The Power of Positivity

by Minim Pro @ 2009-11-19

Did you hear the one about the jazz musician who won the lottery?

He kept gigging until it was gone.

We jazz musicians can be a pretty gloomy old lot sometimes. Unappreciated, largely ignored, embittered, naturally inclined to cynicism and simultaneously displaying superiority and inferiority complexes, it's unsurprising we're not the cheeriest of souls. And let's face it, why should we be? We live in a world where the winner of 'X-Factor' automatically has a number one hit at Christmas and probably makes more money during their fifteen minutes of fame than Art Tatum made in his whole life?

I only mention this in passing due to the potentially provocative nature of the title of this post! As soon as anybody starts talking about anything relating to 'positive thinking', I want start jabbing sharp objects into my eyeballs and disembowelling myself with blunt ones. So don't worry, you wont find me extolling the benefits of indulging in 'affirmations' or 'requests to the universe' here, I just want to share a subtle change in thinking that has helped me a lot recently.

You see, despite the Eeyore-ish tendencies of the average jazzer, you only have to engage us in conversation when a great record is playing and we become different people, filled with passion and enthusiasm; "Oh yeah, listen to this bit...Man, I love the way he builds the tension there and then...BANG...releases it through the key change. That's just awesome!" Despite the frustration and adversity we experience all too regularly, the love for the music never wanes and the excitement created when something is really cooking never fades - whether it's on a record or when we're actually nailing it on the bandstand ourselves.

Recently I've experienced a bit of a paradigm shift that gives me that feeling a bit more often and I thought I'd share it with you. Part of the nature of being a jobbing jazz musician is that you tend to play a lot of scratch gigs. I'm not immune to this although I've made no secret of the fact that I think scratch gigs are killing live jazz. Nevertheless, they help pay the bills so, for the moment at least, they can be a necessary evil. I've always known that I play very differently on these kind of gigs than at other times or when I'm practicing. I've always assumed it was something to do with the fact that I'm not used to playing with the rest of the band, or I'm often reading charts playing material I don't know.

The same goes for recording. I never feel like I've really done myself justice on recordings and have previously put that down to the sterile nature of the studio environment, the physical distance between me and the other musicians and a whole host of other things. Turns out it isn't any either of these things - it's me; I've been playing 'defensively'. On some of the scratch gigs, particularly when playing with singers, and on some recording sessions I seem to drop into a rather unnecessarily generic-sounding mainstream style.

I've finally figured out that this happens because my internal goal is not to make something good happen, it's to be 'professional' and accurate and not make mistakes. As a result, the music is usually fine and sounds perfectly competent, acceptable and pleasant, but it certainly doesn't get me excited. If I were in the audience on one of these gigs, I probably wouldn't rate myself very highly - "He's not a bad player but..." When I realised this, I wondered if there were other areas and other times when I've been employing a 'defensive' attitude and when I gave it some thought I was amazed how many things in my life it applies to - both musical and non-musical.

I read once that there are only two basic desires that govern human all behaviour, the desire to gain pleasure and the desire to avoid pain. In other words, we're always either moving towards or away from something. On reflection I think most people spend more time moving away from things - failure, rejection, discomfort, nervousness, judgement, humiliation and a million other real or imagined 'pains'. As musicians, we may be more likely than most to adopt pain-avoidance as a default mode in our musical lives as we tie up so much of our self-worth in our playing. Whether real or imagined, the very thought of some kind of 'pain' can be enough to stagnate us.

This is what makes most of us naturally bad at hustling gigs and getting projects off the ground - we just don't want to run the risk of rejection or failure. Now I know that I'm guilty of this, I can at least take some steps to try and avoid it. My new mantra is: Try to do well. Don't try not to fail.

Already, adopting this attitude in the practice room is changing my playing. When I'm playing positively and trying to make it happen, I seem to be more creative, have far more ideas and fall back on clichés and stock-phrases less often. I wrote a post a while ago entitled The Power Of Perception which talked about the role confidence plays in musical performance and how we can try to build a more confident attitude in general. Now I've realised why confidence affects our playing so much: When I'm playing with confidence I'm trying to do well; when I'm not, I'm trying not to fail.

In a musical context 'try to do well' means; try and make it happen, try and create something good, get out of the comfort zone and let's get cooking. Notice how all of those things are positive instructions and aren't related to to what I'm thinking or feeling, only what I'm doing. Previously I'd be telling myself to be confident, be in control; not to be nervous, not to be worried about mistakes. What's inspiring about my new mantra, and why I think it's a much better way of thinking, is that I'm not trying to tell myself what to be, merely what to do - which has got to be easier. I know I'm seeing immediate benefits from adopting this attitude. I hope it helps some of you out there as well.
http://playjazz.blog.co.uk/2009/11/19/the-power-of-positivity-7413126/