SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dude, I was gonna say I think bringing up transcription is actually uh the that's the the word right there, you know? Like have you been transcribing a bunch?

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Yeah, I have been, yeah. Yeah, I've been transcribing more um uh yeah, I'm having a it's always this this it's a constant back and forth. And and you know, I sometimes wonder if um if I've ever figured out how to do anything at all as a musician. Um whenever you decide to practice something and get better at something, to me, it always leads me in the direction of uh-oh, do I actually know anything? Do I ever built any sort of real fundamental skills? Because I'm trying to learn to improvise on the guitar, on fiddle tunes. That's probably like what I spend most of my time thinking about. Or or I guess everything I do is kind of geared towards that goal to some extent at the moment. And so there's a bunch of different ways to work on that, and there's a bunch of different ways I have already worked on that uh on the banjo. And not to say that I think I figured that out on the banjo, but there's an extent to which I have done that professionally to the to the extent that's people, other people have said, I will pay you money to do what you're able to do. So it's like I don't need to believe it myself necessarily, but but I maybe I took it for granted that that I was like, yeah, I know how to do this. So I pick up the guitar and I try to work on this stuff and try to improvise on these tunes. And it's it's okay. I think it goes well, but but there's always questions like, well, why doesn't it sound this way, or how do I get this into my playing more, or whatever it is? Um, and so my big two things that I kind of oscillate between sometimes are spending time just just improvising, just take a tune, I'm gonna play it for five minutes straight, find my way through the tune. Maybe it's a constant stream of eighth notes, whatever it is, right? Like, you know, maybe it's um what's uh what's what like Billy in the low ground or something, right? Like successful improvisation.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yes, exactly. There bluegrass achieved.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yes, exactly. Yeah, so there you go. I did it, I improvise, and and that's really good for what I'm feeling that it's really good for is like with the tuning of the guitar, with the fretboard, knowing the tunes, getting to the chord tones, landing the changes, like that works great, and building up speed to be able to do that faster works great. And what I noticed was I was getting better at sounding like that at higher speeds. And if you hear that at higher speeds, what it sounds a whole lot like is like somebody practicing that.

unknown 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's like go figure, you know, if you practice something, that's what you get better at. So then it's like, okay, let's learn some solos, let's learn some language. So you transcribe some stuff, right? Like which, you know, and some of that came through. Like if you hear like, you know, that's not my creative invention that I just you know, like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Exactly. Yeah, I know where that's where you're from. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah. So there's like a ton of stuff like that. So okay, I get little bits of it here and there. And then, you know, there's I always have a little bit of a push and pull of how much time to be spending on each of these things. And then the other thought running through my mind is um trying to get enough technique so that I can kind of break through to another level of being able to improvise, because that's a certain amount of technique to just play single note lines. Um, just that, which is not easy, but I would say a lot easier than if you listen to any of our favorite players that are playing a combination of single notes, double stops, cross-picking, like this more integrated thing, which requires a higher level of technique across a couple areas, combining them, having language that combines them, which is its own thing that you can practice, but but I I have been spending more time, for instance, on um on transcribing. So I say all that, all that stuff to mean. I have a little bit not abandoned, but I'm spending way less time on that little improvisation game, and I've kind of decided for a little while I'm just gonna transcribe a bunch of stuff and see if I can get it closer to being able to play at those speeds. Because that's something that's been a huge barrier lately, is um being able to transcribing is not hard. I've spent a ton of time transcribing, and we can talk about that, right? Like, if you spend a lot of time doing it, that becomes the easiest part of the process in some ways, is like you gotta slow it down, whatever the thing is. We can talk more about that process for people who don't find that easily, easy currently. But right now, you know, there's uh a Justin Moses solo. There's like some promo thing that that Justin and Sierra did for like a guitar pickup company.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

You're already in the weeds, dude.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Dude, yeah, yeah, you can't even find this on YouTube if you search. Like you find it like in a playlist that somebody made of Temperance Real songs, and it's like, yeah, this I'm I'm completely lost now. And uh and Justin plays a great solo on Temperance Real that's a bunch of the melody and a bunch of other stuff. Most of what it is that's cool to me is it's a good upper medium tempo thing that I can't currently do. So it's like, okay, if I shed this solo enough, can I get it up to speed, get comfortable with it? Is that gonna bring me to kind of another level of uh comfort at those those speeds? Where now I might have ideas, but at certain speeds it's not gonna happen. So I'm spending more time doing that, I guess. Um, but I I kind of have this idea, which I used to do with the banjo, was like, I'm gonna learn every solo JD Crow played on Bluegrass Album Band Volume 1. I don't really know exactly what he's doing, or I don't know, you know, whatever, but I'm just gonna pretend I'm JD Crow for a while. Um and it's like you don't there are trade-offs, you don't get everything from that. Um, but you get some you get something out of that. So I don't know. I guess uh I guess that's what I've been spending a lot of time on. Um yeah, I'm curious, you know, what with your um where you're at in your journey, which is maybe where I'm at with the banjo, which is like trying to get better, but not like you're not in the beginning stages. You're you're you're not thinking about it in that way, right? So you're not like how do I play guitar? You know, where where do you where do you fit in that that process for where you're at right now in terms of like practicing improvisation versus like the emulation, the the copying, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_01 7:06

