Building A Multi-Dimensional Music Career: with Trombonist Ernest Stuart, Part 1

🎉 HAPPY NEW YEAR! We're shaking things up with a slight change to our episode lengths this year...so let us know what you think! This is the first of two parts of our conversation. Stay tuned to the feed for Part Two, available in a matter of days.

Pull up a chair and join the intimate discussion with Ernest Stewart, whose vast trombone performing experience transcends genres. Ernest now works with Mid Atlantic Arts, bringing his insights from stage to the boardroom, and shedding light on the significance of artists steering the grant-making wheel. We navigate through the complexities of the music industry, the untold value of mentorship, and the balancing act between growth and vulnerability. Ernest's story, punctuated with humor and warmth, serves as a beacon for any creative soul navigating the ever-evolving path to artistic fulfillment!

**If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and writing a quick review for our podcast! 

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Mentioned in this episode:

MidAtlantic Arts Foundation: https://www.midatlanticarts.org/
Ernest's website: http://erneststuart.com/
Ernest's album, Solitary Walker: listen here

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Our website: www.musiciancentric.com, for merch, joining our email list, and contacting us with stories and feedback!

Episode edited by: Emily MacMahon and Liz O’Hara

ViolaCentric Theme by: JP Wogaman, www.wogamusic.com

Additional music by: Freddy Hall with www.musicforpodcasts.com

Thank you to our Sponsor for this season:

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Transcript

Steph: 0:00

So, liz, have you heard about this alphabet technique to calm yourself down?

Liz: 0:04

before you go to sleep. No, but I need it.

Steph: 0:07

Okay, I heard this, I don't know, someplace like on Instagram or I'm not on TikTok, but I think that's where it originated. But anyway, it's this woman who is actually like an ADHD coach and, from what I understand, people who have this neurological condition. Their mind is like racing all the time, right, racing, racing.

Steph: 0:26

And I don't think this is just people with ADHD Right and the long ass has not laid in bed thinking about all the awkward conversations that you have that day. Oh, just replaying everything, but anyway. So you're laying in bed and you pick a category of anything Could be fruits, vegetables, cities, composers, whatever and you focus on your breathing. On the inhale, you think about the letter On the exhale, you think about a word from that category that starts with that letter. So it might be apple.

Steph: 0:57

That's what I was thinking about yes or in go through the whole alphabet, so B banana cantaloupe whatever whatever your next word would be and so it just kind of helps you to keep your brain occupied but not on anything that's high stakes and let you calm down internally by controlling your breath, this kind of thing. And I swear I never get like to M, you don't get to M, I'm always asleep. I don't. I never get halfway through.

Liz: 1:22

Do you do this every night?

Steph: 1:23

Most nights I do Since I learned about it, that's good to know.

Liz: 1:26

I'll have to try it. I'll have to try it tonight, yeah try it.

Steph: 1:29

Try it you guys. Yeah, please, welcome to the Musician Centric podcast. We are two freelance violists living and laughing our way through conversations that explore what it means to be a professional musician in today's world. I'm Steph and.

Liz: 1:44

I'm Liz and we're so glad you joined us. Let's dive in. Happy New Year, everybody.

Steph: 1:54

Oh my gosh, that's right. I haven't even talked to you since last year.

Liz: 1:58

It's been a long time yeah.

Steph: 2:00

So how's your New Year going? How are your resolutions coming along? How many have you broken your favorite thing? Resolutions. I hate resolutions. I never make them.

Liz: 2:10

I haven't made any resolutions either. I am in a year of just kind of going with the flow. I'm just going to ride it out and see what happens. I think everyone's January was like an eternity long.

Steph: 2:21

So long for all these memes. Is it always the 85th day of January? Is it always like that? I don't know. It definitely has felt like the longest month ever.

Liz: 2:33

I mean, really, yesterday was the last day of January for when we're recording this. When you look back at January 1st, so much life has happened and yet so little life has happened for me. It's really interesting. I've been taking a lot of time. Space has been a really grateful thing. I feel like it's just I don't know, I'm kind of allowing winter to just give me an opportunity to rest and keep joking about this, but we'll see what happens as the months go on. I can't remember the first person who echoed this sentiment to me, but I was saying, yeah, I mean right now, I'm just like not in a hurry, I'm not really, I've just taken a lot of time to myself and I like the idea of keeping it this way all year. And then I said, but you know, springtime, liz, is a different story. She's a different girl. We'll have to see what happens.

