The Spirit Of Music - Victor Wooten | Modern Wisdom Podcast 304

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   I'd like to say…

   1. VWVictor Wooten0:00

      I'd like to say this, I can't remember where I heard it, but I heard it many years ago, that when we were young, television was free, but we paid for our music. And now it's exactly opposite. We're happy to pay for television and then complain about there being nothing to watch, but we want our music free. (airplane soaring)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:17

      As a champion of the power of music, what is it that you can communicate in a book that you can't communicate in a song?

   3. VWVictor Wooten0:26

      Well, w- uh, a book, people can take their time through it, where a song is meant to be heard not note by note, where a book can be read literally word for word, and it goes at the reader's speed. A book is meant to, for you to kind of, like, hear my vision in its entirety, whether it's three minutes or 10. Right? So it, it, it's, it's y- you kind of taking on my journey, at my time, my speed. Um, but they both have their, their pluses and their minuses. With the book, you can go at your own speed. You can read a word and put it down, come back, read another word if you, if you want, and, but you'll still get the same story.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:09

      Why were you compelled to write this one?

   5. VWVictor Wooten1:11

      Because it reaches people in different ways. Yeah. Just to be able to take these messages, I could put these messages in a song, but a song is, is meant to give one message. Like, you know, you have a, you have what they call now a hook, you have your chorus line, and then you kind of describe that line. But the book is a, is allowed to take you on a story. Th- that, that's like a movie. It can take you, you know, the, a book can, can span years within its pages, where a song is usually a message. And a story, uh, a small story might help describe that message, but a, a, a song is meant to be shorter, a shorter message, more, uh, um, concrete, more, you know, fixed on a message. Where the book is a journey, is a, is a bigger journey.

   6. CWChris Williamson2:08

      What's the story of The Spirit of Music, then?

   7. VWVictor Wooten2:12

      Um, it's my call to people, not just musicians, to really connect with music again. The, uh, and to raise an awareness that we may be losing that connection, and we may be losing ... Uh, it's like if, if the only thing we ate was fast food, someone would need to remind us that there's food from the ground, from a garden. There might be healthier food. Someone would need to remind us of that. Well, I think we've kind of entered into the age of fast music, and I'm trying to put out the, the reminder, and even the warning signs of where we could be headed.

   8. CWChris Williamson2:56

      What are we talking about here? I know that you break down in the book about the quality of music, and you do some comparisons, but, I mean, are you talking about the way that it's distributed, the reason that artists are making music? Like, what, what are your issues here?

   9. VWVictor Wooten3:11

      My issues are the same as what we're facing right now with the pandemic. Chris, imagine if we couldn't touch each other anymore, shake hands, see our family. We had to communicate from now on like this. We'd get used to it. This isn't really that bad, is it? It's only that bad when we realize what we've lost. If I can't hug my wife and my kids, if I can't shake your hand and give you a hug and feel your energy anymore, and it has to be done like this, you know, we, uh, we're feeling the effect of this pandemic in not being able to even shake a hand. Right? But what if we didn't notice? What if the next generation came, and then the next generation came, and they grew up like this, and this is all they knew, and they thought this was normal? Us old-timers will be saying, "No, no, you need to touch a per- "Well, what is that? What do you mean? I can touch you." You know. So music is kind of the same way right now. Our kids are growing up thinking that an MP3, which I describe in the book as a quarter of an inch, right? Where we started with a foot, right? And I just made up these numbers. We started with a foot, now we're down at a quarter of an inch or less, and this is what our kids are growing up thinking as normal. Right? So we're not, we're not receiving music in its entirety anymore. Right? We listen to music by ourselves, and we don't even listen to an artist's whole album. Right? We pick the songs we want, listen to them out of order, and think we, that, that we've really gotten the artist's vision. So it'd be like taking my book, reading the chapters out of order, but only reading the ones you want, and think you read the book. Right? It doesn't really work that way. So, that's what I'm seeing today. And we don't even want to pay for the music we get. Right? I'd like to say this, I can't remember where I heard it, I wa- I wasn't clever enough to come up with this, but I heard it many years ago, that when we were young, television was free, but we paid for our music. And now it's exactly opposite. We're happy to pay for television and then complain about there being nothing to watch, but we want our music free.

   10. CWChris Williamson5:34

       What's been lost? What are we talking about here? For the people that aren't audiophiles or musicians like you, just how much of a difference are we talking about with how we listen to music now?

   11. VWVictor Wooten5:45

       We're talking about a huge difference. And it's the same way, again, I think fast, eating fast food is a great analogy, because you can make anything taste good, but it doesn't mean that the nutrients are there.But it doesn't mean that it's as healthy. There is health there, right? If I was, uh, you know, starving, or, or, or on a desert island a- and I found a, you know, a hamburger from a fast food place, I'd, I'd chomp it down quickly. But it doesn't mean it's as healthy as coming from the ground. And when music comes from the ground, per se, meaning from the healthy source, and has not been compressed or diminished ... So think about it, Chris. The music that we hear on our radio now is ... the quality is already down. We're not talking about vinyl, which was analog and had more frequencies. But we're, uh, and we're not talking about live. It starts with live music. The same way we're hearing each other's voice, it's compressed and digitized. It's not the same as if we were in the same room, where we would feel our breath, the energies would actually permeate our skin. Doesn't just touch the ear; they touches the whole body. And there's a whole thing called cymatics now, where they're actually showing how these vibrations affect us. You can go online now and type in "cymatics" or type in "sound" and "sand," and they'll play a, a, a note, and you'll see the sand make these shapes. Where there's p- people that have put out books now where they're showing how these vibrations affect everything: the way a tortoise shell looks, the fact that we each have an individual fingerprint. It's because every vibration is different. None of them are identical, right? So it's showing how these vibrations affect our, our lives. But what if these vibrations have been diluted, okay? So now, we take live music, then we take it an- put it on vinyl. It's less than live music. Then we make it digital and use a waveform, make a CD. Now it's getting smaller. Still sounds good, right? Fast food tastes good, but it's not just about the taste or the sound. It's about what's really there or not there. Then we take that waveform and make it into an MP3, which is only a tenth the size of a waveform. That's why I say if a waveform that's on a CD is six inches, an MP3 is only 0.6 inches, a half an inch. Put that through computer speakers or headphones, it could be a quarter of an inch. But that's only part of it. So we understand that the frequency ... and I, I could call it quality, but I'll stay away from that ... the a- the amount of, of in- the amount of information is drastically re- uh, diminished. But then we go further and we pitch correct everything these days. Instruments, voices have been pitch corrected. So we say that there's 12 pitches, even though there's more. The good singers will bend between those pitches and show you that there's more. That's why you feel that. It's those bends and things that permeate your, your soul, and you feel that. You take that away, the music is perfect. (laughs) Right? Th- so we've diminished the pitches. We've also what we call quantized everything. Quantizing is like pitch correction, but it's done to rhythm, where it makes every rhythm perfect. So now you're not getting the music that sways with your heartbeat the way it did, and The Beatles did, and the, and, and Miles Davis, and, uh, you know, Led Zeppelin, and, and those groups did. Skynyrd, you know. The music's sped up, slowed down. We're not getting that anymore. Everything is perfect. So we're not getting all the rhythms. We're not getting all the pitches. We already talked about the quality; the frequencies aren't there. But then we'll go and compress everything, so we've taken the dynamics out. Compressing and limiting. Compressing means that all the dynamics that are here, are now here. So all that soft stuff, that ... you don't really hear soft music on the radio. It's all here. That's why when you're watching television, the commercials come in and they're loud, because they're compressed to be at the loudest possible spectrum. At least a TV show has a little bit of softness, right? But the spectrum is really a lot bigger. So we've compressed everything, so we're not getting all the dynamics. We're not getting all the pitches. We're not getting all the rhythms. We're not getting all the frequencies, the quality, right? And then, what used to be called pop music when I was a kid, pop music just meant popular. So if Miles Davis was popular, that was played on the pop station, but it would be played right next to Lynyrd Skynyrd if Lynyrd Skynyrd was popular. And then the next thing would be The Jackson Five. The next song would be The Beatles. Whatever was pop- popular was on the pop radio station. Now pop music has been deleted. I mean, I'm sorry, not deleted, dilu- diluted. And I'm not here to say whether it's better or worse, even though you can probably read between my lines, right? But pop music is now basically a four-chord song. You've got to get to the chorus really quickly, right? It's not about the music; it's about getting to the hook and getting you to sing along with this hook really fast. And then, the hook is not really allowed to say much, right? Every once in a while, a song that has a real meaning comes through and sneaks through and makes the world better. But it's not really about that anymore. So, a lot has been diluted. And then in the book, in the first chapter, I relate it and compare it to a person's body who gets sick. Okay? Let's say somebody gets cancer, God forbid. Your whole body doesn't have to have cancer over your whole body for the whole body to die. You just have to have the illness in enough, in one part of the body, enough that the whole body will die.So how much of music has to get sick before all of music dies? That's the story, the fictional story of The Spirit of Music. And it started with The Music Lesson Book. It started there in the first book, where you find that music says she's sick. "I'm dying. People don't feel me anymore. I have a more intimate relationship with computers than I do with humans anymore," is what music says. So we leave you there. This book starts there. Music is disappearing, dying, still trying to speak to people, but we're not listening. So -

