242 - The Art of Improvisation w/Christopher Brown

Today, jazz musician and teacher Christopher Brown joins me to talk creativity, freedom of movement, and how discipline and systems support creative work.

We also explore the intersection of music and creativity with yoga and movement, inviting more freedom and choice through control, challenging existing beliefs to grow and evolve, and the decision-making process involved in improvisation.

Connect with Christopher: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, website

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Connect with Bonnie: Instagram, Email (hello@bonnieweeks.com), Website
Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie (00:00.596)
Welcome back to the podcast. Today, damn, I love it when I cross paths with people who are their own sort of creative and bring a different language to my understanding, but at the same time flows right with what I believe or how I teach or the values that I uphold. And I love the way that...

we use language in same and different ways, but at the same time, we understand what we're talking about with each other. So with all that said, I have a guest with me today that is talented as fuck. I've spent in so many different places. And if, you know, because I'm here in Yoga Strong where we talk about yoga, this person is a musician. This person is a jazz musician.

has had a lot of experience in a lot of different places playing music and currently also shows up not just as a musician himself, but as somebody who mentors, teaches and guides other people in a lot of different ways on their musical journeys. And so, you know, if you're here showing up on the podcast thinking yoga land, how does this pertain to yoga? all of it is about the practice of paying attention, right? It's how we show up in all ways in our lives.

And the way that we learn how to do a thing 100 % affects the way how we learn to do other things in our lives. And there's a big crossover. And so bringing in somebody to introduce you to, to bring you to Christopher Brown, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. I am so delighted to have you. You have a magnetic personality. You are somebody who draws others in and

Christopher Brown (01:45.899)
Thanks for having me.

Bonnie (01:55.372)
as a backstory, we met at an event in Portland called mindful mornings at pause meditation studio. And you gave a comment, you gave a comment during, during the conversation, that we were kind of, we attended and you talked about jazz music. And I loved actually, you know, I was one of those people that came up to you afterwards and was like,

I'm going to talk to that person. This person, I get you, I really talk a lot to yoga teachers about being clear and the way that we give directions and to be clear and concise and commanding, but to do it in a compassionate way. And there's a way that you delivered just your statement of the kind of the creative exploration we are having and how you wove in.

jazz music within that, that was really interesting and really fluid. And it was fun. I mean, yes, again, to be one of those people that's like, I'm going to talk to Chris, but to watch other people respond to you as my kind of teacher eye to look at the way that that was a ripple effect on others and the gift of that. And I think you, as a musician, like you get to be on stage, you get to be somebody that others.

will look at and there's such a process with, you know, stepping into that role and be okay with it and like then not getting too, you know, inflated with it. And then also you're working with it. It's like a whole play place. And, and so, in our very short time together, I am, I'm stoked to like dive into this conversation and also like give you kind of a stage here to bring.

the way that you think about music and creativity into like maybe the thoughts and minds of folks who might think of it kind of towards the yoga lens and towards a movement lens, but I think there's gonna be a ton of crossovers here. So thank you for being here.

Christopher Brown (03:57.513)
Thank you. I'm excited. Go ahead.

Bonnie (04:00.556)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think I wanted to jump off with exactly where you had started or where we kind of started the conversation and where you shared just because it felt like a direct line in with kind of how I teach. So you gave a comment about Miles Davis. So I would love for you to talk about Miles Davis here. But the crux of that little moment that I was like, that's it, right? And I love.

Christopher Brown (04:28.2)
Hahaha!

Bonnie (04:29.1)
When I teach flow school, so flow school is for yoga teachers after they've done some initial training and it's to help them learn how to creative sequence where there's a tradition and a kind of standard of like, this is how you do the yoga things that they learn, but then it gets kind of stale. It's like the same things. It's like,

There's not a ton of fluidity with it, but there's so many different ways we can tie the pieces together and it becomes something totally different. So I help teachers recreate, like put things in different orders and figure out how to speak to it and guide others through it. And it's an art, it's a craft, it's like all of these things. But...

in your statement, you kind of shared about Miles Davis and you said, you know, this history of Miles Davis and where he learned how to like make music and what he made depended on where he had been. And that statement so resonated with me in the way that I show up and try to guide teachers and say, okay, but where, where were you just at? And there's the, the statement that I often use of what

comes next in the sequence that makes it feel like you're falling forward. That you would be in a particular place in your body, in a particular stance. That if you were to fall out of it and relieve yourself of that, whatever it might be, that what happens if you make that the next pose? So it feels very natural, but you do it on purpose. And then it just, that totally made me think about your comment about jazz and how...

Jazz is kind of that where you're like, okay, where have you been and where are you going? So I would love for you to riff on that. Tell us about Miles Davis. Talk to us about jazz music and kind of in this context.

Christopher Brown (06:23.173)
Yeah, that's a great question.

Let's see. All right, so I guess maybe to give some additional color to kind of bring people into the room that we were in two months ago or whatever. We were doing a creative drawing exercise and the lady, I can't remember her name right now, but it was something about just go, you know, saying basically draw without boundaries, without any.

Bonnie (06:37.964)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (06:56.452)
judgment, right? And it was fascinating to see like, how just even that word or that statement gave adults permission to sort of take the mask off to be themselves again, and in a way kind of tap back into that child state of curiosity and wonderment and go, let's just see what happens if I draw this, right? And so,

So I think she gave us like five or seven minutes and then she goes, who would like to share what your mental process was as you were drawing? And so the comment that I made was I wasn't sure where to start, but I knew I needed to start. So I just made a line. And instead of having a preconceived notion of what it needed to be, I made a line and then I took my paper and I turned it on all four sides.

to see if a new idea would pop out as to where the next line should go or what the next shape should be. And so I just kept turning my paper throughout the entire exercise. I'd draw, look at it, then draw, look at it again, right? And as I was doing it, where my brain immediately shot to was Miles Davis' Kind of Blue record because the liner notes were written by his pianist.

the 11th and in there he talks about the correlation between that and what they call modal music, which is kind of like a drone, just like one sound, right? Basically like meditative music, right? It's not like a whole bunch of chord changes, just like, boom. But then that ends up being a catalyst for a whole bunch of new other ideas. And so he talks about the relationship between that and I think he said like Japanese painting.

where you make a stroke and then wherever it ends, then that's where you're supposed to make the next one, which is like golf. If you think about it, like you hit it where it lays. And so you're constantly up against, a set, like a door that you're kind of going through and each door is a different decision. And you're hoping kind of that the next, that each subsequent decision will be an appropriate decision.

Bonnie (08:54.78)
That's true.

Christopher Brown (09:13.569)
Because if you link up a series of appropriate decisions, as I learned years ago, then it will lead you to a desirable outcome. It might not look how you thought it's supposed to look, but it doesn't matter. The point is to have a desirable outcome. So let's just think about what the next best step is to take. And so it's about doing that force you to pay attention. That's the whole point, right? And so it's interesting because as soon as I said that I made the correlation between that and Miles Davis.

Bonnie (09:33.42)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (09:43.552)
I did notice sort of this ripple effect where everyone was like, it's like a, it's like a, a skeleton key. Like I opened up like a Pandora's box or something like that. And then other people started having other thoughts that were somehow related to Miles Davis. And then at the end, I ended up like making like four or five new friends because I brought up Miles Davis. and it, you know, it obviously resonated with them. And so, I guess.

We're going to go from here. I guess overall, I'm always thinking about keeping the main thing the main thing, because that's how you know if you're making the next best step is you have to know where you're going. And then I don't necessarily need it to look any specific way. I just need to have an orientation. And as long as, for example, you might go, here's a perfect example.

Bonnie (10:34.22)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (10:42.591)
And this is something I've been doing for years. On the way to a gig, I'll look at my map to make sure I don't get lost because there's a timetable. On the way back, I turn off, I don't use my phone. I just go, I know I live that way. Now let's just see what happens. And what's really cool is like, I know a thousand ways to get around my city. Like I know all these different shortcuts. So when everyone is kind of bottlenecked on the main arteries,

of Portland I go, all right, I can go here, I can go here, I can go here, I can go here, I can go here, right? And it's because here as well as in Jersey, as well as in New York and...

Christopher Brown (11:25.054)
Yeah, that's, that's me trying to embody this, this concept of mindfulness and paying attention. Cause in order for it to happen, I have to pay attention to everything that I saw on the way to the gig. And then I try to reverse engineer, but you know, what's cool about it is it doesn't matter if I get lost on the way back. I just turn my phone back on and it helps me get back home. You know? And so it kind of reminds me of,

Bonnie (11:32.552)
Yeah.

Bonnie (11:47.596)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christopher Brown (11:51.997)
thing I saw a while ago or I read a while ago about decision making and it used the example of two doors. One door has a doorknob on both sides and the other has a doorknob just on one side. So if it has a doorknob on both sides, what's great about it, you can go through it. If you don't like what's on the other side, go back through it, right? But if it has a doorknob on one side and it's flat on the other, then you have to really think hard about if you...

if you think it's worth going through that door, because once the door shuts, everything changes. So that you should probably seek counsel about whatever that decision is. And so that's an example of the door with door knob on both sides. I'm like, if I get lost, I just turn my GPS back on, it helps me get back on.

Bonnie (12:25.196)
Hmm.

Bonnie (12:36.204)
Yeah, interesting.

Can you tell me about a door that did not have a knob on both sides for you?

Christopher Brown (12:45.02)
Great question, let me see. Yeah, my mom died. So I remember, let's see. Man, so weird. So, well, I'll spare you the whole long backstory. Point being, I was in Jersey, I got a phone call from my dad. He goes, it's bad, you gotta come home. I go, all right, so I come home. She never woke up, she was in a coma the whole time. She died a week later.

Bonnie (12:51.212)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (13:14.683)
but I remember, you know, I'm in there and I'm, she's hooked up to all kinds of stuff and I'm trying to figure out like, how does this, what do I do? You know, that you're in the state of like kind of suspended animation, I guess. And, I remember going, there's a lot of decisions what I have to make and I just want to feel comfortable with the decision that I have to make, however this plays out, you know? and so.