Steph: 3:20

I'm shaking my head.

Liz: 3:22

It's a nice thought. Also, though, I'm sure I have said something very similar in previous years, even on this podcast that maybe winter is just a good opportunity to go slow and just be okay going slow, because that's really what our bodies want to do anyway, just like sleep is a good time for recharge, january is a good time for recharge. Hopefully I did a lot of that. Yeah, I'll try to display it. I have a vision board in my-.

Steph: 3:47

Oh, take a picture and we'll put it on. Okay, instagram, I will.

Liz: 3:51

How about you?

Steph: 3:52

You had a really great oh yeah, I was up in New York but not in the city, in the state, at a musical retreat called Magic Mountain Music Farm, which I've gone to before, and it was just, it was really, really wonderful. It was time where I didn't have any of my usual responsibilities and I was able to focus on just music, just the betterment of my craft, really thinking deeply about my musical ideas and my musical identity and being with people who were also on that same journey, and it was just a beautiful, picturesque. We'll post some pictures Maybe we'll put your vision board and some pictures from my retreat but it was really recharging, yeah, so then, great, and it's a good way to start the year, I feel like, because it gets me back in the mindset of oh, I'm a musician first, I have all these other qualities, but this is where my heart really lies, and you get pulled away from that sometimes just with the whole year of being in the world.

Liz: 4:48

Yeah, definitely. I think it's really cool. I'm sure anybody who hears you describe it would say, oh my gosh. Yeah, go away for a couple of weeks and just be immersed in your musical project, whatever that was for the time and however that translates, it's just setting things in motion or planting seeds.

Steph: 5:09

Yes, that's really what I was after. I just need lots of seeds, yeah, and we'll just see what starts to grow.

Liz: 5:16

Yeah, when you think about it, that's really like this time of year those things are all dormant a little bit and then once springtime comes, they make this sort of like actually sometimes painful like burst to the surface and then they flourish, and I think there's so much in nature. I think recently about that. I'm like, yeah, if I can just kind of remember that this is sort of the cycle of things that happen in life, for anything else that exists on our planet as well, it's kind of nice. It's kind of takes the pressure off. It's like you're at a phase in your life that you're not really you want to be somewhere else, but sometimes not, yeah, Sometimes.

Steph: 5:53

That's a really lovely thought we're just part of. We're another life form on this earth, and why wouldn't we have patterns, just like any other life form on this earth does?

Liz: 6:02

Yeah, and of course we've created a lot of societal structure to things to help us be a bit more organized than the average animal roaming around on the planet.

Liz: 6:12

But deep thoughts with Liz and Steph, the average animal roaming around on the planet. But internally, I think there's a lot of truth to this. I think about it more and more. Every year I get older, I think about this. I try to remember what season I'm literally in and if any of the struggle is coming from trying to resist the season I'm in, you know. Yeah, that is deep thoughts. There you go, Welcome to 2024.

Steph: 6:38

Yes, and with the new year we have new goals, but we also have new guests for you. Yes, so we're also trying something a little bit different with the structure of our episodes this year. So you know, not everybody has an hour to listen to a podcast every week or every other week or whatever. So Liz and I were talking and we decided that maybe we would experiment with cutting the episodes in half, and so you can digest the first half of our talk with any guest and then let it process and then maybe later on we'll release the second half of that episode and then you can have the full conversation in your brain.

Liz: 7:15

Yeah, We've had some conversations about just feeling this general sense of overwhelm from our community and from people in general.

Liz: 7:24

Right now, I think everybody's just kind of overloaded a lot of the times and, you know, unless your life is structured in such a way that you can commit time in a significant way, I think sometimes it can even just feel overwhelming to look at something and think, oh my gosh, this is almost an hour long. I don't know when I'm going to have time, even if you could break it up yourself, maybe just looking at it and saying, oh, this one's only like 35 minutes long. I can listen to this on my drive, you know, and it'll be done, and so we're just going to give this a try and let us know what you think. I know a lot of you have been just enjoying this podcast and listening loyally for a long time and probably aren't bothered by the 55 minute time frame. So please let us know what you think too about us breaking it up. But we're also going to just try to see what else we can offer you throughout the winter and spring this year.

