Kenny Werner: “Effortless Mastery” | Talks at Google - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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MONICA WALSH: Hello, everyone.
And welcome-- welcome to this event at Google, TalksAtGoogle.
It's really exciting to see all of you.
And everyone who's on the live stream, welcome and hello.
I'm excited about today's topic, which is
on creativity and innovation.
What is creativity?
Well, creativity is no different than what we here at Google
do every day, which is disrupt, forge new pathways,
and ultimately help our users' lives improve.
It's a constant way of being in our tech industry.
And no matter what industry you're in,
the question is, how do we stay connected
to that creative force that exists?
Well, that's what we're going to explore today.
My name is Monica Walsh.
And I'm a member of the Streams, Photos,
and Sharing team here at Google.
And one of the really cool things that I get to do here
is work with tons of creative people.
One of them is Bradley Horowitz, who happens to be my boss.
In his early career, he was an innovator himself,
starting his own startup company,
which was quite successful.
And he's a musician and also leads
a lot of innovative products here at Google.
I want to just take a minute and acknowledge and thank him
because this event was his brainchild.
So thank you Bradley for being our host today.
[APPLAUSE]
In the next couple of hours, we're
going to go on a journey, a musical journey.
We'll have discussions.
And yes, there will be music.
We're exploring the theme, unlocking creativity.
And first, we're going to hear from composer and pianist Kenny
Werner.
We'll have a brief stand and stretch
and then we'll come back for a panel discussion.
I'll talk more about the panel in a minute.
So first, Kenny.
Kenny Werner is a world-class jazz pianist and composer.
He's author of a book called "Effortless Mastery."
And the book helps artists break through plateaus
in their creative process.
He's a creative director at the Berklee School
of Music in Boston, where he teaches his effortless mastery
technique.
I've had the pleasure of watching Kenny perform lots
and lots of times.
And his aptitude for improvisation is mind-blowing.
So we're in for a big treat.
With that, let's welcome to the stage, Mr. Kenny Werner.
[APPLAUSE]
KENNY WERNER: Thanks, Monica.
MONICA WALSH: You're welcome.
[MUSIC - KENNY WERNER]
[APPLAUSE]
KENNY WERNER: Thank you.
Thank you.
I decided-- I can do these kind of things, like, for hours.
And then the problem is stopping.
But in a concise amount of the time,
I thought it might be good to be able to play and talk,
sort of like Victor Borge meets Deepak Chopra.
[PLAYING PIANO]
Actually it's kind of rare.
Most musicians can really play.
But they don't like to talk it.
And there's some people who are very
eloquent in talking about it, but maybe their playing
is not so wonderful.
And this was just a thing I found I could do.
It's almost like "Planet of the Apes," wow, he talks.
[LAUGHTER]
And what I started to talk about was
a state of mind, which I knew nothing about.
But I just read it when I was working with people.
And the basis of it is this.
When I'm working with musicians, I say think about a time
when you had to play really well and it was
really important to do well.
How did you play?
And usually they kind of look at each other nervously
and go, oh, you know, like that.
So then I said, well, now think about a time
when you were just messing around
and it didn't matter what you were doing.
Or, for you older musicians, you were playing a wedding
and nobody was listening.
How did you play then?
And they usually say better.
So I said, great.
Now, the clinic is over.
You just found out the most important piece of information.
All this time you've been trying to play well.
Now that you know when you try to play well you play worse,
you're never going to do it again, right?
From now on, you'll never try when you play.
And, of course, then they laugh a little bit.
Because we're programmed, even if they
know that in their life when they try harder, they do worse,
they still can't help it after about five bars of music.
So then we talk about it.
We talk about all the things that
come up, especially at music school,
like, boy, that kid next to me is playing better
than me or this guy, he plays better than me and he's
younger than me.
Or maybe I'm not as talented as I thought I was
or it's really important I play well
because I want the esteem of the people around me.
Whenever that is, the good news is that it's
all in the realm of thoughts.
And thoughts is where most of the problem is.
So I discuss moving out of thoughts and into what
I call "The Space."
The Space is sort of a nondenominational idea.
Every religion has its own name for it,
and in psychological circles, super-conscious mind.
But basically, everybody knows this space.
Everybody's had that experience in this space,
I'll say to a musician, did you ever
have a time you were playing and it was just happening
and you were watching?
And most musicians will say, yeah.
And I say, and that was the best you ever played, right?
And they say, yeah.
In fact, you remember where you were
and who you were playing with.
That's how different that was from all the other times.
And they go, yeah.
So the whole idea is getting out of the mind,
or the conscious mind, and into this space.
In the conscious mind, we have the problems
with the past and the future.
