deadlines, etc.)

Balancing Act: How to Establish Good Priorities.

The contents of this blog might be one of the most important set of ideas that I’ll ever put forth into the world. And after having spent an inordinate amount of time wrestling with these thoughts, I now feel comfortable enough to stand behind them…starting with the notion that now is the time to audit our blueprints for survival and success, so as to assess how well they really served us in the past, and how well they’ll serve us in the future.

As I’ve mentioned in several other blog posts, this idea of mission and terrain really helps to simplify our thinking, as they ask “what needs to be done,” and “where does it need to be done at, and what are the obstacles that need to be addressed?” So here’s what I think is the magic syllabus that we’ve all been looking for this whole time.

Mission

• To sustain human existence.

Terrain

• Where does it need to be done: Global Market Economy (unless you live off the grid)

• Obstacles to overcome: Create a great relationship with yourself, friends, family, and loves ones; find a financial vehicle that supports that; teach someone else how to do these two steps.

One of the top questions on everyone’s mind always comes down to how to maintain the right work/life balance. But because balance requires at least two points, most people never develop a sense of balance because they’ve never really asked themselves “what do I want, and when do I want it.” Which, at the end of the day, is simply a pacing issue, as I don’t believe that anyone is adverse to hard work. I do, however, believe that like running a race, most people’s commitment level towards something is based upon their belief about their ability to finish on time. For example, if you bet someone that they couldn’t run across a street in under 30 seconds, anyone would take that bet. But if you bet someone to run a mile in under 6 minutes, most people would opt out after a simple physical (and sometimes ego-centric) cost-benefit analysis on whether it’s worth it. So again, this is a pacing issue, because no one wants to enter a race if they feel they can’t go the distance. But if you can see the path you need to take, and the sacrifices make sense based upon your timeline, then it makes it easier to go all in on your goals, as well as to articulate to others why your balancing act looks the way it does. Which ironically enough, might make it easier for people to then imagine how they can help you along your journey.

With the first half of the terrain issue (i.e. pacing) having now been established, the second relates to the narrative that says that our value begins at a job (i.e. “obstacles to overcome”). Don’t get me wrong, jobs are fine. However, for anyone reading this, at no point during your time in the educational system did you have the message marketed to you that the function of school was to help you to learn how to become financially independent and/or how to own a business. The message was marketed as “you need to get a good education so you can hopefully land a good job with good benefits.” More importantly, no serious discussions were ever had on how to diversify your imagination for what a sustainable lifestyle could look like in different parts of the world. Instead, what most of us learned was how to land a full-time job that’ll probably only support a part-time lifestyle. So again, because little to NO conversation is ever had about how to prepare oneself for different types of lifestyles, is why the idea of “lifestyle” is treated so tangentially to the predominate conversations around employment. Which is ironic, because the main reason why we work is to earn money to fund the type of idyllic lifestyle we think we’ll be satisfied with. So when I see people, especially in the arts, who say they love what they do, yet their strategy isn’t moving them towards their non-specific “lifestyle,” it’s like watching a wolf bleed out from the tongue after licking their wounded foot, even though it's caught in a double-sided bladed snare. They’re literally killing themselves without even knowing it, and that’s tragic.

With this new downturn in the economy, it has forced people to contend with the underlying fears that have always been there but are now on front street. And that fear is telling them “what happens to the value of your profession when the marketplace has rendered it non-essential?” Furthermore, when your value is based upon what you do, and not the lifestyle you’ve been able to create for yourself and family, that fear will lead you to believe that your intrinsic value is only as high or useful as the marketplace says you occupation is. So for us musicians, now is a perfect time to reassess the story we told ourselves years ago about why we REALLY wanted to do what we do. For many, I believe they thought that it would be a great way to make some pseudo easy money from doing what they’ve always done. But the realities are that the music business, like any business, exists to make money. So it makes sense to me that an artist learn to see themselves like a business if they want to stay in the game a while. Besides, given all the stories in history where ones artistic vision was squelched by the vision of someone else who had some kind of financial leverage over them, makes me think that it makes more sense to initially bootstrap your “business” through a job so that you can avoid “taking out loans” to get your artistic voice out there on your own terms. So if your job is your plan A, then your music career is your plan B. And if you’re still motivated after work to work on honing your skills, then it goes to show that you might have what it takes to go the distance, should you choose to eventually make your plan B your plan A.