   12. CWChris Williamson12:41

       What's your answer here? What's your answer to this? We have a desire for convenience now. People want to be able to listen to these things when they go. How do we fix it?

   13. VWVictor Wooten12:54

       Well, I'm- I'm total... I- I- I- I'm reluctant to try to totally give an answer. For one is because I don't know the answer. I do know some things. It's like when we say, "Wow, all we have is fast food. How do I get real food?" We know what to do. There's not only one way, but we know it needs to come from the ground, right? We- where do we get it? We- ac- actually to get real food you got to pay more for it. You know, they make it hard. Whoever they is makes it hard. I can buy a- a- a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, and nothing against Coca-Cola, but I can buy a two-liter bottle of it cheaper than I can buy a small bottle of water. Is that not done on purpose, right? So with music, one of the things we can do is recognize the issue. Maybe go as far as recognizing it as a problem. Remembering what music really is, how we used to listen to it, how music- listening to music was a communal thing. We listened to a- a vinyl record in groups. Now we listen to songs individually. Th- the one things that we can do, and I put this into book, is to feel music again. And I portray music as female because of the energy she- she provides, i- but to- to invite her in. In other words, us musicians, we play as if music is in my guitar, right? There's no music in my guitar. I'm like, I've got a guitar sitting r- right there. You don't hear a thing. Doesn't make sound until I touch it. No more than your mouth does the talking. You use an instrument when you talk, but you don't say, "Oh, I speak mouth," right? We don't name the instrument. The instrument is a tool that allows you to express, right? We've kind of lost that connection of expression

2. 15:00 – 30:00

   From an artist's perspective,…

   1. VWVictor Wooten15:00

      with music, because music is a part of that expression. It helps us, but we think music only comes from us. We forget that it's already there and that we join with it. So we can feel music again, feel it on your skin, feel it from the inside the way a child does. If a song comes on, a child doesn't have to ask you how to da- how to dance, how to move, "Am I allowed to sing?" The child just reacts. We've forgotten how to do that. And in many cases, the more I learn about music, the less I feel the music. I start thinking my way through it. So bring it back to the feeling part. Allow music to- to speak to you, right? Instead of us just saying it, the song's going to be this or that, let music speak to us and- and reconnect in a real way. And to me, it comes down to feeling, listening, and allowing it to enter us rather than just us putting it out. That's a part of it.

   2. CWChris Williamson16:04

      From an artist's perspective, what are they supposed to do if the Cardi B WAP, hook as quick as possible, auto-tune, quantized, compressed down, so it's as loud as it can be, if these are the songs that are making it to the top of the Spotify charts or hitting number one in the UK, surely it's going to be a very difficult road for some sort of artist to say, "I'm going to choose to not- not compete in terms of that level of popularity, I'm going to go for something that's more subtle and nuanced."

   3. VWVictor Wooten16:36

      Absolutely. Absolutely. But those songs will only be number one if we support them, right? A fast food restaurant can't exist unless we support them, right? A politician can't exist unless we support him. So we can blame- we can blame labels and artists, but it starts from the consumer. We really do run the show. If we don't support it, if we demand that our artists, uh, do more quality music, they will do it. If we support the artists who aren't as famous, but are making the music, I'll just say real music, at the risk of being offensive, if we support them, right, and don't get drawn in by, uh, uh, uh, the hooks, we even call them hooks now in music, right? Real songs, real music didn't need a hook. The song was good, the singer was good. If Aretha Franklin sang a note, if Willie Nelson sings a note, I'm listening, right? Because it's real, right? Bob Dylan, questionable whether he can even sing. He's real, and you feel that. The realness of him connects to the realness of me, and I have to stop whatever I'm doing to listen, right? You can tell that the music today is good, but it's not as deep. It doesn't affect you the same. It hits you on a- on a- on a higher...... on a more shallow level, like the water is not as deep. And the proof of the matter is you'll take a Beethoven, or a Bach, or a Brahms, their music's been around for hundreds of years. We're still listening to Aretha Franklin. But how long do these songs today last? Right? A month at most, and then we're moving on. So it's, it's, it's, the depth is not there. It's not that the depth can't be there, right? But even when the, the quality, the m- the, the artist is deep, if we put it out only on these limited, uh, platforms, it can't reach us the sa- it can't nourish us the same way. So, if, if we support less, less will rise to the top.

   4. CWChris Williamson19:08

      Yeah.

   5. VWVictor Wooten19:08

      And, and I'm not trying to be disgraceful to any artist, Cardi B or anyone.

   6. CWChris Williamson19:14

      But you vote with your ears with this stuff. One of the things that I think is interesting-

   7. VWVictor Wooten19:19

      Excuse me?

   8. CWChris Williamson19:20

      You vote with your ears. So what it is that you listen to-

   9. VWVictor Wooten19:24

      We, well, uh, w-

   10. CWChris Williamson19:24

       ... is what you end up we-

   11. VWVictor Wooten19:27

       We vote with our ears and our actions. Our ears and our actions, right? What we, what we pay for, what we buy, right? It's a money-driven system. So, you know, if... Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, you're right. We vote with our ears, but it is more than that also.