Steph: 8:10

Yeah, some exciting things that we're working on so stay tuned here.

Liz: 8:14

So our first guest of 2024, it's actually a conversation we recorded a while back, but just in terms of the production schedule it worked out to be our first one of this year is with my very good friend from college, brilliant trombonist named Ernest Stewart, and this was Steph's first time meeting Ernest, so I was like really excited about that because I've been wanting him to join us on the podcast for some time and it was great to finally make it happen.

Steph: 8:40

Yeah, I really love to meeting him. He's so thoughtful and he has this quiet exterior, but there's a lot going on and simmering underneath there.

Liz: 8:50

Yes, 100%.

Steph: 8:52

And he's really done a lot in his career so far. From being a jazz trained musician, he's definitely a jazzer, which is an awesome kind of flavor of musician that we haven't had on this podcast a lot. So it was really great to hear his point of view coming from that side of that genre of music and just his attitude of just being open to whatever presents itself to him is really really admirable yeah.

Liz: 9:22

Yeah, he's had a really impressive career thus far. He's been on tours. He talks with us about the synchronicity of things in his life, which of course we love, and we also talk a little bit about his most recent career path shift, which is in the world of grant writing and grant making, and we just discuss a little bit about potentially what the artist's role is in that world and how maybe we're a little underrepresented in that part of things. So that was really interesting too to explore. It was just a great conversation. I'm really excited for everybody to listen to it.

Steph: 9:57

Yeah, so enjoy this here, the first half of our conversation with Ernest Stewart.

Liz: 10:04

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Steph: 10:17

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Liz: 10:34

Yes, their technicians are not only super talented, creative and resourceful, they take the time to collaborate with you so that the process of getting your instrument at its best really feels like a partnership.

Steph: 10:45

So if you're in the area, definitely stop by and introduce yourself to Chris, rob Kimberly, derek, jim, melissa and the whole team, or visit PotterViolinscom to find what you need online.

Liz: 10:57

It's so fitting, then, that their shop is in this beautiful old house, because the staff at Potter's really makes it feel like home. New York City-based trombonist Ernest Stewart is a recording artist, touring performer, arts administrator and a true multi-passionate entrepreneur. As a freelance jazz musician, he frequently performs at clubs such as the Village, vanguard and the Blue Note. Ernest has also shared the stage with legendary musicians such as the Duke Ellington Orchestra and Aretha Franklin. From 2010 to 2017, he also toured internationally with Brooklyn Bongra Band, red Barat.

Liz: 11:31

In 2012, ernest founded the Center City Jazz Festival in Philadelphia. The annual event has grown in popularity so much that it has become a must attend destination for jazz enthusiasts from Philadelphia and its nearby cities. He has also recorded and released an album, solitary Walker, and two EPs Love Loss and Same Walking Animals that all include original tracks. One thing is for sure Ernest is most certainly an original, himself A fellow graduate of my alma mater, temple University. I will disclose to all of you, our friends, that I consider this man family and I'm so excited that we all get to chat today. Welcome to the Musician Centric Podcast, ernest it's good to be here.

Liz: 12:15

Yay, let's go. So I also I didn't mention this in your bio, but I feel like it's worth starting out talking about. You keep yourself pretty busy, as all of us do, and over the years we've had a lot of idea generation things. But one of the things you did recently was because you didn't have enough on your plate. You decided during COVID would be a good idea to go to Columbia University and get a Masters in Arts admin correct Kind of as you do.

Ernest: 12:45

So I you know, after about two weeks of sitting around during the pandemic I was just like all right, the tours aren't coming back, so I have to figure out what to do for the rest of this year or the foreseeable future, and I decided to begin looking at grad schools.

