We Need To FINALLY Have This Conversation...

what's going on y'all it's Patrick here and uh it's been a long time since I've recorded a video but there's a good reason for that as you can tell I am in a completely brand new space albeit temporarily um but the location the general location is not that temporary in case you haven't been keeping up with me on social media or anywhere else that I've been talking about this um I've moved to Japan it's a really big deal because as you know this has been my dream for such a long time and luckily thanks to Juna thanks to some other friends I don't really want to mention just because I want to keep their privacy um actually the people who I'm staying with right now are helping me out with this um but thanks to everyone's help I've finally been able to move here and it's been really really cool um I'll I'll maybe touch on that uh another time another video because right now is not exactly the update video I'm talking about something very specific right now um but this is going to be another Real Talk video another not as heavily edited video right now I have no script there's nothing in front of me you can't see it I'm not looking anywhere else but right here at the camera and the reason why it's gonna be easy for me to talk about this is because I've been having this conversation with a lot of people recently all my friends colleagues uh students everybody I've been talking about this with um and the main thing I want to talk about is kind of uh an issue that I see as well as just a general topic that people should think about um but today I want to talk about the differences similarities relationships between being an artist versus being a working musician now how many of y'all have actually thought about that before I'm not sure how many you all may have given any thought that there's a difference between those things especially when we look at famous people we consider them as artists or when we look at people who are making money with music well why wouldn't they be a working musician they're working because they're making money and they also play music so what's what gives what's the difference well have you ever given any thought as to any type of potential differences or similarities between the two as them being separate things entirely because the thing about being an artist and a working musician is that they actually contrary to what you may have been taught or what someone may have told you uh they actually require completely different skill sets um and completely different mentalities they end up kind of intersecting in a Venn diagram I don't know maybe I'll maybe I'll put one up on the screen at some point I'm not sure you know give myself a post editor note about this but um there's at least a Venn diagram like a part where they intersect in the middle and things that you can use skills from either being an artist or being a working musician that you can use to help you know the other thing that you want to get into but they are very specific and different skill sets um in different ways of engaging with your craft that I think it's it's kind of a grave disservice almost I don't want to say crime but it's at least a disservice and a a big um a big bit of dishonesty for people to not teach you the difference um before they kind of get you into the mindset of going into music as a career because if you go to school for example if you go to any type of musical institution or maybe an institution that just happens to have a music program it doesn't matter usually there's some type of Allure that comes with it right you got into the program because you were already online already in line with wanting to become a musician you're already on the track on the path to doing something with your art that would hopefully someday also will make you money right so if we're in the business of using our art to make money then we also have to understand that there are some things that come with it um that are not just the the the the nice attractive super glistening advertisements that we see when it comes to becoming a glamorous artist or famous musician I have no idea how long this video is going to be just like the other Real Talk video I have no idea this is just thoughts I'm having on my mind and of course as always if you have any thoughts about this I really encourage you even as you're watching the video go ahead and type in the comments I really want to hear what you're talking about okay so before I get into what I think about being an artist versus a working musician and why that distinction should matter to you let's go ahead and just Google the definition I have on my phone right here the definition of an artist what Oxford dictionary thinks an artist is so right now if you look at the definition it might actually start disproving some of the stuff that I'm saying but okay that's that's why this is an opinion video but right here if you Google artist it says one a person who creates paintings or drawings as a profession or a hobby so right now you can already see that there's something that says profession or hobby so you again artists so artist does mean working musician right well I really think it depends on the context and that's why I wanted to talk about this right now um when we go to let's say Jazz school for lack of a better lack of a better word um most of the people watching this video right now are probably either hobby musicians or Jazz students that's just the general demographic I can assume I don't have any actual demographics you know YouTube doesn't uh YouTube doesn't keep track of those specific things but I could I'm willing to Guess that if you're watching these types of videos from my channel you're probably trying to learn more about music so let's say that you got into jazz school either you got into a jazz Conservatory like Juilliard or Manhattan School of Music anything like that or you got into like a state level University that also