Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / 5-Minute Daily Music Mastery: Transforming Your Instrument & Singing Skills [Episode 216]

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5-Minute Daily Music Mastery: Transforming Your Instrument & Singing Skills [Episode 216] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you.
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Speaker 1: You're reading Little Hands. It's time to rock and roll,
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Speaker 1: roll out. I totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock.
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Speaker 1: It's the podcast for those about to read and rock.
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Speaker 1: Find the podcast at booked on rock dot com. Every
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Speaker 1: episode there in both audio and video. We've got exclusive
0:25
Speaker 1: video segments from each episode. You can also link up
0:29
Speaker 1: to the social media sites and find out the latest
0:32
Speaker 1: rockbook releases there as well. Booked on rock dot Com.
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Speaker 1: The first time guests to the podcast Dan Spencer. He
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Speaker 1: has over ten years of music coaching experience and he's
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Speaker 1: the author of several books. He's appeared as a music
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Speaker 1: expert on NBC, CBS and Fox. He's currently coaching students, recording,
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Speaker 1: producing songs, talking about music on the Best Music podcast
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Speaker 1: and Serious Xcent Radio, in writing more books. He's here
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Speaker 1: to talk about his most recent book, the title The
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Speaker 1: Fourteen Unshakable Laws of Learning Music, How to Master Any
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Speaker 1: instrument and Singing in five minutes a Day. Dan Spencer,
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me. Man, let's rock and roll.
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Speaker 1: Let's do it. Man. Before we get into the book,
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Speaker 1: tell us about yourself. Your website bio it says this quote.
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Speaker 1: After fighting to find easier ways to make sense of
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Speaker 1: music through a fog of anxiety and trauma from growing
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Speaker 1: up in a cult, I decided to dedicate my life
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Speaker 1: to bringing you simple and straightforward ways to learn, understand,
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Speaker 1: and create music. So music has clearly played a huge
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Speaker 1: role in your life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know coming out of the cult. You know,
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Speaker 2: they basically, through a whole bunch of interesting control mechanisms,
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Speaker 2: basically force people into be in fight or flight all
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Speaker 2: the time, and so everyone's kind of in this constant
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Speaker 2: state of anxiety and always monitoring themselves and growing up
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Speaker 2: in that it basically trains your nervous system to sit
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Speaker 2: in that state. And if you don't know that that's
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Speaker 2: what's going on, it's like, uh, a fish in water.
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Speaker 2: You don't really know the difference between being called so Like,
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Speaker 2: the first time I was relaxed was when I was
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Speaker 2: like twenty six, like real talk, I was not in
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Speaker 2: like legit fighter flight was when I was twenty.
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Speaker 1: Six, twenty six. How long were you there? From childhood?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? From childhood And the real thing was too, It's
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Speaker 2: that my mom was in it when I was developing
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Speaker 2: inside of her. And they've done a lot of studies
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Speaker 2: on mothers and when mothers are in fight or flight
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Speaker 2: during pregnancy, it actually trains the child to also be
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Speaker 2: in fight or flight basically from the get go. It
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Speaker 2: kind of hard wires it into the system.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it's it's been such an incredible opportunity
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Speaker 2: to really dive into what growth mindset means and what
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Speaker 2: self development means, to try and sort of take myself
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Speaker 2: from this factory setting state and then bring myself into
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Speaker 2: being like a reasonable human who can just have a
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Speaker 2: beautiful life and help other people and relax and have agency.
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Speaker 2: So that that that's just been really incredible, And all
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Speaker 2: of these things I've found along the way have influenced
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Speaker 2: what's turned up in books. So for example, my latest
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Speaker 2: book The Fortune and jacob a Laws of Learning Music
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Speaker 2: in that in the whole first section, it's just breaking
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Speaker 2: all these false ideas people have about what it means
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Speaker 2: to play music and what it means for them to
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Speaker 2: play music, like people be like I'm too old, I'm
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Speaker 2: bad at music, I'm not talented enough, and all of
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Speaker 2: these things I really had to examine inside of myself
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Speaker 2: and break them one by one on my way to
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Speaker 2: you know, continuing recovery. And so it's me turning around
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Speaker 2: and saying, oh, you don't have to have been raised
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Speaker 2: in a cult. You don't have to have a crazy
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Speaker 2: origin story of like people brainwashing you for this to
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Speaker 2: work for you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is not your usual story exactly.
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Speaker 2: Like I've I've taught hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students,
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Speaker 2: whether it's voice, guitar, songwriting, everything, and it's like these
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Speaker 2: stories keep on coming up again and again and again
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Speaker 2: for almost everyone. They're almost universal beliefs. So going through
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Speaker 2: and breaking them one at a time that allows people
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Speaker 2: to be free to go and pursue their dream and
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Speaker 2: music and do it as they really want to do.
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Speaker 1: And how did music come into the picture, Like when
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Speaker 1: did you discover music? When was the moment you thought
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Speaker 1: that music was actually going to save you in a
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Speaker 1: big way.
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Speaker 2: Well, I would say that I saved myself, but I
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Speaker 2: would say that I saved myself by starting out being
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Speaker 2: very egotistical and very self centered. And when I picked
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Speaker 2: up a guitar when I was like six years old
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Speaker 2: in my grandma's house in England, and all of a sudden,
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Speaker 2: my entire family was giving me attention in a way
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Speaker 2: that I wasn't normally getting because in the cult, the
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Speaker 2: family focus of attention was on the cult leader, not
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Speaker 2: in the family. So imagine the most important person in
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Speaker 2: the family is not in the family. So to have
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Speaker 2: a moment where my mother and father were giving me
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Speaker 2: positive attention while I had this guitar in my hand
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Speaker 2: was like watershed, hallmark, insane moment for me that just
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Speaker 2: really stuck in there. So music started out as being selfish.
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Speaker 2: I wanted to get attention from people, and I realized
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Speaker 2: that if I made music, I would get attention. And
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Speaker 2: this is one of the just quick tangent. This is
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Speaker 2: one of the reasons why when some people say, you know,
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Speaker 2: you should never get into music for anything other than
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Speaker 2: the music, I say, well, I don't know, because you
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Speaker 2: could start off being really selfish and get and get
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Speaker 2: into it and it's all about you and you just
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Speaker 2: focus on you. But through the discipline of showing up
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Speaker 2: every day, and through the discipline of learning a craft,
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Speaker 2: and the discipline of learning your voice or an instrument
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Speaker 2: or a skill like songwriting, you're going to learn things
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Speaker 2: about yourself. That may lead you to believe different things
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Speaker 2: at the end, or even halfway through, or even a
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Speaker 2: week into it than you did at the beginning.
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Speaker 1: You've written several books which can be found on your website,
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Speaker 1: Music Mentored Dan Spencer dot com. But today we want
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Speaker 1: to talk about your latest book, which you mentioned, the
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Speaker 1: fourteen Unshakable Laws of Learning Music, how to Master any
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Speaker 1: instruments and singing in five minutes a day. And some
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Speaker 1: people may be asking, well, why should I listen to
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Speaker 1: Dan Spencer? And you addressed this in the book. So
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Speaker 1: what would you say to somebody who asked that question.
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Speaker 2: Well, I have spent up to fourteen hours a day
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Speaker 2: every day since I was seventeen years old just doing music.
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Speaker 2: That's it. So I skip parties, I've skipped family events.
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Speaker 2: I have literally been pedaled to the metal, working first
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Speaker 2: on myself selfishly to be a recording artist. I've released songs,
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Speaker 2: they've I've had songs chart on indie charts. I've released
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Speaker 2: songs through record labels myself. Not only did I write
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Speaker 2: and correrite those songs, that even produce them like God
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Speaker 2: in built out the tracks, mix them in some cases
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Speaker 2: even mastered them. I have worked as a working musician, singing,
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Speaker 2: playing guitar. I've also spent thousands of hours just teaching
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Speaker 2: people and figuring out the fastest ways to condense all
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Speaker 2: this insane amount of you know, almost ADHD level of
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Speaker 2: like jumping from different things to different thing, interest in
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Speaker 2: all these different parts of music, but then condensing all
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Speaker 2: those lessons down, condensing all those yeah, every lesson, every bump,
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Speaker 2: every bruise I got, making sure that you don't have
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Speaker 2: to experience those, and to make sure if you don't
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Speaker 2: want to spend fourteen hours a day on music, you
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Speaker 2: don't have to. And if you do want to spend
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Speaker 2: the fourteen hours, it's going to be much more highly
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Speaker 2: leveraged because you're doing the right things the right way
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Speaker 2: the first time, instead of spinning around trying to figure
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Speaker 2: things out the way I did.
