About My Bad Relationship With Music...

Well , on today's episode , i'm gonna get a little bit vulnerable with you , share a little bit my personal life experience with music , my journey with music and How oftentimes in this journey of playing music and exploring it and getting better , it was quite an abusive and unhealthy Relationship , and this past of mine with a bad relationship with music has greatly

informed how I approach teaching jazz and the way I help my Inner circle members and beyond so that they don't have the same relationship with music for themselves . Alright , so this is gonna be an important one , so definitely tune on in and let's jump right into it . All right , everybody , what's up ?

Brent , here , i am a jazz coach , professional jazz musician , i am the director of learn jazz standards and I am here to help you learn how to play jazz , all Shortening the learning curve , no matter what instrument you play .

And I'm so excited that you're here today , because that means you're someone who wants to improve your relationship with music , become a better jazz musician , have more fun than you've ever had in your entire life playing music . Isn't that the reason why we all do this in the first place ?

Isn't that the reason why you're an aficionado Like , why you actually go out and you listen to a jazz podcast ? It's because , ultimately , you want to have more fun playing music .

So I'd love to share with you my story today again , open up a little bit , give you a little bit of , i guess , be a little bit Vulnerable with you today and share my story about how I've very often in the past had a bad relationship with music . And that might sound very shocking for some to hear , because You know , this is my life , this is my career .

I teach other people how to play music , but my intention of sharing this with you is To help you avoid some of these mindsets and mistakes that I made in the past when I was especially really trying to improve and get better as a musician .

Because , ultimately , one of the biggest reasons why I do what we , what I do you know We all have our whys for what we do in our life , in our career , but one of the biggest reasons why I do learn jazz standards and I serve our inner circle members and I do this podcast is because I want Everyone who wants to play jazz and who wants to play music to ,

rather than building a relationship built on being unsatisfied , being upset with their playing , feeling a constant state of distress or fear around playing with other musicians .

Like , instead of having all those feelings , i want to show how it's possible To learn how to play music and actually start playing it at a high level , without all of that extra baggage that so many of us carry around with us , right , and so that's why I'm sharing this story with you today and giving you a little bit of my background with this .

So let's start way far at the beginning , right , and again , some of this is me gonna be psychoanalyzing myself . Others of it . I've had , actually professional help with understanding some of this in the past .

So , going way back , growing up as a kid , i did not grow up in a very musical family , not that , you know , we didn't listen to music at all , but you know and really played an instrument . There wasn't a big variety of music . We definitely weren't listening to jazz in the household .

Okay , and a lot of my siblings that come from a family of Seven there is five , five kids in the family , me being the second oldest and a lot of my siblings were very great academically right , like very you know , smart , you know good in school , and it's not that I was horrible in school , it just that that wasn't really my forte .

It was pretty clear early on that I was a creative mind right , that I was good at writing stories . That's what I did well at In in school .

I was , i was good at imagining things and building things and ultimately discovered that , hey , i actually really enjoyed music right and and my dad is a very , a very educated man , he's a PhD and in chem and chemistry right , and he's a chemo , he was growing up anyways , he was a chemical engineer . That was what he did .

So you know , i feel like a lot of those genes My my siblings had right .

So I say all that not to bore you , but just simply tell you that , like , i had a different role in my family and That identity that I started latching on to was that of a creative type , someone in the family who what my thing that I was good at was creativity and ultimately that led me to music right , and so , naturally , when , when someone feels that

way , when someone has a role that they're creating in a family unit or whatever it happens to be , you start really latching on to the identity , right ? And so what naturally happens as well with that is your self-worth starts becoming , you know , more attached than it should be , of course , to that identity .

So , in other words , how good I am at music means a lot , right , and so I really developed that at an early age and started carrying that with me even into my adulthood right Now . Of course , there's always like pros and cons to these sort of things .