Bonnie (13:40.428)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (13:43.994)
the doctor was like, so here's the situation. the mom that you knew, she's no longer here. Like that part, cause she went without oxygen for way too long, like a half an hour or something like that. And so she's now just kind of a, you know, like her personality is gone. And so, and she's been having, having seizures throughout this, this week. So now that she's had them, she's going to keep having them. And I was like, well,

Bonnie (14:00.365)
Hmm. Yeah.

Bonnie (14:08.876)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (14:14.586)
That's no quality of life, you know? Like for me to keep her around, that would just be for my own selfish reasons and it'd be fucking expensive as hell, right? And so, because at that point I was like, okay, I have access to the launch codes, if you will, you know what I mean? And so I have to make the decision as if I pulled the plug or I...

keep hoping for some kind of random miracle. And so when they explained it to me that way, I go, okay, that feels good. Right? Because I just needed someone to make it make sense. If I can, if it makes sense to me, then I can walk forward. I don't, there's no regret. I'm not going, but maybe there could have been a chance. Like they laid out all the variables. I go, cool. Got it. This is what needs to happen. It sucks, but it's the best or the most appropriate next.

Bonnie (14:54.732)
Hmm.

Bonnie (15:05.644)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (15:11.705)
best decision to make.

Bonnie (15:14.856)
How long ago was that?

Christopher Brown (15:18.232)
That was 2011.

Christopher Brown (15:23.129)
It's really interesting how things work out. Maybe I will give you a little bit of backstory, right? So, I've been living in Jersey and...

One day I started, well, actually, okay, I was living in Jersey and I would come home for Christmas breaks or whatever. And I remember my mom kind of like getting kind of forgetful. You know, I was like, all right, I guess this is kind of how it worked. But then I remember like she would ask me a question and I'd answer it. And then she'd ask me the same question again, like eight minutes later, I go, yo, did you just forget? And then it kept happening. I go, okay. So I'm in my head. I'm like, I guess this is kind of what it's like, you know?

So then I leave and go back to Jersey. And I remember because of her forgetfulness, we had a big like blowout. So we didn't talk between June, December or early January of, yeah, that's right. Early January of 2011. And then that's like kind of the last time we talked. She died in September. And...

I remember between then and the time I came home, I remember getting a couple of weird phone calls from the church. Now, I live, the house that's behind me here is the house I grew up in. And so the church that we went to is on the same street. So it's just a straight shot. There's no twisty, windy roads where your brain has to remember. It's just a straight shot. And I got these weird phone calls from the pastor at the church saying, yeah, your mom got lost getting to church. I'm like, well, that's...

Bonnie (16:48.14)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (17:01.142)
That doesn't sound, that's weird, right? And then even my stepmom, she mentioned something about how she got a phone call from my mom once, because she was frustrated that she couldn't remember how to get to my dad's house, which is just up the road, right? A little more turns, but still not that far. And I was like, okay, something's weird is happening. So.

It's time for me to come back just to see what's going on. However, because I'm a musician who performs and this is, it's, it is inefficient income earning. I was like, this is all happening over the summertime. I go, let me, let me kind of bust my butt and make a bunch of money in New York at that time. Cause that's everyone's out and about. Right. And then, so I'll kind of stack my chips and then come home in September. Right. And kind of give myself a month to sort of see what's going on. So then.

Bonnie (17:46.924)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (17:51.958)
I remember I was still teaching at Rutgers University at the time. So then right before that semester ended, I got a notice that they were reorganizing and that I was no longer needed. So I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to have a gig in the fall. So then it was so weird because classes started on September 1, right? But now I don't have a gig anymore. The phone call I got from my dad was on September 1.

Bonnie (18:19.692)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (18:20.694)
And I was like, man, what are the chances, right? Cause like, imagine me having to, cause I was home for a month and trying to clean up all the stuff here. And I was like, there's no way that I could have been able to do my job back in Jersey and then have to be here simultaneously. Like, and so it's, it is interesting kind of how the universe moves and mysterious ways and kind of move things out of your way. So like, I say that to say whenever things get kind of tough for me.

I go, let me look around, like around the thing. Cause maybe I'm looking at the wrong target. Maybe this is universe's way of like moving things out of my way. So then I can focus on the thing that matters matters most. It's been happening a lot lately over the past like month. Like things like, like things, plans getting canceled in the weirdest ways, but then it frees me up to like,

Bonnie (18:55.436)
Hmm, yeah.

Bonnie (19:10.476)
Hmm, interesting.

Christopher Brown (19:20.15)
get my fucking work done that I was stressed out about, you know? It's a trip.

Bonnie (19:21.928)
Yeah. No, I told you, I told you that I have people who will cancel on me and I'm like, okay, actually that works really great for me right now. That's exactly what I needed. And which is why I actually never feel bad about canceling on somebody because I'm like, you know what? It probably actually is going to work better for this person. Cause there's never a time that somebody cancels on me that I am like that I don't, I, I have a flow that I can drop into. That's not that like there's always, there's always another path.

Christopher Brown (19:32.534)
100%.

Christopher Brown (19:36.79)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (19:41.494)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (19:48.63)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (19:52.95)
Yeah, and I love that statement that you just said, because I'm going to riff on this right now. There's always another path. There's a phrase, a saying we have in jazz music that says, you're never more than a half step away from the right note. It's like if you land on a note, you're like, that's weird. Just go up or down by a half step, and you're fine. And so there's a type of comfort in that, which is that's the door with two doorknobs. And.

Bonnie (20:11.596)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christopher Brown (20:21.718)
You know, the world we live in is designed by bold thinkers. Right? It always has been. Now, for some of them, it's come with some very maybe negative unintended consequences. But nevertheless, it's under the banner of bravery, right? Like Lewis and Clark will say, right? Like, it's not like he had a GPS that said, well, there's a, you know, take this road to this road. It's like, you don't know, you know?

And, but you go, then what gives someone the confidence to take a brave, bold step? And I always go back to, the book, atomic habits, which is that no one rises to the level of their desire. Do you fall to your level of systems or competency? And so when I'm practicing, all I'm ever doing is focusing on my fundamentals. If my fundamentals, if my floor is solid,

Bonnie (20:58.348)
Mmm.

Bonnie (21:04.14)
Yeah, so good.

Christopher Brown (21:20.304)
And then I feel confident about doing that weird ass backflip, right? Because I know I can't die. Because I know how to control my body in space. And so when I'm playing, there are certain times where I'm in the middle of something and I can hear that something is breaking in another instrument and then I'm forced to have to adjust in mid -flight. And we've seen this time and time and time again in every amazing Michael Jordan clip.

Bonnie (21:38.796)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (21:50.063)
where he goes up for a shot and he's like, I'm gonna change my mind in midair and do something completely different. You're like, how did you have the presence of mind to do that? And because his fundamentals, like he understands spatial relationships so well, and it helps he can palm a basketball. So the fact that he can palm a basketball, that in and of itself lowers a lot of his sort of thinking. So now he can focus on something else. If I have to manage like,

Bonnie (22:08.428)
That helps.

Christopher Brown (22:19.406)
mentally a basketball and manage the fact that I've got energy coming in different areas. I'm kind of committed to doing one thing and going I hope it works out, but he's like I've got options, you know.

Bonnie (22:27.18)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (22:31.596)
Yeah, well, it's this balance between like, there's kind of a conversation about control. And sometimes control being, it can be thought of, I think, in a negative connotation and be like, there's so much control, right? And control of bodies and control of peoples and control of, you know, all the things. And yet in creativity and in building sort of the structure for freedom,

Christopher Brown (22:38.542)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (22:45.613)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (22:57.26)
There's also a play with control where if you have the ability to control what you're doing, then you have more choice. And so it very much depends on the context that you're talking about control in. And I think it's in moving bodies, I love this Michael Jordan example, but it's the same, if you're gonna move your body and you wanna like find this flow in your body, very much like you find a flow in music, you find a flow in like all creative acts. You really think of...

Christopher Brown (23:10.733)
Yup.

Bonnie (23:26.54)
And not everybody maybe thinks of yoga. What drew me to yoga actually was how I love the shape of bodies. I love watching bodies move. It very much feels like there's a dance -esque piece of that and a visual piece that's beautiful. But then having the experiential nature of it, it is also building the foundation. So you're absolutely right. Building the foundation of like, what is being asked of me? What do I understand?

Christopher Brown (23:32.909)
Mm.

Bonnie (23:53.1)
And once you build that foundation, you build a sense of control. So then you have more choice. And so then control becomes an expansive thing rather than a constrictive thing.

Christopher Brown (23:59.628)
Yep.

Christopher Brown (24:04.364)
That's it. That's it. Nailed it. Yeah, because now you're developing a larger sort of capacity to take on whatever's coming your way. And when you're talking about playing jazz music, there's a trillion decisions that happen all the time and you're constantly negotiating your own body. So you're negotiating just how you feel in that moment, your day.

Bonnie (24:08.236)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (24:33.452)
an upset stomach, who knows, right? Or an injury. So there's your body, then there's your body relationship to your instrument. And then the relationship of that to the room itself, right? How it, how you occur to you and then your relationship to the other musicians on the band stand, how they're responding to what you're playing and their relationship to the audience in regards to how they're responding to what you're playing. Right? So there's a million things going on. And so my brain has to be able to

There's certain things that need to be hardwired. So that way I can keep the main thing, the main thing. And there's a, I'm not going to pretend like I've gone down the rabbit hole on Krishnamurti or nothing like that, but my old Sifu, who's also my best friend, Sifu for Wenchong Kongpu, he goes, he told me years ago, he was re -quoting a Krishnamurti quote that said that there's two types of knowledge, primary and secondary.