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Speaker 1: Well, I could say too, if this matters, just after
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Speaker 1: reading the book, if anybody's listening wondering if they should
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Speaker 1: get the book, get it. You are legit. Yeah, you've
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Speaker 1: And you noticed before we started recording, you said, I
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Speaker 1: like that Van Halen poster behind you or it's like
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Speaker 1: a banner, and it reminded me of of the stories
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Speaker 1: of Eddie van Halen, like never going to the party.
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Speaker 1: He's just at home, you know, and we'll play the
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Speaker 1: guitar making music round the clock. So this is your life.
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Speaker 1: Music is a passion for you, obviously, and you want
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Speaker 1: to share that with others.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, And Eddie's a huge, huge, huge inspiration in that.
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Speaker 2: I read all great like seventeen, and then I read
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Speaker 2: about his work ethic and I was like, oh, yes,
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Speaker 2: let's do that, right was.
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Speaker 1: He was obviously born with this gift, but he worked
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Speaker 1: hard at the same time, So it's kind of like
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Speaker 1: the Michael Jordan of music. Michael Jordan was gifted, but
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Speaker 1: he worked. He looked his ass off for a very
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Speaker 1: long time, and in fact, he improved as he got older.
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Speaker 1: I remember they used to get on him. He's not
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Speaker 1: a great defensive player, and all of a sudden, he's
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Speaker 1: a great defensive player because he worked at it. So
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Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's an interesting point.
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Speaker 2: He almost got cut from his college team.
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Speaker 1: Because he wasn't working exactly.
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Speaker 2: So you can be the Michael Jordan of anything you're doing,
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Speaker 2: and if you're not putting in the work, you ain't
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Speaker 2: the Michael Jordan of whatever it is.
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Speaker 1: You're doing booked on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this.
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Speaker 1: If you must not see anybody, want to talk to anybody,
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Speaker 1: and if you do, because I have serious peapercussions on
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Speaker 1: future events. According to the statistics, when I look at
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Speaker 1: people who listen to the podcast, it's mostly because it's
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Speaker 1: classic rock, mostly between the ages of the mid forties
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Speaker 1: to mid sixties. You know, many in that age group
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Speaker 1: may say, Dan, you know what, I'd love to be
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Speaker 1: a musician, but it's too late. I'm too old to
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Speaker 1: start learning. I don't have the time. What do you
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Speaker 1: say to them?
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Speaker 2: Oh, they did a study of folks between the ages
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Speaker 2: of fifty and eighty. I don't have the exact numbers
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Speaker 2: in my mind, it was around fifty to eighty. And
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Speaker 2: basically what they had them do is they had them
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Speaker 2: learn different different college courses, so like maybe a history,
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Speaker 2: there was photography, but there was also a music theory
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Speaker 2: and there was composition. And what they found was, after
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Speaker 2: about six weeks of doing these college courses, the rate
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Speaker 2: of learning and the cognitive ability you could basically just
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Speaker 2: think about that is how well your brain works, like
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Speaker 2: how quickly you think of things and how quickly you
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Speaker 2: pick things up. Of all these folks had moved back
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Speaker 2: to be like when they were in their thirties. So
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Speaker 2: my message to folks who are past their thirties is, hey,
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Speaker 2: look if you want to be thinking as fast and
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Speaker 2: as sharp as you were in your but look even there,
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Speaker 2: like real talk, I'm thinking, I'm thirty two now, I'm
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Speaker 2: thinking so much better that I was than when I
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Speaker 2: was eighteen. Like I was really stupid when I was eighteen,
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Speaker 2: so I was all worth like age. Yes, the leverage
10:36
Speaker 2: of age in your thought process is legit. But if
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Speaker 2: you want to get back to that sort of cognitive
10:43
Speaker 2: ability of speed and picking things up, you know, and
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Speaker 2: maybe that's not an issue for you, But if that is,
10:49
Speaker 2: you need to put in like six weeks, and you
10:50
Speaker 2: need to do it every day and sit with that
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Speaker 2: feeling of being on day three and you're feeling like
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Speaker 2: you're not making progress and it feels bad inside of you,
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Speaker 2: and recognize that feeling is just a feeling. It doesn't
11:02
Speaker 2: require action. In fact, you can ignore that feeling and
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Speaker 2: you can persist in spite of that feeling. So that
11:08
Speaker 2: pain and that resistance you're feeling, it's not real. It's
11:12
Speaker 2: just a chemical reaction in your body. It's just what
11:14
Speaker 2: you're thinking about. So just don't think about it and
11:17
Speaker 2: keep going. And if you keep going and you don't
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Speaker 2: listen to that voice or that feeling inside of yourself,
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Speaker 2: you will get there and real The real kicker is
11:28
Speaker 2: you can lose the skill of acquiring skills, like think
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Speaker 2: about when you're younger, Like when you're five, you're learning
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Speaker 2: all day, every day from everyone. In fact, as a culture,
11:39
Speaker 2: we do such a great job. You see a five
11:41
Speaker 2: year old pretty much everyone teaches them. You know, if
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Speaker 2: five year old in your family, you're with uncle who,
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Speaker 2: you're with auntie whoever, they're teaching you stuff all the time.
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Speaker 2: But if you lose the habit of learning new things
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Speaker 2: all the time, that muscle atrophies. You get weaker at
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Speaker 2: the skill of losing. You get weaker at the skill
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Speaker 2: of learning new things. So all you gotta do is
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Speaker 2: just practice learning new things, and then that muscle develops,
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Speaker 2: and then you're able to learn more things faster because
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Speaker 2: you're better at learning things.
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Speaker 1: There are stories of famous musicians who were told they
12:14
Speaker 1: weren't good. The probably my favorite maybe the Roy Orbison story,
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Speaker 1: whereas music teacher said you're never gonna make a kid.
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Speaker 1: Roy Orbison. Okay, you're right, You're right about how to
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Speaker 1: deal with somebody who's telling you you are bad at music?
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Speaker 1: What is your advice?
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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, i'd question how believable that person is.
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Speaker 2: So if if I played guitar, and you know, I
12:38
Speaker 2: was talking to let's say, a Richie Sambora or a
12:43
Speaker 2: oh I don't know, yeah, let's go Richie Sambora, and
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Speaker 2: he said you're not good at guitar, I would say, Okay,
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Speaker 2: that's believable. He's very good at guitar. He's listening to
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Speaker 2: me play says not good. But here's the thing. You
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Speaker 2: have all the power in your life. And so what
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Speaker 2: you need to do, well, not what you need to do,
13:02
Speaker 2: but what I invite you to do to claim that
13:04
Speaker 2: power is after any time anyone gives you agency, assume
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Speaker 2: me anytime anyone gives you feedback is put your agency
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Speaker 2: to it. So someone says you're not good at guitar,
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Speaker 2: say to yourself, Okay, I'm not a good at guitar
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Speaker 2: right now. What am I gonna do about that to
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Speaker 2: change the fact that I'm not good at guitar? Because
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Speaker 2: there's two options. You either keep working at it and
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Speaker 2: you get good, or you don't work at it and
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Speaker 2: you stay where you are. It's like, which one do
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Speaker 2: you want? Which one do you want to have? So
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Speaker 2: even if the most believable person in the world says
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Speaker 2: you're bad at something, first of all, that's a very
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Speaker 2: low resolution piece of feedback that's not at all helpful.
