In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with the marvelous Sammy Miller, the founder of Playbook, which is a groundbreaking approach to teaching improvisation and musical skills. Playbook blends in-person learning with cutting-edge software to foster foundational skills that nourish life-long musical engagement. Sammy is an accomplished Juilliard-trained jazz drummer and a passionate educator. He is on a mission to make music accessible to everyone. In our conversation, we explore his journey, from what sparked his love of music to the creation of Playbook. According to Sammy, Playbook isn’t just about learning to play an instrument; it’s a dynamic method that empowers individuals to embrace the language of music and to communicate fluently through their art. From classrooms to online spaces, Sammy is paving the way for a new era of musical education that resonates with aspiring musicians and seasoned pros alike.
For more information about Sammy Miller and Playbook, visit the following websites: https://www.sammymillercongregation.com/playbook
https://www.thisisplaybook.com/
Spotify link:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1h3VQ7yfCOnTyloF4bwtaD?si=W-y24mY8TIuqa3U8MVX4FA
Apple podcasts link:
Unedited transcript from otter.ai (approximate time stamps):
Bradley Vines 0:00
Greetings, and welcome to the neuroscience of improvisation. In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with the marvelous Sammy Miller, the founder of playbook, which is a groundbreaking approach to teaching improvisation and musical skills. playbook blends in person learning with cutting edge software to foster foundational skills that nourish it lifelong engagement with musical performance in any social setting. Sammy is an accomplished Juilliard trained jazz drummer, and a passionate educator on a mission to make music accessible to everyone in our conversation, and we explore his journey from what sparked his love of music to the creation of playbook. According to Sammy playbook isn’t just about learning to play an instrument. It’s a dynamic method that empowers individuals to embrace the language of music, and to communicate fluently through their art. From classrooms to online spaces, Sammy is paving the way for a new area of musical education that will resonate with aspiring musicians and seasoned pros alike.
All right, it’s great to get a chance to connect and and learn more about playbook and your background and everything you’re doing, which just to me is so exciting to learn about and, and to see you have wonderful YouTube videos available. And you’ve got a great website, this, this is playback. This is playbook.com which is a wonderful resource and it just looks like you’re doing great work with students and I’m sure adults alike you you could help anyone to discover their musical language within so to speak. So please tell me could you tell me a little bit about yourself and and how this developed and what it is that you’re doing through playbooks? Sure.
Sammy Miller 2:23
So, so to go to explain playbook I’ll just go way, way, way back. So I’m a, I’m one of five, I’m one of five and I grew up playing music with my siblings, the five of us would get together after school and this dates back to when I was five years old. So we were 3579 and 11. And we would self govern, sometimes in the lord of flies Escalade, but we get together we’d fight and we’d work on music together. We learned music always, it was always familial. I, I got better and better music. I eventually attended the Juilliard School, became a professional jazz musician and spent the last decade touring, all super fun festivals, you know, Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey, jazz, played the White House, all that good stuff. But I never lost sort of that tie to how I learned music, which was people in a room working together. And in the last decade, since finishing school, and in traveling, a lot of that time has been performing. But then the other. The other time I’ve spent it is teaching, visiting students across the country. We play a show at night, and then we’d visit a school the next day. And I would see the same sort of challenges time and time again, in the big one being a lot of students quit music. For every two students that are going to pick up a horn. This upcoming school year one’s going to draw, a third is going to draw. So I know if you look at other subjects, I don’t think that’s true of math or English. Obviously, you can’t You’re not allowed to for a certain period. But what are we doing that? How come people are not getting whatever experience I got as a youngster where I fell in love with this thing. I made music with my siblings. And so playbook comes out of that. It’s it’s the approach of how I learned music, of how I fell in love with music, learning music, the same way we would learn our primary language and native language, we’re going to be mimicking, we’re going to be babbling, we’re going to be queueing all those things, and putting that into musical form. So teaching music, like a language and giving students the tools to play music long after they graduate high school. So that’s really wonderful. They’re
Bradley Vines 4:42
wonderful, and giving them the structure making them part of the creative process. I think that seems to be quite a unique approach. Instead of someone playing their parts out of 20 parts and an ensemble kind of structurally Coming to understand the music so they can get involved in in a more comprehensive way.
