WorkshopLive interview with Noah Baerman
Education:
Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University:
B.Mus.: M.M. Music
Started Age 7 in 1981
Instruments: Piano
Styles: Jazz, Blues, Shower Crooning
When did you start to play? When I was 6, I saw Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street and that was it. It was all over. Maybe a year later I began piano lessons. Around this time, doctors figured out that I'd been born with the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which was (and is) responsible for a lot of physical problems, including some serious joint issues and the propensity to cut and bruise easily. The timing of this diagnosis was interesting. I loved music from an early age, but it was also clear that many sports and other normal kid activities were now off-limits, so music took on an added importance.
I began exploring rock seriously when I was 14 and then jazz when I was about 17. I consider these to be second beginnings of sorts, as these were the points when I began to explore the techniques and thought processes at the core of my current musical life.
When did you start to notice that your playing was different from everyone else's? Looking back, I think that whatever it is that makes me sound like me was present right from the beginning. At times it was obscured by my lack of facility with the music I was playing (when I was younger and hacking my way through tunes that were way beyond my ability level, my playing didn't sound much different from that of anyone else who also couldn't play those tunes), but I always had a certain determination to really get inside the music when I played.
When did you find your voice as a player? That has been an ongoing process, so I can't really define a specific point when it happened, nor can I really say that I'm "there" yet. There have been, however, a couple points when I've made a leap that had a lasting impact on my sound. As a junior in college, I had a particularly fertile four months or so when years of practicing started coming together and I was absorbing a lot of new stuff really quickly. It was at that time that I started to integrate many of the elements that define my playing now. A couple years after that, I had another revelatory stretch. That period of discovery actually stemmed from listening to a lot of Motown and other R&B from the 60s. I had mastered more of the jazz vocabulary by that point, but began to wonder how I could play with the kind of emotional directness that I heard in Stevie Wonder or Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding. I still haven't figured out how to do that, but I think that even if it's an unattainable goal, the act of trying to attain it anyway has had a huge impact on my sound and concept.
One thing I often tell my students is that the path to individuality as a musician has to be one of openness and not one of limitation. Many of the things that have shaped me as a "mature" musician are things I initially resisted because I defined myself in a way that excluded that stuff. There are some artists who for years I resisted even listening to, because I put them in a rigid category and dismissed entire categories as "not my thing." Many of these artists wound up having a profound impact on my music once I became open enough to listen and absorb. Most prejudice, in my mind, comes from fear and ignorance, and I think that this can happen in music as well. Listening to stuff that you don't immediately connect with won't hurt you. At worst you'll understand something better and still dislike it, while at best you'll find something that can add a new dimension to your own music.
How do you keep your playing fresh? It's mainly a matter of humility. I don't let myself get too attached to the stuff that I can already do and/or the stuff that people like. If it's relevant I use it; if not, I search for other things. Either way, I just make sure I'm true to the music and whatever needs it has in the moment.
What do you do when you get stuck? For me, it's important to keep an even keel throughout the ups and downs of learning and playing music. If you're devoted to forward motion and growth, then you're always trying to learn things and that's a very non-linear process. At times you'll seem stuck because you're working hard and not hearing outward signs of progress. Other times things will come together quickly and in a way that seems magical. I find it important to always remember that both the feeling of being stuck and the feeling of having suddenly "struck gold" are both just illusions. It seems weird to say that I don't let myself get excited when things seem to suddenly come together, but if I let that happen then I may develop a false expectation that it should be like that often. The truth is that all those "eureka" moments come as a result of having been persistent when I felt like I was stuck, and if I remind myself of that when things seem easy, then I'm much more accepting of the moments when things are particularly challenging.
What do you still find hard to do? All of it, really, and that's kind of cool. I think that I gravitated to jazz in part because it's always challenging. If I play a tune and think "Man, that was easy," it's a pretty sure bet that I'm not pushing myself, because there's nothing in the tunes themselves that naturally leads to complacency. There's always something new to explore. So maybe this makes me some kind of masochist, but I guess that whenever something isn't hard, I'm always searching out new ways to make it more challenging and to stretch myself.
How often are you surprised by your playing, or what you're listening to, or music in general? Most of the music that I love can be pretty continually surprising if I'm listening deeply. Just yesterday I was listening to a Stevie Wonder tune that I've known since I was maybe 6 or 7 and I'm still finding new things in there. I don't surprise myself too often when I play alone – certainly not as often as I'd like. However, when I'm playing with great players, they force me out of my comfort zone and inspire me to play new and surprising stuff. I'm really blessed that the members of my current trio stimulate me in this way pretty much all the time.