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Speaker 2: Like it feedback should have step by step processes of
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Speaker 2: how to fix a problem. It's like, Okay, you're bad
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Speaker 2: at guitar, and here's three things you need to do.
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Speaker 2: That's good feedback, right because it's honest. It's telling you
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Speaker 2: where you are and then it's telling you how to
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Speaker 2: fix it. But if someone does give you the feedback
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Speaker 2: of telling you how to fix it, just understand that
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Speaker 2: maybe they don't have the skills or the understanding of
14:08
Speaker 2: how to give you feedback and how to help you
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Speaker 2: break past where you are now. So when we step
14:13
Speaker 2: back from that, then we can say, Okay, what is
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Speaker 2: it that you want. Do you want to believe an
14:19
Speaker 2: infinite truth that you have no power or agency over
14:24
Speaker 2: your ability to get better at music? Or do you
14:27
Speaker 2: want to believe that it's up to you? Because if
14:29
Speaker 2: you believe it's up to you. It doesn't actually matter
14:31
Speaker 2: what anyone else thinks. It only matters what you think
14:34
Speaker 2: about yourself. At the end of the day, when you
14:36
Speaker 2: lay down in the bed and you close your eyes,
14:38
Speaker 2: how do you feel about you? Because if you feel
14:41
Speaker 2: like you did your best that day and only you
14:43
Speaker 2: know that you actually did your best because no one
14:46
Speaker 2: else is going to know what's going on inside your head,
14:48
Speaker 2: then you feel good about yourself. So it's like, who
14:51
Speaker 2: do you want to be? Don't listen to other people?
14:54
Speaker 2: And even within that, the idea of bad is such
14:59
Speaker 2: a false pre that just if we accept that things
15:03
Speaker 2: can be bad, it means that we're not going to
15:05
Speaker 2: take action to fix them. It's like, instead of saying
15:09
Speaker 2: things are bad, say I have not yet reached the
15:13
Speaker 2: level I want to get to in this, Therefore I
15:16
Speaker 2: will and then say the thing you're going to do
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Speaker 2: to fix it? And by changing the language you use,
15:21
Speaker 2: you will change how you think, which will change your actions.
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Speaker 2: At least that's how it's gone in my experience.
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Speaker 1: Which is a good habit. Because you talk about bad
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Speaker 1: habits and how they can affect somebody, are you able
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Speaker 1: to tell when you watch someone singing on YouTuber in person,
15:37
Speaker 1: can you look to see, oh, they're using bad habits,
15:40
Speaker 1: like they're damaging their voice, because a lot of singers
15:43
Speaker 1: is they get up in age. A lot of these
15:45
Speaker 1: classic rock era singers they've lost their voice. We just
15:50
Speaker 1: heard a story I think Stephen Tyler said, I can't
15:52
Speaker 1: do it anymore. I'm gonna I'm gonna just retire. Can
15:56
Speaker 1: you tell if somebody is not singing correctly in an
16:01
Speaker 1: instant by the way, not saying Steven Tyler's saying it correctly,
16:04
Speaker 1: just using it as an example of where we're at
16:06
Speaker 1: in the classic rock genre. That the singers are in
16:09
Speaker 1: your sixties and seventies, it's very difficult to maintain it.
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Speaker 1: So I would think in your younger years you want
16:14
Speaker 1: to make sure you take care of it.
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Speaker 2: Yes, there's more inputs into it than that. Yes, I
16:19
Speaker 2: can hear instantly when someone's using poor technique. But it's
16:22
Speaker 2: not just the older rockers like you look at some
16:24
Speaker 2: of these new guys coming up, like Sam Smith, like
16:28
Speaker 2: pop singer had to go in for vocal surgery, like
16:30
Speaker 2: after just a couple of years of being out rocking
16:33
Speaker 2: and rolling. It's because the way that he's using his
16:35
Speaker 2: voice is like, it sounds cool, but my gosh, to
16:39
Speaker 2: make those sounds really does take a toll. And you
16:42
Speaker 2: know with the with the classic rockers too, it's not
16:46
Speaker 2: just that they did bad habits, but it's that naturally,
16:50
Speaker 2: as you age, your voice lowers. Like you listen to
16:53
Speaker 2: anyone who's been in public life where you go listen
16:57
Speaker 2: to recordings of yourself when you were like, yes, your
17:01
Speaker 2: voice is already if your mail, your voice has already changed,
17:04
Speaker 2: but you're gonna hear your voice is much higher than
17:06
Speaker 2: it is in your forties, and it's much higher than
17:08
Speaker 2: it is in your sixties. So all these guys, the
17:11
Speaker 2: genre is how high am I singing?
17:16
Speaker 1: Because also blot them laugh like, boy, I wish I
17:19
Speaker 1: didn't write it in that key when I listen in
17:22
Speaker 1: my twenties, if I only knew well.
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Speaker 2: But it's also the sound because the guitar takes up
17:27
Speaker 2: so much space in terms of how high it goes,
17:30
Speaker 2: and if you want to be heard very clearly over
17:32
Speaker 2: a guitar that's playing riffs that move several octaves up
17:37
Speaker 2: and down, being that higher voice really helps. It stands
17:40
Speaker 2: out in recordings and live and it's also the sound.
17:43
Speaker 2: It's the vibe, it's the feeling. It's that really high
17:47
Speaker 2: voice with all that energy behind it. That is rock man.
17:51
Speaker 2: So it's like, and yes, we can find educations and
17:54
Speaker 2: exceptions where people sing low or fine, but like, by
17:57
Speaker 2: and large, that is the sound, especially classic rock. Like
18:01
Speaker 2: you look at the eighties like that's it. You know,
18:04
Speaker 2: seventies maybe not quite so much, but still there has
18:08
Speaker 2: been since the sixties, late sixties. It's guys singing high
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Speaker 2: in that range. So naturally what happens is because they're
18:17
Speaker 2: singing high in that range, you fast forward sixty years,
18:21
Speaker 2: it's going to be harder to sing high in that range.
18:22
Speaker 2: Even if you did everything perfectly, those notes are not
18:26
Speaker 2: going to be the same to hit as when your
18:28
Speaker 2: body was forty fifty years younger.
18:32
Speaker 1: Booked on rock podcasts. Will be back after this?
18:35
Speaker 2: How make soon?
18:36
Speaker 1: Okay?
18:37
Speaker 2: I mean you know where we are.
18:39
Speaker 1: Tell your bread. There were stories of kurk Obain being
18:45
Speaker 1: told back then that if he kept singing the way
18:49
Speaker 1: he did, he would have blown out his voice. Was
18:52
Speaker 1: that is there any Is there any validity to that
18:55
Speaker 1: by those who told him. I don't know if there
18:57
Speaker 1: was experts or anybody who was in that field that
19:00
Speaker 1: we're telling him this. But his style was he was
19:03
Speaker 1: belting it out. I mean he really was like like
19:04
Speaker 1: Brian Johnson of ac DC kind of similar, where they're
19:07
Speaker 1: really really belting those those notes out with aggression.
19:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think in Kurt's case, the issue is more
19:15
Speaker 2: the vocal fry, like the uh that that that that quality,
19:19
Speaker 2: because that really fatigues the voice out, Like that's really
19:22
Speaker 2: difficult for your voice to do, and that is very
19:24
Speaker 2: tiring for your voice. But then yeah, just like this,
19:28
Speaker 2: the straining, like you can hear the strain like you
19:32
Speaker 2: listen to Freddie Mercury. You listen to and by the way,
19:35
Speaker 2: I'm not Freddie Mercury musical genius, don't get me wrong.
19:39
Speaker 1: Yeah right, like.
19:41
Speaker 2: Don't get it twisted. You watch him in the studio,
19:43
Speaker 2: he's basically like writing guitar parts with Brian May singing
19:47
Speaker 2: the stuff at him like it's amazing, it's amazing, like
19:51
Speaker 2: legit musical genius. And that has nothing to do with
19:55
Speaker 2: singing technique, which you can hear. And you know, if
20:00
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is a juicy hypothesis for you,
20:03
Speaker 2: but I would feel very comfortable saying if Freddie Mercury
20:06
Speaker 2: had continued on the way he was going, he would
20:07
Speaker 2: he also would have blown his voice out, and he
20:09
Speaker 2: would also be having the same problems everyone else did.