Primaries knowledge of self secondary is anything that leads back to primary I was like hmm I go going back to the question you or the statement you mentioned earlier about like my level of clarity I thought to myself. All right, I can kind of hear I could see that but I still can't fully wrap my arms around that nanny sort of like tangible tactical way because that's where my brain always goes so I thought

Bonnie (25:36.14)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (26:00.937)
That was fantastic. And so where my brain, how I thought about it or re -contextualize it was that, I think of things like a machine, is there's the primary secondary goal of life is to exist and then to keep existing. Right? The reason why we care about, the reason why we make plans for tomorrow because we expect this to exist tomorrow. Right?

Bonnie (26:22.636)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (26:28.52)
So you go, so then what does it mean to exist then? That means you're just kind of sitting there and you're a sponge, you're taking in all this data. And so the more information I have to work with, the better I'm probably going to be at making the next best decision. And so, but in order for me to even be in this space, there's certain things that I have to sort of do.

Bonnie (26:32.46)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (26:55.304)
that allows me to even be here. So there's like these supporting cast members, like get enough sleep, exercise, nutrition, pay my bills so I can live in this, you know what I mean? Like all these, all these, these little things. But the goal at the end of the day is to how do I get to this? Because I do feel, and I think most people are able to figure a lot of things out on their own. They just don't have the mental space to do so.

because there's all these other things in the way because they're constantly interrupted. So that means I need to have systems in place in my life that I don't have to think about. So they can go over here and I can go, how do we play this music? I can enjoy myself, you know? And so, yeah, that's one of the things that I've been sort of pegged for.

Bonnie (27:25.228)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (27:53.895)
is looking angry when I play or right before I play. And what it is is...

Bonnie (27:57.132)
Okay.

Christopher Brown (28:04.902)
It's, it takes so much effort for me, I think, to get to this place of like existing because there's all these things that I'm thinking about emails, phone calls, what am I going to wear? What am I going to eat? When am I going to sleep? I got to, I got to finish this project here. And so when I hit the stage, I usually don't look at anybody.

and the reason why is because I'm closing tabs in my head like on a computer. And so I'm just like, I'm reconciling this thought. I go, cool, that thought lives here. This goes here, this goes here, this goes here. Okay, now I'm ready. And I'm almost like a different person at that point, but I'm literally powering down all non -essentials so that I can give all my energy front and center, because I've definitely noticed a big difference.

Bonnie (28:38.028)
Yes.

Bonnie (28:52.204)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (29:01.349)
and the response that I get from the audience when I'm in that space versus when I don't give myself time to do that.

Bonnie (29:08.616)
Mmm, that's so good. Because, I mean, I like to use the word like full ass. I want a full ass everywhere, like right? Half ass, nobody wants like half a cheek, like just full ass.

Christopher Brown (29:18.981)
Nope, that's it. So it moves the world forward. That's why JLo has a career.

Bonnie (29:22.604)
Yeah, and absolutely. But there is a lot of things that we hold and I think thinking about systems and the way we might set those things up is sometimes annoying. Like it's sometimes annoying to have to drop into some things. We're like, okay, I have to set this thing up. It takes more time sometimes to set up the system.

in the moment it takes more time, but then over the longevity, like if you just look at a week, you're like, you're like, actually this, this saves me time because I'm going to not have to transition between things. And so I think there's a lot of people that, I feel like interact with me that are trying to build their own creative life. And a lot of that, and I think you like land in that as well as like, you're like, you're building your own schedule. You're like, we have some have tos, we have some places we need to show up.

Christopher Brown (29:51.716)
Yup.

Bonnie (30:16.236)
but there's actually quite a bit of flexibility of when we work. You're like, I'm gonna work till 4 a Like nobody, like that's not like a normal job of like, you're like, okay, I work till 4 a But some nights it is that, like I know I pull some late nights and then I'm like early mornings and then I'm like, now I'm not working at all today, but I'm gonna work a whole ton tomorrow. Like you gotta have that flow, but it feels overwhelming and it'll be hard to tap into, I think, that creative making sort of space.

if there's not a way to set down the other parts of us and be able to drop in. So I get that.

Christopher Brown (30:52.354)
Yep, I think a thought that I've had over the years, which has really helped me is people don't like doing things that they think are unreasonable. And once it seems reasonable, then you stop complaining. Right? So like it was unreasonable at one point to spend to get up into the three digits to get above a dollar for gas. That was

Bonnie (31:12.044)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (31:21.569)
fucking unreasonable forever. And then eventually got used to it. You're like, I guess this is, this is, it is what it is. We're not, we're not, we're not going backwards. All right. And then your brain is onto something else. So one of the things that, that helped, that helped me kind of reconcile that kind of thing where you're like, it's like, it's such a pain ass. It's set up the system is to think about credit cards, right? The way credit cards work is.

Bonnie (31:29.324)
True.

Christopher Brown (31:51.265)
You get to play now, but you pay later, but you always pay with interest. Right? So you have a choice. You can either pay now so you can play later for much longer, or you can play now, but you pay later. If you always pay with interest. And so when, when I was able to look at it in this kind of just black and white binary kind of situation, I go, well that's reasonable. This is what I'm going to do. Just like it felt unreasonable.

Bonnie (32:18.124)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (32:21.568)
for me to think about pulling the plug on my mom. But then once the choice was like black and white, I'm like, well, that makes sense. Of course it should be this. Then it seemed then became, it was as a reason that was a reasonable act. And so I wish someone had explained that to me that way when I was younger, because sometimes we go, do my homework, it's fucking punishment, blah, blah, blah. It's like, it's because you don't see the long tail implications of getting that education.

Bonnie (32:28.076)
Yeah.

Right.

Bonnie (32:35.82)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Bonnie (32:49.772)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (32:51.68)
and on the front end, because this is going to save you a whole lot of headaches over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years of your life. But if not, by the time, and my dad used to say this to me years ago, he goes, get as much practicing done now while you're a kid, because once you become an adult, there's going to be all these extra responsibilities that are going to pile on your plate that's going to get in your way of being able to actually practice. And he was like, so do it now. And I...

Bonnie (33:14.892)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (33:19.052)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (33:19.743)
kind of half heartedly did it, you know, but as I got older, I was like, that's what this cat was talking about, you know.

Bonnie (33:27.34)
Right. Well, we can't really understand that as kids because we like, I mean, it's like good. It's good sage advice. I think for us, it's like as adults to be like, so have you played like, go do the thing. because it is, we have the hindsight.

Christopher Brown (33:29.63)
No.

Christopher Brown (33:42.942)
For sure. One thing though, there are certain people who are able to leverage other people's, as they say, hindsight for their foresight. And I think the difference is the level of exposure that those youngsters had with those elders. Because when we're, I won't say it for everyone, but like when I was a kid, you just want to hang out with your friends, right? Which is fine, but in a way it's kind of like the blind lead in the blind.

Bonnie (33:57.516)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (34:12.702)
Like you're going to be an adult longer than you're ever going to be a child. So it's kind of helps to know what that's supposed to be like in the best and worst version of that. And so I think of a person like Wynton Marsalis, trumpet player, right? So he's had access to the world's greatest musicians ever since he was a small boy. Like they were in his house in New Orleans. And so by the time he was 21, like he was an absolute

Bonnie (34:36.908)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (34:42.557)
our house and he's considered, you know, the dude that kind of

supercharged jazz music from like 1980 going forward. And so he's sort of our modern day equivalent of like Duke Ellington in regards to like his stature and whatnot. But he's been on like this trajectory like this and you're like, it looks like this dude has never made a mistake ever in his life. But it's because I think he was in an environment that was conducive for him doing a lot of the right things.

Bonnie (34:54.06)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (35:17.212)
So like I say, I talk about this a lot. My students when it comes to discipline, because they hear that word all the time, be more disciplined. And I think they think discipline is like curling 300 pounds all the time. And I think the issue with discipline is it's not about intestinal fortitude, but rather disciplining your environment in a way where you can't fall off the tracks. So like it was unreasonable.

Bonnie (35:27.852)
height.

Bonnie (35:42.22)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (35:44.859)
to me at one point to think that someone could practice six plus hours in a day. I go, that just sounds unreasonable. Then I get to New York City and I go, how much you practicing? They're like five, six, seven, eight, four, five, six. I go, apparently I'm the odd duck. So like, apparently that's normal and I'm not normal. So I changed my perceptions and I started practicing longer. I go, yeah, I kind of actually need this amount of time to get all this stuff together.

Bonnie (36:03.596)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (36:15.163)
but what's interesting is it never felt like work for me to practice because I was always reminded of the virtues of practicing. I was in the right environment, the right soil. I think oftentimes like when we talk about have more discipline, it's like, yeah, but they, that what you're calling discipline, if they've never seen it, it doesn't, it's not real. So they need to actually be next to you seeing what your version of discipline looks like.

Bonnie (36:22.284)
Mm.

Bonnie (36:46.028)
Yeah, so they even have like a pool to understand like what that could mean for them. Yeah, and I love the word discipline here. You're putting in like such a bigger context than just an action that one person might do and a tightness, like almost like a tightness of thing, whereas actually it can be quite fluid, but it's your environment, it's your approach, it's your mindset that's...

Christopher Brown (36:50.554)
100%.

Bonnie (37:12.524)
like the actual like hands on as much as it is the attention you're paying to other parts of wherever you are. Like it's all of it.

Christopher Brown (37:21.529)
Yeah. And discipline is a discipline to fortify your systems. That's to me, like how I look at it, like being disciplined enough to invest the time to build your system, which is, like you said, a very expansive thing. It's everything from your health to how you manage your finances, how you manage your relationships, to how you do your job at your job, you know, like all these things.

Bonnie (37:28.876)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (37:51.448)
And once you get a good flow, then you go, okay, now it's just, I'm just taking the next best step. And it doesn't feel like work. However, what I will say is I think as you climb whatever ladder of success, that means you're now have to take on more responsibility, which it means you're going to have to audit your system. So that way your system is able to.

Bonnie (37:59.052)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (38:15.756)
Yep. Yep.

