{"id":385096,"date":"2026-01-01T17:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T17:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385096\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T17:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T17:06:08","slug":"the-lowdown-why-do-pro-musicians-never-take-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385096\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lowdown: Why Do Pro Musicians Never Take Lessons?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In late 2015, I basically quit playing bass<\/a> and spent a year traveling with the Bryan Brothers as their fitness coach. For those not familiar with the tennis world, they\u2019re the most successful doubles team of all time, with 119 titles as a team, 16 Grand Slams, an Olympic gold medal, and a record 438 weeks (including 139 consecutive) at number one in the world.<\/p>\n

Much like I\u2019m an amateur tennis player, they\u2019re amateur musicians. We met through music, specifically through our mutual friend James Valentine from Maroon 5, who is also way into tennis.<\/p>\n

I was going through a divorce and needed a change of scenery. They had just lost early in the US Open and were back in California, so we started training together. They asked if I wanted to come out on tour with them\u2014initially to make a bit of a documentary, as their career was going to wind down in the not-too-distant future. As we trained more, that morphed into going to the world tour finals in London, me becoming part of the team, working the off-season with them at the end of 2015, and then getting on a plane to Australia to start the 2016 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized very early on that any serious tennis player on the modern tour doesn\u2019t step foot on a court or into a gym without a coach or trainer. Ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early in the season, I woke up to my phone melting down in Australia because Bob had given an interview with The New York Times and mentioned me joining the team: \u201c\u2026Janek Gwizdala, an accomplished jazz musician turned fitness guru.\u201d I didn\u2019t realize how many of my music friends were into tennis until that moment, but they sure let me know about it double-quick. Most didn\u2019t believe I was actually on the tour until I was getting them tickets to come see our matches.<\/p>\n

All this is to say, I got to see the real day-to-day workings of professional athletes\u2014not just at the top of their field, but at a historically important and legendary point in their careers. We practiced alongside Nadal and Federer regularly, did cryotherapy with Djokovic, and shot the shit in the physio room with Andy Murray. As a tennis fan, it was off the charts.<\/p>\n

But when I eventually returned to being a musician and got back into the swing of my musical career, I carried a lot of priceless information with me from my time running around the world on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, I realized very early on that any serious tennis player on the modern tour doesn\u2019t step foot on a court or into a gym without a coach or trainer. Ever.<\/p>\n

And what do we do as musicians? If\u2014and that\u2019s a big if\u2014we go to some sort of music school between 18 and 22, we leave, we\u2019re flat broke because it cost a fortune, and we might never take another lesson for the rest of our careers.<\/p>\n

Not once in my 20s, having quit Berklee and moved to New York City, did I have anyone consistently guiding my playing, my mental capacity to deal with what it takes to break into the New York scene, my choices of gigs, sessions, tours\u2014anything. I had friends, sure. We\u2019d talk and commiserate over certain things. But they had no more experience than I did, for the most part.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you\u2019d be lucky enough to make friends with a far more senior musician in the scene, and you\u2019d hang on every word and story like a kid getting to stay up late watching TV you shouldn\u2019t see that young. But as amazing as those stories were, they were stories from a bygone era that bore little relevance to where I was at.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve made a conscious effort to do over the past decade\u2014since that incredible experience of being in a completely different, intense professional scenario\u2014is seek out advice, mentorship, lessons, and coaching whenever possible. Sometimes that\u2019s been for my music, sometimes for business, other times for health or fitness when I\u2019m trying to add something to my routine and want to get the most out of it.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a beginner or a pro\u2014especially a pro\u2014get a local teacher. Find someone you trust, someone you respect, and take a lesson once in a while. It\u2019s amazing to have someone to talk to, to gain confidence from, and to help you remember you\u2019re not alone in so many of the things we struggle with as musicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In late 2015, I basically quit playing bass and spent a year traveling with the Bryan Brothers as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[206805,64,63,67912,206806,206807,65146,206808,85,747,77931],"class_list":{"0":"post-385096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-amateur-musicians","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bryan-brothers","12":"tag-james-valentine","13":"tag-maroon-5","14":"tag-mentorship","15":"tag-music-school","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-tennis","18":"tag-the-lowdown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}