20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, using apps, books like yours and courses are valuable.
20:17
Speaker 1: But you say having a teacher is the only way
20:19
Speaker 1: you can avoid bad habits. Can you explain that?
20:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, like, like we were just discussing, it has
20:26
Speaker 2: to do with how you're using your body. And if
20:29
Speaker 2: you read how to, for example, play guitar, you read
20:33
Speaker 2: how to do the technique. So the tech well, let's
20:36
Speaker 2: back up a second. So fundamental is the are the
20:41
Speaker 2: most basic elements of doing anything in music. So, for example,
20:45
Speaker 2: a fundamental for you right now is your breathing. If
20:48
Speaker 2: you stop breathing, you are going to die, and you
20:51
Speaker 2: must make a choice between taking your next breath and death.
20:54
Speaker 2: It's a fundamental. It must be there for you to
20:58
Speaker 2: continue living. Now, there's things like breathing for not just
21:01
Speaker 2: for singing, where obviously breathing takes place, but for any
21:06
Speaker 2: instrument that you're playing.
21:08
Speaker 1: Now.
21:08
Speaker 2: Technique is the way in which you do a fundamental. So,
21:12
Speaker 2: for example, with breathing, if you try to breathe out
21:15
Speaker 2: of your nose, that's one way of breathing. If you
21:18
Speaker 2: breathe out of your mouth, that's a different way of breathing.
21:20
Speaker 2: If you breathe out in and out of your nose
21:22
Speaker 2: and mouth at the same time, that's a third way
21:24
Speaker 2: of breathing. And then if you like put a finger
21:28
Speaker 2: on your nose, you close one nostril. There you go.
21:31
Speaker 2: That's a different way of getting breath into your body.
21:34
Speaker 2: So technique is how you do the fundamental. Now, the
21:39
Speaker 2: way in which you use your body. When you're breathing,
21:43
Speaker 2: your body lets you know if you've done it fundamental
21:46
Speaker 2: or technique the wrong way. If you stop breathing, everything
21:50
Speaker 2: starts to feel pretty bad pretty fast. Your body says, hey, bud,
21:54
Speaker 2: you need to breathe, or we're going to have a problem.
21:58
Speaker 2: When you're playing guitar, unless you're doing something that actually hurts,
22:01
Speaker 2: like you're trying to bang the guitar with your hands,
22:05
Speaker 2: or you're trying to play it with your wrist twisted backwards,
22:08
Speaker 2: something that's totally unnatural that would hurt anyway. Just because
22:11
Speaker 2: you're doing something weird with your body, you're not going
22:14
Speaker 2: to experience the same survival level pains when you do
22:18
Speaker 2: a fundamental with the incorrect technique, So you could actually
22:22
Speaker 2: be starting, continuing, and stopping your progress using bad habits
22:28
Speaker 2: right now. And bad habits are using your body in
22:31
Speaker 2: a way that will not get you to your goals
22:35
Speaker 2: in alignment with the instrument. So you're trying to play guitar,
22:39
Speaker 2: bad habit would be holding so much tension in your
22:42
Speaker 2: hands that you cannot move very quickly because tension stops
22:46
Speaker 2: you from moving quickly. And if you hold so much tension,
22:48
Speaker 2: that's poor technique. That's going to stop you from moving quickly.
22:51
Speaker 2: It's going to stop you from doing whatever is you
22:53
Speaker 2: want to do, whether it's just playing chords or playing
22:55
Speaker 2: guitar solos, whatever it is, it's going to stop you
22:59
Speaker 2: from actually being able to reach that. So obviously you
23:03
Speaker 2: could just say okay, relax, but then that only gets
23:07
Speaker 2: you part of the way there, because so many people
23:11
Speaker 2: are unconscious of where they hold tension and how much
23:14
Speaker 2: tension they're holding, and that becomes the technique that you
23:17
Speaker 2: need to sit down with a teacher. Because I've taught
23:20
Speaker 2: so many guitar lessons where it's like I'm just sit
23:22
Speaker 2: there for an hour, just going relax the left hands
23:26
Speaker 2: some more. Relax the left hands some more, relax left's
23:29
Speaker 2: hands some more, drop your right shoulder, drop your right shoulder, breathe.
23:34
Speaker 2: And it's literally just coaching people through even though you
23:38
Speaker 2: told them the blanket statement, the blanket goal was let's relax.
23:42
Speaker 2: You have to get so precise on an individual person
23:45
Speaker 2: basis to teach those fun those habits and make the
23:49
Speaker 2: habits ingrained in the person to be relaxed, because it's
23:54
Speaker 2: not just am I relaxed or am I not relaxed?
23:56
Speaker 2: It's on a continue, it's how relaxed am I? What's
23:58
Speaker 2: the minimum viable f that I'm exerting to get the
24:02
Speaker 2: result that I want. And so you can read about
24:05
Speaker 2: techniques in a book, you can have an app tell
24:08
Speaker 2: you the techniques. You can watch technique on YouTube or
24:12
Speaker 2: in a video course, but none of those are going
24:16
Speaker 2: to give you the personalized feedback of what you need
24:19
Speaker 2: to do with your body to optimize and get to
24:24
Speaker 2: the place you want to go. So that's why I
24:26
Speaker 2: always say listen if you want to use books, if
24:30
Speaker 2: you want to use video courses, those are awesome. Those
24:32
Speaker 2: are fantastic resources. Apps too, incredible resources. There's so many
24:37
Speaker 2: incredible features like it can help you keep track of
24:39
Speaker 2: when you've made mistakes or not. Apps can do it's
24:42
Speaker 2: so cool. But use all of those in concert with
24:47
Speaker 2: a teacher, because the teacher is going to be able
24:50
Speaker 2: to pinpoint the things you actually need to do with
24:53
Speaker 2: your technique that all of those other examples are not
24:56
Speaker 2: going to show you. Because you can be watching that video,
25:00
Speaker 2: I have no idea how it's supposed to feel in
25:02
Speaker 2: your body.
25:03
Speaker 1: Booked on Rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this, which mind,
25:07
Speaker 1: I will be long. Dan Spencer. He's the author of
25:10
Speaker 1: the Fourteen Unshakeable Laws of Learning Music How to Master
25:13
Speaker 1: Any Instrument in Singing in five Minutes a Day, one
25:16
Speaker 1: of many books in this area. So we'll talk about
25:19
Speaker 1: that a little bit. After you received your first diploma
25:22
Speaker 1: in music, you were teaching students things they didn't need
25:28
Speaker 1: to know. You say, they got overwhelmed, lost interest about
25:31
Speaker 1: things that didn't matter. What were the changes that you made?
25:37
Speaker 2: Well, I started off using all the old music books
25:41
Speaker 2: that it's like, okay, and following the order in which
25:44
Speaker 2: they went, which is like, all right, you're gonna learn
25:46
Speaker 2: a scale and after you but before we play, like
25:49
Speaker 2: you want to play Sweet Home Chicago as played by
25:52
Speaker 2: Buddy Guy, and you just want to play that solo
25:54
Speaker 2: so bad, And I'm like, all right, let's learn to
25:56
Speaker 2: play a C scale.
25:57
Speaker 1: And just like the.
26:00
Speaker 2: Discrepancy between those two things and the absolute lack of
26:04
Speaker 2: interest that the student has for plague is like, there's
26:08
Speaker 2: no way. I mean, yes, tangentially, I can relate playing
26:12
Speaker 2: a C scale back to the goal of playing the
26:14
Speaker 2: guitar solo from Suet Home Chicago as recorded by Buddy Guy.