Christopher Brown (38:20.056)
to handle more responsibilities. That means you're going to be like, all right, I used to do this, I'm not going to have to maybe cut it down in half. I used to hang out over here, now I'm going to have to cut that in half or get it out of the way completely and spend more time here. Like if I want to be president of the United States, everything has to change. I can't go kick it with my boys at the local watering hole every day. It's like now I'm going to have to like start reading different kinds of books. I might have to move. Well, I will have to move, right?

Bonnie (38:45.324)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (38:49.655)
My associations don't have to change. My count, like everything changes, you know?

Bonnie (38:55.116)
Yeah, it really does. And I think the consciousness of that, people have to know what they want, which is a hard thing. Like, what do you want? And then to ask why a lot of times, and then to really get into it. And we will get to places where we won't change our systems and nothing will change then. And I think often, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Like if that's where you can meet it, then you meet it there. Cool. And...

Christopher Brown (39:22.167)
That's right, that's right.

Bonnie (39:23.564)
And like, that's like the place and maybe your nervous system can't handle it and like the stage of your life and you maybe somebody has little kids and maybe like, I don't know what, maybe you're taking care of your mom and she's a life support. Like, like who knows what, you know, maybe that's it. But one of the phrases that I do say to myself though is, what has gotten me here will not get me there.

Like if I want to get somewhere else, then like I've needed all the systems and all the people and all the experiences to get here. But if I want something different, I have to do something different. Yeah, totally.

Christopher Brown (39:56.318)
Yeah, mm -hmm. Yeah, there's a, I'm a big John Maxwell buff. I love all the John Maxwell stuff. And I was listening to this one audio and he made mention of a woman named.

Liz Wright I think was her name and she was the creator of Oracle Academy so like Oracle the company and she created like an educational kind of I don't know.

Bonnie (40:21.58)
Okay.

Christopher Brown (40:29.045)
platform with underneath that and so she's she's now gives like these these great motivational talks Where one of one of her say her statements is How might what you know be standing in the way of what you need to know? As Adam said this right how might what you know be standing in the way of what you don't know but need to know right and so she talks about how

Bonnie (40:53.708)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (40:57.14)
when she was with Oracle and they started growing, growing, growing, growing, growing. She goes, she realized later that a lot of the people at the very top, like they don't, they're guessing, right? And she goes, she had a very candid conversation with them once and they said, we've never been here before. So we don't know like what it takes to sustain this. And this is why we need your help, you know?

Yeah, thought that was pretty cool.

Bonnie (41:26.156)
Yeah. And like on, I love that. I love that example too, because even people at the top of like whatever business or wherever anybody is, or if any of us look at somebody else and be like, they've got it, that they're figuring it out. We're all waking up daily and being like, okay, so how does this work? And that doesn't mean that we're saying it about every single thing, but that we're constantly in that place of.

Christopher Brown (41:46.971)
Yeah.

Bonnie (41:53.228)
Okay, what does this mean now? And how do I figure out I'm a different person today than I was yesterday? And what worked yesterday might not work today. And we're all in that process. And curiosity is a big value of mine. And so like, how do you show up and just be willing to ask the questions? I love that, you know, like what you might think you know now is in the way. And you have to be willing to ask questions. Like, and there's a piece of bravery in having to set aside maybe something that you thought you knew.

in order for more room to grow.

Christopher Brown (42:23.187)
Yeah.

Man, I thought about that a lot, a lot, a lot, and go, why do we entrench ourselves in our beliefs the way that we do? Because there's a goal to be right or to get it right. And so I think what makes it hard is in the pursuit of getting an answer, you acquired other human beings along the way.

And so for you to then go, I might have had the wrong idea. Now it puts you in conflict with that group of people. So for example, let's say, I don't know, I'm your father and I've espoused a number of things, principles in the house and you're like, cool. And then you go off to college and then someone...

opens your brain in a different kind of way and you're like, ooh, that's really compelling. But it stands in stark opposition with everything you've ever heard come out of my mouth. Now you have a choice to make. You go, I could go here with this new information because all my cells are saying that this makes sense. But there's only one of you.

Bonnie (43:45.1)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (43:47.6)
Over here, there's me, there's mom, there's grandma, there's cousins, there's neighborhood people, there's this whole sort of history of humans. And for you to go that way might jeopardize your relationship with the numerical majority over here. And so then you're like, what do you do? You know? And there's, oftentimes I've seen people just kind of go, yeah, I'd rather.

take my chances with what I know than with this over here. Trying to make sure I don't completely lose my train of thought here.

Bonnie (44:25.868)
No, well, I want to, this is making me want to know if you like, where has been a place in your life where you've had like all those people you're like, well, that was safe. I don't know what this is. Have you taken that choice where you're, you're the, you take the odd road, you take the unknown.

Christopher Brown (44:39.599)
100, yeah, absolutely. Let's see.

would join the military, maybe the, maybe the military works. Having joined the Marine Corps and not follow, not having followed the path of everyone else where I felt like I was kind of going like this. However, what I will say though, what, and this kind of ties into the last thing I got to say is you go, how do you, again, how do you not have buyer's remorse? Where you're like, I know y 'all going this way and I've been here, but something else is detouring me.

This is really compelling, but this is also very compelling. So at that point, I think you gotta, you gotta do the math. And this is where you lean into, into, into, into principles, right? Cause principles generally are much more stable than how a person feel. Like the, the, the emotional inertia of this group is going this way, but it's also can change on, on a dime. So you're like, I need something a little more rel, rel, reliable. And so I said to myself, leaving high school, I go,

Bonnie (45:41.068)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (45:45.869)
I feel like I'm going away from the numerical majority. However, I can see because I did the math, how this is going to eventually come back around later and put me in a better position. So I'm willing to do that. And that was so I, for your viewers or whatever, I joined the Marine Corps band and I was like, I might as well get paid to do what I'm already doing. You know, and by the time I leave the Marine Corps.

I'll have a GI bill I can use and the Marine Corps College Fund. And so that will give me some financial cushion to then show up to New York City and not feel like I can never make my ends meet. I want to be able to do so in a sort of a balanced present way. And so that's what I did there. I'm trying to think, where are some other examples?

Bonnie (46:44.332)
But even on this, I think I want to touch on this for a second with when you're talking about standing on principles rather than people. People are fickle. People are like moving targets. We're all like, it's tricky. One of the things that I love to have teachers do is I love the work of Brené Brown and she has a book called Dare to Lead and she has a values experiment and you can just search up values.

Christopher Brown (46:52.492)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Bonnie (47:13.26)
Brené Brown and it will pop up her website page where she has like the sheet. it's in the book, but it's a list of a whole bunch of different values, principles, values, kind of same, same type of word here. Like, what do you like, you know, they're similar, but also different, but like, what do you, what do you base, you know, how you're moving, how you show up in the world, what's important to you. and the experiment is to take this whole entire sheet of.

I don't know, 50 values. And you have to narrow it down to two and say, and she kind of gives a why behind that. And if we can, we'll probably like circle 13 on there, but like, these are all of my values, but that's really hard to hold. And that's hard to really say succinctly where often there's a nesting that happens. Be like, well, curiosity is important to me, which actually these other things sit under curiosity. They're like nested within curiosity or bravery is important to me.

and all these other things nest underneath that, right? Curiosity, parenting exists under that for me, right? Me with my kids, like how do I stay curious with my kids? How do I move bravely with like meeting them wherever they're at? So like there's can be nesting kind of in things, but narrowing it down to just two. And I think, and I have all the teachers that I work with go through this experiment because I think as leaders, and if we're gonna show up in the world and be at the front of a room of,

And regardless of that, but then also just as human beings of how do we make choices and how do we say like, okay, this is where all the people are, but what are my values? Like, what are the ways that like make me feel grounded and centered and where can I move with those and make sure I'm holding onto those and have it be like a foundation of sorts to help me make decisions. So I like this as an example for what you have given as well.

Christopher Brown (49:04.52)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (49:10.793)
Say that last thing one more time you got through saying, because it triggered a series of thoughts.

Bonnie (49:15.368)
What the values of curiosity, bravery, what I...

Christopher Brown (49:19.208)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that part. So I remember years ago, I went through like kind of a bad breakup. I'm like, I don't wanna go through that again, right? It's like when I was in college. And so I sat and I made a list and I said, how do I whittle this down to the least amount of things possible? And so what I came up with is whoever I find myself with going forward, they need to...

They need to care about health so I don't have to motivate them to do that. That seems like a normal ask, a reasonable ask. Care about their own health and exercise and they're self -motivated in that direction. They have a job. Because all my other situations, I was always the one doing all the supporting. I'm like, I'm a college student. How the hell am I the one supporting you? And you have your job. You don't have your finances together.

Bonnie (49:53.004)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (50:17.063)
And then the last is like no crazy daddy issues. I go, I think that's a reasonable list because I didn't want to pigeonhole it to where it needed where it needed to like physically look like one kind of person. Because that that the person who embodies those those three core values for me could be sitting right here, but maybe they look nothing like what I've seen in a magazine or something like that, but it doesn't matter because it works, you know? And so.

Bonnie (50:39.372)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (50:46.311)
Again, that's my structure, leaving things open, right? And you kind of see everywhere we're going. We're going full circle here, right? Yeah.

Bonnie (50:49.004)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah. Yeah. I love like it's a short list of, I mean, I love creating short lists for so many different things. So that you have created this for dating and you're like, okay, the person that I want XYZ, but you can really take the same idea with it open ended, right? I just think about all the time, like, how can I walk around the world with open palms? I still have a palm. I still have something that I have to open, where there's a structure to it. It looks like my palm looks like a certain thing, but how do I stay open with that? And

Christopher Brown (51:07.718)
Yep.

Bonnie (51:21.228)
you know, that applies to a lot of different things. I think about, you know, wherever I'm showing up as a parent or how what's included if I teach a class, like what are the things that make a class a Bonnie class? Okay, cool. How do I like respond to these types of people in this certain situation, right? Like how do I make decisions of who I'm with? So all of these things of like, how can I be open palm, have enough direction of maybe what I want or what I need and then be able to move with that. So that's an excellent example.