In wrapping this up, the obstacle to overcome for a musician (but is really applicable to everyone) is simply the ability to generate the requisite amount of money needed to fund a lifestyle that affords you the ability to schedule music in your life however you see fit. So if you can get a job that pays you well enough, and allots you the free time to keep growing as a musician, then perhaps that’s a good fit for you. But again, you’ll never know which financial vehicle will serve you best for getting you to your lifestyle destination if you don’t know what that destination even looks like. Which, of course, will inform you of how long it should realistically take to get there.   

Suggested takeaways…

a) One of the best ways to know if you’re really serious about music is to get a job that pays the bills. If you do, yet you’re still anxious to practice after work, then you probably have what it takes to eventually go the distance with music full time. So again, when your basic financial needs are being met, you can be more strategic with how you invest your time, energy, and resources into music. But without a financial cushion, you may find your time stretched in more ways than you care to have it stretched, all because you can’t afford to say NO to the gigs that add little value to you, either musically or financially.

b) None of anything I’ve mentioned will mean anything unless you map out in great detail the vision you have for your lifestyle, and how much it’s going to cost you, both financially and within your typical habits and routines.

c) The legacy of every artist is predicated upon their point of view. And that POV is only as valuable as the number of people that adopt it. So when we know how we want to interact with them, it’ll also color how we think to construct our lifestyle. After all, unless you’re a hermit, what good is creating a lifestyle that you can’t share with anyone else?

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.

The Truth About Myths

The truth about myths are that they’re inductive arguments, and we’ve been swallowing them our entire lives. So when people begin to wrestle with a myth, two camps emerge.

a)  They’ll decide there’s not enough positive evidence to justify the continued support of the myth.

or…

b)   They’ll embrace the myth as a means of ensuring their survival in society, even if they don’t fully agree with the myth. And it’s these people that prefer the devil they can see as opposed to the one they can’t.

I bring this up because I’m becoming increasingly aware that what we’re all doing out here in this world is engaging in the trafficking of ideas, both proven and unproven. And marketing exists to monetize both. And since ideas predate action, is the reason why it’s helpful to have as much insight as possible into why and how ideas spread the way they do.

As you know we’re pack animals. And since our lizard brain exists to keep us alive, it means that when we’re put in an uncomfortable position, that brain will signal us to either flee, attack, or create an ally with the threat. But when the threat is simply an idea, the only options are to accept or attack it. But what’s rarely admitted, or even realized, is that regardless of our choice, our decisions are always made in the name of moving us towards a sense of connectedness with a pack that we believe will have our back in this world. But without a crew, we’ll possibly spend the rest of our lives contending with the fact that the volume knob on our lizard brain is stuck on 11, due to our inability to relax and trust that there’s anyone out there who’s willing to guard our six.

In the case of letter A, this person would be someone who’s brave enough to entertain a mindset that stands in contrast to the pack (i.e. parents, loved ones, friends, co-workers, teachers). In other words, they’ve calculated that it makes more sense to lean towards the arc of their new truth. And this decision will be fueled by either the encouragement of their growth minded pack, or from some other inner strength of resolve to follow their own muse despite the bond with their pack.

In the case of letter B, I believe this to be the most pitiful and common of scenarios. This is where someone who has become awakened to their unfulfilled potential begins to get restless. And as they explore new ways of thinking and being, they know they risk either being ex-communicated from the pack or stifled by it. If they allow themselves to be stifled by it, it’s because they don’t want to bring undo attention to the growth gap that secretly exists between them and the others, for fear of being a target of ridicule (myth). And as it stands, many would rather contend with predictable pain as opposed to the unpredictable kind. After all, if you can predict it, you can brace yourself. If you can’t, the fear is that the blow may be so great that it kills your will to get up to fight another day (myth). At any rate, when your crew sucks, your decision to outgrow them can create disorder in the court, as your growth will serve as an indictment for the lack of theirs. And for many, this type of cognitive dissonance is hard to reconcile because while you feel a sense of blind loyalty towards the crew that has nurtured you up until this point, you still feel compelled to lean towards the arc of your new truth, which may very well force you to walk alone in the end, until you can rebuild another pack. Thus, it’s within the loneliness of this transition from one normal to a new normal that you’ll find out if you’re just a follower or a leader who’s worth following one day.