26:17
Speaker 2: But man, it's like it's like that's a stretch for
26:22
Speaker 2: any reasonable person who can like think. So what I
26:27
Speaker 2: started to do is I started to think, Okay, how
26:29
Speaker 2: do we actually get you to your goal? And how
26:30
Speaker 2: do we actually get you to your goal now instead
26:33
Speaker 2: of later? And how do we minimize the number of
26:36
Speaker 2: things and minimize the amount of time and effort it
26:39
Speaker 2: needs to take you to get to your goal. And
26:42
Speaker 2: by doing that, we started to delete steps, delete steps,
26:46
Speaker 2: delete steps, delete steps, delete entire concepts of things. It's
26:50
Speaker 2: like I used to make everyone learn how to read
26:52
Speaker 2: music everyone, and I have this whole soapbox speech it's
26:57
Speaker 2: important for this, and I could tie it back to
26:59
Speaker 2: so many things, and like I'm a decent sales guy
27:01
Speaker 2: when I want to be so, like I could sell
27:03
Speaker 2: people on it. But like real talk again our example,
27:07
Speaker 2: you just want to play some buddy guy solos. You
27:08
Speaker 2: want to play some whatever it is, Freddie King, you
27:11
Speaker 2: want to you know, play some slash solos, like whatever
27:15
Speaker 2: it is. You don't need to read music to do that.
27:18
Speaker 2: You don't at all, And to do that is really
27:22
Speaker 2: really really wasting your time unless you have a secondary goal,
27:26
Speaker 2: which is also like I want to be able to
27:28
Speaker 2: Some people have a goal. Look, I want to be
27:30
Speaker 2: able to go onto a sheet music website, buy anything
27:33
Speaker 2: and play it because I want to be able to read,
27:35
Speaker 2: like I want that level of agency. And maybe that's
27:39
Speaker 2: easier for them too. So some people, the ear training
27:44
Speaker 2: comes a little bit slower and the reading comes a
27:47
Speaker 2: little bit faster, And for those people, I'd say, definitely
27:50
Speaker 2: leverage your leverage your strengths. Steve I talks about this STEVI,
27:55
Speaker 2: if you don't know him in and of himself for
27:58
Speaker 2: playing guitar, I believe he plays a guitar for.
28:02
Speaker 1: Play Lee David White.
28:06
Speaker 2: Snake, David Lee Roth White Snake, Thank you.
28:08
Speaker 1: But he's had a prolific solo career to this day.
28:12
Speaker 2: Yes, and he always talks about leveraging your strengths. So
28:16
Speaker 2: take us take a page out of Steve's by Steve
28:18
Speaker 2: Vye's book and leverage your strengths. If if you can
28:22
Speaker 2: hear things and pick it up fast, maybe you don't
28:24
Speaker 2: need to learn music. Like Earl Slick never learned how
28:28
Speaker 2: to read a look of music and has played on
28:30
Speaker 2: so many incredible sets.
28:31
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to ask you about. Yeah, there
28:33
Speaker 1: are musicians to say I never I don't even know
28:35
Speaker 1: how to read music, right, because I was gonna ask
28:37
Speaker 1: you if that's important, but not necessarily.
28:40
Speaker 2: No. It comes down to pattern recognition. So my question
28:43
Speaker 2: is how quickly can we get you to recognize the
28:46
Speaker 2: patterns of music to get you to your goal? And
28:49
Speaker 2: some people recognizing the patterns just through listening is their
28:53
Speaker 2: fastest way to get it. Some people recognizing visually the
28:56
Speaker 2: patterns is their fastest way to get it. Some people
28:59
Speaker 2: are kind of in the middle.
29:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's like playing by ear exactly right.
29:05
Speaker 2: If that's the easiest thing for you, leverage that you
29:10
Speaker 2: might get hit by a bus tomorrow and we only
29:12
Speaker 2: have so much time. So it's like, do the thing
29:14
Speaker 2: you want to do, do it now, and go all
29:17
Speaker 2: out in it, and like squeeze the juice. Like every
29:20
Speaker 2: day when my fiance leaves the house, I look at
29:22
Speaker 2: her and I say, squeeze the juice out of the day.
29:24
Speaker 2: I might not see it, like real talk, I could,
29:28
Speaker 2: like so many things happen, I might not see you
29:30
Speaker 2: at the end of the day. I might not make
29:32
Speaker 2: it to the end of the day. I'm not saying
29:33
Speaker 2: I want to die. I'm just saying, like, this is
29:35
Speaker 2: the reality of living life. So it's like, what is
29:38
Speaker 2: it that you want to do. Don't do the stuff
29:41
Speaker 2: you don't want to do, Leverage the heck out of
29:44
Speaker 2: your time, and go as fast as you can towards
29:47
Speaker 2: your goal.
29:48
Speaker 1: That's great advice, and it's I think about like with
29:50
Speaker 1: baseball too. Every baseball player has a different stance at
29:54
Speaker 1: the plate. However it works for him. If some people
29:57
Speaker 1: look at it like how the hell is he hitting
29:58
Speaker 1: home runs that way? That's the way he does it,
30:02
Speaker 1: and the other thing pictures the same thing. Now, the
30:06
Speaker 1: other thing that's interesting too, is you alluded to be basically,
30:09
Speaker 1: just do it. Learn as you go along, you learned
30:13
Speaker 1: how to be a better teacher just by doing it
30:15
Speaker 1: and saying this isn't working, let me remove that, let
30:19
Speaker 1: me adjust that. I say that with people always. Some
30:21
Speaker 1: people will say I want to start a podcast. What
30:23
Speaker 1: do I do? I just start? Just start do it,
30:26
Speaker 1: get the equipment set up, go to you know, read
30:29
Speaker 1: articles how to set things up. You can start basic.
30:33
Speaker 1: The key is to have a topic, start talking into
30:37
Speaker 1: that microphone. Don't worry about being perfect. Just do it.
30:41
Speaker 1: And then along the way you start to develop your
30:44
Speaker 1: skills and find out things that you want to do
30:47
Speaker 1: and you want to stop doing. And you say, someone
30:50
Speaker 1: can learn ten thousand plus songs in three lessons with
30:53
Speaker 1: a teacher. How's that done? Oh man?
30:58
Speaker 2: Writing that felt so I started off at a thousand
31:00
Speaker 2: hour and then dude, I put a thousand in the
31:05
Speaker 2: first draft. Second draft I put five thousand. You don't
31:08
Speaker 2: think that. I was like, let's make this so juicy.
31:11
Speaker 2: People are like, wait, I've got to read the next draft,
31:14
Speaker 2: and look, it's true.
31:15
Speaker 1: In the next edition it's going to be twenty thousand.
31:19
Speaker 2: Honestly, if I run the map will and by the way,
31:21
Speaker 2: because new songs were coming out every day. I was
31:24
Speaker 2: just basing it off of the number of songs you
31:26
Speaker 2: could easily extrapolate too. So it's like, yes, in three lessons,
31:31
Speaker 2: you could learn ten thousand songs. That not that you're
31:33
Speaker 2: going to learn ten thousand songs, but you're going to
31:35
Speaker 2: focus on the one or two or three things you
31:37
Speaker 2: really need to leverage. So maybe that's just like four chords.
31:40
Speaker 2: And once you get those four chords down, every single
31:43
Speaker 2: song that uses those four chords you can now play.
31:47
Speaker 2: And the reason why you got yourself to that point
31:50
Speaker 2: is because you said no to everything that wasn't your goal,
31:54
Speaker 2: and you only said yes to things that were going
31:56
Speaker 2: to get you to your goal. And then you stuck
31:59
Speaker 2: to just doing the yes things no matter what you felt,
32:02
Speaker 2: no matter what you thought, because you had a goal
32:04
Speaker 2: to stick to, and you did it and you walked
32:06
Speaker 2: through it and now you're there.
32:09
Speaker 1: Now you say, there's there's a mistake that people can
32:13
Speaker 1: make when taking music lessons. What is the biggest mistake
32:16
Speaker 1: someone can take when they are taking music lessons?