Ernest: 13:04

I initially was looking to get a Masters in performance and that just didn't seem like the best use of my time. I wanted to broaden my education and broaden my knowledge, and because I went to school for undergrad as a performance major, I thought that I should do something less specific and more broad. So I then began looking at business just sort of is there like any MBA programs that I can look at? And then I began thinking about the work that I've done with the festival and my sort of correspondences and time working with organizations, arts, nonprofits. I began to think seriously about the nonprofit world and maybe my experiences were leading me there instead of just a sort of general business degree. So I decided to search around for nonprofit management degrees and I landed on Columbia because they had a one year degree track, which is absolutely insane.

Steph: 14:04

That sounds intense.

Ernest: 14:05

Yeah, it's a two or three year degree that is going to sort of be compressed into one year. And it's Columbia, so they don't care about your personal time or life or comfort.

Liz: 14:22

Comfort and toddler in the house.

Ernest: 14:23

Mental health yeah you know, they're just like I don't know so. I somehow convinced them to let me in and I began. My original thinking was OK, I'll take a year off of anything and by the time that year is done, this is 2020, spring 2020. I'm like, by the time this year is over, we'll be back into the swing of things. I'll get to decide what tours are available and all of these things. So, ultimately, I was wrong about that.

Liz: 14:53

I probably, yeah, I probably didn't need to do that in one year. So you now have a new position where you are using that degree right.

Ernest: 15:01

Sure, I'm a program director at Regional Arts Foundation, midaglantic Arts, which is very weird to complete the pivot, you know like it's one thing to initiate the pivot, but to actually complete the pivot is strange.

Steph: 15:16

So you were coming from a pretty much all performing side of thing. Right Before the pandemic you were touring, you were performing as a freelancer in.

Ernest: 15:25

New York? Sure, yes, and I also created a jazz festival, so that's where all of my administrative so you were really kind of keyed into the needs right.

Steph: 15:37

The needs of performers and organizations. So, now that you've completed your pivot, what do you see from the other side that you didn't see as like a performer? Where are you focusing your efforts now?

Ernest: 15:51

Yeah, well, you know, I think one of the things that make or that made me an interesting candidate for this position was my experience, because, quite frankly, there's a lack of performers who actually pivot into a grant making role. You know, when you look around, there aren't very many people who have a long history as a performer making decisions about the flow of grants or money to places that ultimately serve performers and artists and things like that. So, seeing how performers aren't in these roles or in these positions, it's really interesting to see how a lot of decisions were made prior to, like me, being there, where they were more centered on the institution, on the Performing Arts Center, and putting the Performing Arts Center in the center of the decision to me saying, well, but what about the artists? You know, if it weren't for the artists, then these, you know, performing Arts Center wouldn't exist, we wouldn't need that, and I mean and the vice versa isn't true. You know, without Performing Arts Centers, there would still be artists, there would still be musicians all these, you know.

Ernest: 17:02

So how about we focus on the artist and think more critically about how to serve them and make their lives easier?

Liz: 17:09

That makes total sense. It's interesting to even think about the fact that that's not necessarily the center of the focus up to this point. But again, I mean this comes to representation at the table.

Ernest: 17:19

Of course.

Liz: 17:19

If a musician isn't sitting there saying hey, how does this apply to the person?

Steph: 17:24

who's?

Liz: 17:24

doing the Performing, then how do they know? How do they know?

Steph: 17:27

Right, well, even just like a conversation being like what is our biggest priority and everyone being on the same page. It seems like everyone's doing their best, but they have a different priority or a different. They're coming at it from a different angle, but if everybody just got on the same page, yeah.

Ernest: 17:43

Yeah, well, I think that's sort of. Oftentimes funders have their own priorities and they just lean into that, and sometimes it's not artist led ambition or goal. It's more focused on things that may eventually trickle down to artists, but ultimately there needs to be more artists, sort of pivoting into these roles for sure.

Ernest: 18:06

I think it's great to have artists who fill other roles like teaching, but arts administrators are often people who haven't gone on a tour or haven't had to survive off of gigs and finding gigs and hustling, and it's not to say that they aren't empathetic, but of course it certainly affects the way that they might grant, make you know and, to answer your original question, that's what I'm seeing is as being the most sort of surprising thing that maybe I knew going into it, but I wouldn't, I certainly wouldn't have this level of understanding until I was in the middle of it.