has a jazz program attached to it that's cool um the problem that I see with most of these institutions is that they are basically advertising to you that you can come here to these schools or study with this teacher or do this environment to become an artist they're basically saying hey if you want to become a musician we can give you the tools to help you do that um the problem that I have is that the thing that you end up learning outside of these schools is something that I think the school should actually teach you and it's the second term that I actually want to make a distinction about and it's called being a working musician or if you really want to say working artist you can but I want to specifically separate those two terms for the purpose of this video so I'm saying artists and working musician so now that I gave you a definition of what an artist is let me give you my own um definition of what a working musician is I think a working musician is somebody who plays music specifically to make money that's it there's no other Grand explanation to that it's a musician who straight up their primary purpose is to use music as a profession as a job as a career now if you notice nowhere in my definition of working musician does it have any requirement to be an artist now that might seem a little weird but the reason why I'm saying that is because the skills that you need to become a working musician are completely different than what you need to be an artist so like I told you in the beginning there's no script for this so a lot of these are just going to be kind of unorganized thoughts but at least I hope that you can bear with me and join me on this conversation because this is stuff that I really think is important so the first thing that I want to talk about with regards to what I think is an issue with education and about that distinction is when you're coming to these schools enticed to become an artist um there basically is no emphasis being put on anything except for practicing you need to practice you need to learn as much about music as possible um they throw in you got to learn how to read some places some schools don't place as much emphasis on reading or sight reading which is okay um I'm gonna get to that in a second um but there's also an emphasis if you're in the Jazz program so I don't I'm not going to really talk about the classical program as much because I don't I didn't go to school for classical music but at least in the Jazz sense um you're taught to improvise you're taught to play maybe in a few different styles but mostly swinging mostly Bebop mostly big band type stuff um you're also being asked to compose a lot of times you're being asked to arrange um you're also being asked to learn how to rehearse either as a side man or as a leader um usually good schools will have a lot of these things a mixture of them with some extra stuff uh in there as well um also there's some other aspects of the music education programs that I do like I like seeing that there's some uh for example at my alma modern hand School of Music I'm not sure if this is still a part of the school but I hope it is uh the center for music entrepreneurship where they give a lot of different tools and resources to students to help them think about music as more than just the notes but let's think about it with some career focused stuff but again that programs like that are still very artist focused they're still about what's my brand who am I how can I sell myself a lot of that right so there's a lot of artists artist focused things while I'm talking about this do you do you see any issue do you do you potentially see any issue in what I'm saying right now it's okay if you don't but I can see one glaring issue the issue is the reality what happens when you step out of these schools and try to work as a musician because again there is this idea we're being sold that being an artist is a number one priority and it's the number one Focus everything outside of that is kind of extra or stuff that you have to do in order to become an artist and to achieve this Grand goal of becoming an artist and again I have a problem with that my problem with that is that a lot of these programs and a lot of things that we're being taught not just I don't want to just fault the music programs specifically because it's not just them it's everyone all of anybody our mentors ourselves resources we see on YouTube me whoever right you know there's this General thing that I've been noticing where a lot of people will go through these institutions um they might either end early uh and leave the school or they get out of the school and now they have to work for Uber or they have to get another job like the reality of having to work right to fill you're to fulfill your dreams of becoming an artist and again there's no problem with having to do that we all got to do stuff I started teaching so that I can make more money um everybody has to make money to survive that's the thing but what about making money with your music how do you do that it's it's actually a kind of a big puzzle that we have to learn how to complete if you think about it so if there's anything that we can learn from the great broadway Warriors of New York or the Star Wars of the recording scene in LA or any place in the world that has a very strong commercial music scene is that you gotta work you have to work to make money period you got to work any type of job in order to get paid back for a service that you're giving out to someone or client or whoever employer doesn't matter basically if you do a task that requires a skill you get money back for it that's just how it is so you have to already the gear should already be turning in your head why someone would want to pay for your art that serves yourself now again I don't want to get I'm not trying to get dark so don't don't look at me weird when I say this there's a very big point that I want to make when I'm saying this um