   12. CWChris Williamson19:49

       What I think is interesting is talking about using the word hook. So, one of the things I've been doing this year is working hard on the YouTube channel, which is a part of this, and there is a framework that all YouTubers use called the HIVE framework, and it's hook, intro, value, uh, and then a, uh, a call to action at the end. And that hook, within 15 seconds, you need to tell the listener or the viewer what it is that they can expect, you need to deliver on the value proposition of the thumbnail and the title that they've clicked on, and you need to open the loop so that they stick around to watch what happens next. So, it would appear that it's not just in music, but it's also in food. It's a race to the bottom of the brain stem. How can we get the sensations that we know are going to trigger something which causes us to act in a more addictive way? So there's a, uh, uh, an entire body of work which I learned about last year called aurification, which is the design of the texture of food. So, ancestrally, it would have been very rare for us to have ever encountered foods that had two textures in them. It would have been slimy berries. It would have been this sort of slippery texture of meat. It would have been the crunchy texture of some, some grains or something like that, or some nuts. Very rarely would you have had something that was both crunchy and fluffy together. And now think about the most addictive foods that you can get, the Oreos of the world, the french fries of the world, this design, this, uh, oratory design of what is happening when you put it in your mouth is trying to trigger all of these different things. What is it that we're doing with regards to the hook in a YouTube video? The Zeigarnic effect, which is the open loop, closed loop system that the brai- the brain doesn't like having unanswered questions. It's why there's cliffhangers at the end of TV shows. So again, with that, here's a thing that you need to know. Oh, wow, I better stick around. I do- I can't click off onto the next one because I got to, I got to do that thing. And it would appear that as our understanding of how human motivation works has improved, it has caused this race to the bottom, and inevitably, when that happens, you sacrifice some of the nuance, some of the art, uh, and some of the richness that you mentioned earlier on.

   13. VWVictor Wooten21:59

       Yeah. Um, in many cases, and, and this is how it used to be in all cases in music, a hook was not needed because the hook was the quality of the artist. If Aretha Franklin breathed, you went, "Whoa." Right? I mean, you felt it because it was real. Aretha Franklin wasn't famous because she was a, a, a, a sex symbol, because, because she barely wore clothes, because she sh- she shaked, shook her body. She was famous because she was good, and she was good in a real way. That was the c- the, the criteria for being famous in the past. You just had to be good. That was it. Think about that. That was it. Just had to be good. What a concept. Nowadays, you need a hook. We need something to pull you in because I may not have anything behind this, but I got to get you some kind of way. But when you have something that's real, word will spread, and you don't need a hook. All right? So if we have a hook, make sure there's something behind it. Make sure there's some quality, because what ends up happening is we get the hook, and that's what, that's what a lot of music... Again, I sound very, very negative, and I don't mean to, because there's a lot of great things out there. You just have to find it, right? Uh, it's out there. But these days, it's the hook, a lot of the times, with nothing... I shouldn't say nothing. With very little behind it. For example, what we're teaching on a lot of these performance shows, and, uh, uh, you know, like American Idol, and, and The Voice, and things like that, very entertaining shows. But what singers are learning is I have to get to my high note within, you know, the first 20, 30 seconds. Right? I have to dress a certain way. I have to be thin-... right? I have to be beautiful. I have, I have to have these hooks. And if I have enough of these hooks, my quality can be less. That's what we've been teaching us, teaching people. If I have enough of these hooks, I wear a little bit of clothes, I shake my butt, I'm beautiful, I'm thin, I don't have to be able to sing. And we see that over and over, right? Now, when somebody comes through who can sing, you feel the difference. We feel the difference. So, (coughs) the more real it is, right, the more real it is, the realness of you will be attracted to the realness of whatever it is, right? Ma- and it's kind of related to why we can see a car accident on the side of the road, especially a bad one, and we have to slow down and, and take it in. It's because we feel it. Okay? We didn't see the accident. We didn't see the, the hook or whatever. We didn't see the, the main thing. But whatever is there is real. It connects to us. Someone is hurt, and we feel that, right? So, I think ... I mean, just f- just for us artists, I wanna just make sure that, that we have real substance there, and it's substance that makes things better, and that, uh, you know, we, we sup- and then we start supporting what's real from the ground up. Everything's gotta be driven on, on this planet from the ground up. We see that our politicians want to fight each other. It's a b- it's a game to them, right? They even call each other "my opponents," you know? It's a game, but they're using our money to play the game. They're using our lives to play the game. And we have to speak up, and you see it starting to happen. (coughs) Excuse me. You see it starting to happen more, but it, it, uh, in our business, in the music business, (swallows) uh, it, it has to happen that way. We have to drive it. So, if your show's gonna have a hook, great. You want people, you know? That's why I want a beautiful cover on my book, you know, or on my album. Want you to see something that you're gonna like, but behind it needs to be something of substance, something that is real.

   14. CWChris Williamson26:49

       Talking about accidents, you have a section in the book where you talk about coincidences and accidents. Can you explain your view on that?

   15. VWVictor Wooten26:57

       Sure. Coincidences are just things we didn't expect to happen. It's like they kind of broke the rules, you know? The, uh, it, I don't know how it happened. Uh, this person ju- was just there. We just met, you know? If, if I knew I was going to have a meeting with my hero Hermie Hancock or something, if I, if we set it up and then we got together and we met, that wouldn't be a coincidence. But if he just showed up there and we met, same outcome, it would be a coincidence, because we don't know how or why it happened. So, it's a coincidence. But in, in, in one sense of the word, world, word, there aren't coincidences. There's always something behind the scenes that we didn't, we don't, we didn't see making it happen. So, in a sense, uh, uh, a coincidence is like a magic trick. You have the result, but you don't know how you got that result. There was just a rabbit in the hat. I don't know how. So, it's a, it's like a trick, and we call it a coincidence in life. Um, but there's always something behind it. There is a, whatever you want to call it behind it that makes that coincidence happen, and, uh, when you live ... No, I'll put it this way. However you live will determine what the coincidences are in your lives, you know? In other words, like, people say, "You're lucky." You know, you can earn your, that luck. You can, you can make yourself more lucky by, by living in a life that, uh, that other people are gonna benefit from you being lucky, you know? The fact that you have a show, people are gonna benefit, right? The more people that can benefit from your show, your, your show will start having coincidence, better coincidences, you know? That's just the way it, way it works in life.

   16. CWChris Williamson28:52

       And what about accidents?

   17. VWVictor Wooten28:55

       Accidents are the same, but usually they're just ... Coincidences are things you wanted. Accidents are things you didn't want.

   18. CWChris Williamson29:01

       (laughs) I think you say-

   19. VWVictor Wooten29:03

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson29:03

       ... is it coincidences are when life whispers and accidents are when life shouts?

   21. VWVictor Wooten29:08

       Yeah, yeah. Accidents are when, when, when, for me, when we're not listening to w- to what life is telling us, and life can be whatever you want it to be, insert your word. When we're not listening, it winds up being an accident, okay? And that's life shouting at you, saying, "Listen, listen!" You have an accident. You, uh, y- you know, you, you, you, you burn yourself or whatever. But I will say this. In my own life, just about every case where I have an accident, it could be small. I f- I leave the house and I forgot my, whatever I needed, right? That's an accident. I didn't mean to leave it. I left it on by accident. So, accident doesn't mean I'm about to die. Accidents can be very small. But in many cases, especially the small ones, I left my keys and I locked myself out, I can rewind

3. 30:00 – 45:00

   I think accidents certainly…

   1. VWVictor Wooten30:00

      the tape in my bra- brain and find the place or places where I neglected to listen, right? I can go back and say, "Wow, right there, life was telling me." I can remember looking at my keys earlier that day. They're on the desk. I should have picked them up and put them in my bag right then.... it's funny that I can do that. I can rewind it, and see where life was telling me, right? So if I get on an airplane, and I'm sitting next to Herbie Hancock, whoa, what a coincidence. Right? If I'm getting on an airplane, and I'm sitting next to a, a bomber who's about to hijack the plane, that's an accident. (laughs) Right? Same thing. We just usually like the coincidences.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:54

      I think accidents certainly seem to happen when you're not paying enough attention. If you're focused on the things that are happening, you can mitigate most of the accidents that occur. So...