I I would say at this point the ratio both are still present. And this is what I was thinking in the back of my mind throughout like your your your kind of journey with these things is that I don't think I've ever I will ever fully abandon either one of those things. It's almost like they feed each other, but different ratios are needed at different points in time. And I I guess like right now, it like you were alluding on the banjo for you, once you achieve a certain, I think, like level of skill with transcription, which means that your ears are sharp, which is kind of cultivating that inner ear as well, you know what I mean? Like the giving you the the um the ability to hear and process information like that in real time. What I found happens is that like the the act of transcribing um sharpens that mechanism so much that actually what you're not doing is is like learning just how to play what other people are playing on a record or something. You're learning how to um hear something, internalize it. That's what I call like the inner ear, you know what I mean? Just like you hearing it inside your mind, and then put that to your fingers. And and what I found that transcription did was just really like streamlined that process if you do it the right way, you know, like to where like now I can hear a sound and I can almost get the first two notes on the on the like first try, you know what I mean? It's like I know exactly where where to put my hands, and I can't even I can't be like, oh, yep, GB all the time, but it's just like your body like knows, you know what I mean? So I did a lot of that through my 20s. This is where my long story is going. I did so our friend uh Nick D. Sebastian. Um Nick D. Sebastian passed off a transcription business to me when I was about 27 years old, 26, 27 years old. So like 11 years ago, something like that. And he he was shifting careers and had like a base of customers. So what I did for like five, six years in a row for my living was write down and work out music for other people. And I feel like that really like that was the crucible period that we're talking about, where it's like my ears were like, you know, like Popeye, you know, kind of like, you know, strongman kind of ears after that. Um, but now as a result of that, I find myself when I'm practicing improvisation, there are kind of like two angles that I'll go with it. One is kind of this like ear angle that we've been harping on, meaning the goal of improvisation will be to hear something and then play it. You know what I mean? Either hear it, sit down, compose that, extract it, and then work it out. Or like you were talking about, put that backing track on for five minutes or whatever, and just like let the inner ear take over, you know. So that's like that's like one big thing that I try to do. And usually that involves kind of the opposite of what you were talking about with the constant stream of eighth notes. When you engage the inner ear, usually instead of my Billy in the low ground sounding like, you know, instead of eighth notes like that, it usually sounds more something like you know, there's something there's like a little more space to it because it's like my your voice and your inner ear is always going to come up with something that you would rather sing than like hear on your guitar, I feel like. Um so I think that's that's like one big angle that I'm I'm pushing for. And then the other one that I was kind of talking about would be this technical thing that I think you also get from transcription. Meaning you said that you were practicing that Justin Moses break because it was something that was at like a medium-up tempo, and you've realized that you kind of, you know, you're struggling in certain ways at that at that tempo. I think transcribing stuff from someone at that tempo is like an admirable thing. And I think you're gonna learn some like maybe right hand or left-hand technical stuff that he's doing that allows him to play it at that tempo, you know. And and then like what I've been doing recently after my uh Jake Workman was kind of my guy for that thing. Sure. You know what I mean? Once I discovered my like speed right hand and stuff, I was looking at a bunch of Jake breaks and just trying to analyze. But now what I'm doing is actually okay, I've seen some stuff that Jake did in that break that allowed him to do this. Now I'm gonna put the metronome at 135 and just play Billy in the low ground and try to like access like pieces of that, you know, vocabulary that allowed him to kind of play some of the stuff that I liked at those tempos, you know. So if it's like a string crossing pattern, you know, we've talked about that, like pronated versus suppanated thing. I'll play maybe like a I'll use a little bit of that ear thing that I was talking about a minute ago, play like a simple thing for 80% of the break. And then when it the time comes, I'll try and put that like Jake Workman run in there to see if it can kind of work, you know. Um so I guess I'm a little more all that to say I'm a little more away from the transcription game at this point, but you notice, like I said that I looked at Jake Workman stuff. I'll I'll I'll it's almost like microtranscription is where I'm at these days. If I need a little inspiration, I'll pull up someone like Justin Bozis or Jake Workman or someone I know who will rip, just like listen to what they're doing, and it's like, oh, that piece, that's the piece that I need right there. And then I look at like five to ten seconds of what they're doing, kind of work it out, then close Apple music, open up strum machine, and like, you know what I mean, see it get to work, see if see if I can do do the same kind of thing in a grander improvisational context.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Totally. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, I think I mean it's um it's funny too. I I like that you mentioned the the more kind of spacious improvisation, um, because I I definitely have a habit of thinking, and I and I think I I just I think I imagine I just thought this was true for a long time, but I I sometimes catch myself thinking, well, if I can play that constant string of eighth notes, then the rest of the stuff should be easy. That's probably the hardest thing. The rest should be easy, which I think is actually not not true. Kind of a farce, right? It's kind of backwards. It's actually kind of backwards, even though you would think you'd think playing a lot of notes is harder. Um and so what do I do? Just play less of the notes, right? But it's it's really that it's easier to play a constant stream of eighth notes, or it's a sim it's simpler in some ways, because uh in some ways it takes away the number of options you need to choose from, right? It's just playing emphasizing chord tones and fill up all the space, right? Where what you played was kind of you want to emphasize, you want to play the tune, you want to somehow reference the tune or the chord changes, whatever it is, but actually you have so many more options because the there are kind of no rules rhythmically necessarily. And and in that way you have to make creative choices, not what I'm doing is making logical, um uh correct choices, you know, to to play all the correct notes and land in the right place, which is which is good a good skill to have, obviously. But but none of that it's not necessarily creative. I can I can complete my exercise without being creative at all. You kind of can't do what you're describing without forcing yourself to be creative. You kind of have to be creative to do that. So that's actually that's really helpful to hear that. I never thought about it that way. It's really yeah, that's I mean, me neither. I mean, I think I have noticed, I wonder if this is a little bit of a a similar thing, but I've noticed that um uh practic playing with other people, I tend to make those creative choices because I'm reacting to what's like what's going on in the moment. When it's just me playing, I'm not really reacting to anything necessarily. Uh, or I don't I I don't generally think of it that way. Yeah. Uh in this this kind of eighth note improvisation thing. So when I'm playing with other people, I think I I make creative choices that sometimes I say, Oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize I would have done something like that. And I think it's it's that I don't realize it because I think I I don't make the choice to practice that way necessarily. So I wonder if I it feels like maybe there's an untapped um there's just an opportunity, there's a missed opportunity to to focus on that, which would would also be a lot that sounds like that would be really helpful for playing at higher tempos, also. If I'm kind of committed to playing at higher tempos means playing being able to play everything I can play at a faster tempo. No, maybe what it really is is playing something musical at that higher tempo. Um uh and not not just you know, doing not doing the quarter note version of my exercise, you know, somewhere between right.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Because my my certainly there's a part of my brain that that uh as much as I'm not a particularly organized person, I want a definitive answer of uh, you know, I I find myself desiring something definitive of like, well, if you practice exactly this, then you'll get exactly this result. And uh I think that's so often the truth is not the case. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I'm like you in that way, where it's like if you don't know that there's going to be a definitive outcome on the other end of this process, then it almost seems like like why would I do that process, right? You know what I mean? It's because the the scale thing, like you're talking about, or the eighth note thing, you know, I call that just like a flow exercise. Um, John McGann used to kind of talk about it like that, the your eighth note flow. You got to work on your eighth note flow so that at any point in time you can pull that out, you know, and and one thing that I just want to point out is that every teacher I've ever had said that that was an important skill, and they said it early on. So I think you're not wrong to like leverage into that one.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Latch onto it. And then in the jazz world, it was it's huge also. Learning to play Bebop, learning to play over changes, it's it's like the thing that yeah. It yeah. It's not that they were saying it's the most important thing, but it didn't surprise me that myself and others latch onto it as if it is the most important thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah. It's funny, like now that you say it, like my uh Tom Carroll, my jazz guitar teacher from college, said the same thing at one point too. He's like, you know, because his thing was more like you're playing a bunch of syncopated stuff, you're playing a bunch of quarter notes, and I can tell that that means you don't know the scales and the modes that we're in. You know what I mean? He's like you're dinking around the arpeggios and stuff like that. So you need to like force yourself to just move up and down the scale. You're gonna get to a spot where you don't know, and that's cool, you know. Um, and I think for you it's almost kind of the opposite thing now. It's like, okay, let's go back to those like either the arpeggios or what I call like the skeleton melody of the tune, you know. Um, Stash is big into this too, right? I think he calls it like, you know, uh what what does he call his pillar notes or something like that? Um but he and I both had John McGahn when we were studying together. So like this is where that concept, at least for us, comes from because McGahn was real big into the idea that arpeggios are great for like a freer improvisation sound if you just want to like use the the fiddle tune as like a a palette for improvisation. That is one option, right? Um, but another option is to get that quarter note melody, like you were talking about, maybe even make it a half note melody. Sure. You know. Like, so if that's your A part to Billy in the low ground, all of us you've got all the space in the world to kind of figure something out, which is now we're back to that, like, oh crap, I have to come up with something creative now to fill that space.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Exactly. Yeah. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

McGahn almost had like a hit list of like techniques or things that you should do to kind of um fill that space, or at least as a flat picker, these are the skills that that we hone in on to like fill that space. One of them was cross-picking. He was like just cross-pick through that whole thing, treat it like a like a level two, like what you would do just after learning the Carter style version of the tune, you know? Uh uh. Uh yeah. You know, something more like that. And and then all of a sudden we're in like, you know, we're in like David Greerland or Kenny Smithland, you know what I mean? Where those guys play that like tasteful kind of you're like the melody's there, but they're not playing the ducka ducka version of the melody. You know, they're they're yeah, yeah. They're doing something else. Um so even cross-picking.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