Do you have a regular practice regimen? Not so much anymore. My practice regimen is inherently limited by my physical problems and I just adapt it to what my body can handle and what my musical needs are. Ideally, I'm covering technique, repertoire, improvisation, harmony/voicings and ear training on a regular basis. When I was younger and still developing my core musicianship, I absolutely had a regular practice regimen and found that to be tremendously helpful.
Is there a piece of gear you just can't live without? My brain. A pianist gets used to playing different instruments depending on the place, so I don't get too picky about that as long as it's a good instrument. Plus, with my body's problems, I've had to face the fact that eventually I'll probably have to find a way to make music without even having the piano at my disposal, at least not on the level that I'm used to now. But if my mind is still working, I'll always find a way to create. Heck, when Charles Mingus was wheelchair bound with Lou Gehrig's Disease, he still wrote music by dictating and singing stuff into a tape recorder, so I don't expect I'll ever have an excuse to stop making music.
Are there one or two core ideas that are central to your teaching that you make sure every student learns? I make sure that any jazz student does a lot of listening. Also, while this may sound kind of obvious, I emphasize learning the stuff one needs and learning it thoroughly. In jazz there are no shortcuts, so whatever you practice thoroughly is what you'll have at your disposal when you go to improvise, and whatever you glossed over is likely not to be very usable in the moment.
Do you find yourself returning to listen to the artists who inspired you when you first started to play? Who are they? Sure, all the time. I feel like I "first started to play" on several separate occasions. When I was first playing the piano, MTV had just hit the airwaves and I thought it was the coolest thing ever (this was, of course, when they primarily played low budget music videos). I was so addicted that when my mother had had enough, I'd bargain for her to let me watch it with the sound turned off! I wouldn't say I consciously return to that music too often, but when I hear those songs it does remind me of that initial burst of enthusiasm.
When I discovered jazz, my first burst of listening included Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," Wayne Shorter's "Speak No Evil," Bill Evans' "Portrait In Jazz," John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things," Thelonious Monk's "Solo Monk" album, Chick Corea's "Light as a Feather" and a solo piano album by Art Tatum. These are all things that remain central to my musical concept.
Does your playing change when you switch instruments? I wind up playing on a lot of different pianos, and sometimes logistics necessitate that I play a digital piano. Whenever I'm with an unfamiliar instrument I try to quickly get a sense of the instrument's personality. At that point, it becomes intuitive. I wind up playing in a way that's compatible with that instrument's personality so that I can maximize expressiveness and clarity. I also go through periods where I'm getting called to play organ, which is a very different animal in terms of touch, phrasing and so on.
How often, when you're playing, do you find those moments of pure music, when your head is clear, your fingers are working, there are no distractions, and it's just you and the music? Honestly, it depends on with whom I'm playing. When I'm playing with a group that's not that happenin', I don't really even try to enter into that state, because I'll invariably be jolted out of that state and I'm better off remaining more conscious of what's happening, especially since keeping track of my body is very important. On the other hand, when I play with my own trio or a group of comparable ability and vision, I am in that blissful state more often than not. Sometimes I'll finish a tune and barely know where I am. From the standpoint of my physical struggles, this is a particular blessing, because it allows me to leave my body for a while and enter into a state that's more spiritual and less physical, as trippy as that may sound.
What music would you suggest that your students listen to? Man, I could go on for days, though I'll try not to! When learning jazz piano, there are a lot of people worth checking out. Among pianists, I'd single out Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Nat "King" Cole, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver, Bill Evans, and Cecil Taylor, as well as Count Basie and, Duke Ellington, who were great pianists but were even more significant as bandleaders. For serious students, there are plenty more jazz pianists to dig into, like James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal, Red Garland, Bobby Timmons, Wynton Kelly, Lennie Tristano, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett and on and on.
Meanwhile, there are a good number of non-pianists who are important to hear in order to form a jazz concept. Nobody can truly learn jazz, for example, without checking out the groundbreakers in the music like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman. Also, I find it very useful to steer students towards folks like Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, Art Blakey and Clifford Brown; these are cats whose ideas are presented with great clarity, something that is very useful for someone just wrapping his or her brain around jazz phrasing and rhythm. Also, it's extremely useful to listen to great singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan.
