Mikel Patrick Avery joins Tanner Guss to discuss his life as an interdisciplinary artist. We discuss Mikel’s reigniting of his 14 year old self, titles, how to be yourself as a leader and sideman, and escaping the shackles of tradition.
“We’re at a point where learning how to do something isn’t that difficult. There’s hundreds of videos on YouTube telling you how programs things and play the guitar. The how is not hard it’s the what.”
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Actionable Advice
- The thing that will make you happiest and allow you to be creative might not be the thing you’re pointing at. You just can’t see it yet. You just turn to left and the entire universe is there for you, but you’re so focused on this thing at the right.
- “Why” diminishes the ability for the audience to digest things on their own terms.
- [As a sideman] you need to be able to be your full self at all times. When you’re involved in a particular project knowing, “This demands this part of me. These other parts of me have no use right now. But this particular part is absolutely being called upon. I’m interested in staying in this part for 2 weeks and exploring that universe”. Be part of yourself, fully.
- Out of necessity comes a personal aesthetic. Sometimes the decisions you make because of a lack of resources (money, time, gear, knowledge) are way cooler than the ones you’d make if you had no limitations. They might be so cool that someone (like me) thinks you did it that way because of a beautiful artistic vision.
- The moment you start you start poling from ONE source as a source for inspiration you’re asking for trouble. It’s just a really bad funnel. That one source has an infinite number of sources influencing them. If you’re burnt out or discouraged trying to sound like one person then take a step back. Who were they trying to sound like? Where else can you draw inspiration from?
- That 14 year old self of just “doing” because it feels good and feels important is the ONLY thing I am interested in doing now.
- Learning where your strengths are and doubling down on them, Understanding things you don’t do that well and making a decision of “do I have to work on this thing, or can I let it go.” And not letting it go out of laziness, but because I don’t really dig doing that.
- If you say you want to practice everyday, and your’e having trouble doing it, commit to 10 minutes a day. That 10 minutes will almost never be 10 minutes because the hardest thing to do is get started.
Coda Questions
- What’s you go-to feel good album? Ahmad Jamal’s Live at the Pershing
- What’s some impactful advice about happiness you’ve received? What’s the matter, you don’t like beauty? (It’s part of a story… you just gotta listen to the episode)
- What advice would you give to a young student? If it’s hard you’re doing something wrong. You’re skipping something.
- Who’s a musician in your life making music in a healthy, happy, and fulfilling way? I can go down the list, but maybe the most interesting one is my father who has taken up singing in recent years as a karaoke cowboy. He’s going to be 70, and he just picked this up. You won’t find a happier person on earth than when he’s singing for people.
- Do you have a purpose for what you’re doing now as an artist? No. I interpret that as “what would you like people to take away from it”. It’s not for us to figure out what people do with things. But if you can make something that directly or indirectly provides light to someone else, I think that’s pretty cool.