Rising Above The Herd In Music (Coaches Corner, Episode 7)

Christopher: There’s this idea of “tall poppy syndrome” or “crabs in a bucket”, where the people around you are intimidated by you trying to achieve more than they are, so they tear you down.

And maybe you felt like that sometimes in your musical life, like it’s arrogant or embarrassing even to try to achieve your musical dreams.

If that resonates with you, listen out for what Andrew shares in today’s episode of Coaches Corner.

Before we dive into the episode, a quick recap of the week.

It’s been another awesome week here on Musicality Now. A shout-out to my live crew who are tuning in each day for these live broadcasts, especially Tim and Diane, super appreciate the comments over on Instagram this week.

Please do keep those comments coming! Let me know what you want more of on the show – and whether you’re watching live or on the replay, leave a comment on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or send an email to [email protected]. I really appreciate that feedback on the show.

This week we kicked off with a couple of great episodes with Lorin Cohen, the jazz bassist. We did his mini-interview, where you got a glimpse into how his really fascinating perspective on musicality came about.

And then we did an excerpt from his masterclass, which was around the three pillars of improvisation, which in a really wonderful and surprising way overlaps beautifully with what we teach at Musical U. And so that little segment from his masterclass was laying out how he thinks about learning to improvise and do so in a way that it becomes instinct and you can just react and respond in real time to the music you’re hearing.

Then I did a slightly funny, serious, silly episode on whether you are a robot. Are you feeling like a musical robot? Is there anywhere in your musical life where you are becoming a bit mechanical, you’re just going through the motions? And if so, what you can do about it.

Then, in this week’s “Inside The Book” episode, peeking into the forthcoming Musicality book, I actually did a full chapter-by-chapter breakdown of everything that’s covered in the book.

I had a lot of fun sharing that with you, and it’s been great to hear some of the responses and which chapters are resonating with you. If you didn’t catch that one, go check it out and let me know: which of those chapters are you most excited to read?

I am super psyched to get this book into your hands. I’ve been working a design contest this week for the cover design and we’ve had over like 300, 350 designs submitted for the cover of this book. It’s slightly overwhelming to be honest! To have to rate and give feedback on all of them.

But it’s also really exciting because the thing is becoming more and more real, and it’s going to go from being just a whole set of documents that exist in the ether to something we can all actually hold in our hands and benefit from.

So I’m super excited that it’s taking shape. If you’re interested, go to musicalitybook.com and register your interest and you’ll be the first to know as things shape up. And we’re also going to send out exclusive bonuses and behind-the-scenes stuff to that list, so sign up for that at musicalitybook.com.

And then yesterday, we had our next “Meet The Team” interview with Mark Hanna from the Admissions Team, and I loved that as a way to not just give a glimpse into his own musical background and perspective on music, but also give you guys a glimpse into what the Admissions Team do.

And if you’re if you’ve ever been interested in applying for Next Level coaching, but wondered what that interview stage is about, hopefully that episode cast a lot of light on it for you.

Depending on when you watch this episode, we may or may not have any Next Level slots available, but if you’re interested, there’ll be a link in the shownotes, you can go learn more about the program and check that out.

That’s been the week so far. Wrapping up the week as we like to, we have a new episode of Coaches Corner, and this time around, Andrew talks about how to rise above the herd and actually allow yourself to level up in music.

Andy talks about gaining performance confidence step by step.

Camillo shares how analysing harmony can actually produce breakthroughs for you on the melody side of things.

And then Zac gives this really elegant framing of how to know that you do have music inside you, just waiting to come out.

As always, I really recommend you just listen out for one little nugget, something you can take away and apply in your own musical life. Let’s go!

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Christopher: Hello and welcome back to Coaches Corner, where I have the unique pleasure of getting together with our Next Level coaching team, so that they can share insights and experiences from their Next Level coaching to help you in your musical life.

I’m joined today by our Head Coach, Andrew Bishko, as well as coaches Camilo Suárez, Andy Portas and Zac Bailey. Thanks for joining me, guys.