This this podcast episode is over. I'm gonna go practice that now. Um, that's great. Yeah, that's so awesome. And and even the the the Carter, you know, like the the the Maybell thing, just like that. I probably don't have as well. Who would do that on a fiddle too? I could easily have. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, except that it's and this is I this just came to me that like so there's the creative, like, note choice side of this thing, right? There's also the technique side where uh you have to I'm trying to look at these as like, okay, there's the there's the things that Norman Blake played, right? Like there's the notes, the melodies that he played, but there's the technique that he used to play it, which is is the texture. That's the strumming and the cross picking and whatever. Like when I when I think of like a combination of all these things, especially getting the kind of strummy sound in there while still playing a melody. Norman Blake is the first thing that comes to mind. Oh, the best, yeah. And and so like I want to emulate though, I want to like emulate those melodies and those, I'm gonna take inspiration from that. But part of that is actually having the technique to do it, to make that sound right. So it's not just the the concept, it's worth practicing so that you have the technique to play when I you know, like I don't even know how this will go, but if I try to play, you know, you know, like something like that. It's like I I can I can do that there. Actually, I can't do that at at the jam speed either. So it's like conceptually, sure, I have all these ideas of things that could happen that are quote unquote simple, right? That you could that's quote unquote the simple version of that melody, but I couldn't do that and make that sound good. Um, so it's like, you know, the kind of the Humbling of of the whole, you know, knowing a little too much for your own good of things that you could do, but until you've got the the technique for it. So kind of maybe looking at like a checklist of Yeah. Apply the these five techniques to every, you know, that thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

It it's funny too, because now that I'm thinking about this checklist, I was kind of running that through in my mind, like what else would I tell Eli to do? But like it like actually just go back and listen to our contest guitar episode and all of the stuff that uh I said that I tried to throw into my arrangements to please the judges, like shift the balance of like the ratios maybe a little more toward the tasteful than the flashy. And but that same skill set is like there. So like you have to if you can't carterize, you know, like Carter style, uh Carterize, Carterize the wound. Um then then that's a uh a level you're missing out on, right? Then then you need to cross pick, then you need to be able to play it in double stops, then you need to be able to, right? Maybe uh what? Can you every time you hit a third uh over the a major chord that you're on, can you do a some kind of blue third type thing with it? You know what I mean? Because that's that was one of McGann's deals. Like if you're if you're playing bluegrass and you don't hit blue thirds with major thirds, oftentimes it'll sound a little like stale or saccharin or something, you know?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. Um, that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Like, you know, like there's our first third, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

You know? Yeah. You know, something like can you do something just like blue thirdsy, you know, with the yeah. Yes, exactly. Like that, right? And once again, you're like straight back into the bluegrass zone with that kind of lick, right? Um what were some of the other ones that he would do? Like, and you know, a lot of these tools are jazz tools too, like encircling. Like bluegrass has its own kind of uh preferred type of encircling versus jazz a little bit, you know. Um we don't do the double chromatic bird, you know, whatever, you know, like yeah, exactly. Exactly. But but like uh you know like all that totally yeah uh all the fiddlers do that if you hear them, you know. Um and then another, so like we've got like all these like technical concepts that we can add to the to the skeleton melody or or the whatever when we're when we're improvising. But if we get back to the transcription thing, it's like okay, how do we actually use that in this context? And McGain, he was one of the first ones, and then Don Stirberg said this in some lessons that I was taking with him during the pandemic, because I was doing all those tiny more transcriptions back then. Like I had, you know, each week I was playing a full tiny more solo, and like, you know, and like I can't play a single one to this day. Gee, I wonder why. Um but Stirberg's thing was like, he's like, okay, that's great. Now you've got this pool of material, go back and like go hunting for the juicy stuff in there. Like you don't always have to transcribe the full solo to get the thing that you need out of it. Like, like we were saying, almost like a micro transcription, hone in on that thing that catches your ear or or serves that that purpose. So for you, you've got all these great solos and licks that you've been transcribing. You know, now it's just a matter of like, okay, can I can I um cut and paste these things together, maybe in some way? Can I play like two bars of the Eli version of Temperance Reel and then play what Justin plays on the last two bars of the of the phrase just to kind of like lickify or turn that into vocabulary more than just like a a static eight-bar piece of music, right? Um or even just your standard Tony licks or something like that. Just grab a lick and put it in every gap that you feel. You know what I mean? That's another exercise that way that McGain used to do. So yeah. Um, as you can tell, I'm talking about John McGann a lot and this whole like I I it's a I I think I have a clear idea of this process because this is exactly what he was like screaming at me to do every week in our lessons. You know, and I was in grad school, so this was actually kind of a good right. I don't think I would have gotten this same speech from him, maybe if I was like 18 versus when I was 23, you know, because I didn't have some of those skills that you're talking about. I hadn't worked out the base thing. But once he saw that I had like kind of a palette of things to work with, it was like you gotta shuffle between those things as much as you possibly can, and that's what's gonna determine your your style and like kind of your version of the improvisation is like how your brain, which ones of those tools does your brain latch onto first and and more dominantly, you know, and and how does that affect your playing, you know?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, and and kind of you know, which of those you kind of have to listen to yourself or be kind of critical in the way where you say, which of these is never coming up? Which of these have I practiced, I guess, but they just never come out? Which one, which of these am I just kind of neglecting, you know, um, which I would the things that I want to hear, right? The things that I like playing or like listening to that I kind of have an idea of, but which of them don't actually, you know, materialize, whatever it is, which is to me right now is is kind of all of them. Truly the the constant eighth, the constant eighth note is the only thing that consistently I can I can count on doing something, whatever. And everything else is kind of like, well, I could have done that there, but halfway through solo, my hand was way too tense and blah blah blah, you know, whatever the thing is, is like you can kind of tell. Yeah. You can always yeah, it's just you know, you can always you have the option of being honest with yourself about like what's really going on. And I if I have one skill that I think I'm I've really developed after playing music for 20 years, whatever it you know, um it's like getting better at being really specific about what I don't like or what's not happening, or what or the or bad habits or whatever it is, right? Not saying like you know, like I don't I really don't have many moments anymore where like I get to the end of a g a gig or a recording session or anything and it's just like oh man, I suck, right? Yes, that it's just the it which doesn't mean it's better, it doesn't mean it feels it means it necessarily feels better, it's just like an immediate realization, it's like, well, yeah, you can't do that thing. Of course you can't do that one thing that you thought you could do because you didn't practice it or whatever the thing is, right? And it's not a uh I don't go into a dark space necessarily, but it's just being really specific about it, and being real with yourself, right? Like it's it's like an acceptance.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Like I almost hear your voice of like, what can I do versus what can't I do right now, you know?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which if you like the process, I mean, I love studying this stuff, I love practicing it, I love um kind of starting over with things, like I love all that. It's like none of this is like uh there's no punishment involved, you know. There's no kind of like I'm not talking down to myself. It's all you know, in a way, there's some amount of disappointment sometimes when you're like, oh, I thought I could do that. Turns out I can't. That's there's real negative emotions that happen, certainly. But hopefully, pretty quickly it gets to like, well, now I got something to practice. This is great, you know. It's like this is this is cool, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

