TAGQ (That's A Good Question)
TAGQ (That's A Good Question)
Father's Day Jazz
Ever wondered if you've become just like your father or how our parents shape who we are? Join us in a fun-filled episode that kicks off with a playful nod to the "recording in progress" lady as we reminisce about our YouTube promotional videos and the hilarious ways our family members discovered them. We share heartwarming reflections on Father's Day, ponder whether we've turned into our fathers, and celebrate the unique blend of influences from both parents. Along the way, we dive into our musical adventures, recounting the joys and challenges of playing instruments like guitar, bass, and drums, and how rhythm and coordination have played a crucial role in our lives.
Unlock the secrets of music theory with us as we discuss intervals within scales and the circle of fifths, and how these concepts can elevate your musical practice. We break down the structure of notes in the chromatic and diatonic scales, offering practical tips for transitioning between chords and the benefits of using a metronome. Discover how tools like a capo and Chordify can make your practice sessions more engaging and effective, and learn about the importance of finding a structured routine to hone your skills.
But it’s not just about music—it's about the parallels between learning an instrument and fostering creativity in all areas of life. Hear our analogies between building a campfire and mastering guitar, and the essential elements needed to fuel progress. We explore the concept of intergenerational sharing circles and the significance of creating safe spaces for open dialogue. Personal stories about setting goals, the vulnerability in creative pursuits, and finding self-compassion and resilience mark our journey. We wrap up with a cheerful Father's Day message and a humorous nod to masculine energy, leaving you with a smile and a sense of connection. Tune in, laugh with us, and maybe even learn a thing or two!
The lady did. Oh, there's the lady.
Scott:Thanks, the recording in progress, lady.
Ben:Recording in progress. Lady has spoken. Do you know what that means?
Scott:Means. The permanent record is on.
Ben:Means it's time for another episode? Oh, that's a good question. Welcome everyone. Have you seen any of our YouTube videos? Have you. Yeah, they're pretty good. I've seen a couple of uh, I've seen a couple of promotional videos, seen a little bit of, seen a little bit of the video based content. I heard about it from your wife and my mother. Actually, she said that a friend of hers was watching one on YouTube.
Scott:And I think I promoted it on Facebook, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben:And then mom saw it too and she said I didn't realize I was being videotaped. I looked, so I, I can't remember Dang. I can't remember dang, I can't remember. She said like it looks like I'm sleepy. Were you sleeping, mom? I said no, I just I just look. You know like I'm dang. Wish I could remember the word she used she did not.
Scott:She looked low energy maybe yeah, yeah, good word for that yeah, I was basically focusing on the best jokes in making those promo clips, you know, and I search for him by like panning, scrolling through the video, you know, and looking where someone's laughing looking looking for smiles, I see, and then I back up a little bit and say okay, what made what made that laugh, what made that smile happen?
Ben:Yeah, you don't have AI, just look for laughter.
Scott:No, I read the transcript too as a way to. So it's a little bit of archeology on each episode to go back in and find one that's like oh yeah, it's funny enough, let's put it up. How many have you made. I'm glad I found the one for Adam. About four now, I guess. Yeah, For some reason I'm starting from the beginning.
Ben:For some reason.
Scott:Gives me a. Why would anyone ever video, video editing project, something I used to do in my younger years.
Ben:And did you learn to start from the beginning?
Scott:Yeah.
Ben:Funny thing about beginnings usually that's where you need to start. Yeah, speaking of beginnings, it's father's day and your father is one of the first people you ever meet when you begin life. If you're lucky or, I guess, unlucky, depending on who your dad was yeah, do you think of yourself as having turned into your father, like a lot of people say they do? No, and yes, yes, yeah, yeah, okay, that checks out Me too.
Scott:Yes. I'm you know I'm glad for the the I'm glad to be a cross product, not the dot product of my parents, meaning that cross product is like you're off in a different direction, but you know the directions they were going contributed to. Like you're a different direction or is it that product? You're just like taking two values and going eh.
Ben:Do it again, let's do it again, let's do it again.
Scott:Like mixing paint or something. Okay Well, that's orange and that's hold it, I goofed up. That's red and that's yellow.
Ben:Your parents couldn't be. Your parents couldn't be. A secondary color, in and of themselves Not very.
Scott:Well, yeah, yeah didn't. Didn't take up piano until he was 90 or something, or mid 80s, so I'm a little different in that capacity you started playing music earlier in my retirement?