Like you latch onto this identity and you grow a passion for something like music , it means that you pursue it really hard , that you take it very seriously and therefore you improve . And that's exactly what I did . I practiced a lot , i was in the practice room a lot and I took it very seriously and I cared a lot about it .

But at the very same time , there was always this comparison game going on to my peers . And raise your hand for a second , if you can relate to that , right , if , when you play music and you're trying to play jazz solos and all that , you are constantly comparing yourself with somebody else that you know who can play better than you , right ?

So it's again this idea of self identity being tied into how well do I play music and that competitive mindset that can creep in very easily .

And so this really began for me while I was in high school , right , and I was in high school band and I was doing all these things and oftentimes I was one of the better players , but then sometimes I wasn't and there was another musician who was better than me .

And that's where that self doubt or that intention of why I play music starts to shift right . So , instead of playing music for the reason I got into it , right , you start developing this attitude of I'm playing music so I can get better , and if I'm not as good as I want to be , i'm unsatisfied .

And when you're in this state of feeling unsatisfied , ultimately you're in a state of distress constantly .

And when it comes to improving with music or , of course , you'll recognize this as being true about improving on anything in life there has to be a bit of a balancing act of feeling a little bit unsatisfied so that it propels you to actually take action and improve , right , you have to have some sort of desire to improve , and so naturally , one of those

emotions that you're gonna feel to drive you to that point is feeling a little bit unsatisfied with where you're at right . However , in the extreme right , if you're constantly just unhappy with where you're at , you start to lose the joy of what you're actually doing and the purpose of which you are playing . Music right changes .

The purpose becomes now to become the best musician , or to become better than you are now , or to try to reach the point where you sound just as good as fill in the blank right .

And while on the face of that , there's nothing 100% wrong with that , when that becomes your entire identity , when that becomes why you play music , a lot of other unintended consequences start to roll out . So what did that look like for me , right ? So then we fast forward a little bit .

We go to college , right , and so you know , naturally , in my social circles , at the end of high school , a lot of my friends were going off to college right And so and also I mentioned my dad's an educated person So in our family that'd be a very normal thing to do is to go to college , right , and so that's , of course , what my plan was , and I wanted

to go to music school . But I also discovered at the end of high school that I really wanted to play jazz .

Like that I gained this huge passion for jazz , and jazz really opened up this even bigger Pandora's box of like feeling like I needed to improve quickly , right , because when I discovered jazz , i was into like very virtuosic styles before , like I was in a prog rock band and so I was into that stuff and improv and stuff , but jazz was like whoa , it's virtuosic

. Like if you listen to the best jazz musicians , like they're really good , like you very much so start feeling the gap from where you are now to where you want to be , and so raise your hand really quick .

If you've ever felt like that , or if you feel like that right now And I'm pretty sure you know , if I were to have all of you listen to this podcast in a stadium right now , i would see like a large amount of you raising your hand that this is something that you felt before with jazz . It just seems a little bit overwhelming and intimidating .

And to add on top of that , you know , when I started getting into jazz , i was actually surrounded by a small community of others who were diehards and some of the best musicians of my age in the city that I grew up in , right , and so actually I was starting to go into a pool of musicians that were much better than me , and so you sense that gap a lot

more And again that identity of , oh , i'm a musician and I play music . Well , you need to feed that monster , right . And so that keeps

going forward . So I'm gonna go to college , right , but I wanna go to college for jazz , and I didn't get quite the scholarships that I wanted to go to some of these schools that had good jazz programs . I sort of I got into all of them , but I didn't really have all the money that I wanted to , and so , right there , that was immediately a relationship .

I was starting with jazz and I'm starting with music . That was unhealthy , because suddenly I felt like a ready before I had even started . I had failed at being good enough to accomplish what I wanted to in the music .

I mean , and let's put aside the fact that you really don't need to go to college to become a great musician , or you know , of course I was trying to be a professional musician and most of you listen to this podcast . That's not the goal , it's .