Sammy Miller 5:07
Well in in to that. You look at people who play music as adults, they’re not often in a in an orchestra, they’re playing in a garage, they’re learning music together where everyone knows the melody. Everyone knows the chords the form. So why can’t we do that when we’re learning music? In school, when we have all this time together? We’re trying to use some of the skills we know we’re going to need as an adult.
Bradley Vines 5:35
And is this the way that so it’s seems to be the way that you and I learned intuitively yourself and through your experience through your family, and then moving on from there is, did you find that that’s also how it’s approached at the conservatory level? Did you find there’s a match? Or is this something that’s a bit innovative? From the perspective of musical education? How was the fit between you know the way you were brought up and what you see in the music education world?
Sammy Miller 6:16
So for your first point about the Conservatory, the thing that makes conservatory special Juilliard, manis any see Berkeley anywhere, is that you have a teacher on your instrument, you have a mentor. And that’s really the important part of that pedagogically, what happens is, ideally, you you become close with someone who’s older and knows music better. That’s the thing from the Conservatory, I really wanted to bring over to playbook where as you learn songs, you’ve instrument specific training. And I felt like that’s the part of a conservatory I loved. Again, I’m thinking about music, not for people to become performing at Carnegie Hall. So constant, I’m really thinking about how can be like language, something they use every day, when they’re listening on the radio, they can pick out a melody, oh, that’s how you play it. Or they can. They can be at a birthday party and they go actually, I do know the song on trombone, I do know the song on oboe, I’m actually gonna play Happy birthday for my grandson, or, like, it’s something that’s just part of their life. And that’s where a conservatory is preparing people for a really small specific skill set, which they would call them be professional. But I think jazz musicians, which that’s my background, we seem to have the most of these like flex skills, we can jump into a lot of environments really ear focused. And you if you can’t hear something respond, you’re not really fluent in the language. If you don’t, under you can you can, reading is not what what dictates if something that someone’s fluent in a language, I’m thinking about us using really how we improve our spoken our conversational parts of music.
Bradley Vines 8:04
And I love I love that connecting language with music, quite literally, it seems to, for example, incorporate call and response between speakers and musicians. And as a sidebar, this actually nicely aligns with what we know about how music and language mix together in the brain, there are really interesting connections between the language one speaks and the rhythms and patterns that they perceive and create in the music of their choice. So for example, composers will show patterns of rhythm that are correlated with the rhythms of their language, if you look around the world, but that’s so that’s something that you, you explore, which is wonderful. And can I
Sammy Miller 8:58
ask you mean about that when it comes to language? Like? My understanding is, is our brains process is music process, like a language is in our brain? Or how is it is a process differently? I mean,
Bradley Vines 9:11
great question. It’s, it’s a blurry boundary, isn’t it? So there are some things that language can do that music just can’t like, pass the salt. It’s not that easy to unless, unless, you know, you know, Salt Peanuts. But well, that gets the other side, there are certain musical sounds that means something very specific as well, like start walking down the aisle, you know, as the head or something, you know, they’re very literal, referential cues and music to I’m
Sammy Miller 9:46
thinking a lot about how a child learns. Well, again, I go back to the how I learned Spanish is not how people should learn a language because I took it for five years. I can read the law A lot of different things. I don’t really understand what’s happening, like a lot is going past me. And I’m thinking, Why? Why don’t we babble in music at all in most in most kids, fourth grade through 12th grade. If they get good at their instrument, it’s going to be mostly around their ability to do things perfectly. And babbling involves a lot of errors. So I’m trying to create environments and play books like this, that’s really a key is a lot of room for messing up. Because you watch a baby, they’re just like, they’re really flailing a lot of the time is like when you say hello, and they go out bow. That’s kind of what they think it sounds like. And I think that approximation is super important as we begin to learn shapes, and what words might go well, next to each other. Same things are true in music.