So let’s kick things off today with Mr. Andrew Bishko. You always ask to go last, this time you’re first!

Andrew: All right, here we go. I just had an idea and I switched it up at the very last moment. So when you decide to “next level” in your music, you’re going to run up against some obstacles and a lot of those obstacles are going to be emotional issues.

It’s going to happen, and we’ve seen this happen with all our Next Level clients. At certain points they run into a wall, an emotional wall about what they’re doing, because basically you have to realize that you are worthy of living your musical dreams. And that flies in the face of what the herd has been telling you for all your whole life.

So you have to rise above the herd. And there’s all those compulsive voices and instincts and stuff like that saying “no, pull them down, pull them down, pull them down!”

So it’s really good to know that this is going to come and to realise that it’s really just a bunch of nonsense. It’s not real. Just call it for what it is.

It’s not always going to feel good, but know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and you’re going to come out the other side. And if you stay with it, if you stay with your dreams and stay with whatever you’re doing musically to move you to the next level, you will prevail and you will make it through.

Christopher: Absolutely, yeah. And I think that’s really the power of the Next Level community, too, isn’t it? You know, I think in Australia they call it “tall poppy syndrome”, where if you grow too tall, you get your head cut off by the poppies around you and, you know, if you don’t have that supportive environment, you can feel very self-conscious and very audacious trying to accomplish something more. But if you’re surrounded by other people who are doing the same thing, it really makes all the difference.

Andrew: It’s very true. It’s the herd mentality in reverse – where people are going to pull you up rather than pull you down. So it’s a great place to be to get through those moments.

Christopher: Absolutely. Andy, what’s been going on with you in coaching lately?

Andy: Well, I think what I’d like to talk about kind of references, what Andrew was just talking about there. I’m always really impressed with how our clients musicality grows throughout their time in the Next Level.

But the other thing that I find really powerful for them is their performance confidence. And I was actually talking to one of my clients about this just last night, and she said her confidence was a zero when she first started, and that was for playing guitar and singing. And after a few months, she said it had raised to five and quite possibly a six. Which I think is astonishing for that kind of amount of time!

And this is essentially really through us together, finding the right material for her to sing and then her really putting in place the Musical U methodology of deep learning through plan/play/reflect, active listening, and then the whole kind of Play By Ear Process.

And, I mean, the other thing in there is to find material you really enjoy doing. And so she’s really kind of taken that on board and found songs that she really enjoys playing.

But then again, on top of that is really the community, which is what Andrew just mentioned there, the fact we’ve got this really ultra-supportive community that are really kind of waving flags for you when you post your music. And that builds confidence super fast. It really does.

And then there’s also the opportunity of doing the open mics, which, again, is another confidence-building thing, because it’s in such a supportive environment that even if you feel like you’re failing, people will kind of build you up and point out all the great stuff you’ve just been doing.

And that, connected with the idea that we all like doing with our clients, which is kind of spotting “wins”, no matter how small they are, because win on win is almost like a quarry worker chiseling away at a big boulder. Every hit of the hammer seems to be doing nothing… but that final smack bang and the boulder splits.

So it’s really wonderful, seeing how our clients are kind of quarrying away, chipping away at their confidence and building it.

And from zero to six, I think, is remarkable. I really do.

Christopher: That’s wonderful. Yeah, I actually thought you were going to say she started out as a zero, and a few months later she was at a one. And that would be a significant accomplishment! Right? To go from no performance confidence to feeling a bit.

But, yeah, that’s amazing if she’s feeling good about it.

Andy: Absolutely. Yeah. I was trying to figure what percentage rise that is from zero to six.

Christopher: It’s infinity if you measure it one way! Awesome.

Camilo, what’s new with you in coaching all this week?

Camilo: We’ve had a common question on how to memorise harmonic progressions. How to memorise chord progressions, which seems to be something that sounds quite abstract for many of the clients that feel, you know, I always have to think in terms of one, five, a two. How do I make that more organic or more intuitive?