but I think it's important at least to start making some distinctions between artists and working musicians going forward so if we're talking about the main differences between being an artist and a working musician is that the art being an artist largely serves the self whereas being a working musician mostly serves other people if you want to be a great and successful artist and again success does not just mean making money success just means being able to achieve your goal as an artist usually you have to spend a lot of time focusing solely and specifically on yourself that means your own goals your own craft your own skill everything whatever crafting skill I guess can be used interchangeably but you basically have to focus on what you like and what you're trying to get out of your music if you don't do that that I don't want to say that you're wasting your time but you will you could be doing something else because if you want to be practicing becoming an artist there's so much practice and introspective searching that goes into becoming an artist and once again all of that has nothing to do with other people that's you serving yourself which is great that's one great way to be um I'll talk about the caveats of that a little later but I just want to talk about the differences in the focus so if we're talking about a working musician so what's the focus as a working musician why is there a difference that's because when you are a working musician you are largely focusing on developing skills that other people desire from you so it's not just about having your skills being on display like oh wow that person could really play a lot it's like no what about you makes me as an employer want to call you from my gig I have to think about that so if you're focusing on just being the bet you know you can play the highest or you have a lot of two five one alterations with this super locery and this and kind of thing that again that's the focus it doesn't doesn't matter if you wanted to be the most spangling and you want to be the most incredible fast slow you can play ballads really well that none of that stuff really matters doesn't matter specifically what camp you're in about what you like about music the point is if me as an employer being like a band leader let me if you don't like me using certain you know official Workforce terms um if I'm just a band leader and I'm calling you for my gig what about you is something that I need to make my music come to life because I got contracted by a company to put on music and I need people who can play the music so that means you're gonna have to develop skills to you got to be able to read music you got to be able if you're a woodwind player you might have to double because there might be some extra stuff that I require of you you need to be able to show up on time you gotta be able to respond to emails you got to be able to uh there's so many other things that I could talk about with being a working musician but the point is without making the video too long is that the point and focus of being a working musician is less about yourself and more about developing skills that other people desire of you which means that you will get called more because you have a general set of skills to get the job done so to speak so just in me talking about the differences in the focus there's something that we should talk about here that you might have already noticed being a working musician doesn't require you to be the best it doesn't require that you have a ton of skill at all really and this is going to rub some people the wrong way but how many times have you seen your friends uh colleagues anybody Heroes post on social media whatever uh man like this person shouldn't have got this gig why why is that person famous why is that such and such Why did he get the gig well they probably got all the necessary skills it takes to be a working musician because it does not matter how good they are it matters how much they have that the other person wants so that is the biggest difference between being an artist and a working musician and unfortunately this is the part where we have to start getting into deciding what you want to do what you want your focus as a musician to be so if you want to go down this line of thinking about what you want to do how you want to do it let's look at some of the caveats of both being an artist and a work musician so the obvious good things about focusing on yourself is that there's a lot more self-improvement there's a lot more personal fulfillment not just skill in terms of virtuosity but your personal virtuosity can be anything it could be expressing the most beautiful three notes you've ever done it can be expressing the most beautiful 300 notes it doesn't matter it's all about what focuses on you the caveats with that is that if you spend too much time focusing on yourself and not about what other people want whether it is the musicians that want you or if it's the audience that wants you if you're not focusing on that you're largely going to be dependent on people finding value in what you do regardless if your thing speaks uh to the general public or not so you're going to be depending on a lot of Grants a lot of public Arts institutions that want to support you know Independent Artists a lot of things like that which again there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do there are plenty of people that go down that path there's so many people that have been successful from doing that as well it's just a lot more rare to do that and that's I think this is the idea that a lot of uh kind of older folks have or parents or anything when they think about I don't want my son to go into music because the first thing they usually think of is okay go into music uh it's great it's nice you can make some nice things but you can fail because it's such a Cutthroat business and like only the one percent of one percent of the one percent uh artists actually