You just wanna play it better as the thing you do for fun , but you know already that's starting to set up an even worse relationship than was already being developed there , right , a worse mindset with music than would be ideal . And so I did stay back for a year . Many who listen to this podcast will recognize this story .

I stayed back a year between high school and college and I worked with the teacher and I did some very extreme practicing , which was all really great , really jumped started me . I got some scholarships going into college the next year , but essentially I learned a hundred jazz standards in one year . I learned 32 bars of a solo every single week .

I played gigs every single week . It was great in a lot of ways . But at the same time as I was doing that , the goal was I need to get good enough fast , right , good enough fast so that I can get scholarships .

I need to go to college the colleges I want to go to , so that I can again keep feeding this desire , this need to be the best musician around , right . And so the amount of practicing I was doing like five and up to like eight hours of practicing a day , right , that's a lot of practicing was great as far as like getting good at music fast , right .

But it was also this thing where , even more so , my identity started becoming , even more about being a musician .

Cause , while I was seeing other friends go off to college , while I was , you know , seeing everybody else do something different with their life , i was here trying to become good enough of a musician to start accomplishing some of my goals , right , and I know that this story isn't gonna be what it is for a majority of you .

But , again , what I want you to keep doing is listening in for some of these mindsets and beliefs that I had that perhaps you have right now .

Right , perhaps your goal , and most likely your goal , is not to go to college for music or to become a professional musician , but many of you can relate to this idea of feeling this identity around being a good musician like you're that guy who plays the saxophone right , your friends know that you play the saxophone , you joined your local big band or the local

jam session , and now you feel inferior , right , these are feelings that start to creep in around music , and it comes in there because we care about it a lot , right , and because the desire to sound great , to have that thrill of sounding that great , becomes so high , right . So We continue on into college , right for me .

I go to college and a very interesting thing that someone told me it was a senior at the college I was at and I asked if I could have a little jam with him . He was another guitar player . We sat down . This is like within the first couple weeks of me going to college .

We sat down for a jam together and he told me like right after we were done playing a couple songs , he's like hey , brand , i want to let you know like your body language is really tense When you're playing your instrument , like your shoulders are shrugged up , and I can kind of tell that that that tense Playing the way you're approaching your instrument is

bleeding into the way you're playing right . And so what he was seeing is he was seeing that there was stress and anxiety In my body language when I was trying to play my instrument right . And why was there stress and anxiety ?

I was playing with a good guitar player In in a city that I , that was much bigger than the city I grew up in , and so My mindset wasn't around hey , let's get together and learn something from playing with this guy , or Let's do this or that .

My mindset was like I need to play better than I am playing right now , or that they have the ability to play right now because I need to play really good for this guy . I want to impress this person , i want to be better than I am right now . And so what happens ?

naturally , if that's the way you're thinking about music and playing , you're going to tense your body up , right , because your body is reacting to stress . I'm approaching playing music out of stress , stress , and so raise your hand right now .

If that's how you've ever approached taking a solo or Improvisation or going out and playing at a jam , right , it starts with a feeling of stress versus a feeling of relaxation , and I'll never forget This was a couple years later in college , at a different school .

There was this bass player Who you know Wasn't the best bass player , he wasn't a horrible bass player , it just that you know He was missing a few things , right , and but one thing he did love is he loved going to the practice rooms , and any time I went up to the practice rooms , this guy was there with his headphones on , playing his bass .

And One time I went up to him and I said Hero , you're just , you're playing , you're practicing all the time . What's up with that , right cuz ?

like , even though I practiced a lot too like this guy was always practicing and he was like , yeah , i just find it relaxing , right , i just find it relaxing to come up here and play my bass , and that was , that was a real realization for me . You know that The way that this particular person was approaching music was the opposite of the way that I approached

the music . I approached the music from the state of very seriousness , like We need to improve all the time , we need to get better at music all the time , almost like this do or die mentality . And of course you know that maybe I'm also just kind of wired that way , a bit of a high achiever .

But this guy was approaching music from relaxation right , from being relaxed , from enjoying himself .