Finally, I think that openness to other things is useful for a jazz player. In particular, I think that listening to a healthy dose of the blues is extremely helpful. Especially because the piano is not inherently a voice-like instrument, it's important not to let it become mechanical. Because good blues music is so expressive and such a central part of authentic jazz, having one's ear full of blues phrasing is invaluable. I suggest focusing on great blues singers – I usually recommend starting with Muddy Waters and Bessie Smith and then moving on to others like Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker.
What are you listening to these days? All of the stuff that I recommended for students finds its way into my "playlists" as well. Particularly when I'm teaching a lot, I often gravitate towards the stuff that I'm recommending for students. Some other jazz folks I've been checking out lately include Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus, Phineas Newborn, Jr., Hampton Hawes, Eddie Harris, Jaki Byard, Bobby Hutcherson, Clark Terry and Joe Henderson. I listen a lot to my past mentors Kenny Barron and Ted Dunbar, as well as James Williams, with whom I never studied formally but who was a huge influence and role model. I'm a big Stevie Wonder fan and listen to a lot of other R&B and soul from the 1960s and 1970s. I like African music a lot and go through phases of checking out Latin music and other "ethnic" stuff. Lately I've been studying the music of the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, which is some really moving stuff.
Do you search out music that's new and unfamiliar to you?Yes, I try to. I'm always looking out for what my friends are getting into, for example. And I'm very much into libraries – I check out a ton of stuff that way that I don't really need to own but that I want to familiarize myself with. The older I get and the more I study, the farther out I sometimes have to go to find stuff that is relevant to my music yet which I haven't heard yet. But there's still plenty of it and I still get excited when I discover something cool that is new to me.
Do you have a musical wish list - other instruments to learn, people to play with, artists or styles to explore? My dream or goal or whatever you want to call it is to simply keep growing. Particularly considering the physical obstacles I've had, it's an incredible blessing to not only still be playing but to still be growing. What direction that growth will take is kind of an organic process, so I don't have a real specific sense of how that growth would manifest in sound.
Have you ever had a really great teacher? What made him/her so good? I've had a few, and for that I'm eternally grateful. While Kenny Barron and Ted Dunbar were my most "high profile" teachers, George Raccio stands out as the one who had the most profound formative impact on my musical growth. I began studying with George when I was 14 and wanted to learn rock guitar. I was pretty hopeless as a guitarist (mainly because I didn't practice too much) but he still gave me a tremendous foundation in theory and improvisation and gave me my first taste of real jazz. After 2 years I auditioned (on piano) for the Educational Center for the Arts, a wonderful arts high school in New Haven, CT. George was the jazz teacher there and he had never heard me play the piano before that moment - it was clearly kind of surreal for him to discover that I actually had some musical skill. For the next two years I studied with him at ECA and privately and he taught me a ton and left me very well prepared to study music in college. On some level, though, the most impressive thing is how well and how generously he taught me even when he had no tangible reason to think I had any musical potential. He just had (and still has) that special combination of sincerely caring about others (not just the specially gifted ones) and being well equipped to communicate the stuff he was teaching.
What makes a great teacher?I find sincere and deep caring to be very important. This manifests most obviously in a one-on-one situation, but isn't limited to that. When I write a book, for example, I don't ever meet the "student," but I care deeply that he or she is able to glean something useful from what I've written. A great teacher remembers what it was like not to know the information he or she is communicating and is thus able to help the student make that transition from ignorance to enlightenment, so to speak. If one method of achieving this doesn't work, the teacher is persistent and creative enough to find another.
Along those lines, I think a truly great teacher has to be able to inspire and to act as a role model. A teacher can be a great communicator of information, but if the student thinks, "the heck with you, I don't want to be like you," then that lack of credibility totally undermines the substance of the teaching. By contrast, if a teacher legitimately earns the trust of a student by being a serious, soulful musician and a decent human being, then that student will be much more open to the teacher. Learning music takes a lot of leaping into uncharted and sometimes intimidating waters, so if the teacher's encouragement is sincere and credible, then the student is in a much better position to feel supported in making those leaps.
How do you learn best? I find that I'm pretty adaptable to learning in whatever way the information is available. The key for me is to be sufficiently interested in the material to be inspired to dig in however I have to. I don't do so well with working on stuff that just seems vaguely "good for me" - I do much better when I have a more tangible sense of how the stuff is going to help me, and when I teach others I make sure to be clear about that.
visit Noah at www.noahjazz.com