Bradley Vines 10:50
Absolutely, I think I think you’re going down the path of what will probably work best, because indeed, that’s that’s how language is developing, it’s through a trial and error. Phase, a long phase that’s basically free of retribution or negative feedback. In fact, you know, if a child says something wrong, it’s cute, you know, it’s, you know, no one is admonishing the child for a great single word. For a long, long, long time, we’re talking years and years. So similarly, with music, having that totally open ended exploration period, that’s free of the negative feedback, some kind of corrective mechanism, that that’s a great idea how to do that. And that’s, you know, that’s wonderful that you’re exploring, making that a part of playbook. Thank you. Yeah. And so, so this, you know, is part of a bigger conversation about the importance of music, for culture, for humans, for people in their lives? And how do you quantify that it’s very challenging to do so. But we have to try, because that’s what moves the needle, of course, deciding where funding is allocated in a school district, and so on. And I know, you come across this challenge. I mean, that’s part of what moves your work forward is, is getting schools to bring you aboard, whether through your online platforms, or bringing you and your colleagues in person to run workshops, and so on residencies, etc. So, how do you approach that? I’d love to hear if you’re standing in front of the school board. How do you make your case these days at this point, what’s Yeah, I think your approach, so
Sammy Miller 12:59
I think often, people start with, we need funds. And once we have the funds the problem, we need to put money into the arts. And that part. That part is, isn’t the solution, you would say, we need to teach, give students we need to make music part of students lives, and do it in a way that they’ll be able to play into adulthood. The same way you should be getting financially literate, and all these other things that you should learn in school, you should learn learn history, if it’s something that’s going to be, we’re not teaching to the test, and it’s something that’s going to be a lifelong skill, not just because it’s they’re gonna do better on the LSAT, and they’re gonna, they’re gonna have less stress, and they’re going to be more conscientious. And they’re going to do higher GPAs, or any sort of thing you want to like when it’s just when you want to go to like data driven, it’s beneficial. But this is something that that’s a that’s a, that’s a that’s going to help them as a human being get through life and do it in a way that’s meaningful, see people as a way to communicate and express things that they can’t express, oh, he’s three English language, then it’s, and we’re going to teach it this way in the class. Now, how much money do we need to do that? I really think like, you know, California has passed Prop 28. It’s going to be a billion dollars every year, beginning this fall, that’s going to be going into California public schools. It’s amazing, amazing 80% of that’s going to go towards paying for new teachers. Long overdue California, for what it represents for the country from like, Hollywood, la music, all this kind of stuff. We’re just where I grew up. So we’re behind the rest of the country. So the money is a part of the equation but then what are we going to do during that hour when now you have all these students and you have money? Is the goal to buy new instruments. It was at the issue because I’ve been in a lot of programs that have no funding that have built incredible programs and that’s a testament to to great luck. And going back to the conservatory thing, conservatory, what makes that specialist, they have great mentors. So I think it’s hard for a teacher on their own to, to know all of about everything. So I think part of that is how teachers are taught in an education programs when they’re studying, and that they had great mentors, it’s hard to move everything at once. But again, my priority is we need money so that people can do this for life, that’s what the funding is for. And during that hour, we’re going to give them these other set of skills. I’m less concerned with them. Performing eight concerts every year, I think there’s too many concerts in school years, they teach to the concert, they teach to the holiday concert, not to the spring concert, I think they need to be learning skills. Imagine if you had to get up and do a math problem every two months in front of your whole community, stressful for the teacher and stressful for you should be a lot more like playing for each other, a lot more error a lot more messing up. That’s, I think that would go a long way. So that it’s not about funds or lack of funds. Yeah,
Bradley Vines 16:15
that’s, that makes sense. And the long term benefits here, you know, laying a foundation of musical literacy, there’s there’s just this mounting evidence, accumulation of evidence that shows that engagement with the arts in general, really enables healthier longevity, and outcomes in terms of lifespan and health span that are very beneficial. There was an enormous study done in the UK, which didn’t have a lot of specificity in terms of playing music, but looked at arts engagement in general and found that people that were engaged, just live longer and happier and more healthy lives. But then if you start looking specifically at music, there’s quite a bit of evidence that shows practice in music and engaging in music improves auditory processing, so the ability for the brain to track pitch over time, and this could take the information that’s being presented to the ear and use it in a way that’s going to be helpful for cognition. And that, that improved fidelity of processing actually extends throughout life. Of course, it is even better if someone maintains musical practice beyond that earlier training, but even to have some musical training set some sets of person on a different trajectory in terms of the ability to use hearing. And it turns out that the ability to hear is very much relevant to warding off dementia and cognitive decline in general, because hearing is so important for social engagement, the ability to stay connected with the people around us and learn and continue to be involved in the world. So that’s just one example. Music practice can help people hear better for the rest of their lives. And that could change society, it could save enormous amount of money being spent on taking care of people getting serious cognitive decline. And of course, not to mention, the emotional burden of people that are taking care of such people and family members loved ones. So I think it’s really noble what you’re doing. You could be touring the world and playing music and all the amazing places like the ones you mentioned, that you’re taking, at least some of your time. And well. You’re putting quite a bit of effort into this wonderful program. So I see you, I see a lot of social benefits.