And Another college story is we were doing this Exercise in a class where we were going and playing quote-unquote free , so whatever we wanted to play no core progressions , no songs We were playing over and so , one by one , we would go up and play free by ourself in front of the class .

And This particular time I did my little free performance and one of my classmates said , brent , i've never heard you Play and sound so relaxed before . So Somehow , while I was praying , playing free , and from the class there , i was able to channel this feeling that I don't normally approach music with .

I usually approach music with am I playing the right Notes ? am I playing the way so-and-so would play who I've been studying with ? am I doing this ? am I doing that right , instead of just going like let's play and see what happens .

And so at that moment I was able to challenge that let's , let's just play and see what happens and forget about everything else .

And so Someone noticed that , and that always stuck with me as well , like , oh wait a second , perhaps the way that I approach playing music and improving at music Isn't the most ideal way to do it , or isn't the best way to do it for the long term , or isn't the way that is actually producing the most joy for me .

Now , of course , i did an episode a while back about performance anxiety .

I talked about my personal story with Overcoming performance , performance anxiety and I gave a bunch of tips around that , but I also shared a little bit of this kind of story that I'm sharing with you today and , of course , when you approach music with this mindset , these unhealthy Mindsets that I'm talking to you about today , performance anxiety is much more likely

to happen , right ? because you're automatically going to compare yourself with the other people in the room . You're gonna worry more about what you sound like and you're even gonna be afraid to listen back to what you sound like . Raise your hand really quickly , if you've ever felt like that before , right ? Ooh , i just recorded myself . I'm scared to listen back .

So we have to ask ourselves Why are we scared to listen back ? What are we so afraid of hearing ? We're afraid that The truth will come out , that the things that we've been telling ourselves , like you know what , i am too old to learn how to play music , or I started too late , or , oh sure it could be , i'm too young .

Right , i'm too young , it could be , i'm just not talented enough , right . That when we listen back to the recording , that is going to become evident and we're gonna have to face the reality . At least that's the way we perceive it , right ? So , again , this is a story , a narrative of my bad relationship with music .

Do I still have the same relationship with music today ? No , i do not have the same relationship with music today It is different . It doesn't mean that I still don't sometimes have a bad relationship with music .

It doesn't mean that there aren't times where I still experience some of the feelings that I'm referring to you today , but it is drastically different than it is today , because I've created a relationship with music that isn't based around myself worth being around it , not based around me needing to be the best player in the room or me needing to be at a level

of musicianship that I'm not already at right . I've developed that over time , and so that's the relationship I want you to have with music . And so what does a healthy relationship with music look like ?

So , for me , a healthy relationship looks like this , and it doesn't matter if what your aspirations for music or for playing jazz are , but to me it looks like I'm relaxed , i'm having fun and I'm playing because I enjoy it . Right , not I'm playing it because I need to get to a different level .

I'm playing because I enjoy it , and I enjoy the journey and the process of getting to the next level . Right , that's a really big difference . Right , it's a really big difference .

Also , a healthy relationship with music is not a judgment of how you sound now It's more of an objective viewpoint of like this is what I sound like now , and here is an opportunity to improve from here .

So , instead of going and playing at a jam session and hearing someone better than you , the opportunity there is to recognize that I'm learning from playing with this person or I'm gaining some knowledge , or even , if I'm offered a bit of critique , i've now just been given a gift of understanding how I can improve faster right .

So this is more the relationship of music that we want to embrace . A healthy relationship with music looks like one that is sustainable for you . Raise your hand if you've ever felt like I don't have enough time to practice right And that's demotivating for you , and then sometimes you even just resort to not practicing at all because of that belief .

I know that a lot of you can raise your hand on that and we'll have felt that way . I certainly used to feel that way , right . Well , one of the big things we teach in our Inner Circle membership is that you don't need to practice for a lot of hours in order to make a lot of progress with jazz , in order to make progress in your musicianship .