32:20
Speaker 2: Biggest mistake would be to not listen to your teacher
32:22
Speaker 2: and to not practice. You know, like I've had the
32:26
Speaker 2: fortune of working with some folks who you know, it's
32:29
Speaker 2: like these guys and they've they've just retired and they've
32:32
Speaker 2: come off of really successful careers and some of them
32:38
Speaker 2: forgot how to work. And I don't know if it
32:41
Speaker 2: was like their last decade of work or like whatever
32:43
Speaker 2: it was, but like there's ways, if you have the resources,
32:48
Speaker 2: there's ways to take lessons where you don't have to
32:51
Speaker 2: sit down and practice by yourself. And that is you
32:54
Speaker 2: find a teacher who's open, is sitting down with you two, three,
32:59
Speaker 2: four or five times week for an hour, right, and
33:01
Speaker 2: that's going to be your practice, right. And so you
33:03
Speaker 2: can think about that as having like an accountability coach
33:06
Speaker 2: of like if you're working out and bringing someone into
33:08
Speaker 2: the gym with you who's going to be your workout coach.
33:11
Speaker 2: It's like the same idea, Like you could go work
33:14
Speaker 2: out by yourself, but you like having the person there
33:16
Speaker 2: to cheer you on. You can do the same model
33:18
Speaker 2: with music lessons. So whatever it is you need to
33:23
Speaker 2: do to get it to the point where you're going
33:25
Speaker 2: to practice and you're going to have whatever instrument it
33:28
Speaker 2: is in hand, or if you're singing, that you're going
33:30
Speaker 2: to sing every single day for at least five minutes,
33:35
Speaker 2: So even on and off day, just hit it for
33:37
Speaker 2: five minutes because the for whatever reason, technique is the
33:46
Speaker 2: first thing that degrades in terms of your ability to
33:50
Speaker 2: replicate it and in terms of your ability to remember it.
33:53
Speaker 2: And this goes across everyone. So when you read interviews
33:56
Speaker 2: with guys like Tommy Emmanuel who's like, I need to
33:59
Speaker 2: practice four hours a day or I feel rusty, that's
34:02
Speaker 2: because he's so tuned into and so hyper aware of
34:05
Speaker 2: his technique that he can feel the moment if he
34:08
Speaker 2: doesn't get that four hours, and if he doesn't get
34:10
Speaker 2: that time in, it's like the ship's going down. The
34:13
Speaker 2: quality decreases. So if you're not hitting it every single day,
34:17
Speaker 2: expect a decrease. But with that there's also a blessing
34:20
Speaker 2: in the sense that you can then anticipate within yourself.
34:24
Speaker 2: I know I'm going to miss the next two weeks,
34:26
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be on vacation, and then you make peace
34:28
Speaker 2: with yourself. I'm gonna be two steps back when I
34:31
Speaker 2: pick this up. But the advantage to being two steps
34:34
Speaker 2: back is you already had yourself two steps forward, and
34:37
Speaker 2: a time it takes you to get yourself two steps
34:39
Speaker 2: forward greatly decreases. But yes, to summarize and to truly
34:43
Speaker 2: answer your question. The biggest mistake is to not practice
34:46
Speaker 2: and to think that just taking one lesson a week
34:48
Speaker 2: is going to be enough.
34:49
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't asked this yet. I'm sure listeners
34:52
Speaker 1: are wondering, who are your favorite bands, bands and artists
34:55
Speaker 1: that you grow up listening to that you're a fan
34:57
Speaker 1: of these days, if you have to pick one, is
34:59
Speaker 1: there like a is it that one band or artist
35:03
Speaker 1: you say that's my favorite?
35:05
Speaker 2: Eric, I'm afraid I'm gonna let you down answering your
35:07
Speaker 2: question directly. There's no one. There's no one, and there
35:11
Speaker 2: will never be a one. But you know the I
35:16
Speaker 2: grew up on the Beatles to Who Bowie Stones. My
35:20
Speaker 2: father grew up in hemel Hempstead, England, so he brought
35:25
Speaker 2: all the all the Brits to to my to my
35:28
Speaker 2: young ears, Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits, and yeah, that's that's
35:36
Speaker 2: the Those are those are the big sort of comfort
35:39
Speaker 2: food for me when it comes to music.
35:41
Speaker 1: Those are all home runs in my book. Interesting with
35:44
Speaker 1: rock and roll because you look at other genres like
35:47
Speaker 1: jazz or or classical precision. Doing things as perfectly as
35:54
Speaker 1: you can as the goal. But rock and roll is different.
35:56
Speaker 2: You know.
35:56
Speaker 1: It's like Mick Jagger. If you say, was Mick Jagger
35:59
Speaker 1: one of the of singers of all time? He's not
36:01
Speaker 1: usually gonna be on that list, but he's got that
36:04
Speaker 1: certain something he's he's a legend obviously, and so that's
36:08
Speaker 1: that's an interesting aspect when you're teaching students about rock
36:11
Speaker 1: and roll music. Do you approach it with that mindset?
36:15
Speaker 2: Hmm? You know, I think the level of precision depends
36:18
Speaker 2: on the individual musician, because you could look at someone
36:21
Speaker 2: like a Steve fi who for a time was rock,
36:24
Speaker 2: but while he was rock, was hyper precise, right.
36:27
Speaker 1: Steely Dan is an example of professional.
36:32
Speaker 2: I think it really comes down to the goals, like
36:34
Speaker 2: what is it that you want to do? What what
36:37
Speaker 2: is it that you want to create? And what level
36:40
Speaker 2: of technical excellence is going to get you there? Because
36:45
Speaker 2: you can look at people who have a very low
36:47
Speaker 2: level of technical excellence and who are just insane and
36:51
Speaker 2: have incredible careers. It's not it's not a pre it's
36:54
Speaker 2: not a prerequisite for you using your time. Well, let
37:01
Speaker 2: me phrase this differently, excellence is not a prerequisite for
37:06
Speaker 2: you feeling like you've spent your time wisely and you've
37:10
Speaker 2: done a good job learning music. Excellence is not It
37:14
Speaker 2: can be one of the things you measure, but it
37:17
Speaker 2: does not have to be. It's that. It's that that's
37:21
Speaker 2: part of what's making you the artist that you are.
37:25
Speaker 2: And you might say, yeah, well I only play a
37:27
Speaker 2: couple of cover songs. Yeah, and I'm gonna call you
37:29
Speaker 2: a cover artist. I'm gonna call you an artist. And
37:32
Speaker 2: your artistic voice is playing other people's music because that's
37:35
Speaker 2: what you like doing. You like maybe putting your spin
37:37
Speaker 2: on it, maybe like doing it exactly like they did it,
37:39
Speaker 2: you know, like some guys want to play the solo
37:43
Speaker 2: for Free Bird and they want to do it exactly
37:45
Speaker 2: like literally every single nuance exactly how it is on
37:49
Speaker 2: the record, and some guys just want to basically be
37:52
Speaker 2: able to do it, but do it in their own way,
37:54
Speaker 2: and neither one is right or wrong. It comes down
37:56
Speaker 2: to what is meaningful to you. If you're in a
38:00
Speaker 2: rocking chair at ninety and you're looking back at your life,
38:04
Speaker 2: what do you want the outcome to have been? What
38:06
Speaker 2: are you going to feel proud of? I do this
38:09
Speaker 2: all the time. I close my eyes, I imagine I'm
38:11
Speaker 2: ninety and I'm in a rocking chair. I'm like, what
38:13
Speaker 2: is ninety year old me going to be satisfied with that? Now?
38:17
Speaker 2: Me did? So. It's like, if you want to pursue
38:19
Speaker 2: excellence and that's gonna be meaningful for you, and you're
38:21
Speaker 2: gonna look back to and say I pursued excellence, then
38:24
Speaker 2: do that. But if you want to look back and
38:27
Speaker 2: you say, you know what, I had so much fun.
38:29
Speaker 2: I didn't care about anything. I just kind of did it.
38:32
Speaker 2: I played along with the records, I sang along, I
38:34
Speaker 2: had a great time, then do that. Neither one is
38:38
Speaker 2: worse or better, and there's such ough humans are the
38:44
Speaker 2: best and they're also the worst sometimes because the idea
38:48
Speaker 2: of one way of doing art being better than another,
38:54
Speaker 2: and the fact that we even have to clarify this,
38:56
Speaker 2: I think is such a travesty. Because art is art,
39:01
Speaker 2: and by its very definition, it cannot be judged, and
39:04
Speaker 2: by its very definition, the merit is in you making it,
39:08
Speaker 2: and the merit is in who you are as you
39:11
Speaker 2: make it and who you become from having made it.