I write this piece to help normalize the struggle that so many people experience along their journey of “becoming,” because like they say, “new levels, new devils.” So while there will always be new skill sets to acquire along the journey towards the summit of our potential, I believe our fear is really all the same. And it comes from the dilemma of either being bold enough to expose ourselves to the chance of failing so miserably that we’re compelled to accept a sense of internal defeat, or the fear of always wondering “what if” if we fail to launch ourselves into the unknown. And so I’m here to tell you that you’ll never regret the leap into the unknown if you walk into it with the right attitude/mindset, and possibly partner or team. After all, if you’re supposed to be writing your own story, what kind of worthwhile content could you possibly drum up if you idle your way through life? So don’t write a boring and uninspiring story. For god’s sake, make it worth reading!

Suggested takeaways…

a) Myth’s are all the little “truisms” that have been bequeathed to you by others and serve as the framework of your internal constitution, for better or worse. So take note of every little saying you’ve ever adopted and figure out who gave you that truth and why. Then ask whether or not it will continue to serve you well as you venture towards the next base camp in your life.

b) Accept no myth at face value. Do the math! If it doesn’t add up, be willing to stand alone if you must (even if this applies to your own family). It may be hard, but worth it in the end.

c) As you grow, know that certain people won’t be equipped to continue along your journey. So learn to be okay with this. However, if you choose your friends wisely, the real ones will always be with you, whether on the field or in the stands cheering you on.

How to Land a Gig

In paraphrasing Quincy Jones, the day I learned to draw a line in the concrete between music and the music business, it too was the beginning of the rest of my life. So while “music” is the art of creating music, the music business is the art of selling music. And if you don’t understand the terrain of the latter, then you’re DOA, as we’d say in the military.

Now like the military, you don’t win battles when you lack knowledge of the terrain you have to navigate. And as it stands, there are many aspiring music professionals whose dreams of a prosperous future are being led to the slaughterhouse because they’re not being briefed well enough on what the rules of engagement will be once they deploy their skills in the “real world.”

Within the battlefield of Jazz, regarding how musicians monetize their efforts, those battles have always been waged on three fronts: small venues, education, festivals. But in all actuality, small venues and the education system have always been the bedrock under which this music has maintained its relevance in society. But for the working musician, the battle is really fought in the small venues throughout the world. So with that said, let’s take a look at what that looks like for securing a gig as both a leader and a side musician.

Leader

The first thing you need to know is that for many small-business owners, it took them getting a loan from a bank (or several) to open their doors. And for many of them the most readily available piece of collateral they had to secure their loan with was their home. Therefore, by definition, someone’s business is in effect a second residence for them. So when you reach out to a venue owner to ask for a gig in their “house” before rapport is built, it can send a message to the owner that your relationship with them is purely conditional. Meaning that, if there’s no opportunity on the table to perform, then you’re not going to be a loyal supporter of them and their establishment. So what may feel like a sterile business interaction to you, may be taken personally by them (depending on their temperament). So if you don’t come correct, you might get put in the “friend zone” without ever knowing it. And 90% of the time they’ll never be transparent enough with you to tell you this, thus leaving you to continue scratching your head while you watch everyone else get the performance opportunities you want. So as John C. Maxwell always says, “you have to ask for a heart before you ask for a hand.”   

Side Musician

There are two ways that you can go about getting a gig with someone, and both present their advantages and disadvantages.  

Narrow: This means you’ve keyed in on one or more particular people whose band you want to join. So the way to approach this is by learning their book of music SO WELL that you leave them no logical option but to hire you; or at least open other doors for you and them to work together in another capacity. The upside is that you’ll know exactly how to invest your practicing. The downside is that you might not get hired, thus leaving you to possibly feel like all that work was for nothing. However, like exercising, there’s never really a downside from doing it.

