First, having worked with many hundreds of jazz musicians, they all would be surprised to find a post like the one I'm about to share with you. But it's true!
Jazz musicians - or any musician who plays an improvisatory style of music - are extremely productive.
To make improvised music, here's what you must do, this is the secret:
Be totally in the present.
That's it.
You must be totally in the "here and now".
If you cannot be "in the moment," here's what happens:
Classical music ;-) ("ha ha" to the classical musicians/music teachers who read the blog - that was just a joke)
The song and the others will literally pass you by.
You will quickly find yourself lost - and you will feel lost. You might literally ask, "Where am I? Where are we?" And someone will respond, "we are here. where are you?"
The piece will collapse. It will collapse because the unit is not "together" - someone is somewhere else.
Art will not be made - the audience won't find value in the work. How could they? The group wasn't together - someone was somewhere other than "here."
So how do jazz musicians overcome the obstacles that take us out of "now"?
Listen. We are constantly listening to what's going on around us - we are hyper aware of "now."
Improvise - put the "jazz" in jazz. Instead of reacting, we might choose to stop, listen, and find a way to contribute to the piece so that we can orientate ourselves.
We make the obstacle the contribution. When an obstacle gets in the way - someone gets lost, makes a mistake, or something else - we embrace it! We go with it. Singer comes in early? Great, let's join the singer! (Not that that ever happens). Paddy missed a beat? Cool, let's find a creative way to get us back on beat - yay, we created something!
The ultimate, power-packed, never-fail way to crushing the obstacles that are getting in the way of work that matters, is you deciding to embrace the obstacles, leverage them, and make them part of your work.
If you can do that, you could have a career in jazz.
You just better enjoy a ramen noodles only diet. ;-)
