An Interview with Greg Byers

1:56 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? This is Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined by Greg Byers. We're going to be talking about his incredible talents as performer, composer, educator, producer, cellist, and all of kind of like your background in, geez, performing on BBC2, Univision, incredible like breadth of experience. And I'm excited to share some of that. And also you have to introduce your cat.

2:23 Luke F. Walton I think that's only fair.

2:25 Greg Byers Absolutely, of course. The star of the show. This is Salem here. We're just hanging out today. We have another cat running around. He'll probably be on the lap at some point here. So they come and go as they please. But they're music cats now and I adopted these cats during the pandemic and the adoption agency that I adopted them from, the woman said, well, my daughter was a cellist and I just imagined them.

2:50 Greg Byers listening to cello and i was like they will listen to a lot of cello yes they will and and they have so uh perfect for the conversation today

3:00 Luke F. Walton I love it. So where are you based currently?

3:02 Greg Byers i live in minneapolis minnesota

3:05 Luke F. Walton Very cool.

3:06 Greg Byers I love it here. I've been here for 12 years now.

3:10 Luke F. Walton Cool.

3:10 Greg Byers And originally, I'm from Rochester, New York. Just a brief little roadmap here.

3:16 Luke F. Walton Let's do

3:17 Greg Byers Grew

3:17 Luke F. Walton it.

3:17 Greg Byers up there for 18 years and just want to spread my wings. Went to University of Miami for my undergrad degree. Had a great time there. In fact, spent five years down there. Then I did a year in Los Angeles, California. California attending

3:33 Luke F. Walton Nice.

3:33 Greg Byers California Institute of the Arts and

3:36 Luke F. Walton Nice.

3:36 Greg Byers while that was a lovely time just wasn't the right city for me and so oddly enough I moved here to Minneapolis from LA most people ask why I didn't do the other direction but

3:47 Luke F. Walton Right, yeah.

3:48 Greg Byers you know what I'm very happy here I love it here that's a great music scene a great music city a great city in general And I found a wonderful work-life balance. So, you know, can't ask for a lot more than that.

4:05 Luke F. Walton totally i totally agree i mean it's the same thing like i live in san diego and people are like LA's right there. It's like, yeah, but I like it here. You know, figure

4:12 Greg Byers Uh-huh.

4:13 Luke F. Walton out figure out a way to make the homework rather than the other way around. I appreciate that. I'd love to talk about the different music scenes too. But before we get into that, I'd love to, you started music at what, two and a half years old? How does that work? How do you get the bug that early?

4:33 Greg Byers The story is a little hard to believe, but

4:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

4:35 Greg Byers I've

4:35 Luke F. Walton cool.

4:35 Greg Byers been told it enough. This is what it is, apparently. My mom and I went to the mall when I was like two years old and we saw a Suzuki demonstration. And so Dr. Suzuki is a famous pedagogy music pedagogy and educator.

4:55 Greg Byers So all these kids aged like three to 18 were playing violin and cello and them all. And my mom thought that would be a great opportunity for me and a great sort of activity for me to do when I was young. And she approached the gentleman that ran that particular school and he said, well, your son's kind of on the cusp. He's a little young, but if we don't start him now, he'll have to wait like a whole nother.

5:19 Greg Byers six months or

5:21 Luke F. Walton Okay.

5:21 Greg Byers nine months or something so

5:23 Luke F. Walton Right.

5:23 Greg Byers they were like let's just give it a shot you know um and actually supposedly what happened was my mom wanted me to play violin And the instructor said if he ever wants a career in music, you should consider having him play cello because there are far less cellists. And look where we are.

5:45 Luke F. Walton yes

5:45 Greg Byers So

5:45 Luke F. Walton look where

5:45 Greg Byers that's

5:45 Luke F. Walton we are that

5:46 Greg Byers pretty cool.