Liz: 18:42

Yeah, cause for center city just as well. You would have been applying for the grants. You wouldn't have necessarily been like making the grants. So I mean that in particular, like you have this targeted example of when you're applying for these grants, like if you ran up against any walls, you didn't know why, you didn't really understand, or you didn't know what was available, or things weren't available that you needed, and now you're looking at it from the other side and saying, okay, I can kind of see why that's the case Exactly.

Ernest: 19:07

And you know you begin to understand why certain organizations or people get money more frequently than others. You know, and I think some of those tables are turning where applications are beginning to reflect the field a bit more in the ability of the field, you know musicians tend to be sort of intimidated by applying for grants. Yeah, not everyone across the board, of course, but the reality is that the funds were going to people, and still do go to people who are grant writers.

Ernest: 19:41

Yes, but those aren't necessarily the most talented or the most visionary artists in the world I mean yes, so so yeah, there's, but there have been efforts made to bring the funding community to where the artist community, you just you see these efforts being made to make applications more streamlined and more simple. And how do we get to the crux of the project and this initiative? And it's been nice to see that for sure.

Liz: 20:07

I'm thinking about this from the perspective of. We talk a lot on the podcast about just the structure that was in place for us in terms of education as musicians and what was perhaps lacking in that educational experience.

Ernest: 20:19

Oh, for sure.

Liz: 20:20

And grant writing is a great example.

Ernest: 20:22

Oh, I think about that all the time oh it's so frustrating.

Liz: 20:24

Unless you go for Arts Admin, you don't have a clue how to write a grant, and I, you know running my own stuff. I don't know how to do that because I don't have that skill set. Could I learn it? Yes, but how time consuming is it to then figure that out on top of everything else going on? Whereas if you just have a way to articulate your project in a compelling manner.

Ernest: 20:42

Well, you know, when we were at Temple there was a writing component to the degree. We had to take writing classes, or at least I had to take a writing class. Wait what writing classes did we add? Yeah, I had to take writing classes I forgot. Like you know the things that we were writing about. It was great to give you a well rounded education, but I also believe that we could have learned those same techniques while learning how to grant yes.

Ernest: 21:13

So grant writing could have been a part of the curriculum. Oh, that's so good For a part of it.

Liz: 21:18

Yes, or, yeah, like one of the options. Like you have to fulfill a writing requirement, here's one that is career field related and you can opt for instead Because, yeah, I mean, I enjoy creative writing. Yeah, and but how to apply that to a grant. I have no idea.

Ernest: 21:33

And that's the. You know. It's really interesting that even the business of music class was lacking. Yes, you know, and it was like one, and it just wasn't at all.

Ernest: 21:43

Yeah, I think in order for these music programs which are going to start, I'm sure they have already for years been struggling to maintain income from students signing up for these degrees. If they want to have any hope, they need to sort of rethink from the bottom up what their purposes are. And it's not just to tell people how to play a scale or how to improvise. That's only one part of the pie. You have to be a functional artist and you have to if you want to make a career out of being an artist. There's so much more that goes into it that it isn't just sit in this room, learn to play this scale. All that is extremely important, but that's not the only thing that's extremely important.

Steph: 22:28

I do feel like it is changing. At universities You're seeing more of these business of music classes and our friend, laura Colgate ran a program at University of Maryland where it was all about having an initiative and the final project is actually implementing whatever that initiative is nonprofit or for-profit or whatever. It is almost like a shark tank kind of situation for college students. So that is coming around, I think. But yeah, it's definitely a big change from where we were, where it was like find an orchestra job or teach.

Ernest: 23:00

For jazz musicians.

Liz: 23:01

It's even crazier.

Ernest: 23:03

I've always kind of found myself on the other side of things. So when I went from being a touring musician to running a festival creating a festival, then running it and having to work with musicians from this other place on the bandstand as a presenter it became clear just some basic functional things that jazz musicians were and this isn't a dig against jazz musicians as much as it's a dig. It is a dig but it's a dig against sort of the music school.

Liz: 23:41

We have the same problem. I think. Unless you are in a position where you, like you said, where you're the presenter or you're the facilitator, you're the one doing the hiring, or, however you want to put it, the general field of musicians, at least from our generation and older, they're a lot of lacking skills. It's just that we're not taught to think that way unless you're wired that way. I mean, you're wired that way. You were selling real estate too, back in the day.