Christopher Brown (51:50.533)
Yeah, because I always want things to be as equitable as possible. And so that's kind of the mindset I take.

Bonnie (51:50.56)
the

Bonnie (51:57.548)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (52:02.156)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, this is making me think of the phrase free to move. And when I am teaching and my thought process really behind, I think a lot of things is how do we build in our own sense, like how do we build in freedom to move? And I think in bodies and taking care of ourselves and the health of ourselves, and we all have like,

weird things happening with bodies, we're like, well, that's a weird itch or weird ache or weird, I don't know, something's hurt. We have a human body, so we're going to have the feels. But having the freedom to move to me is this combination of strength and grace. It is being able to have a sense of control, but have an ability to expand. And that looks like a certain way in a yoga flow and a way that we might move.

but I think it's also in our thought patterns, it's in our practice of mindfulness, it's in our non -grasping as parents or as friends or as lovers or as family or whatever it is, like how do we create freedom to move? And that ultimately that's really what I want. I want anybody who listens to this podcast to be like lit up in some way that they are like, I could make a different choice. I have freedom to move and to figure out how to hold yourself in that.

but to have tools in order to do so. So I remember you saying something about this when we were first talking. So I'd love to talk a little bit about this too, is this idea of freedom to move and that jazz used to be called freedom. Will you give a little history lesson?

Christopher Brown (53:43.458)
yeah. Yeah. So one of my old students gave me a book called Notes and Tones by Art Taylor, who's a drummer. And what I love about this book is that it's a peer -to -peer interview book. So it bypasses a lot of like the typical kind of fluff questions that non -musicians would ask a musician in like a Downbeat magazine or something like that, right?

And so they just, again, they get right to the heart of the matter. And he's able to pull comments out of them that I've never heard before. And so one of the things that I thought that was really interesting is he interviews Dizzy Gillespie. Like this book is all kind of take these interviews take place kind of around like late sixties, early seventies. And he asked Dizzy Gillespie about the bebop movement. And he goes,

We didn't call it that. We called it playing freedom, right? And some people will call it like, yeah, that music that they play up there at Mittens Playhouse up in Harlem. And because there's no name for it, right? When something's first created, it's not recognized as any official thing, right? And so I was like, okay, that's cool. And then he asked someone else, I can't remember who he asked, about the music in the fifties and they too called it freedom.

asked somebody else about the music in the 60s and they too called it playing freedom. I was like, this is really fascinating. And so that's when I think I told you that we musicians are trying to figure out how to play what we're hearing and someone who's got to sell what we do has got to figure out how to call what we're doing. So all these terms that we use are nothing more than marketing.

Bonnie (55:34.7)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (55:35.643)
So I think when you are even aware of that, that right there starts to sort of, it makes you mentally redecorate your house, if you will. Because I think sometimes maybe in our heads, you're like, here's what happened. This is how you play bebop. This is how you play cool. Here's how you play straight ahead. Here's how you do this. And then you do this. And,

Bonnie (55:55.852)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (56:06.143)
If you ask a lot of people who think that way, like what actually is the difference between these things? They can't actually tell you what they tell you is they give you the perspective of critics who had to find words in their heads to explain what we were doing. They didn't ask the actual musicians themselves, you know? and so that's a lot of how I think today.

Bonnie (56:14.38)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (56:33.534)
is because of these sort of existential questions I've been grappling with since, you know, I don't know, the mid 90s, I guess, right when I graduated from high school, trying to understand jazz music and then going, well, if this works, if this concept works here, then what's it look like if I applied this here and here and here and here and here?

And so this is why I started thinking about the value of principles, because then it allows me to go, I guess the word is straight back and forth in different sort of social scenes and not feel like the learning curve is like something ridiculous. I go, yeah, this is just like this. It's just, they use these words, I use these words. yeah, here's that thing again. There's that thing again. There's that thing again. There's that thing again. And now the world starts to feel a little more manageable, at least the things that...

Bonnie (57:27.02)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (57:29.469)
that you encounter on a day -to -day basis.

Bonnie (57:31.724)
Yeah, well, so I mean, this is a lot too about your own personal kind of journey with this, but you work a lot with students. So how do you encourage students and 16 year olds to improv? How do you encourage their freedom as they are figuring out instruments and playing?

Christopher Brown (57:52.284)
Yeah, so I give them, okay, so I'm starting to change a little bit here. Back in the day, I'd go, well, let me at least give you enough support in regards to the things that you need to know, and then I'll let you figure out the rest, which is fine, right? But I find that a lot of how they are taught,

is let me give you all these rules, these things to think about, but they haven't had the experience. So now they're trying to make up in their head, get clear on this imaginary thing. And they're constantly missing the mark and the teacher's getting frustrated. They're getting frustrated because they're not, they're not understanding each other. And it's because there's not an objective.

experience that they can both look at and go, this makes sense. So now I just put them in situations to fail. And then we talk about how it felt. So like, for example, I used to, I think I used to burn students out back in day like, we got to hold a stick like this. And, you know, the math on this says this, you know, blah, blah, blah, right. And they're like, I'm just trying to hit something and play a cool beat. So I'm like, all right, so let's do this. I want you to do this pattern around the drums. Cool. I don't tell them how to hold the

Bonnie (58:57.58)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (59:16.507)
how to hold a drumstick. I just let them keep going until they get frustrated enough to then their brain is like, I'm ready to now ask you why it is it looks different when you do it versus when I do it. I go, now we can have a conversation about technique, but you have to ask, I'm gonna make you pull it out of me and your body's gonna actually force you to ask me that question because of pain. And so how I built my technique was based upon pain. In fact, that was one of the things going back to the idea of

Bonnie (59:33.388)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (59:46.585)
redecorating your mental landscape is I started going back to language and going, what are these words come from? Why do we use them? And how can I find a simpler way of doing things? And so I went back to the idea of technique. What is effective technique? What is correct technique? Because you go to these schools and that's what they're going to teach you is perfect technique. Right? We get this in all the time. I go, what does that actually actually mean?

Right? And I started asking around and I started realizing I'm not getting a straight answer from anyone. They're just kind of regurgitating things that they heard somebody else that they respect to say. And so I started going, well, I think really the idea of perfect technique is really what doesn't land you in the hospital. That's it. So if I could play drums with my elbows really fast and it didn't hurt, then I'm going to do that.

Cause it works. It's sustainable. If not, then I'm going to have to find another way. And the first time I encountered this thought was in 1999. I left the Marine Corps, moved out to Jersey and I was, cause cheaper to live in Jersey than to live in the city. So I would just drive to the city. And I remember I went to this one jam session at a place called Smoke. And there was this drummer that

someone helped up on stage and like the majority of his body had been burned, right? Hands are fucking crazy. And I remember going, let's see how this is going to play out. I remember my mind going, this is either going to be the best thing I've ever heard or the worst thing I've ever heard. Either way, it's going to be a memorable moment. And he gets up there and he sounded fantastic. I mean, it wasn't like ridiculous, but it was better than I expected. His technique looked all kind of crazy because the dude basically just had nubs.

Right? And his hands was, yo, it was crazy looking. And I remember going, the technique he has allows him to do what he needs it to do.

Bonnie (01:01:40.556)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:01:51.948)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (01:01:54.743)
That's it. He's trying to accomplish this. Like, I don't need all the tools from Home Depot in my house just to be like, yo, I know how to build stuff. Like I don't need to build that, whatever that is that would require every tool in Home Depot. I'm like, I need a Phillips screwdriver. Cool. It doesn't make me any less handy of a person. I just don't need to build a house. I just need to keep my doorknob from falling off.

Bonnie (01:02:15.596)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:02:24.332)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:02:24.406)
I guess the job done. And once I need to then do something harder, then I'll go back to Home Depot and get some more stuff. You know?

Bonnie (01:02:30.828)
Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Christopher Brown (01:02:36.47)
But if not, I'll think I'm not enough. Because I think Perfect looks like that guy right there. So if I can't do that, then I haven't. But what if I'm making all my money off of playing ballads? I don't need to know how to go brrrr

Bonnie (01:02:37.292)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Bonnie (01:02:58.508)
I mean, this is awesome because I mean, let's, let's talk about, I mean, there's so many different little nuggets here. Like if you talk about comparison to be like, I should play that. I should do that. And like, this is going to make me right. But I think there's a comparison that is very present for perhaps all of us at different times in our lives and perhaps more for some people than others as well. depending on the time, maybe you're doing the craft, you're honing it and where you're at in that.

Christopher Brown (01:03:09.169)
The word should.

Bonnie (01:03:28.204)
process of learning and finding kind of your voice in it. And it might be easy to say, that's the way. Like over there, that's the way. Or this person who you saw grab onto the sticks who has been burned, if that was one person seeing that, they might not think that that's the way to do it because of his body and what has occurred to him. But at the same time, he could do it. So does that mean that somebody else needs to do it?

just like him and hold the sticks just like him and do that. No, it actually doesn't. It just is a way. There's so many ways to be right.

Christopher Brown (01:04:04.02)
Yes. And so getting clear on what it is that you're trying to do, and like you said, why are you trying to do that?

It brings peace. I think we're, we're, if there's anything that people are oppressed by the most is their brain. Right? Like we're not, I'm not, I'm not fighting saber, two tigers. You know what I mean? Like whatever, like there's no clear present danger that's in front of me. Whatever danger I have, it could be real. It's just not right in front of me. And it will maybe happen five years from now or 10 years from now.

But the more I spend time out there, the more it robs my ability to be present here, right? And so...

Bonnie (01:04:44.524)
Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wait, I want to jump back to you talking to your students here though, because this was gold when, cause okay. So you were talking about how you're teaching all these rules and the students, they're like going blank faced, right? They're just like at nothing's landing. They don't have enough context to even understand why it's a rule or how it could be important or how you could use it. Like it's just feels like a lot of noise.

