Dan Spencer, Music Coach and author, The 14 Unshakable Laws of Learning Music

 Welcome back, friends, to our podcast, Unlocking Your World of Creativity, where we travel around the globe to talk to creative practitioners and teachers about how we can get inspired and organize our ideas and just get better at our craft to launch our work out into the world.

And today we're going to talk about the power of music and not just listening to music, but recording, producing, practicing, learning our own musical craft. And our guest is Dan Spencer.

And thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Dan's got a terrific series the best books for beginners, right now he's releasing The 14 Unshakable Laws.

Of learning music, how to master any instrument and singing with five minutes a day. Dan, I love this idea of the factors that contribute to getting better. I've got my little beginner guitar in the background as we noted as we started but it's slow go, but maybe I haven't focused on those main factors.

If we think about it, we all know if we want to get better at anything, we have to do it. You want to get better at video games? You have to play the video game. You want to get better at running? You got to run. You want to get better at singing? You got to sing. You want to get better at playing guitar?

You got to play guitar. But there's things that pop up and stop us from doing all those things. So instead of first attacking the sort of obvious thing that we all know well, you just got to sit down and do it. I wanted to make sure we could avoid every single pitfall. That you might encounter along the way, and it turns out there's really 14 laws that if you follow them, 14 rules that if you stick by following those 14 laws, you will avoid every single trap I have fallen in all the literal 14 Thousands of hours of my life.

I have wasted on doing the wrong things. Developing bad habits, telling myself I didn't need a teacher when I did. Oh, actually injuring myself, needing to go to see doctors, being self critical to the point of needing to sit down with a therapist. All these things that could stop you. From getting better.

I wanted to make sure I could attack all of those and solve them for you. So you don't have to spend hundreds and thousands of hours in your life and hundreds and thousands of your precious dollars on trying to solve these. I could solve them all in one shot, hand the book to you. You could read it in an hour, maybe two, and then for the rest of your life.

Never have to fall into those traps ever again.

That's a big promise. I love it. And where in those 14 does this kind of I don't have talent. I'm not natural. It doesn't come easy to me. I'm not so good at it as I thought I would be. Yeah. Where does all that fit into our mindset of

creative? Talent is real.

And so for me to sit here and tell you that talent doesn't exist would be silly because we've all seen sports. Stars who are that 10 percent better than the 10 percent best people in the world, like the Michael Jordans, the LeBron James, the Tom Brady's, the Aaron Rodgers of any sports. We've seen these people who are clear outliers among the outliers.

So talent clearly is real. I'm not going to sit here and tell you talent isn't real. What I am going to say is that talent is not the difference between you reaching your goal or not. Yes. Talent will help you get there faster. That's an objective truth. But if you follow the 14 laws of learning music, and these are unshakable laws that apply to everyone, it does not matter if you are literally the least.

Talented person in the world. If you have negative talent, if you're walking around with money, like you're not even no talent. If you're walking around with negative talent, if you follow the 14 unshakeable laws, if you avoid bad habits. If you know when the right time to use an app book course or teacher and in what combination to use them in would be if you know how to well pick a teacher, if it's time for you to use a teacher, just those right there, if you use those three, and that's three of 14.

If you use those three effectively, you'll be able to get better at music. And it does not matter how much talent you have. And what's very interesting is if we follow this logical reasoning forward, which I think may actually be anticipating your next question. If talent is not what makes or breaks as getting better at music, that means no one is technically.

Bad at music .

All you need is training like that. That's the difference. You either trained or you're untrained. These are the only two options. You're not good or bad. There's not some, force beyond your reckoning in the universe, working against you to make sure that you just didn't.

No, either to use an app book course or teacher or what combination to use them in order to move yourself forward It's like it's that simple You either are trained or you are untrained and all you need is training to get better And there's so many people walking around with this story in their mind if I'm bad or people say oh, I love playing music But man, I suck right now and so just changing that way of perceiving and Where you are the way you think is the most important thing because the way you think is the highest level of everything in your life, because the way you act, all the things you do, your relationships, everything is a product of how you think.

So if we can change how you think we can change your outcome.

And Dan, what do you think about the impact or the effect of age? Because, we think about piano lessons for little kids. We think about singing lessons for young kids that, really want to elevate their talent. But those of us on, let's just say, the other end of that seniority spectrum.

Yeah, we want to learn a language or we want to learn music. It doesn't matter. Everybody says yes, it's never too late. But what is the impact?

