Phillip Kennedy Johnson with author Scott Snyder
When I was a college freshman, my school’s music department brought in acclaimed jazz trumpeter Marvin Stamm as the guest artist. As an 18-year-old trumpet player who barely knew which end to blow into, hearing Marvin changed my life.
One night that week, Marvin hung out with the trumpet studio at a local bar and grill, and he said something that has stayed with me. In response to a trumpet “shop” question, he asked someone at the table to describe a typical practice day. The student’s answer sounded pretty impressive (and maybe a little exaggerated): warm up and long tones in the morning, Clarke studies before lunch, Schlossberg and etudes after classes, solo and band parts at night… something like that. The usual. Lots of time with the horn on the face, like a good student.
Marvin’s response was, “When do you listen to music?”
That caught us all off guard, and the student’s unspoken answer was obviously I don’t. I remember thinking something brilliant like, Oh… Oh, right.
A non-music major reading this might ask, Why would anyone devoting their college education to music not listen to great music everyday?
The honest, if feeble answer is: Because you’re really busy. Obviously that doesn’t hold up, because for a music student nothing is more important, but nevertheless, that’s the reason. Music majors are encouraged to practice their instruments until their hands won’t open all the way, and their lips swell from overuse, and their skin goes pale and their eyes grow unaccustomed to daylight (except during marching band season). And the good students do those things. The more hours you burn in the practice room, the more honor is yours.
And somewhere between Piano Lab, Orchestra rehearsal, Music Theory class, lessons and the practice room, the task of Listening To Great Music doesn’t seem so urgent.
Marvin’s simple point, “Don’t forget to listen to music,” struck me as so fundamentally true that on some level I’d always known it. When I graduated four years later, it would still be one of the most important lessons I learned there. But I still caught myself forgetting it, and reminding myself of it, far too often. Listen, stupid.
I found other great teachers that said the same thing, albeit in different ways. A teacher at another school drew a circle on a chalkboard, with a dot at the top and a dot at the bottom. “This,” he said, pointing at the top, “is the sound you hear before you play. It’s the sound you want to achieve. This,” pointing at the bottom, “is your body’s attempt to recreate that sound, which will hopefully bring you back to”—back to the top—“the sound you strove for in the first place.”
To improve your body’s response, practice.
To improve the sound you strive for, listen to great players.
Oh… Oh, right. Listen, stupid.
I still play a lot, and occasionally have to remind myself that my time would be better spent with the horn off the face, listening to players I want to emulate. I also write a lot now, and the lesson is just as valid, if not more so. In his book On Writing, Stephen King says that, to be a writer, you have to do two things: Read a lot and write a lot. The lesson could have been taken directly from that chalk circle. Read, stupid.
Obviously, practice is vital to any skill. That’s the part of the circle I never forget. But as little time as there is in the day, my playing, my writing, and any other creative endeavor turns out better when I take the time to study the work of other artists who are doing what I do, only better.