I I love that you're I think this is maybe why you and I even like got so jacked on doing this in the first place, is that we're addicted to the process that way. You know what I mean? If something it it's uh it's a dopamine rush to figure out that there's something that you can't do, but you can practice it. You know what I mean? Now it's like sweet, now I've got a new hyper focus. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

You know, which yeah, maybe that's all we're really looking for. Secretly, I want to be bad at as many things as possible. So, oh man, I'd love to do that, but I just I have to start from square one with this. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Absolutely, man. Um well that's it's cool to hear your process in this, though, as someone who has kind of I'll say it and you might disagree, but it's like who has like mastered another like instrumental style of of play, you know what I mean? On a different instrument, I mean, to come back to this and realize that it's like one, the tools that you learned over there, some of them serve you here, but it's like a totally different ball game, you know what I mean? And and almost like from square one, right? At least if there are tools that were serving you on the banjo, you might have to complete steps one through ten before you even get to use that skill, right? You know, on the on the flat pay guitar.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Totally, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And and things that, you know, there's stuff that you just you know, you play an instrument long enough, you learn enough stuff that like it doesn't mean it doesn't mean I can play anything on the banjo. I mean I can there's a lot of things I can transcribe and and reproduce, right? Like there's plenty of stuff that is not my language, but you know, like s some gnomo kelnier baylefleck thing. I can certainly transcribe it and play it up to speed, and I'm not saying it sounds like them, but it's it's that's not as much of a barrier, right? There are there are a few people who play things that I certainly can't even approach on the banjo. There's there's definitely that. But most things I can I can play it. Um uh but that's kind of a result of like a ton of time. Um, you just get comfortable. Do you like it's not just being warmed up, it's not just practicing a lot, it's just there's like a base level of comfort that you have with an instrument after a certain amount of time. And in some ways, you I forget some of the things some of the fundamentals, or um I'm not uh listening in the same way necessarily when I always have something to play. On the banjo, I always can do something. And as a professional musician, you're kind of trained to do that. Like your job generally as a professional musician is to play something that sounds good. Uh, you know, if if it is like a recording session or you're filling in with a band or whatever the thing is, like they're not always necessarily asking you to reinvent the wheel. In fact, most of the time they are not, they don't want you to do that, they want you to just play something good. And if you've played enough stuff, then you always have something good to play. Right now, with the guitar, I don't always have something good to play, necessarily. Uh, I have always something that will work, but I don't always have something that will sound uh to the to a certain level of things that I can hear, whatever it is. Yeah. So I find myself returning to those kind of fundamental steps and things that are totally necessary for me on guitar right now, but also things that I'm kind of like, oh, actually, I don't think I really hear this at all. And it's I've I've found a way to bypass that on the banjo, or I that I I kind of am hiding the fact that I don't, you know, it's like these, it's just little things. It's little things that I thought I knew and maybe don't know as well as I did, whatever it was. I mean, I remember switching to you know, primarily primarily playing the banjo after I played guitar so long studying jazz. Um that was, you know, such a long time ago. But if at the time it really felt like I was like, okay, hard stop on what I had planned to spend my life on at, you know, I was like 19, I guess. And then going to play banjo. And I'd spent all this time playing really complicated, at the time, feeling like complicated tunes, right? Like in I would go to my lessons every day in in the conservatory, and at the time was like studying giant steps. I was like learning to play over giant steps, and which is not to say it was like groundbreaking stuff, but it's not easy to do that. It's not easy to play a song that changes keys every one and a half bars at a really fast speed. Surprise. And um, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so to some extent, I took for granted that I was like, well, if I could do this, then like I've pretty much got a lot of this stuff figured out. I must be I got it handled, no big deal. So I started playing banjo thinking, yeah, I can handle this. What is it, like three chords? No big deal. And they're all in the same key. And uh, and aside from the technique stuff, that's hard to learn on an instrument, like a new technique or I what I realized was I could not hear basic chord changes, like really. I could not really hear when a song was one, four, five and maybe like a six chord. I could transcribe it, I could figure it out, I could listen to it a bunch, and I could blah blah. I could not sit down at a jam session and play nine-pound hammer if that was the first time I heard it, and just know that's the chords. And that is actually really basic ear training compared to what I thought I was doing. I thought I was, I thought I was transcribing and hearing things on a level that was was pretty advanced. And in some ways it was. You know, I was in an ear training class where you know, you might hear a uh, you know, teacher would say, Okay, what's what's that? And I had trained myself or or I'd been trained in this class to know that that's uh, you know, E7, sharp nine, uh, sharp 11 or flat five, whatever you want to call it, right? And I could hear that. I could hear what was happening there. That doesn't necessarily mean I can hear G, C, and D, because I had never I I skipped that, I totally skipped that level. And can hear a six-note chord, but not the triads, right? You know, like that's yeah, literally, yeah, literally. And so I would hear somebody play like Blackberry Blossom, and it's like, oh my god, I I can't figure out that was so hard for me to just hear what that was, or a crooked fill tune that has an extra half a measure. I had played tunes in a bunch of different time signatures, um, with really strange forms, all this stuff that was impossible for me to hear. And it's not, I don't necessarily think it's because it's like hard in its own way. I mean, it is. I think it's really that I just skipped like the first 10 steps of ear training because instantly I was like, let's transcribe John Coltrane, right? I just skipped it. And so coming to that, I learned so much to the point where I I understand music so much more deeply than I think I ever would have, or or I would have had to go, I would have had to have a real wake-up call otherwise if I hadn't gone to play bluegrass. Something else really would have like rocked my world that that changed it. Um, but that really deepened my understanding of music, and I'm having a kind of a similar experience now with a guitar, um in my just hearing fiddle tunes, hearing melodies, um a lot of stuff like that that that I think I I got a a bit of, but I I'm filling in the gaps in a way that is is is really cool. That's just like helping my overall musicianship, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Absolutely. Uh you know, it it's cool to hear you say that because I didn't have the same experience that you did in terms of like knowing complex jazz music in my teens, you know. I I like went to college to to get that. And I but I I in fact I was almost like the exact opposite of you. I my my conservatory level music training, like ear training and music theory and all that kind of stuff was crap when I showed up to undergrad. You know, but I could hear a 1-4-5 for days, you know, and and I could I could immediately hear the chord progression to a bluegrass tune. I could usually like my melodic transcription was pretty good, you know. Um and it's funny because jazz mystified me, and it was definitely hard for me to like get into that. But once I figured out that those same bass level ear training skills could be applied to that higher level structure with like, it's like, okay, that's a G chord, but we're just adding a couple more notes to it, and it kind of changes the color of it. Now it's a minty fresh G chord as opposed to just like uh you know, like plain, plain old G chord. Um I think it helped, and and I guess what all I'm trying to say is like like if we're zooming out and like revealing a grander truth for anyone listening to this stuff, it's like if you are someone who calls yourself an intermediate player or you've been playing for years, you know what I mean, but you can't do the stuff that Eli and I are talking about right now, you know, then uh then