Wide: This means that you’ve taken the time to learn as many songs as possible across a wide array of genres. The upside is that you’ll probably become employable across the widest demographic there is. The downside is that it may take longer to develop a depth of understanding within any genre of music, due to having to spread yourself so thin. And if you’re starting this process as an adult who’s trying to live off of performing, you may find yourself skimming over many important musical details in order to quickly get your name out there as someone who’s worthy of being hired.

Suggested takeaway’s….

a) Business IS personal. So when you approach someone about a gig in their venue, your approach should be to figure out how to bring more value to them and their business FIRST. After all, they have what you want, not the other way around!

b) Just like getting a gig at a venue, the best way to show that you care about a leader and their music is to show up to their gigs. By doing this, it’s a show of how committed you are to learning their music the right way. So not only do you get to hear how the songs are to be played, but you also get to develop rapport with the leader in advance.

c) If you want to develop a reputation for being a super well rounded musician, then the best way to do so is to go to as many shows around town as possible to get a sense of what constitutes a “standard” in your area. After all, what’s the point in learning a bunch of songs that you can’t play with anyone in your area. So just like learning someone’s book of music, you can apply the same concept on a regional scale.

As always, leave a comment to let me know what you agree or disagree with. So let’s talk soon!

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Until a year ago I hadn’t paid too much attention to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion space. But now that I sit on a board called “TASTE for Equity,” as well as the Ambassador Council for Habitat for Humanity here in Portland, OR. I’ve come into contact with many awesome people in my area who have a strong desire to move the needle of fairness towards that of a more just society. That said, I’ve noticed one striking similarity between the way people talk about this kind of work and the way Jazz music is taught and talked about in schools.

“To change a narrative, sometimes you have to change the narrator.” -Lou Radja

First off, language matters! It matters because the words we use not only communicate who we are and where we’re from, but what we value at the cellular level. And given that DEI is really a round-about way of comfortably addressing the residue of slavery and women’s rights so no one gets uncomfortable enough to walk out of a room, I find that the language of Western European Classical music is also used to soften the edges around how the musical contributions of many black Jazz musicians throughout history are understood. But the reason why so many people miss the mark is because the one ingredient that’s missing is how to deal with the Blues. And the problem with it is that it predates the formulaic structures of Bebop, which are much easier to understand through the analytic gaze of a European Classical lens, as it relies less on harmonic inventiveness and more on rhythm and the brash and seductive emotive qualities associated with black culture. So when you don’t come from this culture, you risk opening an emotional Pandora’s box of insight into why we are the way we are if you get close enough to really find out. It’s one thing to sympathize with someone if you can intellectualize their situation from a safe vantage point, but another entirely if you choose to walk alongside them with your finger on their pulse. And so the “tell” in this situation will undoubtedly be your language, as the cultural fidelity of the ear is always the most reliable indicator of cultural familiarity than anything else. So when conversations around DEI are happening, I find that the narrative is usually given from the stance of how the minority and women empowerment issue can be fixed through the lens of a white gaze. But that’s like going for a 5 minute medical exam where the doctor takes one look at you, asks one or two questions, and then fills out a prescription. We’re always going to be suspect of the substance of such an analysis.

Now here’s an interesting thought. In the same way that COIVD-19 organically lowered our emission levels without a fancy government plan, the same type of top-down approaches used in addressing DEI issues in the workplace could be rendered just as unnecessary if adults learned how to suddenly play nice with one another. Remember, structural inequities are just social interactions gone awry at scale. So in the same way that it’s tough to get a group of musicians on the same sheet of paper when their understanding of a given style isn’t completely the same, it’s also just as challenging to get people to align their beliefs about the here and now when they have a different interpretation of the past that got us to where we are today.

Suggested takeaways…

a) Structural inequities within both the workplace and politics are really reflections of the stories that have been told and believed over time about certain groups of people and their perceived value.  

b) If we’re to create a real impact with the work of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, then we have to start with more than just a cursory understanding of the past several hundred years if we’re to effectively right the wrongs of our nation’s past.

c) Transformative learning happens when two or more people can access each other’s language through actual lived experiences with one another.