Ben:yes, yeah, there you go, you're breaking down those old patterns yeah no longer repeating the uh yep, those old familial patterns. Do you play guitar? I do. Do you play guitar? You play guitar, no I.
Scott:I play bass guitar more you play the bass guitar.
Ben:You play it more, but you still play guitar. It's kind of like how some people say, oh, I can't, I don't dance. I wouldn't say that I can't dance. It's like, well, you can dance. You just, you know, don't do it that often. You're not as good at dancing as you are at other things. Well, but you can dance.
Scott:I had to learn how to drum first. I had to learn how to drum first Because somehow you need that sort of you know, rub your belly and pat your head.
Ben:Yeah, coordination to get freedom of limb, independence of limb movement. Movement drumming has been a recent development, though, for you, hasn't it? Or did you start learning a long time ago and just didn't start doing it?
Scott:I was a recent cold start a year ago you said you were told to start no, I, it was a cold start. Cold start. Okay, I never sat down in front of a bass kick drum pedal and used it, which is kind of hard to imagine, isn't it? You had never done that, never sat down and went womp, womp, womp.
Ben:What had you? Sat down and just looked at it and thought about womping, but just didn't.
Scott:Nope, I approached it totally backwards.
Ben:So you sat at the bass drum backwards.
Scott:No, I mean I approached the drum like a cat, without looking at it ever yeah, okay, that's just as in you don't look at cats or you had cat I think that's the thing with the cats they don't want you to look at them too much when you're approaching them. I'm not sure that's. What do I know?
Ben:maybe it's a little bit of both. You try not to make eye contact with the cat and the cat kind of just doesn't give a shit, yeah no, I mean, it was playing bass that you um created increased my interest in rhythm and um so you say you couldn't play bass until you started playing drums?
Scott:No, no, I, I could play bass before drums. I just got better at um, yeah, better at bass because of drumming.
Ben:Because of the neurology that the drum is it just trains.
Scott:It's all about the time, or you know? Yeah, it's all about the the groove really yeah, and what I learned this week is like to recognize when I get to the point when I can hold the kind of groove by just kind of like riding a horse with reins. You know, hold on to one thing lightly and the whole thing.
Scott:Fly loose on the yoke? I don't always. It takes me a while to get there. When I play each song, it's like I'm kind of like this stumbling. Well, I can hear stumbles if I record it right. Stumble, stumble, get up. Oh, I've heard the foot's not doing. What's the foot doing? What's my right hand doing?
Ben:um, are you aware of those mistakes in the moment?
Scott:well, that's the teachers there is been useful for just basically increasing the awareness, did you hear that?
Ben:and it's like, oh yeah, that did feel like I was losing traction or yeah, yeah yeah just yesterday I I kind of I had my first actual like jam session with someone well and it was really, really, you know, rudimentary, but I just he's someone that's helped kind of just guide my playing a little bit on the guitar and so I had him over yesterday and I had dinner and then he asked me what have you been working on on the guitar? And no, like a month or two ago he sent me a bunch of exercises in an email and I've been working on some of them, but in the I've in the email some things were as simple as like play all the g's up and down the neck. There are seven of them. And when I read that I like instantly got kind of overwhelmed. I was like, uh, seven G's.
Ben:It's like I just learned I'm still learning how to you know strum on the first one, like, oh, what do you mean? Play all seven G's, not G chords, how do I, you know? Is that? That's? That's probably what he meant. Yeah, yeah, and so I guess that would be. Are there really only seven G's on the neck?
Scott:There must be more than that, I guess seven like Six strings and most strings just have one, but one string has two, like the G string has two G's on it.
Ben:Because one's open and one's yeah, the twice okay. So there you go. It's like I'm so new to the whole music thing that it's like when I I play this, well, of course, and you say play a g, you mean play a chord, like you don't mean just one little thing oh, there's so much fun all the way with music, with that stuff. Yeah.
Scott:It's always like the person who wants to learn the new thing, who doesn't know it, and the person who's going you don't know that.
Ben:Or he wasn't really doing it. I think he might have been. Well, I wasn't very forthcoming about how little I knew I was trying to play it cool. As I asked him, like so when you like move up and down the neck and you know you talk about how a good way to practice is, just to like start with a little bit of baby talk, kind of move up and down the neck and just kind of you know, see if you can just have fun with it for a minute, and like kind of just enter the practice space from that place. But as he's moving up and down the neck, I'm like it seems like you know where you're gonna, where you're gonna go to the guitar and find something in that particular spot.
