Music Life and Times

EP40: Music Teaches Resiliency

It’s not easy to learn to play music, especially to learn how to play well. It takes a great deal of work—we call it practice—and practicing in a way that leads to meaningful progress. As well, the more you learn, that is, the better you play, the more work it takes to make progress. You also learn by making mistakes, and if you make mistakes on the job, that’s a hard lesson; it can be humbling. That’s where your resiliency comes into play. So yes, learning to play teaches you to be resilient, which will help you learn to play well, and when you learn to play well, it’s a joy for life.

EP39: Your Instrument: Let’s Talk Pianos

The relationship between player and instrument can be life-long. You might go through several instruments as you learn to play and learn what you like in your instrument, but once you find the one, it’s a marriage that endures. Some players even assign names and genders to their instruments. On a recent trip to the Steinway factory in New York, Kevin was hosted for a tour of the entire facility and was able to observe the craftsmen and women as they built some of the world’s finest pianos. What makes a great instrument and how do instruments, in particular pianos, differ? These insights will be particularly enlightening to people looking to buy a piano.

EP38: Guest Joe Alterman

A Joyful Sound
As a child taking piano lessons, Joe Alterman was impressed, more so bowled over, by a guitar player named Doc Watson and his boogie style. From those seeds emerged the joyful sound that characterizes Joe’s playing. Among his idols, his mentors, was the incomparable Les McCann. Much of Joe’s work today, including a recent album, “Big Mo & Little Joe,” and several ongoing projects, involves giving new life to the incredible wealth of music McCann created.

EP37: Guest Saxophonist Matt Miller on Playing and Teaching

Matt Miller, a native of the Philadelphia area and a graduate of the heralded The New School in New York City, is a busy member of the Atlanta jazz community, featured regularly in various combinations of musicians, from trios to big bands. Matt talks about his responsibilities as a performer to his fellow players and his audiences, and how learning to play music teaches his young students responsibility and other life lessons. 

EP36: Guest Karla Harris

Jazz Vocalist and Music Educator Karla is in the midst of an admirable career, not only as a performer and recording artist with top billing at some of the country’s most notable venues and festivals but also as an educator ensuring that future generations have access to the arts. Well-known for her performances, she has also been recognized now for her work in the area of education as one of Atlanta Magazine’s “Women Making a Mark in 2024.”

EP35: Standing Room Only: Trumpeter and Vocalist Joe Gransden

Joe Gransden has built his brand on multiple levels, perhaps best known as big band leader, heading up the 16-piece group of jazz musicians that filled Café 290 on Monday nights for more than 12 years and continues to entertain at venues and events around Atlanta and beyond, as well as performing with a variety of combinations for a variety of gigs, from restaurants to corporate parties to his own popular jam sessions.  

EP34: Guest Roderick Harper

At 57, Roderick Harper is gaining steam. A versatile artist with both jazz and R&B albums, he calls on a background that started as early a small child singing along with TV commercials, through early lessons in the American Songbook and a minor in jazz studies at Southern University, to a performer audiences love for the passion and integrity of his singing. Mike and Kevin talk with Roderick in between two nights of his performances, accompanied by Kevin, at the Atlanta-area jazz club, The Velvet Note.

EP33: Composers and Lyricists

Every Elton John has his Bernie Taupin. Jerome Kern had to have his Oscar Hammerstein. Even Duke Ellington needed a Billy Strayhorn or Irving Mills or Bob Russell. Point is, a song isn’t much of a song without lyrics, and how lyricists and composers work together, if unique to each pair, is one more example of the cooperation involved in making great music.

EP32: Collaboration: A Great Lesson

Consistent with the podcast’s focus on the life lessons that learning to play music teaches, Kevin and Mike talk about musical conversation, that is, how musicians playing together collaborate, listening to each other and accommodating each other’s playing, to create better music.

EP31: Getting Started In Music

Whether you’re a youngster who wants to learn how to play an instrument, or a parent who recognizes the value of music in their child’s education, or an adult who has never played but wants to learn how, it’s never too early or too late to start. Kevin shares insights on how to get started from his three decades of teaching young and adult students.