Ernest: 24:05

Oh my goodness, yeah, I forgot about that. I got my real estate license. Yeah, I got my real estate license. What I remember turning 21 and having my real estate license. Yeah, I guess I kind of always had that sort of inclination. It was a really interesting time. Well, I got into real estate right as the bubble burst and all those like subprime mortgages were like. It was just, it was ridiculous Everything that was happening. You know, I was watching the what's the movie with Brad Pitt.

Steph: 24:47

The Big Short the.

Ernest: 24:47

Big Short and I just I started having flashbacks about my life.

Liz: 24:51

I was gonna say were you like, this is my life.

Ernest: 24:53

Yeah, it was so I was triggered. I was like, oh my goodness yeah, I was there you know I mean people when people started realizing that they shouldn't buy that fourth home under $50,000 salary. You know, it was just like. You know it was a shock.

Liz: 25:13

It's not funny.

Ernest: 25:14

No, it's crazy, it's crazy.

Liz: 25:17

It's crazy, super crazy.

Ernest: 25:18

And I remember bringing it back around to like music. You know I was, I was in school at that point and I had finals, and you know I was doing closings at the same time as like you were like.

Liz: 25:31

You were like. You were shown up to finals in your seat. Yeah, it was crazy.

Ernest: 25:35

It was such a ridiculous time and it went from that to like almost overnight, went to no one is calling the offices, no one, you know because all of those adjustable rate mortgages started creeping up and everyone started freaking out and getting scared.

Ernest: 25:51

So it's just instantly the bottom was taken out of the real estate market and I was sitting around like, oh my God, what am I going to do? Because all of my interest, or all of my focus rather, was sort of going towards real estate and I must have been, like, you know, like a freshman or sophomore or something, and I was not working, no income, nothing was happening. And I got a call from this trombonist named Brent White who needed me to sub for for him on some Atlantic City shows. And it's just instantly like, oh my goodness, what have I been doing? Like music is is showing up again to save my life. You know I've been ignoring it this whole time, focusing on these real estate ambitions of mine, but you know, the reality is that music was going to bail me out and it did and I walked out of my real estate office that I was working out of like a century 21 office, and never went back.

Steph: 26:53

You know, I think that's so interesting because we can all relate. All of us here can relate because I personally left music after I graduated and I just got a completely unrelated job in telecom, because that was the time that I was graduating.

Liz: 27:08

I love it so much.

Steph: 27:09

Anyway, telecom was still a thing and I became a project manager. I was like a 21 year old project manager, you know, telling all these developers and telling them what to do. And then I had this moment where I was like what am I doing? What am I doing? I need to have music in my life, because there was no music in my life. And then I went back, I came back to it, started taking lessons, auditioned, et cetera. But, liz, you have a similar story too, where you walked away and then came back.

Liz: 27:34

I did that Central Pennsylvania stint for a little while and I worked, I mean, I stayed adjacent because, I was in entertainment, booking for events and stuff. I always explain it as a voice. For me it was just like this internal voice. It just got louder and louder every year and it wasn't that I wasn't in a good situation. I was in a really good situation with a lot of future potential. And the person who runs that business.

Liz: 27:57

She's like family still, and actually the hardest part was leaving because of that, but she was so encouraging of me pursuing my reality that it was okay. But it's interesting too because I really feel like I don't know the real estate stories. It's like you're riding this wave and you're like making this money and you're doing really well at it and so your brain is going okay, this is working, this is working, this is working. Then it starts to fall apart, which is, of course, a lesson in impermanence that nothing lasts, and, lo and behold, this thing presents itself to you. That is like synchronicity to the ultimate.

Liz: 28:29

And I also want to say it's really interesting for me to think about as your friend and knowing you back then, because and maybe you felt it, maybe you knew it there was a point where, all of a sudden, all of us who were your friends were like holy bleep, earnest, like something happened to you. This was a fire that just got lit under you and you are a beast on your instrument, you're so good, and it was just like you were free. Something happened and it just felt like you were free to just be a musician and you let it go. I don't know how else to explain it and I don't know if that resonates, but that's my perception of your experience when we were younger.