Ben:And he, and then he talked about thirds and fifths and um, major and minor, what have you fourths, I don't know, and no rain I just I just like I'm sitting over here at the I don't know if it's the top or the bottom of the neck, I don't know and I'm just sitting there and I'm watching him do this and saying like, yeah, you can just, you know, go up and down. I'm like, I like I, I'm not going to, I'm, I'm going to stay right, Stay right at home. I'm very safe here and if I go out, I'm. I don't know what you're talking. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what you're talking.
Ben:And't know what you're talking and I'm like, okay, yeah, and at some point I said I don't really know what you mean by thirds and fourths and fifths, and yeah, are they fractions? Are they just the whole musical?
Scott:did you get that answer?
Ben:uh, not really. I remember asking peter once and and the hard thing is that they seem like they're relatively simple and I've watched YouTube videos about it. I've asked Peter about it, but something in it it's like my brain just had a really hard time conceptualizing it.
Scott:Well, it's describing an interval relative to the root of the current scale.
Ben:Yeah.
Scott:You know there are 13 notes in the chromatic scale but only eight in the. You know, whatever normal scale, the do re, mi, fa, sol, la ti, do, yeah. So if you go on that scale, do-re, that interval is a second, do-re-mi, do-mi is a third and do-re-mi-fa, so do-fa is a fourth. Do-re-mi-fa-so do-so is a fifth.
Ben:Okay, and when people say circle of fifths, it's just all the different notes and how they relate to each others. It's just all the different notes and how they relate to just all the different.
Scott:That's how the different scales relate to each other. Yeah, okay is that you can like start at some scale and then go to the scale that's a fifth higher. Then go the scale that's a fifth higher and that'll take you all the way around back to where you started yeah, yeah, okay, a fifth is um it's so many, so many half steps. Anyways, this is not a music theory podcast what is this podcast? That is, that's a, that's a, that's a um what is this podcast that's? A great question that's a great.
Ben:That's a great question that's the same acronym for that one I see, yeah, and it sounds like when you're on the guitar. There's the kind of stagger, where you're playing one string and then you're playing one string down on the next fret over, yeah because the strings are a fourth part and it just sounds good.
Scott:Okay. And it just sounds good okay, you mean anytime you play a, a, you would. It's okay to hear a, d too also. So right, I've learned this. Playing bass, just a lot of technique is like, oh well, I can go up or down a string and it'll all still sound good, all in the so it might be a fun, because one thing that I've struggled with and just struggle with life more and we can.
Ben:Maybe this will be a good jumping off point so we can stop talking about music theory, but I'm I'm scratching my own itch to try and understand and get somewhere. Next, it's been a while since I've done it.
Scott:You're not getting paid enough for this podcast, not to make it work for you, right?
Ben:Yeah, exactly, yep, there you go, I'll just.
Ben:We can talk about whatever we want With. I think I've been struggling to pick up the guitar recently in practice because I and this is something with that I just struggle with in life more generally is finding uh structure to return to um, and so when I practice, I like have a few things that I do, but I don't have a set sort of routine in mind that I feel like I'm actively getting better with. Right now it's just like I'm still. I'm still doing the whole like okay, going to the g chord, yeah, that strum sounds nice. Okay, now I'm gonna switch to the c. And only recently that strum sounds nice. Okay, now I'm going to switch to the C. And only recently did I start using a metronome and just trying to play them in time. But it's like okay, and then I just start noodling around and then maybe I'll have an exercise where I can practice getting a crisp sound from it coming to it with an appreciation for noodling um, which most people would not approach an instrument.
Scott:With that appreciation, you might like learning the bar chords, because they make noodling around really easy. All you got to do is know four shapes four bar chord shapes or depending on how you do the math, and with four you'd have enough, and then you just slide it up and down, so you're all. So you know punk rock is. They just use the five chord, which is a bar chord, but you only worry about the top strings. Um, yeah, and you know so you don't make it.
Scott:Try to sound perfect across the whole thing, which is a little more technically tough because you just play the top four strings.
Ben:You know fingers anyways well, I guess I mean noodling. Here's the thing about noodling, though it's like I'm not really. In order to like practice and keep improving in the ways that I want to improve, I have to be able to notice when I'm messing up and it's like, oh, that doesn't sound quite right. I can.
Ben:Next time I do this exercise, you know, I'm going to start over and see if I can see what happens there and the thing about noodling is it's like well, there are, there are no act there, there are no mistakes, because that's it's just a like the noodle falls where it, may it just well, do both yeah, do both, but a point being that I spend all of my time and having something to return to, having some structure to return to.