Sammy Miller 19:06
Thank you. Hi, I’m interested in in the science around music, huh? Well, growing
Bradley Vines 19:14
up, I was a saxophonist, actually, and also interested in math and science, I guess, from an early age and those two interests kind of came together as I got involved in psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience, through the undergrad research and work that I did, and then a PhD on the subject matter of music, cognition and perception. And from there I just have continued down that path of blurring the boundaries between those those interests of mine.
Sammy Miller 19:52
What do you think is like so it’s interesting. Like I’m very I’m interested in like, Maybe what cold therapy does too for the brand new type called exposure Asana? Do you have like, this is the minimum amount of time a week someone needs to spend being musically engaged for to make an impact where you see an effect healthspan and lifespan? Hmm,
Bradley Vines 20:14
good question. I don’t have an answer to that. I think that we’re a little bit of aways from getting to that kind of level of specificity. As of now, a lot of the research is is looking at, you know, six month year long programs and seeing, okay, someone who went into drama, had these kinds of outcomes. So when that went into the music, arm of that randomized control trial, you know, what do they see at the other end? So we could look at exactly how much time was dedicated during those programs, to arrive at phonological benefits, you know, benefits for linguistic phonological processing, and so on and so forth. But yeah, I could, I could look into that.
Sammy Miller 21:02
The other thing is just, I mean, I’m gonna get in the weeds here. But also, there’s the soul part of it that I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t understate just, it does. It does something for the soul, which we can put into like, scientific terms, but does something for the soul, I think to be certainly for playing and people seem to figure it out, when it comes to listening. And those go man, it would be so cool to be up there. And like you can be up there everyday in your house. When people watch a concert, I think it’s fascinating who sticks with it. I think and even how much of music is around, we go back to the communal part. People who play in church is one of the biggest ways I see people who are lifelong musicians. And again, often they’re not reading music, their songs that they know, kind of meaning to them, that they can play week after week. And it’s low stakes and a lot of ways, huh? Yeah.
Bradley Vines 22:01
And, and those experiences like you said, the, you know, you said, the soul. It’s the ineffable. It’s the the experience that you may be exploring. And I’d like to ask about your experience as a musician as well. which I imagine is part of central to what you wish to share what you wish to open the door to for other people. But those experiences are, it turns out, based on research, that’s, that’s happening. Very interesting, first of all, and also they themselves have these health benefits, it seems so entering into states of mind that involve the loss of a sense of self or a reduction of this self critical self monitoring processing that’s constantly kind of filtering your ideas and your feelings, what is appropriate for the moment, you know, this kind of sense of that we’re always kind of our own police, being careful about what we do and say, like when you’re entering into certain states, particularly with regard to improvisation. That’s where it’s been studied most thus far. But I imagine it’s available throughout music. These states where you’re kind of letting go a little they turn out to have some really interesting first of all, experiential qualities, but also health benefits and interesting ways that we’re just starting to get a feel for that and get an understanding of through through the science, but I’m sure you’re well familiar with. And so can you can you talk a little bit about what it is to improvise what you feel what you experienced, just from your standpoint, if you can introspect a little bit.