5:47 Luke F. Walton is cool and that's so true that's so true like the musical availability thing it's like all my friends that um play bass you know have got a lot more gigs than the guitarists um and i don't know what i don't know what it is maybe it's like a lower frequency spectrum thing that it That it like the popularity decreases, but the availability increases. I don't know.

6:07 Greg Byers We'll have a story about learning bass as well that's kind of like that, but

6:10 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

6:10 Greg Byers maybe we'll save that for a little later in the conversation.

6:13 Luke F. Walton That sounds great. Sounds great. So how did you develop and say like, okay, now I want to take this to the next level. I want to be very serious about this. I want to pursue this as a profession and as a calling. When did that light switch happen? Because obviously two and a half, you're not quite at that tier yet.

6:31 Greg Byers Not at all when I was three, you know? you know uh the joke is that they started me on a cracker jack box and so like they didn't even trust me with like the instrument but i was three i get it they didn't know if i was gonna like smash it or kick it or you know whatever uh makes sense um but i started getting into uh music seriously in high school and i think it was because i just knew you know you're in high school you're gonna graduate at some point you gotta have

7:03 Greg Byers well you don't not everybody has to have some direction but it was just a direction that i already knew you

7:10 Greg Byers Yeah, know it was the thing i understood because i'd just been doing it my whole life you know i don't remember starting cello and i don't remember learning to tie my shoes sort of deal you

7:19 Greg Byers of course. know um Yeah and so um there were several like strong strong Well, there are many impetuses. What's multiple impetus? I don't know what that is.

7:33 Luke F. Walton I think it's also impetus.

7:35 Greg Byers It's not a grammar show, luckily. So I... i started uh watching a show called cowboy bebop and

7:47 Luke F. Walton Yes,

7:48 Greg Byers it had just been released uh i i remember i had a vhs from a buddy and so that was the first way i saw it before it was even on adult swim

7:57 Luke F. Walton yes

7:57 Greg Byers and i was like first of all what's going on in the show this is super cool but more than that i was like what is this music like what is this music what's happening here um and i knew it was jazz it just wasn't like any of the other jazz i had heard before and that soundtrack in particular like i have the soundtrack right over here my

8:19 Luke F. Walton Cool.

8:20 Greg Byers cd wall um and it's i mean it changed my life yoko kano and her compositions and all the music in that just were so inspiring to me and uh I think it helped that it was, you know, not just like a standalone record, but as part of a show and

8:38 Luke F. Walton Yes.

8:39 Greg Byers a show that really like creates space for the music to be like profound in that way.

8:46 Luke F. Walton Right.

8:46 Greg Byers So so that was a huge one sort of like discovering the style of jazz and being like, what is this, you know? um and

8:57 Luke F. Walton If anybody hasn't seen

8:58 Greg Byers so

8:58 Luke F. Walton that

8:58 Greg Byers as

8:58 Luke F. Walton that's listening, they should just go look on YouTube right now and just at least watch the intro video like just the animation plus the music. Everything is just so superb. It's it's one of the best animes of all time.

9:08 Greg Byers yes

9:08 Luke F. Walton Cowboy Bebop.

9:09 Greg Byers go check out the song tank absolutely

9:11 Luke F. Walton Tank.

9:11 Greg Byers um well so many great songs from

9:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

9:13 Greg Byers that and

9:14 Luke F. Walton for sure.

9:14 Greg Byers um you know one of the things i sort of started realizing at that point was I was playing this music in my cello lessons and an orchestra and some of it was super fun music and really interesting and engaging and enjoyable, but it wasn't the music I was listening to on the radio. It just had nothing to do with the music that most of the people in my life. interacted with whether

9:42 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

9:43 Greg Byers that was like you know my high school buddies or like the kids in my jv soccer team or whatever right like uh

9:52 Greg Byers they all listened to completely different music and it wasn't like i didn't listen to that music it's just like they have these these two worlds that never really connected right and

10:03 Luke F. Walton Yes.