In The Space, you're just in the moment.
From the conscious mind, there's all sorts of criteria
that you want to meet when you play.
From The Space, every note I play
is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.
That's sort of the musical version of enlightenment.
Every sound I play is the most beautiful sound
I've ever heard.
Now, it could be easy if it was something like this.
[PLAYING PIANO]
But if you're in that state of mind,
it doesn't matter what notes you play.
[PLAYING PIANO]
Every note I play is the most beautiful sound
I've ever heard.
And from The Space, that's where you go.
Instead of trying to make music, you
have this sense of receiving music.
And that's really great because it takes away
a lot of responsibility.
[LAUGHTER]
For example, if I play a concert and someone comes up to me
and says, wow, man that really sucked.
I could say, well, don't blame me.
It wasn't me.
Talk to him.
And I think everybody knows about this.
The question is how to employ it when it's time to perform?
And, first, can I give everybody just a little taste
of what The Space is?
It's very easy to go there.
If you would, shut your eyes.
Now, all I'd like you to do is notice that you're breathing.
You don't have to exaggerate the breathing.
It's just like noticing the traffic outside.
You were breathing already, I'm sure of it.
Just notice it.
And if you have a thought, just notice that
and you just go back to your breathing.
We're going to do this for just a little bit.
And when you're ready, you could open your eyes.
Now, imagine playing from there or working from there.
That's what we work on.
[PLAYING PIANO]
So just imagine that, doing your work from there,
from The Space.
And that's how we work with students.
Actually, I wrote this book in 1996, "Effortless Mastery."
And it was kind of a phenomenon because it
was something I didn't care about
and didn't really intend to do, which is why it probably
came out so natural.
What happens is I started teaching.
The New School, someone called the New School in New York,
someone called me and said, hey, so-and-so
didn't show up this week-- today.
Would you want to take his course?
And I said, well, I'm sorry.
I'm not a teacher.
And he goes, it pays $150.
And I said, what time?
[LAUGHTER]
I mean this is when I could use it.
So I go in there.
And it's a test.
It's a midterm.
I say, oh, great.
I just have to sit here like a homeroom
teacher for an hour and a half and then go upstairs and pick
up my $150.
So they did it.
And they were all leaving.
And then the guy that asked me to come in said,
no, no, Kenny, I want you to show them some of your stuff.
And he's asking them all back.
And I said, Arnie, if it was me, I'd want to get out of here.
I just took a test.
And he said, no, no, shown some of your stuff,
show them some of your stuff.
So I looked at the test.
And the first question was, what is the first chord
to "Body and Soul."
Do you all know that song, or some of you know that song?
It's one of the great jazz standards.
So I said, well, all right, here's the first question.
What's the first chord to "Body and Soul" One of the guy's
raised his hand, and E-flat minor.
No, it's wrong.
That happens to be right.
Another guy said, A-flat sus because you
could use a-- no, wrong.
They came at it a few ways.
Finally, they were getting kind of angry.
You know, I mean the young musicians
can be quite opinionated.
[LAUGHTER]
And they were kind of yelling at me.
And I don't know exactly where I'm going.
But I'm kind of enjoying that they're getting pissed off.
[LAUGHTER]
So I said, OK, you ready for the answer?
Any chord could be the first chord of "Body and Soul."
And they all went, oh, that stuff.
Oh, yeah.
You must be a guy from the '70s.
Yeah Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I said, well, let's try it.
A guy said C major, OK.
I went C major.
Then I went cycle of fifths.
I managed to get to the next chord.
Another guy said B major.
Whatever they said, I managed to get it
to the next chord or the cord after.
And accidentally, it was probably the best harmony
lesson they ever had
So what happened after that was I
was called to sub for everybody.
It was a jazz school and real jazz musicians.
And as with the tradition, at least
somebody didn't show up every day to teach.
[LAUGHTER]
This is a great tradition.
So I got called every day.
I did a different class every day.
And I started saying this stuff.
And it seemed to make sense.
And then after a while, I did a couple of these things
for a convention.
And then the word was out.
This is something different and it's a real musician saying it.
So I started to get calls to do lectures and demonstrations.
And after a while-- it was before the internet.
I'm sure you have all heard of that.
Before the internet, people were sending tapes
to each other about what I said.
I'm saying, I'm a musician.
Why are you paying attention to what I'm saying?
I kind of resented it a little bit.
And then I realized that somehow people needed this message.
So about '95, '96, I thought somebody
that's making all these tapes, they're going to write it down.
I should write it down.
And I did.
And it's been all over the world.
Musicians and artists of other disciplines seem to use it.
I get calls and someone says, hey, what's up with your book?
I just read it and I played the best gig in my life.