make money and be successful doing something that only serves themselves so there's a big risk in becoming an artist and that's that's okay that's the type of risk you're taking by focusing on yourself but you have to be honest about that and that's that's why that's important to talk about so as we talked about with being a working musician there are some obvious benefits to it maybe not so obvious but uh based on what I said I think they're pretty obvious because if you are the best at doing what people want from you you're basically always going to work it doesn't mean that you're the best at playing High you have to play fastest or play the most expressive it just it just means that whatever for your scene doesn't matter what scene it is if you're seeing requires that you need to be like all the musicians in the band require that you play with you play slide guitar and you got to play slide guitar blues if you can do that great you got the gigs or if your scene requires that everyone for some reason just loves Piccolo and French horn doublers I don't know just throwing something out there you gotta you gotta play Piccolo and French or anybody who plays Piccolo and French horn the best you know they're gonna constantly work that's great that means you're gonna you know you're gonna make money you'll be able to have a savings you're gonna be able to you know maybe build credit you can whatever and you don't have to work a day job that's that's great so there are some maybe not as obvious caveats to this but I think from my experience because I've been doing this for 10 to 15 years already of doing both things artist and working musicians um there are some kind of heavy caveats to just focus on being a working position um the biggest one is that which should be obvious now that I've explained it is that you don't really have time to focus on yourself you're gonna have to do a lot of sacrificing to be able to get both together and it's possible people do it but um if you have any interests outside of just music you're gonna have to really think about how you use your time effectively because not everyone can balance those two things very well so the to me what I think are the um kind of glaring caveats about being a working musician is you have to spend a lot of time making sure you're keeping up your skills that other people desire of you there's not a lot of room to hey like you know this scene likes Bebop well you know I really like late training well the scene doesn't like late train they don't they're not calling you to play late train so you got to play late train in your in your off time that might be the thing that unlocks your true potential you might just be really good at playing Bebop you might just be really good at playing traditional Jazz like Louis Armstrong you might just be really good at playing second Alto or lead Alto or third bone whatever or the first trumpet you know you might be really good at doing those things and this is kind of a I'm trying to get I'm not trying to get emotional about this because this is very personal for me this is something I've been going through for years it's one of the reasons why New York was kind of stressful to me but I just want to be honest that you don't really have a lot of time to work on those other things if you're solely focusing on being a working musician because you're going to be getting gigs and you might be out late you might be out 9 A.M rehearsal and you might be out playing until 3am and you got to do it all over again the next day I've been there I've literally done that plenty of times for years um there's not a lot of time to work on yourself if you do that because if you do well then you don't really have time for social life you don't really have time for uh family all the time you really don't have time for a lot of personal pleasures and you're gonna have to really think about that again it is possible for you to balance I want to make that clear I don't want to make this like a dark discussion about being a working position first being an artist I just wanted to really talk about these things that people don't tell you about um because when you do focus on becoming a working musician those are the things that are going to be demanded of you is that you keep that up you have to have an upkeep of those skills so a lot of people are very happy doing that I personally have a lot of friends who are totally fine with just the brunch gigs the the big bang gigs here but they that makes them happy to do that and you know their personal artistic expression for them is through doing those things that's great again that doesn't always work out for a lot of people I know there's a lot of people watching this video right now that really got into jazz because they heard Charlie Parker or John Coltrane or Cannonball or miles or JJ Johnson or whoever and it made them feel things it's like wow this music is so incredible it's so powerful like I want to do that I want to create the same deep emotional experiences that I feel well there's a problem with that as soon as you graduate college you go into the real world when you see that the people that are hiring you don't want you to do that okay maybe that was a little too dark I don't mean that they don't want you to do it but that it's not always the time for that because you're getting called for a job if you want to work a job working at a restaurant right like you're working at a nice fancy two-star Michelin restaurant or something like that three-star mission who cares and you go to that restaurant and you have to make filet mignon okay well if you want to make cube steak or you want to make a pizza because that's your artistic passion who cares it's time to make some filet mignon don't make that what are you doing like and chop the onions up this way you got to do everything a very specific way and if you want the people to come up to you after the gig um after the gig if you wanted people to