   3. VWVictor Wooten31:05

      But coincidences are the same.

   4. CWChris Williamson31:09

      Yeah, that's a good point.

   5. VWVictor Wooten31:09

      You weren't paying attention, they just, they just happened. They, you weren't paying attention, you don't know how they happened. They're the same. I'm sorry, but I interrupted you. I apologize.

   6. CWChris Williamson31:17

      No, uh, as a good example, I ruptured my Achilles last year playing cricket, which is like the most British way that anyone's ever ruptured an Achilles, and it was...

   7. VWVictor Wooten31:25

      (laughs) .

   8. CWChris Williamson31:25

      ... the first time I'd played that sport in 10 years. But what was the signal of that? I wasn't paying enough attention to my work capacity versus the load and the demands I was putting on my system. Well, potentially, what's that saved me from? Maybe I would've decided that after two sessions of learning to rock climb, I was going to go free rock climb somewhere, or I was going to jump out of an airplane, I was going to do this, that, and the other. And, um, yes, sometimes I think there's a lot more that we can take, because the only reason an accident occurs is because there's been some prelude to it. Something has occurred in advance of that, that has led up to it happening. You know, being hit by a car because you weren't looking at the street. Okay, well, why weren't you looking at the street? Maybe you're not looking at other stuff as well. Maybe there's other things in your life that you're not looking at. What can this one accident... And this is why people find symbolism in these big accidents, or these big incidents that occur within their life, because they're usually an aggregate for a lot of other little things that have happened. It just happens to be this one which is large and symbolic and memorable.

   9. VWVictor Wooten32:26

      I agree with you 1,000%. So, in other words, uh, you are finding, the way I see it, you're finding the blessing in the accident, the meaning that can help you avoid the bigger accident that could be up ahead. And I agree, the pandemic that we're in right now is a big accident, but there are silver linings everywhere, you know, if we, if we dare to find them. There are silver linings, and hopefully this big, you know, year, or year and a half, or two-year-long accident can help our kids from having to go through another one, you know. So hopefully, we can learn from the accidents, and there's always learning to be done.

   10. CWChris Williamson33:12

       Thinking about it in that way, the pandemic that we've been delivered, although it's been unfortunate and a catastrophe, as pandemics go, it's not that vicious. It's not...

   11. VWVictor Wooten33:22

       No.

   12. CWChris Williamson33:22

       ... sufficiently lethal. But what did it teach us? It taught us that we have no idea how to shut down international travel when there's a pandemic. We have no idea how many people need ventilators. We still had to take, although it was a world record, it still took nearly a year to develop a vaccine, then multiple vaccines, then distributing the vaccine, then what are the long-term effects? If and when another pandemic comes around, which it's going to happen, it happens about every 100 years or so, we're going to be better prepared. Modern society, understanding how to generate PPE, how to create a vaccine, how to shut down travel. And, um, yeah, maybe that's the same way that the accidents happen with personal people's lives as well.

   13. VWVictor Wooten34:03

       If we learn from it, yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson34:06

       (laughs) .

   15. VWVictor Wooten34:06

       Right? The signs are there, right? Life is not trying to hurt us; life is trying to help us. So the accident is always a way to get better. But it's up to us. If we don't listen, we'll just keep having accidents, right? But if we learn, the next accident guarantee will be different, to take us further. You know, so if we learn from this pandemic, we won't have this again, but we'll have something different, because it's about growth, and you don't have growth without problems, right? You don't learn to walk and run without falling. Your body heals stronger once it gets injured. Once it gets... You know, you get a cut, the skin grows back stronger. If I walk on my feet long enough, the skin grows in thicker. You know, that's, that's how life works. It take... Life works off of opposites. It takes this to produce that. So accidents are necessary. Things need to go wrong. If everything went right, we'd be bored. Life would be ser- just boring, right? And I like to say this a lot. Nobody talks about the time we drove through the desert, you know, 100 miles, and the car worked. Nothing broke down. The air conditioning was good, right? I had, I had plenty of g- I didn't even run out of gas, you know, and I got there on time, right? Nobody talks about that, right? We talk about when it, how it went wrong, right? Even if we have the next 50 years are the best ever, after 2020. Let's say it just gets, life for the next 50 years is like uncon- in- just like unbelievably good, guess what year we're going to talk about? Not the good ones. The bad one, right? So tha- that's a part of living on Earth. I don't know what it's like off of Earth, but on Earth, we have what I call yin yang. We have opposites, because you can't have the good without the bad. You need that balance on Earth, and that's what it's about. So it's al- bad things are always going to happen.

   16. CWChris Williamson36:17

       Talking about challenges, do you still get nervous before you perform?

   17. VWVictor Wooten36:21

       It depends on the performance. I, I, I could easily say no. Easy say no. But it's because I'm normally doing things that I'm comfortable with.I go play a concert in London in front of a bunch of bass players, or I go play my normal gig, I know what you like, you know? I can ... That's easy. I can do that in my sleep. But I got called one time to play upright bass for Chick Corea for a week during his 75th birthday concert, where he did eight weeks at the Blue Note. And I had to come in and sub because his real bass player couldn't get there. Now, I don't play upright bass. I own one. It's over there. But now, here I am, within a week, in less than a week, I gotta learn this music, and he ended up sending me the wrong music that I rehearsed for two days by myself. And then I get the wrong ... And then I have to get the right music on upright in front ... in the Blue Note. You know, video taped, publicized, 70- Chick Corea's turning 75, a bunch of different bands, and here I am, you know, with Chick and, and, and, and Hubert Laws, and Ravi Coltrane, and Lenny White, and me on upright. You talk about nervous? Oh my goodness. Yes. So, uh, but it was good for me. I learned a lot. So I can't say I don't get nervous. I can say I usually don't.

   18. CWChris Williamson37:56

       What did you learn?

   19. VWVictor Wooten37:56

       Because I'm usually ... Oh my goodness. For one, I learned I need to practice on the upright bass.