So it really is never too late. And just like talent, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that, for sure, when you are younger, you will learn things faster and retain them better for sure.

But they did a study of a bunch of people between the ages of 50 and 90. And what they did is they took them in and had them do, I think it was around 14 college courses a week and included in those college courses were composition and music theory. And what happened was it was after a couple of weeks of doing this, their performance or their cognitive ability had actually returned to that of the levels of 30 year olds.

So what the conclusion is that we can draw from this is not that it's too late. It's that we lose the habit. Of learning new things. It's that simple. So it's like we have this skill of learning new things that's grown into us from the time we're a child. We go into grade school. We go into high school.

Then we go into a job. Some of us go to college and through all that time we're constantly without end learning new things. But eventually the day comes where we're in a job. Maybe we go 5 10 years. Maybe the kids have moved out of the house and maybe you just don't do anything new for. A year, a decade, two decades.

You just are happy with where you're at, and that's fine. And I'm so happy for anyone who's happy with where they're at. What a great place to be in life. But the fact of the matter is that there's a skill of acquiring new skills. And once that becomes rusty, it takes a couple weeks for it to kick back in.

So for anyone who's thinking you're too old, just give it a couple. Don't say no to yourself after a couple of days. Don't say no to yourself after a couple of hours. Give it a couple of weeks because your skill acquisition muscle That part of your brain that was used to get new things and learning them, that's a little rusty.

So you're actually doing two things at the same time. You're acquiring the new skill and actually learning the new skill. And so it's like you're having to multitask and do a double work. So it's normal that your progress would be a little bit slower than what you are used to.

And that muscle might be a little sore the day after those first few lessons, right?

You mentioned the running analogy. It's if you're going to quit after the first run, gosh, you're sore. Then it's going to be a tough training regimen. Exactly. Dan, let's go to another topic and that is the actual craftsmanship of the book. I love to learn how people take the skills and knowledge that they've gained and decide, I want to put this in a book.

How did you begin to organize these 14 unshakable laws?

So I started by getting in contact with 300 people who are either self professed musicians or between a professional level and a hobbyist musician. So I talked to 300 people and I surveyed them and I asked them, what was your single biggest challenge in teaching yourself?

And. What was very interesting is only 86 of the 300 had actually started teaching themselves. And these 86 were people who were singers, guitar players, bass players, drummers, songwriters. So we could think of the rock and roll instruments. So basically fifties forward, what was interesting is all the clarinet players I asked were like no, we don't teach ourselves.

We go and get lessons at first. Cause that's what it makes sense to do. Like we don't show up at school and be like. I manifested my ABCs out of nowhere. It's someone shows you your ABCs and clarinet players like, yeah. And you didn't just go to the music

store and say, hey, clarinets for me, I'm just going to pick it up and start.

But somehow we're drumming. We think that's

possible. Yeah. So what happens is I attribute it. This may not be accurate. This is my theory. My theory is that it comes down to the mythologies of rock stars from the 60s, 70s and 80s where sure some of them were taking lessons with each other. Sure some of them started out like Randy Rhoades, the incredible guitarist Randy Rhoades would tell people he was self taught, but if you go and find interviews, he actually had.

Years of classical guitar training as a child. So that's not self taught. And so there's this word self taught that people think means I just made it all up on the spot. And I'm so talented. I just manifested everything I'm doing in music right now. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to figure out of everyone who started self teaching.

What were the main issues they ran into? And it turns out the issues they ran into, there was 14 of them, surprise, and the 14 issues they ran into were the same issues I've run into throughout my life, and it's the same issues I've had with every single student I have ever had, regardless of instruments, singing, songwriting.

Anything. So the first thing was to understand that I wanted to figure out and create a book that was going to solve the problem of people who want to go teach themselves. They get really excited about it. They might spend a couple days or weeks online trying to figure everything out.

They think they've got their hands around it. And then they start and it does not turn out at all how they thought they would or it moves slower. But because they've committed to this course of action, they don't want to let themselves down. They keep going. And I've had that same impetus inside of myself because there's been times when I'm like, no, I'm going to teach myself.

I don't need a teacher. And I understand it because I've said that inside of myself and I've had that same conversation with myself. So I wanted to create something that was going to directly address. Every single problem that you might face when you're trying to teach yourself and how we can solve every single one of those problems.

So it started off from a genuine desire to want to solve a quantifiable problem.

I wondered if you could give us a sneak peek into one of those laws, if you have the book handy, if you could read us a page or so, just to give us a, not only the content, but, the tone and voice of your writing.