come up to you um after you're done uh cooking for them and they're like compliments of the chef or just bring it back to music if you're on the gig and you want people and people are going to come up man you must love what you do it's it's amazing that you do what you love for a living you know what I mean like you got to do the job you got to do the job you got to do what you recall to do there's no room for artistic expression you got to find those little four bar solos where the band leader is like oh you can kind of play whatever you know just go and you gotta insert that little bit and hope that people notice it again I've been there too um I just think it's important for us to talk about this because um people never ever talk about this difference but okay let's step away from the darkness for a little bit um and just get real I've been getting real the whole time but right now let's bring it back to why you need to decide which one you want to do because you can do both but I think it's important for you to understand that there has to be a focus at some point of your artistic or musical development first of all let me get out of the way um before people start flaming me for this I think at every in every situation no matter where you're starting from there is a baseline skill level for both things whether you're going to be an artist or you're going to be a working musician whatever if you're going to play this music that we call Jazz you need to work on your skills you have to work on your own sound you have to work on learning Harmony you have to there's so many things that you're going to have to learn how to work on um even if you're going to be somebody like ornette Coleman who invents a completely new system of thinking about music even he still knew his scales right even he still knew how to communicate his musicality so even if he wasn't necessarily doing things that other people deemed acceptable that doesn't mean he still wasn't able to communicate his Artistry there still needs to be a sense of skill in some way you have to work on your skill because art is a skill so regardless if you want to just express yourself with complete Randomness or if you want to express yourself with something that's already codified no matter what there is a baseline in level of Entry that you need to pass in order to play the thing that you want to play the only thing I'm talking about here is how real you need to be about your current situation what's real for you maybe how much money you have maybe your position maybe your living situation School your current skill level any of that kind of stuff I think it's really important for you to assess whether it is more feasible for you to be an artist because you can do that and you can work on that yourself or if you might want to go into being a working musician because that's also enticing for you for example if you want to play in a big band because that's like your dream or you love made it Ferguson account very Count Basie Stan Canton Duke Ellington Thad Jones you know you love these you know Quincy Jones all the great big bands right of all time of our of our history in our current time if that's what you want to do then you might most likely you might want to step into the field of working on working musician skills because not only will it allow you to get more work but it also will put you in line with being called by big band leaders who need your skills to generally be able to read music and interpret it with a section together this is also that involves not just other people as in the audience and the band leader but also your band musicians around you so you're gonna have to learn how to go outside of yourself in order to achieve the thing that's going to get you those working musician benefits about the same token if you're somebody that was Purely Inspired by John coltrane's artistic efforts in his later life not necessarily his efforts as a working musician which again we can talk about at another time um but yeah I want to keep this it's already videos already long enough um if you're inspired by those Pursuits if you're inspired by something like ornette Coleman if you're inspired by somebody like like miles and his entire artistic uh career right if you're inspired by those types of things then yeah you might want to focus on trying to be an artist but again there's a caveat to that I've think you can focus on being an artist if you're very real about your personal situation it doesn't mean that hey like I don't have money enough to be an artist no I don't you can if you're in a situation where you don't have to worry about certain things and you feel very secure about your life and you feel very secure about your financial situation or if you're young and there's still a lot of things that are being still a lot of things that are being taken care of for you uh then you can focus a lot on being an artist because if you have a lot of natural talent for that then people will notice you you know but again you have to have that talent I don't think it's realistic for most people to solely focus on Purely artistic Pursuits as a jazz musician unless you already have a job if you already have a job something else that makes you money and you're okay with having that make you money while you focus on your specific personal artistic Pursuits go for it and I think everybody should do that it's just a reality and it's it's unfortunate when I see so many of my friends um and people that I know are just people that I've casually met that I went to school with or I see that they went to a certain school and they're not doing what they set out to do or maybe they got discouraged from doing it and I think it's not necessarily their fault when a school is or any type of institution is kind of persuading and enticing you in advertising that we're gonna give you the skills to be a great artist we're not going to give you the skills to be a working musician it's funny