Christopher Brown (01:05:05.01)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (01:05:15.788)
And so then they're like, okay, you know, I guess we'll just slug through this. This is how you do things. And they're still like, but in that same way, it's like, well, these are, this is the scale. You have to play your scales. This is the rules of the scales, which they need in order to improv, in order to like understand, like, this is how you can hold a stick where they're like, I don't care how, like, I'm just going to play it. Like, and so it is this interesting dance, I think. And,

you know, relationships are considered a dance. Like if you're going to have a relationship with somebody, like there's kind of a dance we do together of like, how are we like finding this flow together? I think it's the same thing with any craft where they're like, okay, here's the rules. We have to learn this. We have to learn how to hold the sticks. We have to learn like what is music and how to read it. What, like what is, scales doesn't really exist for drums, but for piano, for a saxophone, right? Like, what does this look like? But it's hard rules where there really is the, you,

Christopher Brown (01:06:02.929)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Bonnie (01:06:08.844)
Like what are some of those common language things that then you can build off of and where that is a sticky point in kind of your observation of trying to work with students and how you're kind of figuring out how to change that so that they actually understand why and to say like, okay, here's the rules and now here's an experience. So then you actually have something to talk about. And I really love that. I really love that.

Christopher Brown (01:06:30.672)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:06:34.672)
Hold that thought real quick.

Bonnie (01:06:42.444)
What are you gonna show me?

Bonnie (01:06:51.34)
This is amazing.

Christopher Brown (01:06:53.664)
no, I was just going to the bathroom.

Bonnie (01:06:55.18)
Fair.

Christopher Brown (01:07:03.823)
I can still hear you and I'm inside my house now.

Bonnie (01:07:06.988)
I can hear you peeing. This is where we're at.

Christopher Brown (01:07:10.927)
This is where we're at. Okay.

Bonnie (01:07:16.14)
Real life.

Christopher Brown (01:07:19.375)
We have crossed a threshold in our relationship.

Bonnie (01:07:24.972)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (01:07:26.191)
I totally expect to see you at Thanksgiving now.

This is absolute... We've crossed into the family threshold.

Bonnie (01:07:38.668)
gosh.

Christopher Brown (01:08:54.029)
Now back with our regular schedule programming.

Bonnie (01:08:59.02)
Amazing.

Christopher Brown (01:08:59.245)
You know, it's funny, I almost thought about doing this when you were, when that countdown was happening, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it was like...

Bonnie (01:09:08.844)
Yup. Just disappearing. Amazing. Like, hello.

Christopher Brown (01:09:09.965)
Like a... Let's see, what were you saying?

Bonnie (01:09:19.116)
no, I was talking about, I was talking about, the having a context. So when I work with, well, I just think I really liked your sharing about that for your students, because when I work with yoga teachers, they work with them after they've already had a lot of experience. Some of them, not so much. Some of them are brand new, which I also love because they already, they have had a training, they have had some, some rules given to them. but then I'm there to be like, and.

Christopher Brown (01:09:23.213)
Students.

yeah, yeah.

Bonnie (01:09:48.908)
Like, and now you can do this, and what about this? I help them keep asking questions. And so we have some context and we can have some experience and then speak around that. And I think that's such a valuable sort of way of looking at, I don't know, guiding people right now as a teacher.

Christopher Brown (01:10:05.035)
Yeah, so.

Bonnie (01:10:12.172)
But okay, here, I'm going to give you, I'll give you a thing. Okay. So I copied from your website because I loved it. You said, you're intentionally, I'm going to, I'm just read this as, as it was written, intentionally using his band and the music they play as an instrument for challenging existing beliefs around normalcy as applied to personal organizations. So you're talking about like schools and public performances and private seminars, but like this idea that challenging existing beliefs around normalcy. so can you say more about that?

Like in what ways are you doing that?

Christopher Brown (01:10:45.034)
So, okay, perfect example is when I moved back to Portland, I knew that there was gonna be a comparison between me and my dad, right? So it's kind of like he's the sheriff in town and I'm the young deputy and, you know, like how are we gonna coexist in the same space because we both play drums. And so I started, I go, okay,

My dad is doing this, so I'm gonna do this. And so I started taking 80s, like iconic, like really iconic songs, like pop and R &B songs, and like ripping them apart and then putting them back together in a very different way. And, you know, amongst, in New York we call them the Jazz Police. It's like, it's gotta be a certain kind of way, you know. And,

Bonnie (01:11:28.588)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (01:11:41.769)
And so I knew that for some people, going back to like that thing, for some people, it might feel like a sellout or like you're going against the numerical majority. but I knew that there was merit in this because I've seen this happen with Miles Davis did it. Herbie Hancock did it all right. Brand from our South did it. and they're all, you know, we still hold them in the highest of the state. And so.

the idea of normalcy is like, well, what does, what does, what does, what does, what does jazz supposed to sound like? And so there's times where I've played and people kind of like, huh, I would have never thought that you could play journey in a jazz context. And it sounds nothing like I thought I would expect it to sound within a jazz context, which I've never actually heard, but.

Bonnie (01:12:35.212)
Thank you.

Christopher Brown (01:12:38.728)
Then again, I don't even know what the hell jazz means. You know what I mean? And so I think as we're growing, especially as a musician, you're just, you're constantly auditing things, always auditing and going back and going, basically where's the line between the world that has put stuff in my head and then me going forward. And so I've had to go back.

Bonnie (01:13:03.988)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:13:06.887)
time and I still do, I will continue to do it. Where I go, why are people saying this? And is it, how useful is it? Sometimes it's useful. Other times, like, I don't think, I think that was a thought that made sense back in the day, but doesn't work going forward. And oftentimes we hear these principles that were given to us by the older generation.

And we're constantly trying to uphold these things. We're constantly trying to uphold these. I love that's a really funny feature. We're trying to be respectful of our elders, whatever, right? And...

Christopher Brown (01:13:59.493)
There comes a certain point where you have to think for yourself, right? And there's a great phrase that's, I guess, was uttered by or written by John Steinbeck that says, a boy will become a man when a man is needed. And I've seen 40 -year -old boys because a man was never needed. And so if you go, what's the difference between a child and an adult? Well, outside of biology, I think it's effort. Children are concerned with entitlements. Adults are concerned with responsibilities.

So there's a type of responsibility where you sign your name on the dotted line that says, I'm going to do this. And whatever the backlash is, it is what it is. And there's times where I've played and people are like, this isn't jazz. This is not what I think it's supposed to be. They've gotten nothing left. And I'm like, I'm actually okay with that. You know?

Bonnie (01:14:55.304)
Yeah. I, I so appreciate all this because this is, this is my experience in the yoga world. And for those people who might work with me or might who, or who watch me on social media or who learned with me in flow school is, I've had people leave. So I'm like, this isn't the yoga. And I'm like, that's totally fine. There is other, there's another place you can go for something different. And, and I'm where I really am interested in looking at the line. Well, what's the line? What's like the thing? And you're like, okay, this is what we're.

Christopher Brown (01:14:56.773)
Well, and so.

Bonnie (01:15:24.844)
This is the rules we're given. This is some different ways. There's a lot of people who have improvised on this. So why can't this exist also? Like, let's like continue to let this grow and evolve. And that's interesting to me.

Christopher Brown (01:15:38.787)
Who did I just, you just reminded me of something.

Christopher Brown (01:15:46.864)
I've got it on my phone. I've yeah. It was a thing that I had a screenshot I took of, cause I get Seth Godin's blog and it was about like the.

Bonnie (01:15:55.692)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (01:16:02.667)
I think he said the four cohorts of the status quo or something like that. It's like the first group are benefiting from things being the way that they are, right? There's a clear benefit. And then there's like the second group that's like...

they're kind of ambivalent towards it, but it's not harm, it's not harming them so that they're fine. There's, am I getting that right? Or maybe it's three. The top is benefiting. Then there's someone who's like, eh, it's fine. It's not really hurting me or, or, or helping me. It's whatever. I don't really want to think about it. And then there's those that are like harmed by it. And I think those that are

pushing back against those that are doing something different, you go, why would you care? Like it's not, it's not affecting your health, it's not affecting your wealth, right? So like, how could, why are you having a visceral reaction to this, to me doing something different? And I think it's because they see that the, ooh, they only have a visceral reaction when the thing you're doing is gaining traction.

Bonnie (01:17:04.14)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (01:17:18.177)
because that means that like now they're losing their foothold of control because they were benefiting from things a certain way and they're, and now we're doing something different. They're like, I don't know if I have the energy or the interest to do what you're doing, but I recognize that my audience is leaving with you and this is pissing me off. And so, I'm going to complain about it.

Bonnie (01:17:23.5)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:17:32.428)
Hmm.

Christopher Brown (01:17:43.937)
And you only have two choices. You either get on board with a new thing or you just accept that things have gone that direction and that's fine.

Bonnie (01:17:53.324)
Yeah, well, that could be, I mean, this is a conversation that could be applied to social media platforms and like, like, like food things, like where people live, like it is like everything and we can take offense. Or we can look at that when it like makes something rise in us and ask more questions about it.

Christopher Brown (01:17:59.969)
Yep.

Christopher Brown (01:18:17.505)
It's a type of entitlement to think that I'm entitled to my audience for the rest of my life.

Bonnie (01:18:25.388)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:18:26.177)
At some point in time, it could be argued that I took somebody else's audience back in the day. And they're like, why is everyone going to see this fucking guy over here? You know what I mean?

Bonnie (01:18:31.564)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:18:35.82)
Yeah, you know what? I had a, I had a studio owner that I worked for for a bit and we were having a conversation and, and she's like, Bonnie, you know, you're doing something. This is so many years ago now. Like I'm doing so much more than I was then. She's like, you're going to go places. Like just keep me in the loop. And I was like, I just, I told her, I said, I don't ever want you to feel like I am taking any of your students. And she says, hold up. They are not my students. Like you can't put the word you're here. Like your students. She's like, these are just.

Christopher Brown (01:19:01.185)
That's right.