Sammy Miller 24:06
Yeah. I always loved playing music. And then
when I started listening to a lot of jazz, I loved how it made me feel but I did not understand what was going on. And so that part of that is because a lot of music is very repetitive. And jazz has this quality of truly flowing whichever way the group of musicians deem will be the they all agree on this is where we want to be headed out. And that sort of flow or dream state. It’s very addictive. I think it’s something once I realized like, oh, wait, I I could create this feeling something I really spent a lot of time learning the language and mastering my instrument so that I could play everything that was passing through my head that might help what the group was doing. So the in the other interesting thing about the flow state, which I’ve now gone back in, when I perform, I do a lot of talking and a lot of almost comedy, improv Satori, comedy with the audience. And I use the skills now in music. Now I’m trying to bring back to the English language, when I’m with the audience have, they become the musician I’m playing with where we’re playing, we’re okay with air, we’re trying to fly this plane together. But all the so the entire time when I’m playing, when I go on stage to the end of it, I’m trying to always be open to something new happening. So that doesn’t mean I just solo during the 16 bar form, excuse me off the song or the 12 bar blues. I’m not. That’s like one version of flow state. But I’m interested in what is even the next flow state above that. And it requires. First of all, you can’t be only one that you everyone on stage has to be open to this, you kind of have to put down any notion of being cool, or any like facade that a lot of musicians you can put up because you’re, you’re also insecure, just like the audience. So I have to really put myself out there. That’s the only way I find I can reach flow state.
Bradley Vines 26:46
That’s an amazing characterization, the release of facade, the total dissolution of those boundaries, and then the collective nature of the experience. Being that you are loosening these disconnections, you could say, eliminating them. I also, I also love that you brought up the dreamlike nature of this state. That’s actually one of the interesting correlations that’s emerging through the neuroscience is that the improv is improvising state of mind, when you’re looking at the brain has many features that are similar to dreaming. While so changes in the brain, when you enter into a state of improvisation look in the brain much like what’s happening when when you’re entering into, while in particular, a rapid eye movement, sleep dreaming state, where in particular, these parts of the brain and the frontal cortex that are involved in the filtering and self control, and yes, planning, but also kind of comparing with ideas and looking at what’s happening and comparing it with other ideas about what should be happening. So basically, you’re, you’re self monitoring and self control areas are relaxing. And then there’s a little bit more activity in these other areas that are involved in self referential emotional associations, and so on. So that’s also what happens during sleep, and dreaming rather,
Sammy Miller 28:29
I almost felt wet, when I tore, the 22 hours and 30 minutes when I’m out in the world is like, the work part. And then when I go to play music, that’s, I think dream is like, that’s the time that’s actually I get to relax when I’m on stage. That’s like its focus, but it’s, it’s the most my brain can be free.
Bradley Vines 28:51
So ah, that’s interesting. The work is you know, getting to the airport on time. Making sure you got all the sticks that you need. And so the
Sammy Miller 29:03
only musician who would who would feel that way too. Yeah. Yeah.
Bradley Vines 29:06
Yeah. That’s, that’s great. That’s, that’s amazing. And, and do you find you’re able to kind of create a vortex related to this state that draws in the students? And can you kind of feel them opening to this when you’re working with people to help them experience it? themselves? Is this kind of, yes. What you, you know,
Sammy Miller 29:31
ya know, the thing I found is, the more earnest I am, the more the more entry points for people. So I just play music really well. And there’s nothing I give nothing here and I don’t talk. That’s one way a certain group amount of people will be able to access it. But in maybe 2014 I started working with Jazz Lincoln Center, I started performing in their Jazz young people program, I was going to public schools across New York City. At the same time, I was playing a lot with my band in in non jazz bars in Brooklyn, loud. And I was noticing, at the same time, I was learning how to present to like second graders how to explain jazz to them, how to find them, for them to access the music as these like drunken brunchers or something like, there was something I was finding about how to how to play in a way that was open to everybody and had something for everyone. I wasn’t dumbing it down for any group, I was just playing and presenting my art and my humanity in a way that would be relevant for really everybody. And I think access is a huge thing. They will talk about having people have access to instruments or access to music. But again, what do you do with x? Okay, so now you have these people in front of you? Are you going to make them feel a certain way? Do you want to make them feel a certain way? Or is your notion like I’m above you, like, Get on my level and understand it, or it’s your fault, like, I’m interested in access at once I have these people in front of me a lot of these, again, students, where people are probably gonna go to three jazz shows in their life, and all of them were me presenting for them a year. So I better make a profound impact. So this isn’t gonna go you know, jazz, positive, free, fun, playful, those are my experiences with that.