I think it actually uh would behoove you to kind of like like you did, kind of stop and and like it it's not a hard stop and it's not like uh a shameful thing, you know what I mean, to to recognize that like, hey, I can't hear triads. I can't hear uh like the the diatonic like chord motion in a in like just a single key, right? Um that's something that in fact there are so many resources out there to like help you with that you can you can accomplish pretty easily and and it will fuel this kind of creative uh improvisational thing that we're talking about. You know what I mean? Like in fact, all of that stuff kind of won't make much sense until you can master that that basic uh that that ear training kind of thing, you know? And and this this gets me like I'm thinking about all the the students that show up to me who have been playing for 25 plus years and they're like, Hayes, I need the fast track. Don't give me this ear training crap that's slow. I I'm sitting at home, like I spent an hour and I couldn't even hear the chord changes to Blue Ridge Cabin Home. So like I need, you know, like let's cut this like conservatory crap out of here, you know, because I need the I need the fast track, man. And it's like the the you know, this is where I get like Yoda or whatever, and I I think about like my John McGann thing. It's like the the slow way is the fast way. He always used to say that. The slow way is the fast way. Um that's awesome. Yeah, and and it's it's uh another quote that I heard from one of my um pals, Vern, that I've made Vern, I hope you're listening to this, bro. Um he told me this at uh at Coffin Camp like three years ago. He he was like, we were I was in the army, and he was like, in the army, we always had this saying that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. You know, and and I'm like, that is like it right there, because like it seems like a you know, a paradox or or whatever, right? You know, it's like but but the idea is that if you just take a little bit of time right now, like slow down for a month, you know what I mean, and just really invest in that one skill. Um, a month is a small price to pay for years of enjoyment after. Yeah you know, yeah. So so spend a month, learn exactly what you were just talking about, right? Like, like sit down and like how do I hear my way through bluegrass cord progressions? And the cool thing is, you know, there's a limited data set. So it's like there's three, you typically three options, you know what I mean? So you don't have to reinvent the wheel on this thing, you know what I mean, when you're when you're trying to figure out the ear training. So when you know that there's gonna be a limited data set that way, you know that it's only gonna take a month or two of study to give you that skill that you need. Just this is my little stump speech. For it's just like, yeah, you're not going, you're not missing out. You're you're you're in fact putting the cart before the horse if you're trying to learn that Brian Sutton tab from artist works before you can hear the chords behind it.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Yeah, and in fact, it's um it's if you think about what what the process could be like to try to like rush through some of this stuff, um you know, it's uh taking a little bit at a time uh and really kind of learning it thoroughly, which doesn't have to be mean uh okay, I'm not gonna play another note until I can hear every chord progression, whatever it is, right? But taking a little bit of time, uh and you'll always kind of always keep moving forward, right? If you take that one little bite at a time, you just will never stop progressing. But too often, and I've experienced this and and continue to experience it, so it's a good reminder every time I do trying to kind of rush through something or jump ahead, whatever it is, and then you kind of hit these roadblocks as a result of your kind of non-existent foundation, you get frustrated and you stop for a while, whatever it is. It's like, you know, maybe you learn a little bit, but it's this constant stopping and starting, right? So that's a frustrating process, even outside of the fact that you're not really learning anything anyway. You know, it's it's kind of just a fr it it it sucks. So you're like, you're kind of likely to say, like, ah, this isn't working. I gotta, you know, that's why you jump from platform to platform or book to book or whatever the thing is, right? Because you're like, oh, this isn't working for me, you know. But really what it is is just taking it slowly. But I also think um, you know, there's the uh how do I how do I put this? You know, if you're if you're going to uh try to learn something by ear, uh and not even just like transcribing, but like as you're talking about, like learning the chords uh or or just the common chord progressions, right? Just being able to hear one, four, five in different combinations, people get hung up on the point of that, the point of practicing that, or the point of it's the same thing when people do with a metronome, actually, is they think the Of the metronome or the point of learning things by ear is to like prove to yourself that you're good at it. Right? It's to like is to put up a test and say, Am I good or do I suck? And invariably, if you're practicing, then the answer is you suck because you're trying to get better at something. So usually when you're practicing, some element of it is you're not perfect, which people interpret as a bad thing. You they think that good practicing should feel like uh very affirming and validating and saying, like, ah yes, turns out I am actually really good at all these things, which I've never had, I've never had that experience practicing, right? Oh wait, you have it? Right? Yeah. Uh oh. Is this how I find out that I'm I'm doomed? Yeah. Um but but truly the the the part where you learn is let's say you're listening to Blue Ridge Cabin Home, it's three chords. Uh, and uh, you know, maybe let's say you already know nine pound hammers, so you already know G, C and D. You learn another song that maybe it has G C and D, whatever it is. It's not that the goal is to hear it and know what it is, it's or I guess eventually the goal is that, but that's not the process. The process isn't knowing, the process is trying things and then evaluating am I right or wrong, right? And that's the experience. The the process is saying, okay, is the first chord G? No. Okay, first of all, you're wrong. So that's great experience to know that when I hear this sound, it's not the thing I just tried. So I'm gonna try something else. Is it C? Is it D? Whatever the thing is, you know, am I in a different key? All these things. Every time you're wrong, it's great. I can check that off my list, it's something else. And eventually you're going to get something that sounds kind of right or it is right or whatever, whatever thing you're trying to do. And that experience is huge because then you say, Oh, when I hear that sound, it's this, right? It could be when I go from G to C, one to four, when I get when you get that right for the first time, and you say, Oh, that sound that I hear all the time, it's it's that thing, right? You can only have that experience by going through the process of being wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and then you get it, right? If you if the process was just knowing it, then it doesn't even logically make any sense, right? Because because you have to be able to to say it's one or the other or something like that. It's we're not talking about just kind of inventing perfect pitch. So I encourage people if they're if they're trying to get into that sort of thing, to lean into the um lean into the challenge of it because because of this the struggle or the kind of like trial and error is where you get the experience. That's where you that's where you prove to yourself um uh like that you know what one thing sounds like. Otherwise, uh you're not really listening, I guess. So so so don't shy away from that. Like lean into that. That's every time I transcribe something, like you know, we were just talking about this Justin Moses solo that I was learning, and I'm trying to learn these things just as an experiment without slowing them down lately. Um, which I don't know, I don't necessarily recommend for everyone all the time, but but once you can learn things slowed down, it can be a really great thing to try to learn them full speed. And I'm having a really hard time doing it because I don't do it that often. Um, but what I'm realizing is I have to try a bunch of things, I have to listen way more than I used to. I have to listen more closely, have to focus more, um, and I spend way more time being wrong. And then when I get it, it's such a powerful connection of hearing the the thing that I'm playing match up with what he's playing. It's like, oh that's what that is. And that that moment, it's like a uh it's an epiphany, it's I don't know what it is, but it's uh it sticks with you, right? It's it kind of imprints on your brain just one one tenth of one percent, and you get one tenth of one percent better at that process. So, so that's that's kind of what I think is the the value of that.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