Oh, well, just practice the steps in there
and start over tomorrow.
So it's really weird because I still-- I'm really, just
in my mind, a musician.
Where am I playing next?
Where am I writing next?
And this kind of thing keeps sort of happening.
And it's great for just kind of letting go,
which is kind of a-- you know.
It's great for composing.
Because I've had composers say, how
do I apply effortless mastery to composing?
And I say, oh, that's easy.
First of all, what is the most nervous-- anxiety-ridden part
of composing?
It's a blank page.
And the only reason that is, is because you're
trying to write something good.
So they said to me, how do you apply
this with effortless mastery?
I said, just go home and write something bad.
You'll fill pages, and pages, and pages really easy.
And as you can imagine, going home to write something bad,
after about two or three bars, they
were writing something very good.
And then they got attached.
And then they couldn't continue.
So it's that kind of thing.
Basically, I asked the musicians why
do you think it's so important that you play well?
And somebody will just go, well, the tradition.
Another person will say, well, my honoring of Duke Ellington.
And then I say, no.
You don't want to play bad because if you play bad,
you'll feel bad about yourself.
So the only problem with that is if you feel bad about yourself
and you don't want to play bad, you're
going to try to play good.
And when you try to play good, you play bad.
So that's the dysfunctional loop.
So we practiced when I started to teach people privately.
And I did this myself.
I had a teacher in Brazil show me this simple exercise
on the piano, just dropping my fingers
and, like not expecting anything.
[SIMPLE PIANO EXERCISE]
And he told me to just do that at the piano, right hand
and left hand.
And I was living with him down there in Rio.
And I was there for, like, four months.
He said, don't do anything but that for two weeks.
And I said, wow, two weeks?
Oh, I don't think-- I'll miss all this time
that I should be practicing.
Meanwhile I wasn't practicing anyway.
But suddenly I was afraid I would miss the time practicing.
But I did it.
I walked over to the piano and I went--
[PLAYING PIANO]
For two-- well, not for two weeks.
After six days this Brazilian woman
called me to come to a party and play at the party
with my friend Victor, who I went down there with.
And I said, well, I really can't do that because I'm
supposed to be doing this exercise for the next two
weeks, for another week and a half.
And she said, oh, come on.
I really want you to come.
So we went there.
But after just six days of doing this--
[PLAYING PIANO]
And I went there.
And this was my epiphanal moment.
I sat down.
And we said, what are we going to play?
So we said, well, let's play "Autumn Leaves."
And I put my hands and I went like-- what's happening?
My hands were playing for me and I was watching.
And I was going, like-- and they played a lot better than I did.
[LAUGHTER]
My hands really played a lot better than I did.
And information was coming through that I had studied,
but it never quite came through.
Suddenly, instead of needing 13 notes to find eight good ones,
they were just coming out, just exactly right.
And my friend was looking at me.
He was going, what's happened?
And I said, I don't know.
I could have practiced for eight hours a day
and I wouldn't have had such a change.
And so I went back to New York and I just
practiced that for a long time.
And then people sort of asked me, what do you doing?
It looks like so relaxed what you're doing.
And so it just kind of grew into-- even effortless mastery
wasn't exactly my term.
I had written an article before that and the editor labeled
it, "effortless mastery."
So when it was time to do the book,
I thought, oh, maybe I'll call it "Effortless Mastery."
And so it's been great.
And it's been quite a journey.
And a lot of people have been helped.
And then Berklee College of Music kind of took me up on it.
And what I'm doing now is I'm the artistic director
of the Effortless Mystery Institute at Berklee.
And they're trying to do something about the fact
that 90% of the people that go to music school get lost,
rather than get found.
And they might have known themselves better before they
went to music school.
So the idea is they come in and we do some of these exercises.
And there's other courses involved in it.
But essentially, it's by getting into that space
that we just sampled and then touching the instrument.
That's the embellishment I did from the exercise
my Brazilian friend showed me.
So I'll just give you an example of that.
[PLAYING PIANO]
And there is a version of that on every instrument.
So maybe I'll play something else
and then I'll ask you if you have any questions?
That's the story, more or less.
[MUSIC - KENNY WERNER]
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Thank you.
I see by the big clock that I'm most almost out of time.
So this is a great pleasure and a great privilege.
And my good old friends, Bradley and Monica,
brought me out here.
And I've never done it for anybody,
except hung-up musicians.
[LAUGHTER]
You all don't look hung up.
So I'm really searching for things-- nah, I'm kidding.
So I really appreciate her bringing me out.
And I think you're going to hear a lot of really
liberated thinking in the collection of people
that they brought today.
So thank you.
[APPLAUSE]