Sure. The first thing I want you to know is, If you've ever struggled to be a better singer or improve on an instrument, it's not your fault. A lot of music information can be confusing and will slow your progress. It can be hard to know where to start or how to get better. Learning all the boring extra things you don't actually need can keep you from reaching your musical dreams.

Let's skip the boring, unnecessary parts. You can do this. Many music teachers say the only way to get better at music is to take decades of weekly music lessons. That's a great plan. If you're going to be a professional musician or you really enjoy working with your teacher. For most music lovers, that level of study and training isn't necessary.

For most people who want to get better at playing instruments and singing, the goal sounds something like, I want to sing my favorite songs and play guitar. I want to write my own songs. I want to play my favorite music. Goals like this don't require decades of study. This book will show you how to quickly teach yourself using apps, books, courses, and the internet, and how to recognize when it's time to use a music teacher.

This book is designed to help two types of people. One. You'll understand the secrets and steps to learning music in only weeks and months instead of years. You'll save thousands of hours and dollars by avoiding the mistakes many others and I have made. People with some musical experience. You're finally going to see where you went wrong and what's been holding you back from advancing.

You'll see a clear path to getting past your musical blocks. Why should you listen to me? I have spent 30, 000 plus hours learning, practicing, and performing music. Over 5, 000 hours recording and producing music. Given over 8, 000 one on one music lessons. Sold over 8, 000 books on how to learn music. And have over 15 million views on YouTube.

And I have also created bad habits that resulted in injury and spent hours with medical professionals, learn things in the wrong order. So I was missing pieces of the puzzle and could not take my next step forward, lost motivation and did not practice, spent hundreds of hours, focused on the wrong things, told myself I didn't need a music teacher.

When I did, got lazy and distracted, failed to make time for playing music, was overly self critical to the point of needing therapy, spent hours sifting through unreliable sources of music information, set unrealistic goals for myself, and listened to other people's negativity. I used the small and simple steps in this book to help myself overcome these challenges, then help my students, and now.

If you follow the laws of learning music, you will reach your dreams and be able to play or sing for the rest of your life. When you finish this book, you'll know how to avoid bad habits. Know what order to learn things in. Stay motivated to practice. Spend time on the right things that will move you forward.

Know when to take lessons with a teacher. Develop the patience to master a musical instrument, song, or exercise. Push yourself to learn new things. Find a good music teacher. Make time for playing music and singing. Balance self criticism with progress. Find correct sources of music information. Create good plans and reach goals.

Ignore negativity from other people. Now, these are 13 of the 14 unshakable laws of learning music. If you've run into any of these problems before, or you're stuck in them now, there's still time to fix them. We will do it together. Let's go.

Thank you. Listeners, we've been hearing Dan Spencer share an excerpt of his writing of the Fourteen Unshakable Laws of Learning Music, how to master any instrument and singing in five minutes a day.

Dan, thanks for sharing that craftsmanship. I want to go back to your mission of writing this book. And also you touched on it briefly in that excerpt, but your own personal journey, including some struggles. With anxiety, ADHD, even trauma, how did these contribute to your desire to help other people?

I think the beautiful part of anxiety is that When it is harnessed, it is like a horse that never runs out of energy and it can keep pushing you forward without stop for years and years.

And especially if there's a little bit of trauma added into the mix and you have a chip on your shoulder about the way things should be, or you were treated in a way that you did not agree with and you would like to right that wrong in the world, that adds to the power of that horse that you're riding.

Now, the downside of that is that anxiety can also lead to making rush decisions not thinking through things because your brain is not all online. When you're in a state of anxiety, your hindbrain is working very well, but your front brain, your cortex, where you make a lot of the really smart decisions is shut off or impaired.

And the journey for me has been to harness that horse to a certain degree and also be able to balance that out with being able to access all of my reasoning faculties. And that's something that is still a work in progress. And I use inputs of diet, exercise, things like cold plunges, meditation, all sorts of things to Allow me to have control over the anxiety as opposed to the anxiety having control over me to various degrees.

And in terms of the trauma, I grew up in a cult where people's Value, their intrinsic value was not equal to everyone else's. And there was a hierarchy of value that was present that was not based on any tangible or measurable inputs. Based off of that, I have a very strong knee jerk reaction against treating anyone any differently than anyone else.