Ben:So it's like now I'm going to experiment between this g at the top of the neck and now I'm going to move down a few frets and become more familiar with what it's like to jump in that g and then maybe that c that's further down, do you have?
Scott:a capo.
Ben:No, I, I don't know, I don't like, I don't why?
Scott:Well, I also think you should play along with songs. Just bring up songs in Cordify and you know, you know you can find ones that are in the chords. You know you can even search by chords, you know, in Cordify and then play along. And you know, sure You'll be critical enough to say whether you played along or not. Right.
Ben:Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah, I think that's another thing I haven't had many songs to return back to also.
Scott:yeah, I'm just I think that Chordify gives you the chords. They go by on the screen as the song plays. So it's kind of mindless Right.
Ben:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Scott:Great. Well, I uh you could have them sponsored the podcast.
Ben:Portify.
Scott:Portify.
Ben:Brought to you by Portify.
Scott:Not net.
Ben:All the chords musical symbols Go there.
Scott:Numbers that you don't know.
Ben:You're like how do I even figure out what that is?
Scott:it just gives you a chord.
Ben:It's a letter a through g it does, but it doesn't put like a flat and then a sharp and then a sus or a seven next to it. You have an option to simplify the chords yeah, okay, we're not. I don't care about the four symbols that follow that.
Scott:You can do your steely Dan jazz composition chords or something yeah right, yeah. And it plays along with the YouTube video.
Ben:Yeah, well.
Scott:And the little black square moves through the bars and so you know where you are, and then the bars tell you what the current chord is yeah, that'd probably be helpful.
Ben:Look outside of myself for a little bit of structure for once.
Ben:God knows, Just keep like today's Father's Day man, so at dance this morning. Every father's day there's, you know, always a lot of talk about masculine energy and fatherhood and the importance of having just father figures in your life, whether they be biological fathers, non-biological fathers, uh, or father figures that may or may not be male. Um, the uh, masculine energy of the sun, you know, it's just something, it's the strong hand that hold everything together and it just continues to be this thing in my life where I just like such a hard time just sticking to a structure and it's like I need the father energy to just.
Ben:It's just like do it for me, I don't know. It's like I have these glimpses where I'm able to do it myself and I'm like, okay, I, i'm'm, I'm, I'm building a little bit of structure into my days, but it's like if I don't stay really really on it, it just like, like my overwhelming yin energy just kind of like washes it all away. And yin energy is great, washes it all away. And yin energy is great. You know it's deep, it's emotional, it's like a deep heart space. People feel really cared for and heard and listened to. And you know there's, there's a structure that's important when it comes to practicing music. To have both of them is important, but it's like if I'm just noodling, it's just yeah, yeah, just noodling. In life in general too, you know it's just consistently having to back in on are what are, what are the things I can work on in order, like, really be able to play within the structure that is the guitar.
Ben:I think that structure, the more you work on it, the more and more it actually invites more safety in play.
Scott:It's kind of like you know lighting a fire in a campfire in the woods. Yeah, you play around and getting this twig or that leaf going and eventually it's some birch bark or whatever and eventually it starts building up a little momentum. But you got to still put the work in and feeding it. You know more and more uh-huh yeah right right yeah yeah gotta know which wood to use yeah, and you have to be disconnected from those judgments like um, is this a worthwhile activity?
Ben:right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely I'm uh, I can't remember if I've ever talked about this in the podcast before, but I've been part of an intergenerational circle had this idea to get together and just create a space where people come and share, you know, and it's the main intention just being that they're going to be there's going to be younger people and older people all coming together and just sharing um, I've been a lot of, I've been a part of a lot of different sharing circles just in the past few years of my life and just a space for people to just like say what's on their mind and just access this like level of depth really, really quickly, because you spend a lot of time setting intentions for it being like a really safe space sounds like a 12 steps program without hitting bottom yeah, that's exactly right.
Ben:It's like we don't have to hit rock bottom in an order for us to like access.
Ben:True gather and tell people our stories yeah, yeah right, um, and they've been great. And more recently in this past week, we had a circle and, um, I have really come to realize that the structurelessness of it, just like the, the lack of really any intention beyond, just like let's come together and just like share, it was just it. Like this past week it like really sat in my body in a new way, um, and I had like felt glimpses up to this point with it pretty much since the very beginning, but was kind of like shoving itimpses up to this point with it pretty much since the very beginning, but was kind of like shoving it off.
