Play the Changes: Nomad on Finding Your Musical Voice (Episode 180)

You learned how to make music. Nobody taught you how to make a living making music.

All through college, school and private lessons, you hear it: you've got to be able to play through the changes. You've got to swing. In Episode 180 of The Career Musician, Nomad agrees, up to a point. Then he explains why getting hung up on technique can cost you your own musical voice, and even cost you work.

"Play through the changes" is great advice, until it isn't.

Remember why you picked up your instrument

Why did you start playing? If you heard John Coltrane play "Giant Steps" and knew you had to do that, great. Then master those changes and get them down to a science.

But if you picked up your instrument to touch people, to make art that resonates with other humans, don't be so concerned about playing through the changes.

Nomad's ten years chasing the wrong thing

From about 15 or 16 until he was 25, Nomad was focused on nailing the changes. He thought he had to be an amazing jazz player. Looking back, he feels he missed chances to enjoy life, and missed chances for work too.

"I could play jazz a little bit. I could fake through it, but I'm not a jazz musician. You know what I am? I'm an artist."

Nomad, 1:48

He loves writing rock, folk, pop and Latin songs, and composing for film and TV, and he says he is not a composer in the traditional classical sense either. Whether it is jazz changes or Rachmaninoff's use of harmony, the point is the same. Don't get hung up on the technical. Be you. That is Objectivity from the ETHOS code: an honest look at who you really are as a player.

The big gigs aren't hiring your chops

Want the big tour? It is tempting to think you have to impress the people in charge with your skills. Nomad's take: the people who call the shots on big tours and sessions probably don't care about playing through the changes either. That is not what got them there.

So if you went to music school and found out you just aren't a bebop player, don't beat yourself up. Nomad was that student. What matters is the music you make and how you show up. Everything you do is an audition, and the audition is about the whole musician, not just the solo.

You don't have to play through every change. Grow through them

Here is the twist in the title. We are all going to go through changes in our lives. We are going to evolve. And that growth is the real work.

"Evolution, growth within oneself, is paramount to the development of our best self."

Nomad, 5:47

Be the creative force you were created to be. Allow yourself to grow, and focus on what really matters in music and in life.

The takeaway

Learn the changes if they serve your music. Don't let them replace your voice. The players who last know who they are, and they keep growing. If you want help showing up as your best self when it counts, start with the free Audition Secrets guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.