   20. CWChris Williamson38:03

       (laughs)

   21. VWVictor Wooten38:03

       (laughs) So I literally, literally traveled with the upright bass for the next two years. And I played it every night. I did it, uh, for two years I toured a record, my last record, called Trippnotix, which was a trio with Dennis Chambers on drums, Bob Franceschini on saxophone, and me on bass. So I played that bass every night for two years 'cause I said, "I'm going to be better if I ever get this call again." But the real lessons came from Chick Corea. I learned that you can loan someone confidence. You can believe in someone more than they believe in themselves, and you can cause them to rise to the challenge. It was because of Chick Corea's belief in me. I didn't believe in myself. I, I literally, when I got the call, I s- had my manager, I said, "Call Chick Corea back 'cause upright is not what I do." I'm, I'm thinking he probably went in his Rolodex, looked up Victor, and called the wrong Victor. You know? And I wanted to give him an out and say, "Hey look, this is, you know, make sure you know you called me. This is not what I do." He s- he want ... but he apparently wanted me. So I had to think, "Okay, if he believes in me this much, I need to believe in myself," right? And then now, listening to a few of the recordings, few of my friends sent me s- some videos, and in one case I can hear myself playing upright bass, taking a solo, and he makes me solo, you know. And I look at him like I'm done, and he's like, "Nope." And he nods and, um, which means keep going. And I'm listening to this video now where I'm out of my head. In the solo I'm, I'm struggling. I'm in my head, I don't have the technique, I'm thinking too much. But now watching the video, I hear Chick Corea feeding me ideas, helping me, but I'm too closed off to hear him. Would have been much better if I had just opened up and do the things that I teach. Do the things that I tell people. Get out of your head when you're soloing. Treat it like a conversation. Listen to the people you're talking with, not to. If I had just listened to Chick, we would have had the dialogue he was trying to have. Even though it's my solo, it's still a dialogue. But I treated it as, no, it's I'm talking and I'm in my head, and I played worse. It was okay. Would have been much better if I had listened to what he was saying. I learned a lot.

   22. CWChris Williamson40:47

       How can people get out of their own heads with regards to that? There's a lot of people that will do things ... I have the ... With the podcast, when I drop into flow, when it's just me and the person I'm speaking to, and I don't think about what I'm thinking about, I'm just hearing what they say, or the f- athlete, the teacher, whoever it might be, getting out of our own way and out of our own heads is a difficult challenge.

   23. VWVictor Wooten41:12

       Yeah, it's very, it's very, very difficult. Um, th- there's things that we can do on both sides of the issue. There's things that we can do for people, and then there's things that we can do for ourselves. And, and by no means do I have all the answers, but I have some. One of the things you can do is watch yourself the way I watched myself with Chick, where I'm out of my head now and I'm able to watch it. Now I can think more realistically, where I'm not attached to it emotionally. Our emotions speak so loudly, and in many cases we think the audience is thinking something that they're not thinking. All right? We think the audience is like noticing every mistake and thinking, "Oh, you suck. Oh, I heard that. Oh, you're l-" Audience isn't thinking that. If the audience is there, they're your cheerleaders. They want you to succeed. That's why they're there. They're open to whatever you do, mistakes and all. It's literally like the cheerleaders for a football team, right? Your cricket team, if you have cheerleaders, you could be losing by a bunch, but the cheerleaders aren't going to say, "You suck, Chris. Your team is horrible, you ..." They're g- still gonna cheer you on, right? That's what the audience is doing, but we think they're not. So we're not, we're not thinking realistically.So, one is we can realize that, and, and we can do it by getting out of it, and watching it without the attachment of emotion, so we can see what really happened. A- and then 99 out of 100 times, you'll go, "Wow, wasn't as bad as I thought." All right? Because in the midst of it, we're not usually thinking realistically, right? We're thinking about what might happen, and what they might think about it, and we're thinking ahead about things that haven't happened. But what is happening is where we need to be, enjoying the moment. So, that's one start. The other thing is to prepare. Just really prepare. And we have to remember that preparing doesn't just mean play the notes right, right? 'Cause playing the notes right in my room is different than playing the notes right in front of 100 or 1,000 people. So, play a bunch of gigs, and make mistakes, right? Even if you're at home and you're working on a gig, and all you have is your dog to play for, play for your dog. Because doing it for someone changes, uh, the mentality, all right? The other thing is to help other people. Help other people feel good and to get out of their heads. Compliment. Criticize in a kind way to help people. Because what you're doing when you're giving knowledge, you're, you're realizing that, "I c- I can't give you what I don't have." All right? You can't give anything you don't have. If you, if I wanna, you know, borrow $10 from you, you have to have $10 first. So, if you're gonna give it to me, you have to have it. So, when you give even criticism, negative criticism, that means you have negativity in you. You can't give what you don't have. So, the more you give, the more you build up inside yourself. So, if you can give people confidence the way Chick was giving me, it actually helps you. So, those are, are, are a few things. Really prepare. Prepare for the gig, but you gotta prepare mentally also, not just physically. Mentally. Uh, I didn't throw this in there, but always listen to the people you're playing with. The same way you're

4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   I love the insight…

   1. VWVictor Wooten45:00

      listening to me n-, 'cause I, 'cause I talk too much. But when you're doing an interview, I, there are some interviewers who aren't listening to the people that they're talking to. (laughs) The interviewer just wants to talk, and during the interview, you end up learning more about the interviewer than the interviewee. I've had a lot of those interviews, uh, interviews like that. So, really listen when you're playing. You're not in the, in it by yourself. Even when you're playing solo, you're not alone. You have music's help, you also have an audience's help. Listen to all of them, all right? The, the, the first thing I said, what was the first thing I was saying is, uh... I forget what the first thing I said was. Oh, yeah. Uh, get outta your head by watching yourself. Listen back to it later. But don't wait until the gig's over to listen back to it. Listen to yourself practicing. Record it. Then put your mind in the space that, "Okay, now I'm on stage. I'm in my bedroom, but I'm actually on stage." Record it again. Video it. Listen to it, all right? Maybe I'm looking like this the whole time. That's not fun for an audience, all right? So, videotape it, and really get outta your head and watch it. All right? And then, don't put, uh, don't put words in the audience's mind unless they're good words, 'cause your audience is your cheerleaders. They're there for you. That's the only reason they would pay hard-earned money, is to come cheer you on, not to come criticize you. If they don't like you, th- they're not there.

   2. CWChris Williamson46:28

      I love the insight about projecting your fears and internal phobias onto the people that are watching. That, um, it strikes a chord with so much stuff I've been thinking about recently. I had a, a TEDx Talk, which is just about to come out. I know that you've done one or maybe more. Um, and during the preparation for that, I, usually for me, public speaking, it's not something that I'm familiar with. I haven't done it before properly. And although I talk for hours and hours every week on this show, it's very different, right? Monologuing to a room of people with big audiovisual team, and I've got this script, and it's for TED. "Oh my God, like, I need to know what I'm talking about." It's supposed to be, I'm with these titans of intellectual curiosity and performers and athletes and musicians. And, um, all of that went away when I'd prepared. There was nothing left.

   3. VWVictor Wooten47:19

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson47:19

      There was no place for fear to hide, because I knew that script front to back, inside out, stanza by stanza, line by line. I knew the inflection points. I knew the, I knew the typos in the script where I'd accidentally put the wrong piece of punctuation in and scribbled it out with a little pen. And I knew it to such a degree with so much fidelity that my worst possible performance was still far better than anything that I needed to give. And sure enough, I went out. We had an hour block within which, because it was virtual, um, recorded by an in-person group, but there was no audience. And then it's gonna go up on the, on the YouTube channel and so on. And I went out and they said, "Right, you've got one hour, and we can do as many takes as you want. So, if you want to do it and then go again." So, I walked out and (snaps fingers) delivered the talk, one and done, straight through. I was like, "Okay, well, what I'll do, I'll, I'll go and grab a quick glass of water and then let's go again." And the video guy, who's my buddy James, sort of stuck his head out from beside the camera and was like, "Why'd you wanna do that?" I was like, "Well, I'll do, I'll do it again. You know, I, I, maybe I get it a bit better." And he's like, "Dude, you're not gonna do it better than that." He's like-

   5. VWVictor Wooten48:31

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson48:31

      ... "It, it, you're not going to do it better than that." And that was it. I'd prepared for three months to do this 15-minute thing, (laughs) and he was like, "Right, you're done. You can go home now." And, um, yeah, preparation...... it's such a, such an obvious answer to a lack of confidence or self-esteem.