I love it, man. Because I to me, you're describing the like intended function of the like chemical reward system in our brain.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

Yes, yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Yeah, like there, like struggle is part of all of it, and and like you shouldn't see struggle as bad and winning as good. Unfortunately, we live in America where that is like our whole thing. You know what I mean? But like, but you know what I'm getting at. Like that I think what I'm hearing you say, and uh because I've heard Josh Turknet talk about this stuff and some other like smart like neurologists and like you know meditation coaches and like all these people that are thinking about all these things, like a beginner's mindset, this curiosity factor, you know what I mean? Like being curious about it, like because that a lot that keeps the emotion out of it because like good versus bad triggers emotion. When you do something badly, you're sad or angry about it. When you do something good, you're happy about it, right? But but if you can be curious about the process, and instead of like viewing it as I'm doing a good thing or I'm doing a bad thing, it's like I'm doing the I'm doing the correct thing versus the incorrect thing or whatever, you know, like it's like, did I get the result that I was looking for or did I not get the result I was looking for? If you take more of a scientific method approach, right? Like, and and say, like, okay, I didn't get the result that I was working for. So like back to the drawing board. Like you have to, in that moment where you're ear training and transcribing these things and trying to put them into a break or trying to do whatever it is we're trying to do, it's like the resilience factor of having that process and being able to iterate the the process without that emotional hook is actually what's going to get you to the result quicker. You know what I mean? So it's like don't don't beat yourselves up. And and I know it's easy to say, like, don't do this, don't do that, but it's like may maybe the idea is like if you're finding yourself getting frustrated with these things, you know, if you're finding yourself like, I'm never getting this, this is bad, or you know, I sometimes get it and it's good, but then it's bad most of the time. Try to like remove or like shift those words in your mind, in your vocabulary, and just kind of like, this is not a good versus bad dichotomy thing. This is like an experimentation zone here. And and like each uh each step that you perform in that like research process or that like kind of curiosity mode is leading us toward the the outcome, even if it seems like a failure, quote unquote, you know. Um yeah, I I guess I I've had to struggle with that, which is why I'm like on my stump, you know, talking about this one a bunch. Because I I did view it, it was New England Conservatory that screwed me up that way. When I got there for graduate school, my ears were awful. I think I've told you about this before. Like I had to take remedial like ear training when I was a first-year grad student at NEC. I was in class with like some of my graduate compatriots, but also some like undergrads, like freshmen and sophomores, you know what I mean? And then and and I think they almost kind of wanted you to feel bad, you know what I mean, that you were in that class and stuff like that. But but once I kind of got that out of my mind and started doing the process, I like you know, it doesn't matter that I'm sitting next to a freshman, it matters that I can't hear that note that Billy Holiday is singing right now, and that's the goal right now. You know, so I guess that's the only reason I bring it up because that was my like good versus bad scenario, you know, like I'm bad because I'm sitting here with the freshman and I'm supposed to be a graduate student, you know. But but I learned so much in that semester from just giving myself to the process, coming back to the drawing board, like not really putting too much pressure on myself that way. Um, and that's the period that I I doing that semester's worth of work is what gave me unlocked the door to all the stuff that we're talking about now. That was that that three months of work that I needed to do to kind of unlock all this stuff. It's like, oh God, I've been learning all these Tony licks. Like now I can just play melodies that I hear in my head. Dang it. You know, like I should have just been doing this the whole time, you know. You you've mentioned it the whole the whole conversation today about like um you know, you this exploration that we're doing when it comes to like transcribing and improvising and trying to put those two things together, you you find stuff that doesn't work or that you said isn't like relevant, you know, to your playing. I hate to say it, like we've talked about it. That to me, the binding element from all flat pickers was Tony Rice, like I said in episode one. And yeah, the first thing that I abandoned when I unlocked this skill was his vocabulary. I didn't, it's like my head didn't, my brain didn't hear it. Yeah, you know what I mean? So like when my brain wants to create a solo, as much as I love Tony Rice, as much as I sat with Manzanita and worked out every single note off of that record, when my brain goes into autopilot mode, once it was unlocked, that stuff doesn't float to the surface. Which is, I think, kind of to your point from earlier, you know what I mean? That there's um just because you can work something out and you can practice it, doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be the thing that serves you ultimately, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Totally. Well, in a in a lot of cases, I mean, we this is something we talked about with Tony, is I mean, that was his interpretation of the songs and the melodies, and sometimes not really the melody. I mean, he was pretty um even outspoken about not necessarily being interested in playing the melody in certain instances, whatever it is. So it kind of really makes sense that you know, if you're if you're studying, being able to hear the melody, play the melody, and then you're in the moment and you're kind of in some way want to do that, it's like, well, then there's a lot of Tony stuff that is not going to, you know, uh, you know, whatever it's like. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know what I mean? You can't, yeah. It's just not, it's not um, it's unlikely to be in a moment of uh creativity like that perfect fit, right? Um and and in some ways I kind of think of because I think about this stuff all the time with banjo because I'm I'm less interested in improvising. This is part of the reason I'm playing guitar right now, is because I'm less interested in improvising on the banjo. Um because the the language that I hear that I like, I don't necessarily want to hear on the banjo all the time. Yes. Um or I love like no bakelney to me is the end-all be all currently of improvisation on the banjo. Um uh best to ever do it, best language, best tone, best everything, uh for me, right? Um but I don't actually find myself wanting to uh do that or necessarily listen to that, right? It's like I have the I have the subjective opinion of of a level of quality, but it's like that doesn't speak to me the way that um certain like other instruments do, right? When I hear the banjo, there's certain other things that I tend to reach for in to to listen to. So I always think about J.D. Crow, right? Like I think how would J.D. Crow um interpret this melody, or or Earl, obviously. Um most of the time that's kind of what I'm thinking about. And so if I'm in the jam or on stage playing banjo, I'm kind of like, okay, all these other musicians are improvising. I almost feel like my job could be I'm gonna I'm gonna interpret the melody with a certain language and a certain kind of attitude that helps the overall band sound, and then that's gonna feel good. It's not gonna be my creative input necessarily. That's um, it's not melodically particularly creative because I'm kind of uh using a certain language that I'm not, I wouldn't say improvising necessarily, or I'm improvising in big, big chunks, right? In in not in the granular level. Um and so I'm kind of like that's what I feel like I'm bringing to the table, or that's that's what that's that's how that music serves me, right? Like playing the banjo like is a tactile thing. Like playing in a great bluegrass band, playing banjo feels awesome. And so it's like, cool, what a great way to have fun with your friends. But uh when I play guitar, I'm not really thinking about it in those terms, and I almost feel like the the heavy use of the Tony licks is actually serving kind of what I'm describing in the banjo, where it's like it feels awesome, it fits in the groove of a bluegrass, like that bluegrass album band style pocket. It fits perfectly in there, and so there's a there's a little bit of a potentially selfless thing that can happen where it's like everyone in these in a particular kind of jam is playing stuff that they know is gonna sound awesome, it's gonna feel great, everyone kind of knows how to play with it because if they've all played along with these records, they know if this Tony Lick is happening, I can play this under it, and it feels awesome. Like it's kind of this like collective Yes, it's not like old time, but in a really weird, kind of twisted way. It's kind of like old time where it's like we're all agreeing to put aside our individuality to serve what could be this awesome feeling thing, and it sounds great too, if you do it well. So there's so that's like kind of to me, like the highest purpose of regurgitating Tony Licks. Certainly, there's the the level to which some people have like learned that language and then and then it becomes something else comes out of it, right? But if you're literally just regurgitating Tony Licks, I actually think that is cool in a different context. If you're using that to kind of like feign individuality or to like be like, yep, this is me playing my Tony Rice licks. It's like, no, I'm not interested in that. I don't want to hear anybody showing off Tony Licks. But if you're using Tony Licks to like uh as like a collective band sound thing, it's like, well, that's actually really cool. But for me, kind of like what you're describing, when I think about improvisation, I don't I again I don't hear that because that's not outside of Tony's use of it, because truly to him, it was that's what that was. But to to literally any other person, it just they're not that's not what that tool is for, right?