39:14
Speaker 2: And so the genre you play, the speed at which
39:20
Speaker 2: you play the level of accuracy. All of this stuff
39:24
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter. What really matters is how do you
39:29
Speaker 2: feel and in my opinion, most importantly, how you feel
39:33
Speaker 2: about yourself.
39:35
Speaker 1: Book on podcasts will be back after this. Think about
39:39
Speaker 1: the future. You talked about Stevie Vai. Joe Satriani, longtime
39:46
Speaker 1: friend of Stevie VI, toured together and on this current
39:52
Speaker 1: tour that Satrianni is on, he is playing with Sammy
39:55
Speaker 1: Hagar and his goal going in Sammy Hagar want to
40:00
Speaker 1: to do a mostly Van Halen set, so he said, Joe,
40:02
Speaker 1: I need you to I need you to step it
40:05
Speaker 1: up here. We got some songs are gonna be difficult
40:09
Speaker 1: that Eddie played and Saturin he agreed. You know, but
40:13
Speaker 1: what's interesting about his approach is he is, I guess this.
40:17
Speaker 1: I think Samy talked about this, and Joe himself said,
40:19
Speaker 1: I'm sticking to the structure of what Eddie did, but
40:23
Speaker 1: I'm also not not doing it like note for no,
40:27
Speaker 1: I'm putting in my own, my own Joe satrianniisms inside
40:34
Speaker 1: of the song. So when he does a solo, the
40:37
Speaker 1: notes are the same, sometimes similar, but he's you could
40:39
Speaker 1: tell it's it's Satrianni it's his style, yet he's also
40:43
Speaker 1: staying true to Eddie's like the bones of the song,
40:46
Speaker 1: which I think is really cool. I'm glad he did
40:49
Speaker 1: it that way as opposed to being like a cover
40:53
Speaker 1: band guitarist. And I think it's it's worked well with
40:56
Speaker 1: him because he's in a really tough spot. It's like
40:58
Speaker 1: a no win with a lot of fans. They're just
41:00
Speaker 1: gonna say no, he's not Eddie, and he knows he's
41:02
Speaker 1: not Eddie. So I thought that was interesting. And he
41:05
Speaker 1: also he used the equipment that he uses trying to
41:08
Speaker 1: get the tone, So I think that's interesting that kind
41:11
Speaker 1: of I think that speaks to what you were saying.
41:13
Speaker 1: It's it's don't worry about what others are saying. Do
41:17
Speaker 1: what you feel is right, what you feel is like
41:19
Speaker 1: was sata any saying what he feels is a respectable
41:22
Speaker 1: way to honor Eddie.
41:25
Speaker 2: And Joe Satran is an incredible artist in and of
41:28
Speaker 2: his own right. His album streams Beautiful Music, Changed Money,
41:31
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh my god, like insane.
41:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's surfing with an alien, yeah, flying in
41:38
Speaker 1: a Blue Dream those three there, Yeah.
41:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it insane, insane. I call him the Yoda of
41:46
Speaker 2: guitar playing, because it's like, man, we got some obi
41:50
Speaker 2: wan kenobi's out there, but we don't have enough. Like
41:53
Speaker 2: he is, Yoda.
41:54
Speaker 1: You know you're right because he taught. He taught per
41:58
Speaker 1: cant of Metallica back in the day, so yeah, he's
42:01
Speaker 1: he's a teacher as well as as a guitarist. Yeah.
42:04
Speaker 1: What are the three types of music mistakes people can make?
42:07
Speaker 1: You call them the three rs?
42:10
Speaker 2: Ooh, remembering, replicating, and then I think reading was the
42:15
Speaker 2: third if my memory serves Okay, So replicating is you
42:20
Speaker 2: heard something and then you did it wrong, and that
42:23
Speaker 2: sounds like fundamentals and technique. Remembering is the chord progression
42:29
Speaker 2: was g C D E minor, but you played it
42:34
Speaker 2: g C E minor D. And then reading is you
42:38
Speaker 2: literally are reading the page and you make a mistake
42:41
Speaker 2: while you're reading.
42:43
Speaker 1: I've heard musicians talk about how they never learn how
42:46
Speaker 1: to read music, and we talked about that, and you know,
42:50
Speaker 1: reading music can be overwhelming too. So when somebody, if
42:54
Speaker 1: somebody loses that motivation to get better at music because
42:57
Speaker 1: they're overwhelmed by all of that, what would you say
43:00
Speaker 1: to them? Just again, just however you want to approach
43:05
Speaker 1: it however you want to learn it, it's up to you.
43:08
Speaker 2: Well, part of the overwhelm can also come from poor
43:12
Speaker 2: teaching methods and poor like sequencing of information. So like,
43:19
Speaker 2: for example, not to be self serving, but I'm going
43:22
Speaker 2: to be self serving. My book The Best Music Theory
43:24
Speaker 2: Book for Beginners, which is number one best seller on Amazon.
43:29
Speaker 2: It teaches you how to read music, and it teaches
43:32
Speaker 2: you to read music in a way that if you've
43:33
Speaker 2: never read music before, you get it. And like, I
43:35
Speaker 2: just had a testimonial the other day come up in
43:37
Speaker 2: our in our community group of someone who just taught
43:40
Speaker 2: themselves to write compositions using the Best Music Theory, Like
43:44
Speaker 2: they just went through the book and now they're writing
43:45
Speaker 2: compositions because it lays it out the plain. So it's
43:49
Speaker 2: like the question becomes, I'm having trouble reading music. Is
43:54
Speaker 2: the problem me? Or is it the material I'm musing?
43:59
Speaker 2: And then within that we have all kinds of nuance
44:01
Speaker 2: because if you're feeling frustrated, it could be you're feeling
44:05
Speaker 2: frustrated because of the source material, or it could be
44:08
Speaker 2: because you as a person have a very low tolerance
44:10
Speaker 2: for frustration and you get turned off of doing new
44:13
Speaker 2: things very quickly if there's a level of difficulty to them.
44:17
Speaker 2: So you have to suss that out on like a
44:20
Speaker 2: person by person level. But if you've given reading music
44:26
Speaker 2: a try and like you've really tried, maybe it's not
44:32
Speaker 2: for you, you know in the sense that, well, well,
44:34
Speaker 2: let me back that up. Let me be consistent with
44:37
Speaker 2: what I said before. Maybe it's not for you if
44:39
Speaker 2: it doesn't align with your goals. But if it aligns
44:41
Speaker 2: with your goals, then maybe there's a huge opportunity for
44:44
Speaker 2: growth and progress in personal development that lies in front
44:48
Speaker 2: of you. Contending with the uncomfortable feelings that you're going
44:52
Speaker 2: to experience as you deal with the frustration and the
44:55
Speaker 2: setbacks and the little bit of progress but not moving forward.
44:59
Speaker 2: And something that's that didn't make it in the book
45:02
Speaker 2: because I just didn't know about it at the time.
45:05
Speaker 2: I'd love to give this bonus to your listeners now,
45:08
Speaker 2: is the concept of the dopamine floor. So there's all
45:15
Speaker 2: kinds of chemicals and things inside of your body that
45:20
Speaker 2: will drive you to do different things. So, for example,
45:23
Speaker 2: you have hunger hunger, you're gonna feel hungry no matter what.
45:27
Speaker 2: But learning new skills if you don't get a reward
45:31
Speaker 2: learning the new skill, you don't get this chemical feedback
45:34
Speaker 2: inside of yourself when you feel good. This is one
45:36
Speaker 2: of the reasons why playing video games is so easy
45:38
Speaker 2: to do. It's because these guys have completely dialed in
45:42
Speaker 2: the reward system. For you take an action, you get rewarded.