   7. VWVictor Wooten48:48

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson48:49

      If you're concerned about something, preparing until you're so much more competent than you're ever going to need to be, and this is why ... Do you know what's something that's interesting? You know when you see these fighters, boxers, and, and MMA fighters b- in the press conference before they go up, often when I look at them I think, "How could you have this much self-belief?" Like, they must ... All of them must be playing a role. But then when you realize that those guys are training four hours to six hours a day in a fight camp with people who are around them, that are telling them d- what they're gonna do. They've got strategists, their nutrition's dialed in, their sleep's dialed in, their recovery's dialed in. And you actually realize, "Well, h- no, no, no, no. Hang on a second. This guy is putting everything he's got. This genetic freak who was built for this sport, whose passion is this sport, is now dedicating every waking moment to being the best that he can be. Why wouldn't he think that he's a killer? Why wouldn't he think that he's going to destroy anybody that they put in front of him? 'I'm the best on the planet.'" That's ... And it was the first time that I was able to catch a glimpse of what that level of preparation gives you.

   9. VWVictor Wooten49:59

      Nice. Nice. Yeah, the mind is controlling it, you know? The mind is powerful, a powerful thing. But it starts for us very, very young, um, usually when we start going to, uh, school, that that confidence that we had in ourselves ... 'Cause we did, we, we had that confidence as a kid. You know, two, three, four, five years old? Oh, yeah. But we quickly get robbed of that, because, uh, most public institutions that we belong to, belong to do not foster that thought process. Right? Most of the times when we're learning something new, when you learn anything new, you're probably gonna make more mistakes than you do getting it right. But in every case you hear about every mistake. All right? So think about music lessons. If you're told you're wrong over and over, right, you're gonna start playing just to not be wrong anymore. But why we started playing was because I enjoy it. I feel something when I do this. Right? For a child, it's not about doing it right, it's about feeling right. You don't play air guitar to get every note right. Right? It's all about a feeling. But now it's about doing it right, and you're gonna do it wrong in the beginning more than you do it right. So our focus changes, and in most cases, I think this is true, in most cases there's nothing that returns into our life to bring us back. So most people will go through our careers, whatever it is, especially our musical careers, not believing in ourselves the way we did before we learned anything. But, like I said with Chick Corea, he was giving that confidence back to me, even in the midst of my struggle on stage. I look back and say, "Wow, he was still believing in me." You know? And so we need to do that to people, to the people you interview, to the people ... your students, your, your siblings, your, your sp- your s- spouse. It's what the world needs. We just need a, a, a confidence booster. Right? We're, we're told to be fearful, uh, to fit in, don't stand out, uh, you know, where the proof of the matter is that you have the only fingerprint that's ever gonna be here in the history of humans. Right? Past, present, future, you've got the only one of these. Right? That shows how special you really are. But it's hard to find anything that helps us live out that speciality, specialty, to help us know how special we are. And I was lucky enough to have parents that drilled that into our heads as kids. And I mean drilled it. All right? But you gotta remember, my parents were born in the '30s. I was born in the '60s. It was different for people of color back then. Right? We were facing a society that would not support us, and my parents knew that. So they made sure we knew who we were, even if you didn't. Right? So us brothers, we have tremendous confidence in ourselves. Borderline egotistical. Right? But really what it is, if you look up the word ego, it just means knowing who you are, having a sense of yourself, knowing yourself. That's what it means. So you ask any of your friends that play music, "Hey, are you a good pianist?" "Oh, I'm okay. I'm all right. I try." "Are you a good guitarist?" "Yeah, I'm, I'm okay." Right? Go to the doctor and ask the doctor if he's a good doctor or she's a good doctor. "Are you a good doctor?" And she said, "Well, you know, I'm okay. I try." (laughs) Right? You'd be outta there. We're supposed to have confidence in ourselves, or else we're asking the audience to do something I'm not even willing to do. "Please believe in me." I believe in myself whether you do or not. I know I'm not a good bass player. I'm a great bass player, but so are you. So is the baby who's never played bass. Right? Because if somebody wants you, Chris, to play bass on a record, I'm not good enough to be Chris. No matter how good you think I am, I'm not g- good enough to be you. You're the best at being you. Right? Why doesn't society cause you to see that and allow you to live that out?... right? It's -- again, it's the fast food method, right? We make fast food cheaper and easier to get than the healthy stuff. And teachers really, you know, we're, we're not allowed to do that, that to each individual student. We have to treat you as a whole and make you all pass the test together.

   10. CWChris Williamson55:11

       What do you do, then, to open up your students' creativity and to allow them to gain some confidence?

   11. VWVictor Wooten55:18

       Right. Uh, you focus on the students' gifts, where most teachers ... I, I'll say a lot of teachers focus on the students', uh, faults. Focus on their gifts and their faults will disappear, right? You teach a person how to do something better by teaching them what they, showing them what they already do well. For example, my brother, Reggie, best teacher in the world, at least my world. Now he's the one that taught me. He's my brother. So when I'm two and he's teaching me to play bass, he's only eight years older than me. He's only 10, right? But by the time I'm five, we're gigging, right? We're opening for Curtis Mayfield on his Super Fly Tour. We're doing all this crazy stuff. He also taught Joseph, who's three years older than me. So I'm two, Reggie's teaching me bass. Joseph's five, Reggie's teaching Joseph the keyboards. In a few short years, this 10-year-old boy has us on tour, good enough to be on tour, right? That's the kind of teacher he is. So, the real story is, how did he learn it? 'Cause my parents didn't play music. But Reggie has a new student or s- any student, and let's say Reggie's teaching the student a C major scale, and the student plays a C sharp. Most teachers would say, "Uh, that's wrong. Don't play that." Right? Reggie says, "Wait a minute. That's the cool note. That's the note Miles Davis would use. Man, you're already in the back of the book. We're not in the back of the book yet. Remember that note, but let's come back to it later. That's the cool note. We're coming back to that. But right now, let's do it this way." So, he turns the, the, the wrong thing into the best thing. But here's the kicker, here's the thing, he's not lying. That is the coolest note in a C major scale, at least in jazz. A C sharp is what's going to make people go, "Ooh!" That's what Miles would do. So it's not like he's just lying. He's right. That is a cool note. But let's come back to it later. So he compliments you. He makes you feel good about your mistake. You're already Miles Davis, (laughs) right? And then even if you can only play one note, he'll have you play that one note to rhythm. He'll put it on a drum machine, and Reggie gets the guitar out while you're playing one bass note, and then he, Reggie's singing, and all of a sudden you're playing music. And then your parent comes to pick you up from the lesson, and your parent's about to open the door, but they listen in, "Wait a minute, I hear a band in there." Then they open the door and it's your, their kid making music the first day. It's like, big smile, the kid feeling good, you know? That's wh- that's how Reggie teaches. He, he teaches you based on your gifts first. And in many cases, he'll find out what your other gifts are. Let's say you love skateboarding. Reggie will go on and learn about skateboarding, so now he can relate this music to things that you're already good at, things you already love, rather than starting you from the beginning as if you don't know anything. The other thing I learned from my brothers, too, is that, let's say you have a 10-year-old student, music student. Most teachers will teach that student as he kno- as if he knows or she knows nothing. "You're a beginner. I'm going to fill you with knowledge." My brothers realize that if you're 10, you've been listening to music probably 11 years already, right? Probably listening to music already 11. So, anybody that has been doing something 10 or 11 years is not a beginner. This kid might just be a beginner to learning to express their musicality through an instrument. But our job is not really to teach them to be good at the instrument, it's to be good at expressing music. The instrument is just our tool. Like teaching a baby to talk, you don't teach them how to work their mouth. You give them something to say. You find out what it is they want to say. They'll learn how to say it quickly. So Reggie teaches us that way. "What kind of music do you like? What songs do you like? What do you want to play? Okay, let's play that today."