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Yeah. I love it too, because I I think as you were describing that, I was like, man, I totally did exactly what Eli's talking about here. And I never quite thought about it in the way that like I like the old time analogy. I actually really think you're on to something with that in terms of like because I think some of the older people in my bluegrass community have like, they're like, Oh, you dang kids, all you did was listen to the bluegrass album band and like copy everything they did. And it's like, but what we were learning is like kind of the modern um uh what do I want to say, like format or like formula for like the bluegrass sound right now, right? In in that way that you're describing, you're learning to manipulate those pieces in real time. And and I think for me, because I man, holy crap, when I was in undergrad and graduate school, it was all Tony all the time. That was like all my I was transcribing a bunch of David Greer and Kenny Smith, you know what I mean? And that wasn't coming out in my playing because I think of what you're talking about. The the Tony licks like fit that sound, fit that function at that point in time. And I think eventually when I flipped over to the thing that I'm talking about now, where I'm doing this more like internal, like hearing stuff kind of improvisation, the Tony Licks were just a placeholder for my own vocabulary later. By learning how to take musical material and manipulate it in real time, even though it's not your musical material, but learning the rules of it, how it how it fits with that function of the other instruments and the other layers in the band, that gives you that formal structure that once your vocabulary becomes deep enough, you can actually just kind of start to play with those rules, but using like the the Eli generated vocabulary eventually. Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:03

Um which you know, one thing I've noticed transcribing non-Tony solos is I have to be a little bit more judicious about what I learned the entire solo of because truly improvised solos or or ones that are improvised outside the Tony world, because Tony, even though he was improvising, was using such perfect little phrases so much of the time that, like, yeah, anything off Tony Rice plays and sings bluegrass or or album band or manzanita, whatever it is, is like it's and and and from what I've heard, he did work stuff out and play kind of like maybe not exact, complete note for note, but like he had pretty solid ideas of what he wanted to play. But each of those little patterns and licks is a perfect phrase. So so that what it's one of the great things about it is if you learn that stuff, you really learn about phrasing, about like how long a phrase can be, or a phrase that's shorter or longer, or whatever the thing is, right? So so there's that if you learn solo that's not coming from that perspective or is truly improvised, especially stuff that I've been learning from like you know, jams that were not necessarily meant to be recorded or released as such. Sometimes you get people's most um kind of adventurous playing, but you also sometimes get people's most like meandering, rambling, like not quite sure, because they're just this is just what happens. Everybody plays, and you sometimes you're hitting on all cylinders, and sometimes it's just fine. And so you have to really be careful that you're not like internalizing just a bunch of random stuff, you know. Like sometimes that can happen too, which I've noticed. So I have to be really careful, like, okay, if I'm gonna learn this solo, I'm either gonna learn the stuff I really love, or it has to be an example of like of a of telling a great story and and highs and lows, and they're great phrases, and it and it goes, you know, which is why, you know, you listen to uh Justin Moses, it's like kind of uh unbelievable how cohesive everything is. Um, and and even though it could be, you know, this this Tim Prince Real Solo is just a it's kind of like eighth notes all the way through, whatever, but there's a couple different techniques used and whatever it is, but at no point is it just kind of like running through the chords wheely-nilly, like it's it's all as if as if it was a perfect arrangement. So kind of look for that also, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

I love that. Uh, because you you can I mean maybe that's what you know, like McGann was getting at when it's like, don't transcribe everything of every solo. Like it was like kind of a a knowledge of that, right? Because if if everything that we've said in this podcast episode is true, then likely Justin Moses or Kenny Smith has done this in their life as well. You know, yes, like they are their mind is not operating at peak 100% efficiency every time they're improvising. So just the fact that somebody had their cell phone on recording one of them doesn't mean that everything inside of that solo is going to be perfect, right? Like, oh my gosh, Justin Moses is a human, right? Yep, yep. Um so I think that's a really good thing to bring up, you know, that um, and maybe one more argument for like, you know, listen to a solo. And if there's like if you notice that the whole thing isn't compelling to you, but there's like two really cool spots, then maybe just like hone in on those spots, right? Or something like that. Um but if it is a guy like Justin, where it's like, this seems like a composition, like this dude is I know he's improvising right now because he's in a jam session that's being recorded on someone's shaky cell phone, and it seems like a composition. So there's something to be studied there, you know? Yeah. Like having that evaluative kind of mechanism, I think that's that's an important thing to bring up.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

And it's stuff that you can kind of you a little bit have to trust your own taste, which means you kind of have to develop some taste, right? Like you have to you have to learn what you really like and not necessarily you know, because at a certain point you want to be recommended things to listen to, and that's great. Um, and and I try to give everything a chance that somebody recommends, especially when I was starting out, I'll you know, or things that I wasn't sure I would like, I will say, okay, I'm gonna give this more of a try because I maybe I'm missing something here. Like you want to you want to have some amount of time doing that, but eventually you're gonna say, I really like this player, and that other player is fun to listen to. I don't actually need to, I don't want to play necessarily the way they play, but it's nice, whatever. And when you get to that point, then you start listening to things, and as long as you trust that, then you know exactly what to transcribe because you're like, What was that? How do I do that? Yeah, why does that whole why does that whole solo sound like uh like a composition? Or you're listening to somebody saying, Oh, that little everything else was was whatever, but that little thing, I need to know about that, right? Yeah, if you can trust that, then it's really self-guided because you um you can't help it. You know, you'll know you'll know you've found it when you start kind of shhrinking other responsibilities in your music or life, you know, whatever it's like, yeah, uh I'll do the dishes tomorrow. Yeah, no, yeah, exactly. You know, whatever it is. Or or for me, it'll be like, yeah, I'm sure I'll play some banjo tomorrow, but for now, I guess, you know. And in some ways, it's curious to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:09

It's the it's the curiosity thing that you're talking about. And that's what I've I've really find inspiring about you is that you always you're you you seem to always have some way to like lean into the curiosity of it, you know what I mean? And I think that's what's cool about where you're at in the process right now, because I think like you're saying, the banjo is sitting in the corner there, that's the one that you've spent the most time. You know what I mean? You're maybe a little less curious about that one right now than in the past, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:35

And it's yeah, no, that's true. And I appreciate that because it's um it's definitely one of the ways I keep myself active because I think like we've just had we've talked about this, we both get kind of obsessed about things and these hyperfixations, whatever. But I'd love to be in that beginning stage. And I've I for a while I definitely found that or felt like I was giving up on things when I was trying something new, right? Yeah. And That can happen, right? And so there was a some amount of shame involved in like, oh, I'm kind of I I did all this work on this thing, and like, am I kind of giving up? Am I, you know, whatever? And um, you know, it's a it's a thing worth investigating in inside yourself, is like, why am I doing this? But but but instead turning it around and and uh seeing what that can do for you, which is for me, it uh uh keeps me active and interested in listening to music, practicing things, and when I do feel like spending a lot of time with a banjo, I won't have taken six months off of music entirely doing nothing, right? Like there's a little bit of a it's just keeps everything rolling. Um because I know myself, I know that I at any time I kind of can choose to be obsessed with something. Like if I wanted to, I could probably get really obsessed with like drawing or like archery or something. I I'm not, but I bet I could watch enough YouTube videos to be like, yeah, I'm gonna spend six thousand dollars on a archery bow, or I don't know. Yeah, it's truly obviously I don't know anything about it. So there's always a little bit of a choice. Like, do I go get obsessed with something that's gonna take me away from kind of my whole life, or is there a way I can like stay, you know, tangentially related? Is there a way that I can, you know, so there's always a little bit of of choice involved, and then once you're in it, then it's too late. But but I do find that that to be really helpful. So, you know, and and there's micro versions of this as well, so you can practice a certain way for a while, or you can study a certain player or whatever it is, you know. So you you can you can use this in your own life without even trying a new instrument. But um, somebody even left a comment, I think, on one of our episodes that was like, what do you think about trying new instruments? And it's like, well, it's all I think about is um trying new instruments.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