Ernest: 29:02

Yeah, you know, I got to a point in school where I realized that I had a couple years left at Temple. With amazing people and yeah, with amazing people, and I really had to come to grips with the fact that if I never got called for a gig from any of my professors it would be my fault, because I knew that that was a potential source of from other professors or you know, sort of looking around town to see what was happening around Philly at the time.

Liz: 29:34

Oh yeah, that's true.

Ernest: 29:35

You know, trying to figure out okay, how can I do this, how can I do this? So I basically put a lot of energy into okay, I'm not very good at the trombone. Right now I need to get much better in order for this to be viable. You know, like a noder for me to work, I can't be bad at the trombone. You know, Like it's not going to work.

Liz: 29:59

This isn't going to happen.

Ernest: 30:01

Yeah, it just isn't going to happen, I'm not going to get called. So I basically began doing anything I could to get better. You know, I remember this one time I was at Ort Leafs, this jazz club in Philly, and during this period of time someone told me that I didn't sound good playing rhythm changes, which is like a type of song form like the blues, and, just like man, you don't sound good playing rhythm changes. You sound like you don't know what you're doing.

Liz: 30:27

Oh, I know who said that.

Ernest: 30:30

So I went home that night it was probably like one o'clock in the morning and I sat in the backseat of my car, like in between the two front seats, and I just played rhythm changes for hours, like I wasn't getting out of my car until I felt like I had gotten like a little better playing and like that just kicked off this whole thing where you just like I'm not going to set this level of even now, after this pandemic and all of the other crazy things that have happened over the past couple of years, I went back and began taking lessons again, just jazz lessons, Because I'm like I'm not playing as well as I want to be playing right now. I have to get back into this rhythm. I want to make sure that that part of my brain doesn't atrophy.

Ernest: 31:16

You know I need to keep learning understanding this music and, I think, sort of varying off into a different topic. When you're touring and you're playing music all the time, especially if you're on tour for like six years, five years, three years even, you can just dial into that music and the needs of that gig and only you're like, you're incredibly, incredibly proficient in that, exactly, exactly and your proficiency in that lane grows or you get like as good as you need to be in order to be successful, to maintain that sort of work, and that's what you do and you begin to realize like, oh my goodness, I can't do this other thing anymore.

Ernest: 32:01

It becomes scary and eventually you kind of have to get to the point where you're like okay, I need to fix this. And this isn't the first time. Throughout the years I was on stage playing with John Legend and I'm like my chops suck. I feel like I'm barely hanging on. My trombone playing has suffered a lot over the years. So right after that tour ended, I began taking trombone lessons just basic trombone lessons, not jazz, not just learn to play your instrument. And still, that led me to other lessons. Like, okay, let me take some jazz lessons, let me do this, let me do that Humbling myself, and like I need some information from you. Can you teach me something? You know it.

Steph: 32:43

Yeah, that area, that place of growth, happens, I think, when we allow ourselves to feel like beginners at something. What do I think? I know that I don't really know?

Ernest: 32:53

Yeah Well, it's always fascinating, and maybe you're so vulnerable.

Steph: 32:56

It's about being vulnerable. You're vulnerable to accept that criticism and not let it beat you down, but let it feed you?

Ernest: 33:05

Yeah, of course.

Steph: 33:05

And yeah.

Ernest: 33:07

Yeah, and I think about other artists who are always shifting and changing their product or whatever they're producing as their art. It's always amazing to me that people are willing to take risks, and anytime you take a risk, you have to assume some level of vulnerability and I think that maintaining it. You know the person that I'm taking lessons with now. They're younger than me.

Ernest: 33:33

You know like they're a kid you know, and but I'm very happy to say I have no idea what I'm doing. I think at this I need your help and I have no problem doing that.

Liz: 33:47

You know I have no problem with that. Well, there's always something to learn. For the record, though, you've never really been bad at the trombone. Let's just get that out in the open now. I mean, you're all our own toughest critic, but you know. Thank you so much for listening today. If you loved this episode, consider writing us a five star review on Apple podcasts, amazon music, spotify or wherever you listen.

Steph: 34:15

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Liz: 34:19

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Steph: 34:25

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Liz: 34:33

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Steph: 34:38

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Liz: 34:42

Thanks again for listening. Let's talk soon.