Bradley Vines 31:35
So, um, yeah. So it’s your, your opportunity to connect with the human level. Because this is like language, you know, music is the most natural thing for for people. When you put children together, they spontaneously come up with songs and music, like games and so on, there’s a rhythm to play. And the way people swing on monkey bars, by people’s play the way children play that has a natural rhythm to it, and and similarly, you know, language is quite amazing to children will put together with no other exposure to language within reinvent language. And this is actually how some sign languages have developed. And I believe even twins sometimes invent their own languages, they create spontaneously, languages as they’re growing up and things. So. So language and music are the is universal potentialities of the human mind. And so it’s it is very natural to simply try to connect with that universal quality. And I guess it is a choice. Maybe, but it seems like a false wanting to think that. No, you have to be different than your human nature, in order to experience this music, because that’s, you know, that creates a barrier. How, but at the same time, there is an element of putting oneself out or making an effort to get into kind of music. So how do you kind of play with that? That tension there, you’re connecting with someone, something that’s absolutely natural to everyone you’re working with. But at the same time, there’s an element of trying, you have to put yourself out there to play a game with someone else, you have to make an effort to participate.
Sammy Miller 33:53
Right? Well, my first premise one a performance that high art, doesn’t mean it’s not high entertainment. And I think if I just for my for it sets, my premise, high art should be entertaining, entertainment should be high art. That’s what I’m after. So engage engagement. Again, I’m gonna have to engage in a lot of different levels. So with students I would find when I would drum behind only the drum set, they would kind of miss out on a lot of it. So what I would often do, and I just started when I first started playing, like, what happens if I take my drum solo out into the audience, and I’m playing on the table like, and they can see it in front of them or the bass is a really challenging instrument for people to hear it’s low frequencies. So when we’re going to take a bass solo or bass player is going to play Why don’t we focus everyone’s attention, like let’s listen to that with nothing else. So when when you talk about like engaging, I’m thinking about if I was in second grade, which nuances what I miss, what what would have had Help me understand what’s happening and you become. It’s like you’re putting a spotlight on whatever they shouldn’t be experiencing at that time. And truth be told adults need it to know lots assume that adults understand stuff. And I didn’t know that until I became an adult. And I was like, Oh, we still don’t really know what’s going on. But so we need that flashlight to we need that spotlight of in music and art, and honestly, anything like this is what you should be experiencing now. Nice McDonald’s does a good job of that. Oh, yeah, do a good job. Like, now you’re watching the game. Now you’re watching an advertisement. Now you’re watching. And we have to do that sometimes in music. And it doesn’t mean it’s any less sophisticated. great composers do that naturally.
Bradley Vines 35:49
Hmm. Absolutely. They, they are crystal clear, in terms of creating anticipation, and surprise, or confirming expectations, and so on. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. I love that, that. Basically, we can get in the way or musicians can get in the way of themselves if they are trying to make things too profound. Yeah, let’s say, yeah. Just the way that attention works. Yeah, this is this human brain. It’s been about the same for the last few 100,000 years. And it’s not going to suddenly change for your new art form. Although Yeah, yeah, it’s amazing. But why not utilize the structure and function of the human brain as it is, which is, like you said, it’s, it is the, quote, unquote, art form of the people that work in media and, and advertising. They are simply just making decisions based on the structure of what’s there. What draws people’s attention, what gets them to focus in certain areas. And
Sammy Miller 37:08
I should add, if this is, my, my whole worldview is not on how to become famous and popular setting out what I know do is how to make an impact on human beings. I don’t know about. I’m not I’ve never been in popular zeitgeist, that’s not what really interests me. I like Louis Armstrong as a six year old, like, I’m living in what I deem to be this is a world of meaning and memories and community. And I found a beautiful world. But I’m not suggesting that this is what Taylor Taylor Taylor Swift’s doing. I think there might be a different set of values and structures.