So I like to treat everyone equally, and I treat everyone with respect. And I always give, you treat everyone with respect until someone gives you a reason. Why maybe you should not interact with them, treat everyone as good as gold until they, train you otherwise. But yeah, so it's not been all sunshine and rainbows.

It's been very difficult. And, you could talk to anyone who knew me seven years ago, and I had significantly less control over my anxiety. And while I was still making forward progress, it was less controlled. I was not as fun to hang around with as a person because I was always on edge. Imagine hanging out with a dog that's like always shaking with anxiety.

It's like we hang out with dogs because they calm us down. But imagine that dog is just yeah, it is yeah, freaking out all the time. It doesn't make you feel good to hang out with that dog. So it's the same thing with people. When someone's in a state of fight or flight 24 7, it doesn't feel good to be around them.

So it's very

powerful. Thanks for sharing this personal side of your journey. I was curious. I don't know if it came up in any of these 300 interviews or if it comes up on your YouTube channel, but you know the motivation of why we want to express our creativity. Yes, we learn about how we learn and. How we can be trained, but I wondered if it came out because I know in my interviews with creative people, there's all sorts of range of, why do I want to tell my story in a song or in a painting or, in a restaurant business?

And I'm just curious if you've learned some of those insights about why people want to express their

creativity. I think it's a very interesting question, which if we distill down and we say, okay, there's so many different hundreds, thousands of interpretations of why we want to be creative. So if there's hundreds and thousands of interpretations, why we want to be creative, it's unlikely that they are universally applicable because of the very nature that there's so many of them.

So if we try and find a more universally applicable answer to this question, I think we have to step back from what everyone's saying with their words and think about what everyone's doing with their actions and what everyone's doing with their actions when they're creating is sharing something, and these go, that goes back to really fundamental biological drivers of being accepted and being safe and being part of a group and contributing to a group and wanting to contribute and.

We can zoom out even further and filter it through a religious context and say, if we, for example, as a thought experiment, think from the perspective of the Bible, it's okay, from the perspective of the Bible, we were made in God's image. And what did God do? God created the first six days. And so if we follow that line of reasoning and consider it from a spiritual perspective, then our purpose, if we're made in the image of God would be to create.

Six sevenths of the time and on top of that there's also the biological urge To create new things and find new ground and to evolve and we are very much hooked into that So I think while everyone might have their cortex Reasonings like their philosophical reasonings of why we create I think we can look to deeper biological intrinsic parts of our nature that If we would not create, we would not be a fully integrated human that goes for everyone.

Everyone creates everything. A communication is you being creative with someone. So everyone's creating all the time. And I think we just separate people who do larger. More focused effort full creations as being creatives, but we're all really creatives.

I love that perspective. Let's come full circle Dan and put those two thoughts together.

So you're an experienced musician and author. What message do you hope people will take away from your book to not only be trained but to express creativity and what impact would that have on their journey?

I hope the message people take away is that anyone can create music. Anyone can play an instrument.

Anyone can sing. Anyone can write songs, produce, create, perform, whatever it is you want to do in music. You can. C A N. Can. Do it. And there's nothing stopping you except for you. And there's nothing stopping you except for... Not having the information you need. So it's get the information you need, understand the thing and move forward and go create with joy and learn enough of the rules that you have some foundation and then forget the rules.

I was just talking yesterday to a phenomenal jazz musician who described creativity as a double headed dragon. And on, on one side, you have to think and you have to know all the rules and the tools. And on the other side, you still have to think, but don't think quite as much because you're going to have to let go and forget all the rules and just riding that wave.

of being a creative human is such an incredible thing. And so my wish for everyone is just to find the joy and the passion and the fulfillment within themselves by expressing and developing themselves to the incredible magic of music.

Dan, it's been a pleasure talking to you, learning from your perspective.

I can't wait to learn from your training. So thanks for sharing that. My guest has been Dan Spencer, the 14 unshakable laws of learning music. Dan, how can we find you follow your work and learn more about this book?

I am everywhere on social media at music mentor, Dan. It's all spelled conventionally, and you can get the 14 unshakable laws of learning music on Amazon.

Fantastic. We'll put all those links in the show notes, folks, so you can find them easily. Dan Spencer, thanks for being on the show.

Thanks so much

for having me and listeners come back again. Next time. We're going to continue these around the world journeys to find creative practitioners with ideas that they will share with us on how to get inspired how to organize ideas and most of all as we've heard today to gain the confidence to develop our craft and develop our skill so we can get our work up and out into the world until next time.

I'm Mark Stinson and we'll be unlocking your world of creativity.