We can make lots of progress even with just a little bit of time . A couple episodes ago , i talked about the 1% mindset for improving as a jazz musician , right ? And that 1% mindset was simply what , if we just improved by 1% every practice session , what would that look like ? And sometimes that's not gonna look like practicing for five hours .

In fact , most of the time that's not gonna look like practicing for five hours . It's gonna look like intentional practicing for 30 minutes , right ? Or practicing something that gives you a lot of joy and therefore is sticking with you a lot better than practicing something that doesn't give you joy , right ?

So what I wanna ask you to do is to create a mindfulness around how you're feeling when you're playing music , and be mindful of that , because I feel like that's where it all starts is . Hey , am I having negative emotions while I'm playing music ? Am I having a negative reaction to listening back to recording of myself ?

And that's totally okay to be in that position right now , because the good news is the fact that you're aware of it means that you can start doing something about it , right , that you can start being like oh well , i don't need to feel bad about this . Or , hey , what is the positive outcome that I'm receiving right now .

I had someone recently mention in our inner circle membership that he was struggling with this particular concept that was coming up in a lesson , right , and he was kind of getting a little bit hung up on it , right That he didn't understand it completely , and I helped him reframe the mindset a little bit by saying well , what you've gained here is that little bit

more of understanding and , though , your very first encounter with this particular music theory topic , which will very much so come up time and time again in all the new jazz standards that you're gonna learn with us and all the other lessons that are coming up with us .

So what you've now done is you've raised your awareness of what this is , you've gained a very basic understanding what it is , and you've made some attempts to actually play that , and the idea is that today you're not going to master this topic , but over time you will become proficient in it .

It will happen , and so these are the mindsets that we want to start developing , not the I don't understand everything . Things are looking hard . I can't do this right now . Therefore let's stop . Or therefore I don't have enough time to practice , or fill in the blank , or I'm not talented enough . Fill in the blank , right ?

We want to develop this 1% improvement mindset over time Much more healthy mindset than I'm not good enough right now . I should have been better yesterday . I'm not as good as so-and-so . My whole identity is attached around being a better musician . Like all , these are not good relationships with music that we need to be actively combating .

And why should you actively combat them ? Right ? Because I firmly believe that if we do not improve our relationship with music , we will not improve at music and at jazz the way we want to . Over time , we will not improve because the secret to improving as a musician and getting to a high level of playing is long term motivation .

And if our motivation gets crushed by limiting beliefs , our motivation gets crushed by a bad relationship with music , we will quit , we will stop , we will keep practicing the same things over and over again and expecting different results and we will not get to where we want to go . And it becomes this vicious cycle , right ?

So we need to work on improving our relationship with music . I feel very happy today that I've made a lot of improvements with my relationship with music , and that's what I want for you .

That's one of the biggest reasons I do what I do in our inner circle membership because I really want people to love and enjoy playing music more than they ever have in their entire life .

Right , i don't want people to play music feeling negative emotions about what they're doing and ultimately just like losing the whole reason why they got into music in the first place . I want music to be fun . I want music to be achievable . I want music to be something that really enhances your life , not takes away from it .

So my call to action for you this week is what is your relationship with music ? Just establish what it is today , right now , and then the likelihood is there is some portion of your relationship with music that does have some negative qualities , and so what's one thing that you can do to start shifting that into a different direction ?

All right , my friends , so that's all for today's episode . Thank you so much for listening . I do appreciate you

. If you do need help with your jazz playing , want to continuously improve month after month , and do check out our LJS inner circle membership . That's where we learn one new jazz standard a month .

We have courses on pretty much everything you need to improve as a jazz musician And we have a lot of fun with a community of many like-minded musicians playing all sorts of instruments . It's a really good time in there .

So check it out ljsinnercirclecom is where you can do that , or find the link in the description of the show And we'll link that out to you and hope to see you in there . All right , we're going to count on another episode of the podcast coming up next week . Until then , happy practicing and cheers .