   12. CWChris Williamson59:42

       Didn't I hear that you do-

   13. VWVictor Wooten59:44

       Long answer. (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson59:45

       ... an exercise-

   15. VWVictor Wooten59:46

       It's a long answer.

   16. CWChris Williamson59:46

       You a- you have an exercise with your students where you make them play the worst possible style that they can, don't you, when there's ... to, to fill them with confidence?

   17. VWVictor Wooten59:54

       Absolutely.

   18. CWChris Williamson59:54

       You don't tell them to try and play as well as they can. You say, "Right, let's all jam together and play the worst possible bass

5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Sure, and it works…

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      that we can do."

   2. VWVictor Wooten1:00:01

      Sure, and it works every time. The thing is, what we think is right can be fit into a box. "I have to do this," and we think too much, right? "Let's play jazz." Jazz to most people is this. "I got to play these notes, these notes." And, and, and when they do it and they're thinking so hard, emotionally, there's nothing there. Ve- or I should say very little there. But all of a sudden I say, "Okay, great. You played great. If I was your teacher, I'd give you an A." And I say, "But now let's try this. Let's just see who could ... Let's have a competition. Let's see who can play the worst." Right? In the same way you started smiling just at the thought, right? Because now it's open and it's fun again. All of a sudden music is fun again. We've gone back to the source, the beginning. We get to be horrible. That's always fun, right? See, it brings a big smile to your face. So all of a sudden we're starting from emotion.Not, "I have to be right, and I gotta be serious, and if I mess up, I'm gonna be..." No, we're letting you mess up. This is s- this is what the whole thing's about, how- how worse can we be? And what happens is, the musicians can't play badly. And what ends up happening is, because they stop trying to be right, the real person comes out. And the em- uh, the- the- the emotion can't even be measured. And what's good about that musician finds its way to the forefront, and everybody listening goes, "Whoa." Now, they may think they're bad, but it gets so good. And when I do this in front of an audience with the musician, I always ask the audience, "Which solo did you feel more, the good one they played or the bad one? Which one did you feel more? We're not going to judge it, uh, this was good, this was... Which one f- reached you and you felt more?" And every time, 100%, the- the bad solo. B... And then I point out, "People won't remember what you played when they walk outta here. They're not gonna remember your solo. They're gonna remember what it felt like." So, if you can attach the feeling of the bad one, the heightened intensity, the dynamics, the not having to know what was gonna come out, the energy, if you can combine that with what you do know, you're automatically one of the greats. Automatically. And it happens (snaps fingers) like that, if you'll do it.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:02:38

      There's an interesting thing that happens during meditation. Um, toward the end of a session, Andy Puddicombe, the guy behind Headspace, he instructs people to just let the mind do what it wants. So, you've been working on a particular focus, visualizing something, focusing on the breath, whatever it might be. And then, for the final minute of the session, he often says, "And now, just let the mind do whatever it wants." Every single time during a session, for years and years when I used to use Headspace, that period was where I found the most peace, when I was able to let go of the constrictions and the constraints and the rules that were saying, "Okay, you can't let the mind wander, and you've got to think about the breath, and you need to visualize the yellow light inside of your chest," whatever it might be. But when I was allowed to do it, I actually noticed that that was when my mind was most free. And the same thing goes for this podcast. I had Robert Greene on, f- six times New York Times bestselling author, intellectual titan, historian fella, and he was one of the first big guests that I had. And I overprepared to hell. I absolutely overprepared to hell. I had all of these questions in front of me, uh, remembering I've got one of the world experts in human behavior. And I'd just written out a bunch of questions, and I wanted to ask him about all of this stuff. And I look back, and it was fine. Everyone thought... The same as your show. No one mentioned it. Ev- in fact, people thought it was a good episode. But I look back-

   4. VWVictor Wooten1:04:06

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:04:06

      ... and I was like, "Ah, man." Like, I was in my own way, I was in my own head. I'd allowed the nerves to constrict me into going through some rules. And then, the best conversations that happen are the ones where you allow the mind to do whatever it wants.

   6. VWVictor Wooten1:04:23

      Well, a lot of the times we have to take it away from you, so that when it's given back to you, you treat it properly. Like the pandemic again. We can't... six feet of each other. You can't shake your hands. So now, when we come back, a mundane handshake is gonna mean something, right? So normally, we go through life with the freedom to le- to let the mind do what it wants to do. But a lot of the times, the mind, uh, a- in what we call freedom, uh, we're really, don't realize we're restricting it. We're forcing the mind to think poor things, "Oh, I'm gonna screw up. Oh man, I probably messed this up." Or, you know, you know, we think poorly of ourselves. But because of this n- medi- excuse me, meditation practice, where it shows you how to restrict the mind and focus, focus, all of a sudden, it comes back to a better place. It's sorta like taking a vacation from home. "I'm sick of home. My goodness, I gotta be here? But all I have to do is go on vacation for a day. Ah, my own bed. Ah."

   7. CWChris Williamson1:05:35

      (laughs)

   8. VWVictor Wooten1:05:36

      Right? So- so that- that's what it's like. We gotta take it away, so sometimes meditation is that way. It's not like you're supposed to go through life that way. But without telling you, it's fixing the normal part of life.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:05:49

      One question that I had that I thought was quite interesting is, how do you stay healthy when you're on the road? Before we got started, we were talking about how long you've spent away touring, playing shows. What do you do to ensure that you're not falling to pieces?

   10. VWVictor Wooten1:06:04

       Yeah. And, uh, you do the same thing you would do at home. You know, if you go to the gym, go to a gym. You know, there's gyms all around the world. I'm not a gym person. Um, 'cause usually if I'm in a city, it's because I'm playing there, and I don't wanna get recognized in the gym. You know, sweating, and- and, you know, people seeing how much weights I can't lift or whatever, you know? (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson1:06:29

       (laughs)

   12. VWVictor Wooten1:06:29

       I'm more private when it comes to that. So, (laughs) so my- my main thing is, you know, mentally being healthy, uh, physically, uh, being as healthy as I can, eating well. But most of the exercising that I do is done in my hotel room, which is a lot of calisthenics, pushups, sit-ups, different types of things. Uh, you- you mentioned martial arts. I used to do martial arts as a kid, so there are a few of those things that I still keep up. But then I like to g- I love to walk.... I'm not much of a runner, even though I'll do it some, but I love to walk. And like a boxer, a lot of, most of the time I'll travel with a jump rope. And so sometimes at night after a gig, when it's dark and no one can see me, I'll go in the parking lot and jump rope.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:07:20

       Hmm. That's cool. Do you find when you don't do those things, how much of a noticeable impact is there on your performance when you're not looking after mind and body?