45:46
Speaker 2: You take an action, you get rewarded. You take an action,
45:48
Speaker 2: you get rewarded. So because you're not getting that same
45:52
Speaker 2: level of action reward cycle, and it might not be
45:55
Speaker 2: at the same intensity, and it might not be at
45:58
Speaker 2: the same frequency. If you're learning to read music, if
46:01
Speaker 2: you can lower your dopamine threshold and lower your dopamine floor,
46:06
Speaker 2: it means you're actually gonna find the process of working
46:09
Speaker 2: on something that you're not yet winning at super rewarding,
46:13
Speaker 2: and that in and of itself will become addicting and
46:16
Speaker 2: you're going to get much better at it much quickly.
46:19
Speaker 2: But that's only going to happen if your dopamine floor
46:23
Speaker 2: is below the amount of dopamine that's generated by that activity.
46:27
Speaker 2: So reading music is a low dopamine and a low
46:32
Speaker 2: reward activity. So if you spend two hours playing video
46:36
Speaker 2: games and then you try and read music, you're not
46:39
Speaker 2: going to spend that much time on reading music. Why
46:41
Speaker 2: because your dopamine threshold for how good you feel or
46:44
Speaker 2: at what point you feel a reward has been raised
46:47
Speaker 2: so high by playing the video games that after two
46:49
Speaker 2: hours of doing that, you need something to stimulate that
46:53
Speaker 2: good feeling of you making progress to actually make you
46:56
Speaker 2: want to continue forward. I do dopamine fasts all the time,
47:02
Speaker 2: and I've set my life up so I lowered my
47:04
Speaker 2: dopamine threshold as much as possible. So it's like, if
47:06
Speaker 2: I have a business goal I'm working on, I do
47:09
Speaker 2: not play video games at all, like in any way,
47:13
Speaker 2: not on the phone, not on the console. I limit
47:16
Speaker 2: myself to either comedy like stand up comedy on the TV,
47:19
Speaker 2: or documentaries or business content because all of those are
47:23
Speaker 2: pretty low dopamine. Like if you watch an action movie,
47:27
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, at the end, it's like, bro, try
47:30
Speaker 2: not watching an action movie for a year and then
47:32
Speaker 2: watch an action movie. You're like, oh my god, it's
47:34
Speaker 2: like riding on a roller coaster at six Flags.
47:36
Speaker 1: It's insane.
47:38
Speaker 2: It's crazy, and you don't realize because I used to
47:41
Speaker 2: just watch action all the time, all the time, like fantasy, adventure, action,
47:46
Speaker 2: like hit me with a Bruce Willis movie I'm Good,
47:49
Speaker 2: and it's like, you don't realize what a roller coaster
47:52
Speaker 2: that things taking your body on. And so if you
47:55
Speaker 2: can lower that dopamine threshold, all of a sudden, staying
47:59
Speaker 2: consistent with something that doesn't feel very rewarding, all of
48:02
Speaker 2: a sudden becomes incredibly rewarding, and your brain starts working differently,
48:05
Speaker 2: and you start thinking differently about making progress, and you
48:08
Speaker 2: actually become significantly more motivated to do the thing that
48:12
Speaker 2: you want to do. And in my opinion and in
48:15
Speaker 2: my experience, the most important part of that is that
48:19
Speaker 2: it actually allows you to assess the opportunities of what
48:23
Speaker 2: you want to do much more clear headedly, because you're
48:27
Speaker 2: not having this script in the back of your head
48:31
Speaker 2: of what's going to feel good, filtering through and distorting
48:36
Speaker 2: the way you are assessing the quality of opportunities. Because
48:41
Speaker 2: if there's something that makes me feel really good, I'm
48:42
Speaker 2: naturally going to assign a higher quality percentage to me
48:45
Speaker 2: wanting to do it right. If I have the option
48:48
Speaker 2: of doing three things, one of them is the thing
48:50
Speaker 2: I really need to do to move my music forward.
48:54
Speaker 2: One of them is something that will keep me abauck
48:56
Speaker 2: where I am in music, but it feels good and
48:58
Speaker 2: one thing is me just sitting They're noodling without a metronome,
49:02
Speaker 2: backing track or anything, and not progressing and not trying
49:05
Speaker 2: to come up with new ideas, but it feels fun
49:07
Speaker 2: to do. It's like that last one, it's like eating cheetos.
49:13
Speaker 2: It's like, oh my gosh, it's fun while you're doing it,
49:16
Speaker 2: but bro, when you're done, you have nothing to show
49:18
Speaker 2: for your work. The middle one it's like, you know,
49:22
Speaker 2: maybe you got a meal at the freezer eyre, you know,
49:24
Speaker 2: the hungry man meals. I don't know if you've ever had.
49:27
Speaker 1: A week where yes, yeah.
49:30
Speaker 2: It's it's like, okay, it's some decent food. You've maybe
49:33
Speaker 2: got some turkey breast on there, you got some ashdis
49:35
Speaker 2: but still it's like, maybe feel a little flemmy afterwards.
49:37
Speaker 2: It's not really giving you everything. And then the last
49:39
Speaker 2: one is like you're just eating whole foods. It's like
49:42
Speaker 2: high protein and you're exercising, and it's like it's so
49:46
Speaker 2: much more fun in the short term to eat cheetos. Like, bro,
49:50
Speaker 2: if I could eat cheetos every day and like have
49:54
Speaker 2: zero negative repercussions. I would eat way for cheetos that
49:57
Speaker 2: I currently.
50:00
Speaker 1: It's so fun.
50:04
Speaker 2: So it's just about lowering that threshold so that you
50:06
Speaker 2: can look at those three opportunities and say, it's not
50:09
Speaker 2: about which one makes me feel the best, it's about
50:11
Speaker 2: which one's going to get me the highest quality outcome
50:14
Speaker 2: over the short, medium, and long term. That's in alignment
50:16
Speaker 2: with my goals.
50:17
Speaker 1: That is interesting. What a way to finish out with
50:19
Speaker 1: this interview. That's perfect. The fourteen Unshakeable Laws of Learning Music,
50:23
Speaker 1: How to Master any instrument and singing in five minutes
50:26
Speaker 1: a day. It's out now. You can find it wherever
50:28
Speaker 1: books are sold, and talk about the other books that
50:30
Speaker 1: people can find from you. Where can they find you online?
50:34
Speaker 1: You have a YouTube channel as well. You can talk
50:36
Speaker 1: about all that now.
50:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, check out the Best Guitar Book for Beginners How
50:40
Speaker 2: to read Music. If you want to read music. If
50:42
Speaker 2: you don't want to read music, I want to play guitar.
50:45
Speaker 2: Check out the Best Electric Guitar Book for Beginners. It's
50:48
Speaker 2: two books in one that's on Amazon. And if you're
50:51
Speaker 2: into acoustic I have basically it's the same book but
50:54
Speaker 2: with some swapped out stuff for fingerstyle for acoustic and yeah,
50:58
Speaker 2: just check out my books on Amazon. Spencer Music Books
51:00
Speaker 2: will bring up everything. You check out my music theory series.
51:03
Speaker 2: There's workbooks and if you want courses, which we didn't
51:07
Speaker 2: talk about, but you know, things that don't involve technique,
51:10
Speaker 2: you can use courses and books for and those would
51:12
Speaker 2: be things like songwriting, music theory, composition, music production. You
51:17
Speaker 2: can check out my website best musicoach dot com and
51:21
Speaker 2: go check out the courses there.
51:23
Speaker 1: And yeah one more right, music mentor dance dot com.
51:29
Speaker 1: Is that another one?
51:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can find me hit me up on
51:33
Speaker 2: socials at music mentor Dan on all on All on
51:36
Speaker 2: All socials.
51:37
Speaker 1: And yeah cool. Yeah, I'll put all the links up
51:39
Speaker 1: on the show notes page so people can reach out
51:42
Speaker 1: to you. Dan. This is awesome, man, Thanks so much.
51:44
Speaker 1: This is fascinating, Eric, Thank you so very much for
51:46
Speaker 1: having me. That's it. It's in the books.