Bradley Vines 37:44
Absolutely. Absolutely. And so there, that’s a subtle, subtle and interesting point about how there are different ways of approaching are different kinds of communities of music or ideas and they can connect a different Yeah, I mean, I think that’s, you’re just raising like this amazing phenomenon of phenomenology. Have you brought up Taylor Swift? Because how can we not like she, she’s literally everywhere right now, in the news, and, and so on. So that’s the interesting
Sammy Miller 38:24
thing, I’m after the things I’m interested in the as I look up the road, they seem to be the people that are full of meaning and joy in their life. And one of the thing that’s so challenging about music, and now when you say music business or music industry is, it can be really challenging as you look up the different trails, to find people who are full of joy, meaning the things that they were attracted to, at first around the music, and I think so you have to kind of carve out your own world. Because it because a lot of the other things don’t make sense.
Bradley Vines 38:59
Yeah, so that’s, but that struggle is it’s kind of a metaphor, or it’s running in parallel to the struggle of everyone to have meaning in their life. And so it’s, it’s really, it turns out work for all of society to maintain that
Sammy Miller 39:21
leading because it can help I think music can help for for everyone.
Bradley Vines 39:25
Yeah, absolutely. That’s what that’s what I was trying to say is indeed that you as a musician, maintaining that, that core of meaning, and then sharing it, and that ignites the sense of meaning and the listeners and the people that engage with your music and then of course, that you help share the creation of music with the methods and and the language of music. So I, I do I’m definitely a proponent and optimism optimists. It’s regarding the power of music to, to improve people’s lives, both from a quantifiable perspective in terms of science, but also in terms of that which science can cannot yet reach those, those kind of fix that spiritual states and meanings. That’s the biggest
Sammy Miller 40:19
bummer about people not going to church every Sunday in the US is hearing live music in person and singing with people every week. I don’t know how often. I’m in a building in New York City right now, how many people in the building have gotten together and sing with other people in the last year? At one time? Yeah,
Bradley Vines 40:39
totally. That’s, but this has been great. And what are your current plans and projects, things you’re developing right now that people should know about? Whether in the world of performance or education are both? Sure.
Sammy Miller 40:58
They were. I’m always taking feedback from educators who use playbook all over the country at all levels. And then we’re building features out of based on things they need. So, for instance, we just build out we’re talking a lot about listening and playing along. We’re talking about listening and playing along. But now in playbook we have a feature where students can record themselves along with the band, so they can actually record themselves listen back and go like, Oh, wow, that’s what it’s felt like to be playing alongside Alfonso horn on trumpet or my sister, Molly, Dr. Molly Miller on guitar, all these incredible musician and mentors, which is something I always would imagine when I was a kid playing along with records like Oh, I’m recording with John Coltrane. And now you can kind of have more of that experience.
Bradley Vines 41:43
Wow, that’s great. Absolutely fantastic. So that’s going to be it’s the next iteration. technologist
Sammy Miller 41:51
this month. Okay. So it just came out this month. So that’s really exciting. Okay, wonderful.
Bradley Vines 41:54
Congratulations on that. Yeah. Okay, wonderful. Well, yeah, thank you so much, Sammy for, for sharing all of this and for everything you’re doing in the world of education and world music indeed, and more generally, you’ve touched so many lives through your music and and also your, your program. Brother, I just wish you well and all the success in the world going forward. So thank you.
Sammy Miller 42:25
I love it. Love to stay in touch
THE NEUROSCIENCE OF IMPROVISATION 