Bonnie (01:19:05.164)
These are people who are here and the people will go where they are. And I think I just really appreciated that. There was a very small studio. We're very different teachers, her and I, and it was a great place for me to land and really start to build my teaching. And I just appreciate that lesson. And I think of it all the time. I mean, even in social media and wherever I show up, I'm like, I'm going to show up and try to give value for people who are there.

Christopher Brown (01:19:30.337)
That's it.

Bonnie (01:19:30.38)
And if they want to go somewhere else, and I've had people who have studied with me, who are teachers who have worked with me, and then they message me, and they're like, hey, I'm gonna unsign up from your things, because I think I need to have some more people I need to go learn from. They will literally tell me that. I love, people will tell me that they are going to be leaving me and going to do other things. And I'm like, hell yes, go do it. Go figure out how to.

Christopher Brown (01:19:50.113)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (01:19:54.604)
take that colored block that we have and flip it a different direction and look at it from a different angle and have a different perspective on it and keep filling that up for you and where you're at. And I'm really grateful for that. We're all just here figuring it out together.

Christopher Brown (01:20:09.953)
Yeah, that's very...

Bonnie (01:20:11.564)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:20:16.993)
very liberating, right? When you think about liberating, that's not this, that's that. And for me to hold on tight to my audience and get mad when they suddenly are wanting something else, that's just, and to me, that's indicative of the fact that I'm not providing them with the value that they need. It's kind of like maybe a teacher who gets mad, but frustrated at a student because the student doesn't understand what the teacher is saying. It's like,

Bonnie (01:20:21.004)
Yeah. Yep.

Christopher Brown (01:20:45.501)
No, if you're that good of a teacher, you should be able to morph your language in a way to connect with the child. It's not like there's a camera on you and someone's evaluating. I'm just trying to make sure that this is even the right analogy.

What is at play is not sort of a...

one way of teaching but rather connecting with the student. So at the end of the day, that's what I need to do. So if connecting means I got to do something completely different from what I normally do, so be it. Because what matters is that I connect. Just like on my bandstand, we call audibles all the time, or I call audibles. Or I might be playing, I go, OK, so the first two songs didn't really land.

Bonnie (01:21:19.944)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (01:21:43.996)
the way I thought they were gonna land. So if they weren't into that, I can't imagine that they're gonna like the third song. So I'm gonna have to switch that out. But if not, then I go, well, here's a set list, it can't change, accept it. And if you can't hear it, if you can't dig what we're doing, then that's your fault. It's like, am I there for, are they there for me or am I there for them? All right, then my job is to provide value to you.

Bonnie (01:21:54.508)
Yep. Yep.

Bonnie (01:22:05.932)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (01:22:11.324)
And so that means I might have to scrap my whole set list and do something completely different. I've just been plenty of times I've done that where I'm like, you know what? This thing that we're doing, it satisfies me, but they're not being satisfied. You know what? Let's just play standards the rest of the time. And then somehow that gets them. You go, yep, that was the right move to make.

Bonnie (01:22:30.636)
Hmm.

Yeah. Well, this, this makes me think of there's a woman who lives here in Portland. Her name is Nikki Weaver. And she said forever ago, she said, this quote of being a leader is learning how to listen. And that's what you're doing on stage. It is a, it's this combination of listening to yourself. It's listening to people around you. It's an observation. And again, pulling from, from one of your, your statements, you said how you play is reflective of how you hear.

and how you hear is reflected of how you've been conditioned to pay attention, to pay attention to and value, right? And I, those are your words, like that you wrote whenever, but I love that, that it's like how you play is reflective of how you hear and how you have learned how to pay attention.

Christopher Brown (01:23:10.62)
Really?

Bonnie (01:23:23.852)
Yeah, it matters to you and it matters to the people you're showing up with.

Christopher Brown (01:23:29.72)
Yeah, there's a, you know, it's funny because there's an art and a science to communication and leading, you know? And it's funny, I wanted to go back on something you had talked about earlier. We were talking about techniques and stuff like that, learn all these scales. I think one of the things that,

Christopher Brown (01:23:56.728)
People are conditioned to understand that there's usually a goal attached to something. You're like, why are we doing this? Like a jigsaw puzzle. You go, all right, so here's a photo. Cool. That's what I'm trying to make. Even though it's a giant mess, at least I know this is aiming towards this. And so I think where we tend to lose a lot of students in music is we don't, we're not clear on what the actual final goal is, the target is. We go learn all these scales, learn all these daggone rhythms.

And so then I started going, you know what? I need to actually help them understand why any of this stuff matters. So the context I've usually given them is music is 80 % weightlifting, 20 % music making. So right now in this room, as we're practicing, we're going to get our reps in. They go, cool, got it. I go, so here's what the goal is for this, this particular exercise, which is me making you do the same.

fucking thing around and around over and over again, I'm going to make you do this and we're going to keep ramping up the tempo because I'm trying to I'm trying to make you uncomfortable because when you're uncomfortable, then your brain starts looking you start asking questions. I go this is one giant exploration and understanding how your body works. So for example, like I used to go well, if I just do this for this amount of bars, then I have it.

I'll just kind of keep scaling that up. But then I realized, you know what, if I actually do it for twice as long...

I start to notice things that I otherwise would not have noticed. And I go, my back hurts or my calf is doing something weird or I'm noticing that like I have a tendency to like to tip over. So, hmm, all right. So then maybe I need to like lower my drum's throne or my back is starting to hurt. Maybe I need to sit in a little bit closer and sit up. And so,

Christopher Brown (01:26:00.277)
The goal is to learn how my body works. So when I talk about the 80 % weightlifting, this is you learning something at the end of this lesson, you learning more about how your body works or learning things about your body that you didn't know an hour ago. So then that ends up being the payoff. You go, cool. Because I always tell my students, I'm like, if you're the same human being leaving here an hour from now, you either.

you failed you or I failed you or a combination of the two, because you shouldn't still be the same human. There should be something new that you did not know. And so this is like, this is a form of like forensic, it's like a forensic, event, you know? and by giving them something to focus on, it allows them to focus, and especially focus on something that actually matters. And so.

Bonnie (01:26:33.964)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (01:26:56.051)
beat up the body, exercise and I go cool. So we just got all this data, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, now let's go test and see how much of what we just got through doing, how much of that actually stuck inside your body. So let's play and then we play and I go, I don't want you to think about your technique. I just want you to focus on the main thing, which is keeping the tempo steady and marking the form or whatever. And if those things,

If these attributes that we just got through practicing, if they pop out, that means that exercise worked. You can keep doing that. If not, then we're going to have to tweak something.

Bonnie (01:27:34.988)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (01:27:37.202)
And so, as a kid, I always had these questions of like, why am I doing this? Like, no one's giving me a clear answer. So, then I started going, I have to like, I'm going to have to figure this out for myself because these adults, they don't talk straight, right. They make everything sound super mystical. And so, going back to the idea of keep the main thing the main thing, meaning your why. My favorite drummer, Jeff Watts plays a very complicated way. And for years,

Bonnie (01:27:39.34)
so much.

Christopher Brown (01:28:06.802)
I was caught up in the data of like, well, maybe he's okay. He's I got to learn how to do this. I have to learn how to do blah, blah, blah. I'm getting frustrated. I'm like, why can't I understand how this works? So I modeling, I saw a friend of mine play. This is in New York years ago. And I go, Hmm. Maybe the reason why I'm not getting the results I walked, I'm not asking the right question. So I just stopped and I go, why do I even like Jeff Watts in the first place?

And I realized I like his ability to be busy and not in the way. And I go, it was like my, it was like a sort of electricity went through my body because that was the question I needed to ask. And I go, yo, this guy's name is Steve. I go, I don't know if I'm asking this question the right way, but I'm just going to ask it. How do you be busy and not in the way? He goes, it's just right symbol lead. And I go, are you serious? That's all it is. And...

Bonnie (01:28:45.58)
Hmm...

Christopher Brown (01:29:03.313)
that it was such a liberating thing because for years I'm like, well, I'm not doing the thing if I can't do it like this guy. But it's not the whole thing he was doing that my body wanted. I wanted to know, how do I be busy like that? Not in the way. Once I figure that out, I go, I can, I can, I can do this for myself. I don't have to always keep coming back to you to show me what my next idea is going to be. Because I felt kind of like a slave to him.

Bonnie (01:29:24.876)
Mmm.

Bonnie (01:29:36.172)
I love that so much. I love that so much because I think there's a lot of people who, you know, I work with people trying to help them tap into like what their creativity is in regards to sequencing and yoga and whatnot. And I, and I offered them a flow prompt. I offered them a way to begin. And ultimately though, like everybody can do that for themselves and you can really tap into that bit.

Christopher Brown (01:29:36.272)
And so, you know what I mean?

Bonnie (01:30:04.78)
It's not how everybody like my brain really works in that way. But asking the question like you did of saying, but why do I like it? Like why do I like the way that he did that thing? And then it helped prompt you into how you could do it. Then you asked the right people. You asked people who could give you an answer. So it's again, not something you figure out maybe in a vacuum. Like you are surrounded by community as you like kind of experiment with these things and figure out what it means. But being willing to ask yourself even the question.

and to then say like, it's just that thing. It's not everything. It's just like a small piece that then I can like flip it into my version of that. Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:30:44.302)
Yep. And a large, you know, a large part of what kicked off the way I think was there was a one point when I was in college, I needed money. There's my, my grad years. And so I took a teaching gig at a little like little podunk, little music school or whatever. And I thought I was going to at least be teaching high schoolers. No, they were like six and seven year olds. And I go, and there was this voice in my head.