This is a podcast about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can I can tell you I'm not going to be starting to play fiddle anytime soon. But um uh maybe I could see I could see Mandolin at some point. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

That seems that seems unnecessary at the moment, but well, but you know, I'm kind of chuckling as you're saying all of this because Mandolin was my version of that. That was yours, yeah. Yeah, like when I So I I guess it would have been about 2016, 2017 when Quinn and I moved to Grand Rapids. Um that that was when for some reason that that was the era of like mandolin. I had picked it up a few years before that when I was playing with April Verge, and it was kind of like my hobby instrument on the road because you know, you could like carry it on the plane and stuff like that. Um but yeah, 2016, 2017, I got super serious about it. And I had this conversation in my mind. I'm like, am I giving up the thing? You know, should I be focusing more on the guitar because this is like what people are calling me for and all this kind of stuff? And the reality of it is I played mandolin ferociously for eight months, barely played the guitar, practiced with the mandolin every day. And guess what? Every time I picked up the guitar, it didn't sound bad, you know. Like, you know, it maybe took a minute to like kind of recalibrate or something, but um if anything, I feel like like you're kind of getting at, you know, just the feeding my curiosity was a great thing. So it's like you're you're kind of like feeding this new intellectual growth kind of thing. But but also um that will affect how you play the other instrument, in my opinion. Totally learning how to play mandolin and learning the phrasing of it, and it's like, oh, that's why that works. That's why mandolin players always play that versus guitar players or whatever. It forces you to maybe like try some of that vocabulary on your other instrument, you know, even though it may not have been intuitive or something like that before. But um, yeah, whoever asked that question, you know, like, what do you think about playing other instruments? It's like, if you've got the time, you know, and the resources to buy another one, do it. You're not going to be taking away from your um your main one.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

Mm-hmm. And it also, I mean, it puts you in a position to listen to I mean, I'm spending so much time listening to guitar now, including rhythm, in a way that, like, as a banjo player or as anyone in the in a bluegrass band, uh you probably should have a really good idea of what each instrument does and what the different players do and where the influences come from. And it's like, you know, I kind of have a good idea of like, okay, this person clearly listens to Tony or whatever the thing is. And so it helps me kind of make decisions about how I want to play or or something like that. But it's so much deeper now understanding rhythmically how guitar players do things, even if I can't necessarily do it to the extent that I'm I'm working on right now, as then I think as a banjo player, hearing things and kind of it's it's not it's less it's a lot less random now how I choose to interact with guitar players. Um and it's now and then I'm like, okay, I should be listening more deeply to all the instruments, even if I'm not playing them. Um and then there's yeah, there's things like um you know, the the the time you spend on a new instrument means spending a lot more time on the fundamentals and the basics, like we were talking about earlier, in a way where like, okay, you might not be spending as much time with a metronome on your main instrument, but you're gonna develop it's gonna develop like a strong sense of timing. Just trying to get decent timing on the new instrument is gonna be good for your own, you know, general internal timing. And yeah, it can it can really only can only help. And then I'm finding also you can spend time like, okay, I'm not necessarily gonna play uh if you're in a jam, let's say you're in a jam, one instrument per instrument one person per instrument, whatever it is, it's like, okay, well, uh, sometimes I want to play, I want to watch my favorite banjo player in a jam. It's like this is a little ways off, but it's like I actually would really like to get good enough a guitar to play in a jam where I can watch a banjo player that I really respect and like see what it feels like to play with them. Because I'm not necessarily ever going to be in that situation as a banjo player, or if I am, it's like two banjos is like, okay, I'll play some backup, you play some backup. We're not really either of us, or we're not really playing full on whatever our thing is. Yep. But if I could, you know, I don't know who I would choose. But anyway, any of my kind of heroes, it's like, oh, I could I could actually have the experience of feeling what it feels like to play with them. Imagine how how much information that gives me about their playing that I couldn't really get any other way, you know, uh uh other than playing along with records. So, you know, so Ron Stewart, if you ever want to jam, you know, uh yeah, it might that might it might take a while. But but you know, it's stuff like that. It's it there's uh yeah. Well, and if you're asking the question, you know, what do you think about playing with their instruments like you already know? You wouldn't you wouldn't type that you wouldn't type that question in if you didn't know what you wanted to do already. So you have our permission now to do what you already want to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:45

Yeah, no, it's like as long as you do all the stuff that we're saying, like it's like it's like remain curious and like cultivate a little bit of mindfulness. I think if that's really what's behind my whole deal, you know what I mean? If you can like keep that curiosity and and just be mindful of what you're doing the whole time, you know, like like be able to evaluate, you know what I mean, and and pivot and all that kind of stuff. Maybe that's like the what we're actually getting at in all of this, you know. Um but yeah, play the mandolin. Do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:17

No, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

It really enriched my life, uh, other than the fact that they cost four times more than a flat top.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:25

Yeah, yeah. This see, this is the real problem, is that I I was happy branching off into Clawhammer banjo, which is a lot more affordable than getting guitars. Now I'm looking at guitars and like, oh, 10,000, that's not too bad, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:36

Dude, it's sad. Isn't it crazy that that's a whole other podcast episode? Why are dreadnoughts now five-figure instruments? I dude, this is the I I told one of my friends this the other day. I was like, I remember me and my dad struggling over uh buying a Collins D1A when I was in college because it was $2,800. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:01

Oh, to be to be back in those days. We had no idea. Yeah, yeah. Oh man. Oh my God. Well, folks, for uh for a number of reasons, not the least of which that I'm about to run out of uh storage space on my memory card. Uh this episode of the Flat Picking Podcast must come to a close. Uh tell them where they can find you, Hayes, if they don't know already.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:25

Yeah. Come on over to YouTube, just type in HayesGriffin, H-A-Y-E-S-G-R-I-F-F-I-N if you want to keep up with some free lessons or uh other podcasts like this. Um and if you guys are interested in some of the things we've talked about today, like like um, you know, that that checklist and those processes that you can put over your improvisations and maybe how to transcribe a little better, you can find me at haze griffin.club for my guitar club. What about you, Eli?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:52

And uh, and as always, Eli Gilbert Guitar. You can follow along as I'm trying to figure out all these things as I try to apply all the things I learned in my weekly lesson with Hayes. Free lesson, I might add. I'm uh escaping him out of all this information. Yes, exactly. Yeah, right, exactly. Best and least profitable student. Um and uh yeah, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and uh tell your friends, give us reviews, ask questions. We we just answered our first viewer question, maybe possibly. So feel free to ask another. It's it could be the first one. So uh let us know if you're wondering anything else, and um we'll give you our expert style opinion. Uh but anyway, that's gonna do it for now. So thanks for checking out the Flat Picking Podcast. We'll see y'all next time.