I'm Adam Manus, and I'm Peter Martin, and you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast.

Today we're going to give you some things great jazz musicians don't want you to know.

So we're talking insider secrets here.

A little bit of behind the scenes info.

All right.

Well, we might run into some trouble from the jazz, please, but I'm down. All right. Let's jump right in before they get here. All right. Number one, it's not actually that hard. Said the great jazz musician. What are you talking about? Well, this is something I think that we want everyone to think it's really hard because we think we're going to get paid more. We're going to get more respect. We're going to get more ladies interested in us. But look, the reality is, well, yeah, once you're good, it's not that hard. So it's hard to get to that point of being good, but that's more of a continuum of working, working. But a lot of the really good jazz players have been doing this since they were young, at least playing their instrument. And by the time they're teenagers often, they can play pretty good. So, I mean, it's a little bit like, and I'm not comparing myself, I'm comparing like Christian McBride. Oh, let's hear, let's hear. No, no, no, no. To, like, I mean, like LeBron James. I mean, it's not that hard for him to play that good.

For me to play like him, it would be impossible. Right. But I mean, I mean, the whole thing is like, he's not, yes, he's putting a lot of effort, but that's easy for him because he's good. So it actually isn't that hard.

Yeah, I always talk about, when people talk about, oh, this is hard,

I always say it's not hard, it's just unfamiliar. You know, that's the term that I was taught. It's like, if you familiarize yourself with anything, it becomes easy. That's the whole, that's why you practice, right? So you don't have to think so much. I mean, before, you know, when you started playing your instrument, just making a note was hard, and now it's not.

Right, right.

And we're talking about some things great jazz musicians don't want you to know. So, I mean, I think that's fair. And I think in terms of familiarity also leads to a certain comfort level. So there's like, it feels comfortable, it feels familiar, and it's just not that hard. All right. So number two is that all of the answers you're looking for are in the great recordings.

Now, what do we mean by this exactly?

Well, I think what it is is that there's no secret scrolls anywhere.

Actually, the secret scrolls are the recordings that are not only readily available.

Okay, cool, yeah, yeah.

But I mean, they're like freely available now.

You go to YouTube, you can basically learn everything that you need to know. Now, does that mean that you shouldn't think about going to Berkeley College of Music or Indiana or Michigan State or all these great jazz programs and give them some of your hard-earned parents' money to learn? Of course you should. you can have a great conservatory experience, but everything that you need to know to play is actually in these recordings. Yeah, I mean, literally everything that if you want something, you can go get them. And like you said, now you can get it pretty much for free. Yeah. You know what I mean? To go grab information that you love. It's not that hard. This is a good thing. It comes back to our usual first point, which is to listen. Right. Oh, do we skip that today? No, we did. Let's go back in time. Number one, listen. No. But this is, you know, if you're a good listener, if you develop your ears, then, you know, there's no secrets. They're all there. Right. I mean, and it's like religions, you know, every religion has its Bible. And I would say if you look at jazz as a religion, the recordings in some way are the sort of reference materials like a Bible. So you, yes, if you go to church, you can learn a lot of things, but the church shouldn't really be teaching you anything else that's in that Bible for that particular church. Or we maybe shouldn't be strained to the religious things, but that's okay.

It's just a reference.

I'm not endorsing or promoting them or anything, you know.

Okay, next we've got the fact that you can be from anywhere in the world, you can be any gender,

you can be any color, you can be any ethnicity, you can be any religion, for instance,

and play this music with great success and with great verb and with great fire.

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