This kind of ties, I'll tie this back into something we just got to talk about 10 minutes ago about value. And I go, well, this feels unreasonable. Right. And I go, I should just quit. Right. I hadn't even like taught my first lesson yet really. And, but then I heard this voice in my head that said, well, if you're so good, Chris, you should be able to explain what you know, how to do to anybody. Cause that's really what I was, what I was concerned with. I'm like, how do I take all of this kind of complicated adult.

things and make it palatable for the mind of a six year old or a seven year old. And so ever since then that became my organizing principle for how I speak and how I explain things. If I can explain it to the intellect of a six year old, I can explain it to a grown ass adult. So there's probably like a ring in my office where I'll have a thought and then I'll just kind of walk in a circle and find every way I can say it where I'm.

extracting words out and only using words that would be clear to a six -year -old. So, it's like it's it forces you to wrestle with like you said that that experiment of deducing things down to two values. And what's interesting is when I moved back to Portland back in 2012, I was used to people offering bands a guarantee in New York City. They weren't doing that here in Portland. And I was like well, I have a choice.

Bonnie (01:32:17.484)
Mm -hmm.

Christopher Brown (01:32:40.331)
I can either hold my standard and go, nah, I have to maintain the standard. And it has to be a guarantee. Or I can just be like, you know what? I'm untested in this market. And if you're so good, you won't have to be that way for very long. Start off where everybody else is. And within several months, you should be able to then leverage your, you know, your, your brand for being able to then offer or to.

Bonnie (01:32:57.74)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (01:33:09.387)
request a guarantee. So that's what I did. I was like, Alright, I'll I'll play for the door. But what's funny is like, actually, every gig is a door gig for somebody.

I asked my dad once, I go, all those gigs you would do at Madison Square Garden with Diana Ross and those folks, who pays for that? He goes, she did. I was like, that makes sense. It's a giant rental property. It's an event space. If you got the money, you can rent it. But she believes in her ability to make her money back and then some. I go, yeah, so every gig is a door gig.

Bonnie (01:33:35.468)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:33:50.348)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:33:54.154)
for somebody.

Bonnie (01:33:55.816)
Yeah. Damn.

Christopher Brown (01:34:00.041)
And so that right there takes away a lot of the like the entitlement that like, well, I have to have it like this. I have to, it's like, well, you know, there's a lot of people who were in the horse and buggy business at one point in time and a car started coming around and they're like, this isn't fair. Like it should be this way. It has to be this way. It's like, well, you either get on board or you get left behind. And so I'm like, you know what? I don't mind adjusting.

because I believe in my ability to win on the back end.

Bonnie (01:34:34.156)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:34:36.169)
and I'm entitled to nothing.

Bonnie (01:34:40.364)
Just learning, just learning at all. Yeah, I mean, it isn't even like we are different places. We're gonna be at different places in each other, but we all do it together. And there's a, I don't know, there's a dance with it. There's a different cost in different places and different times and we're all figuring it out. I mean, I think that's, I like this example of like Diana Ross, like she put out the money. She did the thing. Like she put her,

Christopher Brown (01:34:42.985)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (01:35:09.9)
self on the line, you know, like there's always like, we're all doing that in different ways. Like I know I am as well. And regardless of somebody knowing your name or not. So yeah. Will you, as we wrap up here, I want you to share about behind the scene and the events that you're hosting.

Christopher Brown (01:35:23.688)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:35:35.331)
So one of the reasons why I want to go out to New York City is so I can kind of learn the things you can only really kind of learn there and then bring that back here to Portland much like my old man did right to get my sort of battle scars or my stripes and bring that back here and so what I wanted to be able to do is do something that

that supports high school and college age musicians. And it's funny, because even though I didn't really grow up with my old man, a lot of the choices I've made are almost identical to like almost like a carbon copy of his life and at the same times as well. So my father moved back from the New York City area and moved back to Portland in 1974 when he married my mom, he said he noticed that there was a demographic of kids that

were they weren't 21 but they had already graduated from high school. And he goes, so like who was who's paying attention to these people who serves in them. So he created a jam session, like a six hour jam session. And he rented the building with his Diana Ross money, and or his Motown money, and gave him a space to grow. I was like, that's pretty cool. And so this is like my version of that where

It's me trying to encapsulate the best qualities of the New York City jam session experience and but have it in a much more kind of like curated way here. And so the idea here is that it's broken up into three parts. So it's, it happens on the first Sunday of every month at a place called the 1905, which it's literally on the same street that I live. It's, it's sort of our jazz central here in town. It's on the corner of Shaver street and Mississippi Avenue, right? Where the road starts to go up Mississippi.

And one or four first Sunday of every month. So the next one that's coming up, I think should be June 2nd. And, the first 30 minutes is my band kind of level setting the sound for excellence and sound in the room, right? Cause sometimes when people play, they don't play the room. So I want to at least show people here's what it looks like and sounds like to play the room. So that's for 30 minutes. And then for the next hour after that is a Q and a music submission portion.

Christopher Brown (01:38:00.228)
And so this, again, means speaking towards high school, feeding high school and college aspiring jazz musicians where they get to come ask questions, but also they can upload a PDF of whatever music that they're having difficulty with. They upload it to an email address. All the guys in my band, we can download that onto our iPads and then cast that same image on the screen behind us. So now we're all collectively looking at the thing that you're working on.

And it's a way for us to show you how we think how we would think to solve your problem. And what's great about it is, as you know, like whenever one person has a question, how are the people have that same question? And so it's I think it's a great way of building community this way, because you're again, you're all in the same place learning everyone's being curious and asking really thought provoking questions. And then.

Bonnie (01:38:36.876)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (01:38:55.234)
The last hour and a half is a jam session where there's always going to be at least two of my guys on the bandstand, giving you that level of support. I know there's times I've gone to jam sessions in the past where I go, Ooh, I hope I, when they called me up on stage, I get to play with that group of people. But then I get up there and then whoever's run the session, like turns over the entire stage. And then I get stuck with a bunch of other people that I didn't want to play with.

Right. And so I want to make sure that the students who are coming up to play that they know what it feels like to have that level of harmonic and rhythmic support underneath them. Because if you don't know what it feels like, then you're not going to strive for it. And I had a teacher say to me once, he goes, you know, usually when things are going right, everyone's like, yes, great. We're having a great time, but no one's thinking you're just enjoying the ride. just like when you're in a car.

Bonnie (01:39:32.46)
Mmm.

Christopher Brown (01:39:51.713)
However, when things start to fall apart, now everyone's like becomes 007. They become a private investigator. But the problem is you never figured out, you never established in your head what the principles for correct is. And so when things break, it takes you longer than it needs to be for you to correct it. Because you don't know what the actual picture is that you're trying to make in the first place.

You just go, well, it feels pretty good. All right. But you're not questioning why does it feel good? He goes, the thing to do is when things feel great, that's when you need to pay attention. So when things fall off the track, you go, I just got to push it back here. And usually what happens in schools, kids go, wow, this feels amazing. Yeah, this is great. But there's no inquisition as to why it's working. And so, but generally speaking, when they play, they know things are wrong, but they don't know what, how to necessarily fix it.

Bonnie (01:40:31.116)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:40:39.788)
Mm.

Christopher Brown (01:40:47.808)
And so they're not used to playing on a bandstand with that level of support. So I need you to know what it feels like to have that experience. So then you desire it going forward when you're playing with your peers in your band room or on whatever stage when it's you and your peers. And you grow the most when you play with people who are much better than you. You go, I thought my time was cool. Apparently it's not because it's being exposed right now in this bandstand. Or I thought my harmony was cool. And I'm realizing it's not as solid as I thought.

Bonnie (01:41:07.244)
Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:41:17.536)
thought it was because it's not what I'm doing is not landing the way I thought it was going to land my butt kicked me on stage.

Bonnie (01:41:24.812)
Yeah. Yeah. damn. This is all so good. Thank you so much, Chris. Like I'm going to share the links or the people like they can come and see you play jazz. if anybody's here in Portland, then especially with kiddos that age, like whether it's high school or, or early out of high school, college age folks, I mean, go behind the scene.

I love that. I love the, the BT, the BTS of things is like everything. I think of that for even for what I do. I'm like the BTS, like there's so much nitty gritty nuance in that and problem solving. And I think that's like the most fun part. I'm like, the most fun part is the problem solving of like how you do the things. Like that's where you get to have a voice in a way that, that maybe you don't necessarily see that doesn't glare at you when you're in.

Christopher Brown (01:41:48.895)
Yeah, that's the idea, right? Yeah.

Christopher Brown (01:42:00.766)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:42:13.74)
like doing the thing, but it's behind the scenes where you're honing that voice. And so I just think it's a cool offering that you have. And anyway, I'll show the links. People just like, go, go listen to some music. Go find Chris Brown. Thank you for this conversation. I just feel like this can go on forever and ever. And I think the ties between all the ways that creativity show up, whether like people are here like listening, you know, because they're.

Christopher Brown (01:42:26.494)
Hahaha!

Bonnie (01:42:42.124)
doing yoga or whether somebody's listening because they follow you and you're like, and love music and all the other arts, but this totally this conversation lands with all of them. Yeah. Is there any anywhere else you'd like to direct people besides like your website or coming to behind the scene?

Christopher Brown (01:42:54.013)
Yeah, for sure.

Christopher Brown (01:43:04.573)
yeah, I guess maybe my, my Instagram page, I tend to be most active there. I think, cause I like putting up little videos where I'm demystifying the process of music and hopefully putting up some, some thought provoking, things that marry life and music. So the concepts make sense, you know,

Bonnie (01:43:10.092)
Cool, perfect.

Bonnie (01:43:25.164)
Totally, totally. I'll put that in the show notes as well so people can do an easy click. Yeah, and folks, if you're listening, then go give Chris Brown some love. Go share about this episode and the ways that maybe it lit you up in the creativity that you are trying to hone and the different analogies that might have landed for you or how that might have give you an aha. I think that's my favorite part of these kinds of conversations where we're like, we're all here doing our shit.

Christopher Brown (01:43:51.803)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:43:54.38)
And we're like, we think we're alone in it, but then you hear this and you're like, like, we're not alone in it. We're doing this all together. So I love that. So, okay.

Christopher Brown (01:44:05.979)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:44:08.492)
Perfect. Okay, everybody, cheers. Thank you, Chris. It's been a delight to have you.

Christopher Brown (01:44:12.892)
Thank you. Thank you. Hope to do it again.