Ben:But it got to this point where I was like this isn't actually really helping me in any way okay, I wondered where you were going with that yeah, through it and I think a big part of it's just because I'm like it's it's take small, you know, taking small steps towards things you want in life. But the steps can't be too small and they can't be too easy. And in this case it was pretty, it was really easy. And then I'm like we're just bringing people together and just talk that's it, that's all I'm going to do, and like that's where it stops. Uh, but now I'm just yeah. You sound a little finding a way.
Scott:In a way, it both sounds amazing and sounds like something you might want to move on from.
Ben:Yeah, exactly.
Scott:But don't yeah. Yeah, it was a good experiment, don game all the time or something.
Ben:Oh boy, that's a really good analogy. That goes beyond just analogy. It feels really true. Oh boy, oh god, yeah, yeah yeah, it's a talk.
Scott:The game is simple. It's just like a talking stick. Right, you're allowing people much pretty much to start talking and keep going for a while yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's more a listening. What did you call it sharing circle? Yeah, it's more a listening circle yeah, yeah, that's, that's true, that's true, but yeah, just in the last, I mean I've known this for a while, but the sharing gets dumped because people are there to listen yeah, right, right, doesn't work without it.
Ben:Yeah, but yeah, it's I. That's just exactly what I was referring to and my, my troubles and struggles with practicing guitar. It's like, oh gosh, how does Ben make more structure for himself so that the party he goes to there can be more things happening and booze or not? I don't care if booze is there or not.
Scott:I always know I don't care if booze is there or not. I always needed a goal of a performance to motivate really leveling up on playing. So you're going to need some songs on that pontoon boat this summer, so get your set list ready.
Ben:This is like thinking about the comedy nights that are happening every week now at the local brewery Thinking about that. That's like so exceptionally scary. And this friend that I was just talking about, that I played guitar with yesterday, he had a jerry seinfeld quote said when you write a, when you write, don't tell anyone your joke in the first 24 hours, because you're very, very vulnerable at that point and you're very attached.
Ben:I'm, you know, going off the cuff in terms of what he actually said, but my understanding is, when you write, you're doing the hardest thing in the world, right, and you need to give yourself some space to go to bed and then say like I did the hardest thing in the world today and today was a good day because of it, whereas if you tell someone immediately or within the first few hours of the joke you wrote yeah, you're not providing yourself that sort of like level of self-compassion, right and or or opening yourself up to criticism before you have the distance to be able to like really indirect ability not to take it personally. Yeah, starting so important because you got to share the idea and you got to share the joke at some point yeah I'd be like that when I edit the podcasts and I'm glad I do them like a month later.
Scott:I mean, I said this in the podcast I just put out, which was from a month ago. Oh, I have to correct. The book on Palo Alto is not by Malcolm Gladwell, but the other Malcolm.
Ben:Is his name? Malcolm?
Scott:Yeah, Malcolm.
Ben:Malcolm Harris.
Scott:Yeah, that's it. Yeah, he's just a Palo Alto boy. Palo alto boy. I'm excited to write this book about history centric to yeah.
Ben:Yeah, sounds like a good book. Yeah, um, yeah yeah yeah, yeah hey, one quick well, thanks for this therapy session, everybody. I came to some really good clarity on what I need next in life.
Scott:So do you think we?
Ben:don't get paid, so this is the service I need from this podcast you think we should have?
Scott:guests, you know again.
Ben:That sounds like, that sounds scary.
Scott:It's like a lot of work. Yeah, right.
Ben:Look at us.
Scott:Both arguments against having it yes.
Ben:Okay, well, maybe we do need to do the scary thing. Maybe it would be a good thing. I don't know, I could see having, uh, my housemate lewis on, or just any of my. I could have all of my housemates on. Yeah, you know, it'd be probably full of awkward tunities, but that's like that's a term we're using and check.
Scott:Check us out on youtube. I guess it's under Scott Johnston Check that on YouTube.
Ben:If you don't like voicing into these whole episodes, chances are if you're listening to this right now, you're Wow. Thank you, I think I hope.
Scott:Thanks for the happy Father's Day.
Ben:Maybe just skip to the end.
Scott:Wishes.
Ben:You don't need to tell us that. Okay, happy.
Scott:Father's.
Ben:Day. Maybe just skip to the end. Wishes you don't need to tell us that, okay. Happy Father's Day, right. Yep, from our masculine energy to yours. Okay, that's weird. Anyway, bye, we're working on it.
Scott:There we go there. I can cut it right there at that sound you.
