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one of the most crucial components of the lessons i teach to aspiring jazz pianists is that i force them to listen to themselves playing by recording them during the lesson, and immediately giving them the headphones and a pad of paper with a pencil afterwards, telling them to listen to what they just played, and write down everything that comes to mind. it is one of the single most effective things i have ever come up with that instigates progress, discussion, awareness, and ultimately, fundamental improvement.
what happens when you're playing or improvising is that your brain and your ears are being bombarded with signals, ideas, and thoughts - you're trying to think of what to play next, what you're playing at the moment, and what you just played, all to varying degrees. as an active participant in the interaction, you can never fully listen to what you are doing the way that an audience member can. by recording it and immediately playing it back, i turn the student into an approximation of both participant and audience to themselves - it is remarkable how often the student reaction is "wow - i didn't realize that's what i sounded like."
try as i might, however - it's still extremely difficult for me to do the exact same thing. as beneficial and powerful as it is to listen to yourself, particularly immediately following what you just played, i still have a terrible aversion to listening to recordings of my own performances, even after all these years. i recorded two nights at the knickerbocker last month and never listened to it. i recorded last night's concert and haven't touched it.
why am i so reluctant to listen to myself? will i ever truly be comfortable doing it?
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| sometimes i think about a conversation i had with the amazing young pianist taylor eigsti, who is not only a fabulous musician but a great friend with an incredible amount of talent and an incredible background story.
taylor told me once that when he was much younger, around 8 years old, he saw the pianist david benoit playing a concert and it changed his life. he saw a man playing amazing music that was making everyone in the audience happy, and it looked like he was having the time of his life. he told me that after watching that concert, he decided that he wanted to make a lot of money when he grew up, so that he could play music. he thought that you had to pay other people for the privilege to make music for an audience. - it never occurred to him that david benoit got paid to play music - the thought seemed so preposterous. really? you get paid money to play music for people? that's unbelievable.
i thought about that today when i played with joshua crumbly and joe saylor. i played two concerts for a music hall full of people who were so excited to hear us play and so happy to listen to us play music. and i had a moment where i just thought to myself, i can't believe i get to do this. i get to make music with an amazing bassist and an incredible drummer, and we are having a great time.
once in a while, you truly do see how good things can be.
thanks, guys.
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| the beauty and difficulty of teaching, i think, lies in the fact that no matter what you do or how you do it, you can never guarantee that the next student you have will experience what the most recent one did. If your last student wound up learning a ton of stuff and thinks you're the best teacher they've ever had, there's no guarantee that the next student is going to think exactly the same thing.
having students who improve rapidly is kind of a baffling thing. you're not doing any of the work; they are. and yet they thank you as if you really had something to do with it. i'm constantly wary of people who claim openly that they are good teachers - generally, these people are either trying to sell themselves or haven't spent a lot of time constructively self-observing when they're in a teaching state.
faith, i think, is very much the same in a parallel way - no matter how successful or wise you have been before, there is no guarantee that your next steps in faith will assuredly grow you even further in a tactile way. good preachers don't necessarily mean wise congregations.
my latest student tried to compliment me on being a great teacher. I responded simply that it wasn't particularly true - that in reality it's that she was a great learner. all i needed to do was point her in the right direction and get out of the way.
i hope i can be a great learner of the faith.
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