   14. VWVictor Wooten1:07:30

       Um, um ... it's a good question, because I, I haven't let my body get too far out of shape. You know, I've, I've seen photos where I'm heavier, my stomach's out, but I could still do a back handspring, or I could still, you know, play basketball or something. So, I'm not too far gone. So, a lot of what happens to me on stage is mental. Once my mind is right, my body will respond, hopefully. And, um, but that's the struggle I'm having right now. I was just mentioning to you a minute ago, this thing called focal dystonia, where my hands... So, there's something going on with my brain that's sending the wrong signal to my hands, so I'm dealing with that right now and having to reprogram. But, um, I don't know, I've just always tried to keep myself in some kind of physical, good physical condition, because we do play with our whole bodies, not just with our fingers, and not, you know, it's not just a, a mental knowing the notes. But, you know, I've seen physically out of shape people make some good music. (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson1:08:47

       What's your f-

   16. VWVictor Wooten1:08:48

       So I don't know that being ph- I don't know how physical shape, you know, I don't know if it really matters to playing great music, because I've seen all of the above. But I do want to make sure that, for my own health, that my body is in a good condition.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:09:01

       Yeah. It's a bit of a trope, right, to think about the band that's going on tour that's eating fast food and drinking every night, and I wonder, I often think how much of that is to the detriment of the reason that they're doing the tour. And, um ...

   18. VWVictor Wooten1:09:17

       Well, it's, it's, it's eas- it's easy now these days, Chris, to find good food wherever you are. You know, I mean, you know, we have a lot of truck stops here in the US, and even at the truck stops you can get healthy vitamins, and food, and, and ch- you know, nuts and fruit at the, you know, though, you go to pay for your food or your gas, and there's fresh bananas right there, you know, at the counter. So, it's easier to stay healthy these days. But there have been a lot of people, I remember when Michael Hedges was alive, and I did some touring with him, and, uh, he was playing with Michael Mannering, and the Flecktones and Michael Hedges, great guitarist, did some touring together. And it was the same with Chick Corea for a while when we toured together. Those people would always have certain types of food, and ways of either preparing it or even cooking it in their dressing room and in their hotel rooms. They were that particular with their food. I'm not that particular with it. Even though I will bring some things and some snacks that I want to make sure that I eat and drink, but I'm happy to go to, you know, a good restaurant or a good store and buy some things, because it's all available these days.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:10:31

       What are some of your favorite venues to play worldwide?

   20. VWVictor Wooten1:10:36

       Um, one of, one of my favorites, just because it's so beautiful, is a outdoor place called Telluride in Colorado, in the United States. Telluride, Colorado. Just because it's, it, it's way high up in the mountains, and you're on stage looking at waterfalls, and, and snow-covered peaks, and then down here is a sea of people. And they're excited, because it's a fun festival that happens every year. So, that's always fun. But, um, there are, you know, there are some smaller vide- uh, places. Ronnie Scott's is a great legendary place in, uh, in, in London. So, that's always fun to get to play the places that you know that your heroes played, like the Blue Note in New York. Uh, some of those places aren't in New York, aren't there anymore, but some of the legendary places that you know, that I know, my hero stood in the same place, and that's a lot of fun. But there are some places, and, you know, um, they're not all coming to mind right now, but some of them, some of the places are, are just fun because they're in a good area, or maybe the stage sounds great, or, you know, you have a good memory of meeting someone there. You know, I remember playing a place af- uh, and at the moment I'm, I'm losing the, the name of the place, but it was in San Francisco. It's a nice theater, and I can remember being on stage and literally seeing Marcus Miller walk through the front door with his bass, you know? And that memory brings back such a good feeling of that night and that venue, um, because he came and sat in and jammed with us that night, you know? So, different venues can have, bring about, you know, good memories.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:12:20

       That's awesome, man. Well, Vic-

   22. VWVictor Wooten1:12:21

       Or bad.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:12:21

       ... thank you. (laughs) Thank you for coming on. The, uh, the journey of learning about how you view music, the spiritual side of it, I think is, is really, really interesting. And, um, I hope that we've opened some people's eyes to the sort of direction that we could go in that. Where should people go if they want to check out more stuff to do with you or keep up to date? Where's best?

   24. VWVictor Wooten1:12:45

       Sure. Well, I, my website, victorwooten.com, is the best place to start, because everything else is, can be found from there. You can find my Facebook page. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter. Um, I try to answer my messages. It may take a while, but I try to answer my message, but I'm very reachable.Um, uh, you know, on, on all these platforms. I have a o- online store where you can find most of my products, my books, my records, uh, T-shirts, hats, all kinds of fun stuff like that. And I, and usually my schedule's there. If I'm touring, if I'm doing workshops, there. My music camps that I've been doing for 21 years, uh, this'll make the 22nd year. All of that stuff can be found there. So, um, uh, that's a good place if you wanna find out more about me.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:13:42

       Perfect. Be- thank you so much.

   26. VWVictor Wooten1:13:45

       A- and Chris, uh, you, you mentioned the spiritual side. Sometimes sp- the word spirit or spiritual can, can, can, can, like, make, uh, people flip out a little bit. But just do me a favor, and, like, and if you could say... Give me three words for you that describe music. Music is fill in the blank. What is music to you? Just anything that comes into mind. Don't even think too hard. Those-

   27. CWChris Williamson1:14:07

       Movement, rhythm-

   28. VWVictor Wooten1:14:09

       Movement.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:14:09

       ... joy.

   30. VWVictor Wooten1:14:11

       Movement, rhythm, and joy. Okay, so think about that. Um, this is a question I ask students all the time at workshops, clinics. I think it may even have been put into one of the books, The Music Lesson or The Spirit of Music. But whenever I ask these people, like you, these questions, I get these beautiful words. Right? Rhythm, uh, movement, joy, right? These are beautiful words. But for some reason, we pick up a bass or a piano or what- and we forget about those words. Now, it's like music is notes, techniques, scales, theory, right? We know without the instrument in our hands that those things I just mentioned are not music. Music is really joy. It's movement. So, why don't we teach that,

6. 1:15:00 – 1:16:54

   I love it, man.…

   1. VWVictor Wooten1:15:00

      right? Why don't I ask you, "What is music to you?" on the first day of classes, lessons? And then I make sure that you get better at that. But no, I teach you notes, scales, techniques, and you have to get 'em right to pass my class. And all of a sudden, those beautiful words are all but forgotten. So, I always ask people th- what those words are without an instrument in their hands, because then they go back to the source, and that source is spiritual. Everything you said can be called spiritual. So, it doesn't have to become some philosophy, some... It's just what it is. But we need to remember what it really is, 'cause when we play, that's what we should be playing. We shouldn't be playing techniques, scales, a, a Fender, a Fodera. No. These are tools. These are destinations. This is, these are the tools we use to express those words. But if those words are not even in our minds, we're doing ourselves and our listeners a disservice. So, when I'm thinking spiritual, I'm thinking that. I'm not thinking some clouds in the sky. I'm thinking both feet planted firmly on the ground, but knowing what I'm doing. And it's easy to get there.

   2. CWChris Williamson1:16:31

      I love it, man. Thank you.

   3. VWVictor Wooten1:16:32

      Thank you.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:16:33

      Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

   5. VWVictor Wooten1:16:36

      I appreciate you too. Thank you.

   6. NANarrator1:16:41

      (instrumental music)

Episode duration: 1:16:54