So we went into this idea of concentrating on melody and specifically concentrating on melodic contours, on melodic movement, to try and build a better sense of how harmonic movement, it sounds contraintuitive a little bit melody and harmony, but they are very much related.

So by analysing some common melodies and seeing how they move, do they start moving upwards? When do they change direction then? Do they move in stepwise manner, or do they move in an arpeggio-like manner? Then we find some patterns on when those harmonic changes occur and how they relate to the melody.

That was quite helpful, to start feeling the harmony behind a common melody. I think that’s working. So clients are working on doing that work on their own and realising that they knew they already know quite a few harmonic progressions, and they just need to be more aware of them.

Christopher: That’s awesome. That’s a really beautiful example of what comes up quite a lot, which is: you think you want to focus on the thing you’re trying to accomplish, but actually, if you just broaden your horizon a little bit and focus in a slightly different musical direction, it actually fills in that skillset for you or gives you a different take on it.

That thing we call “Convergent Learning” here at Musical U. Fantastic.

Zac, what’s new with you in coaching lately?

Zac: Hey, Christopher! Yeah, I had a… Man, I’ve had a really powerful and exciting insight and something that I noticed with every client that I’ve worked with so far, and it’s that they all have music inside of them.

And I found this interesting proof that they all have music, and perhaps everyone has music inside of them.

And it’s when you feel the desire, when they feel the desire to play music, when they hear a song and it makes them want to sing, or they see some people jamming and they say, oh, I’d love to join in with that jam, or they hear some kind of chord progression that makes them want to improvise a melody, that feeling that they get when they feel that need to play music, that desire to play music that is music that is music inside of them that wants to express itself.

And I found that music creates more music in this way. When you hear music, it speaks to the music that’s inside of you, and then it stirs that music up and it makes that music want to come out. And so in helping people unlock their musicality.

I think “unlock” is a great word because the music is in there. You just have to unlock it and let it go. And it’s similar to when you turn on a light switch in your room and the light just comes on. You don’t have to study electricity or know anything about circuits or anything. You just say, when I turn on this switch, the light is going to come on and you believe that, and it happens.

And the same thing can be true for the music that’s inside you. And once you identify with that desire as music wanting to express itself, and you could take ownership of that, say, I want to express this music and I believe that I can turn on this switch and then the light will shine and my music will be out into the world.

And I’ve just. It’s just been really delighting me to see this proof, almost.

You can’t quite see that tangible proof. But if you ask someone if they feel it inside of them, have you felt that need to jam, that need to sing, that need to play? They all say, yes, I felt that. That is music.

You say that is music. You have it in you. And once you fully believe that and accept it, it’s… you can’t undo it.

It’s like it’s going to be really hard for someone to convince me that the light switch is not going to turn on the light in my room! I’ve done it hundreds of thousands of times. It’s come on every single time. It’s going to be really hard to crush that belief.

And so the same thing is true, once you identify that music, that desire inside of you as music, that you have it and you want to express it, and that’s awesome. And we all want to hear it. When you express it, someone else is going to hear it and then they’re going to want to express music as well.

So music creates more music when it communicates to us.

Christopher: That is super cool. That’s a really powerful framing.

I love that. And I think when we say something like “you’ve got music in you” I think a lot of people feel like, unless I can imagine the whole symphony in my mind and know how to write it down or play it, I don’t have music in me yet.

But you’re right. It’s that instinct. It’s that urge. It’s that desire to bring it out that shows us that it’s in there waiting, and we just need to put a few pieces in place to let it unlock and unleash. That’s fantastic.

Well, as always, I want to sit here and talk to you guys for about four more hours about all of this! But I’m going to curb my enthusiasm and let you guys get to your coaches meeting.

Thank you so much for joining me and sharing these insights from Next Level coaching.

And we’ll see you next time on Coaches Corner. Cheers!

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