because I feel like the classical side of it actually has that down a little bit more but that's a we can talk about that there's a lot of reasons why the the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years old uh institution of the classical Conservatory has had time to develop their methods um so we're not going to talk about that but there's a specific culture around that what makes that work and there's obviously problems with that as well but speaking from Jazz experience specifically in the Jazz school that I went to in the Jazz schools that I've given master classes at in the Jazz schools that I've visited um the fact that we're training and trying to train people to be artists I think is something that is a little dishonest and I challenge everybody who's watching this video that either is an educator or head of an educational institution or just teaches lessons to students I challenge everyone to be extremely real that's my basic conclusion to this video is that I want everyone to be real and start thinking about how we can prepare our students going into this next generation of jazz um how to think about their careers as an artist versus a working musician and the reason why this is important this is actually a topic for another video that we can get into uh is because we're at a constant war with the idea is if is jazz popular is jazz dying is blah blah like so many so many different subtopics that go under this umbrella of the popularity and life expectancy of jazz as a thing um and I think one of the issues with that is that there's a lot less opportunity opportunities to work as a jazz musician in the way that we have romanticized it and the way that we fantasized and dreamed about it in the modern day there's not a lot of Club dates there's not a lot of real big band gigs that'll like help you to swing actually like Count Basie did a lot of the Masters are unfortunately leaving us or getting sick or unable to play so there's not a lot of experience we have with connecting with these people anymore and it's our job to now be as real as possible with teaching people this difference um so in order to do that I think it's I in order to do that I think we just have to talk about it that's it I think we just talk about it and be real about the opportunities that are presented around you or opportunities that you might have to travel to get either way there's a way to do this we just need to make sure that we're really honest about it and that's that's basically it all right so like I said that's basically all I have to say for right now today um there's so much that can be talked about this is an endless conversation I just wanted to start it because I never see anyone talking about it and so that's why I wanted to posit this into the air and let people open up the conversation have a conversation with your students if you're a teacher if you are a student ask your teacher please please ask the teacher ask all your teachers Educators what the what they think the difference is between an artist and a working musician and how you can prepare yourself for either one of those skills because it's extremely real thing it's a little more real for people who live in places like New York and LA because those scenes actually demand that and there's a lot of high level music in those scenes that can make you money on either circuit um but yeah I want you to also ask yourself what do you want to be do you want to be an artist or do you want to be a working musician or do you want to do both either way it's possible it's just either one of those things takes a combination of a lot of skills and risks that you have to take in order to get to the level that you are trying to achieve so what do you think go ahead and comment below what you think about the difference between artists and a working musician is tell me what you think you want to be tell me what you think you already are or tell me if you think I'm wrong either way I'm always open to that and I want you all to talk as much as possible so please drop your comments in the comment section below I'm always reading as much as I possibly can especially when I put these videos out because it helps me to make new videos for the channel and I noticed that this video wasn't going to be that heavily edited but you know there's a lot of stuff in here and a lot of stuff that needed to be said and digested a little easier but if you have any more questions you want to keep in contact with me more about topics like this you can follow me on social media like Facebook Instagram Twitter any of those types of places and join the Discord to be a part of the conversation we are quite literally talking about this stuff in real time every day it's a great place to be I also play video games there too sometimes so just be wary of that but yeah those are the best ways to keep in contact with me all right y'all that's it um I got a lot of ideas in my head and a lot of those ideas will be put out very soon it might be in a different place than this because I have a lot of moving around to do but either way just stay tuned hit the Subscribe button like the video it really helps a lot for the channel especially since I'm here in a new place and yeah I look forward to hearing from y'all soon stay practicing and uh yeah just enjoy your life enjoy music I'll see y'all next video

Channel: Patrick Bartley

Views: 33,679

Keywords: patrick bartley, patrick bartley sax, pat bartley, pat bartley sax, patbartmusic, emmet cohen, after you've gone, patrick bartley after you've gone, after you've gone solo, patrick bartley after you've gone solo, after you gone, j-music ensemble, j-music persona, jmusicband, how to, how to play jazz, jazz how to, top 5, top 10, top 10s, sax lessons, how to play saxophone, how to play sax, how to practice, how to get a better sound, how to sound good

Id: -1u31MHOql0

Length: 31min 47sec (1907 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 31 2022