10:04 Greg Byers so well occasionally me and my friends before orchestra rehearsal we would jam on like red hot chili peppers because we like the song californication and you know that was easy enough to play on cello so we would just sort of like noodle around on that that before rehearsal and that was our like oh yeah we're gonna play our music and then it'd be like okay back to Haydn you

10:25 Luke F. Walton Right.

10:26 Greg Byers know which

10:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

10:26 Greg Byers totally. was great and I think there's absolutely space for Haydn and I think a lot of my musicality is so uh built on that classical foundation which I think was so so important and helpful but uh I just saw that dichotomy and I said, why can't I do both of these things?

10:49 Luke F. Walton Why Yep.

10:49 Greg Byers can't I do cello and also non-classical music?

10:54 Luke F. Walton Yep.

10:54 Greg Byers And so I didn't really know what career that was. I just knew that I didn't want to be a classical cellist. I enjoyed orchestra, but not to that degree. And I knew about the supply demand in terms of orchestral musicians. So it just didn't

11:11 Luke F. Walton speak

11:11 Greg Byers seem like

11:11 Luke F. Walton on that

11:11 Greg Byers the direction.

11:11 Luke F. Walton speak on that a little bit just in case the listener is not familiar you know maybe they see like in my example the san diego uh symphony orchestra and and they go okay yeah those are jobs for musicians how does that how does that exactly work what does that supply demand dynamic look like

11:25 Greg Byers So. There are a finite amount of professional orchestras in the United States. I know there are a lot of community orchestras as

11:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:39 Greg Byers well, and those are fantastic on so many levels. But generally, those are not paying the musicians there to be there and perform. And so the economics of the whole thing.

11:54 Greg Byers uh when you do it out if you have a orchestra that has a great fan base and following and is able to come out to your space and fill your hall for every concert no matter who you have you're doing pretty well for yourself but unfortunately that's not the reality for most orchestras in this country anymore and i think the smart ones

12:20 Greg Byers have diversified their repertoire to engage newer younger and more diverse audiences uh all of which i think are important and need to be in the orchestra and in in that scene you know uh

12:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:36 Greg Byers but orchestras are big creatures uh if you're playing a mahler symphony or something like that where it's bigger orchestration we're talking 80 90 100 people uh and then you're you're

12:50 Greg Byers um you have to compensate them for what they do a lot of them have spent their whole life working on this one thing right

12:58 Luke F. Walton Yep.

12:58 Greg Byers whether it's cello or trumpet or english horn right Yeah, you

13:02 Luke F. Walton right,

13:02 Greg Byers know it's

13:03 Luke F. Walton right.

13:03 Greg Byers a very specific skill set uh and so there's uh if you can get in that role if you can get in the minnesota orchestra um well well

13:18 Greg Byers You're probably doing really well because the Minnesota Orchestra has a great following and great support and you probably have a great salary and you can teach on top of that.

13:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

13:29 Greg Byers But

13:29 Luke F. Walton okay.

13:29 Greg Byers there are a lot of other orchestras where, and it's not about naming names, it's not about shaming because it's just the reality of the economics.

13:37 Luke F. Walton Yep.

13:37 Greg Byers But the reality of the economics are I have been offered positions in smaller symphonies. uh in minnesota in general and

13:48 Luke F. Walton Sure.

13:48 Greg Byers some of them have offered 25 a service and so 25 from me to drive two hours each way you

13:57 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

13:58 Greg Byers know to play uh for an orchestra like i can't make a living off of that

14:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

14:05 Greg Byers And that's the challenge. I think that's the real challenge of the supply and demand, that

14:11 Luke F. Walton Sure.

14:11 Greg Byers there may be some of these orchestras out there, and they might be phenomenal, phenomenal ensembles. However, the economics are very, very difficult because of how many people are in an orchestra, how

14:25 Luke F. Walton Yes.

14:25 Greg Byers many people it takes to make those wheels spin. And then, you know, you have to divide up all that income from sold tickets. It's amongst all those people, amongst the theater, the whole kit and caboodle, right?

14:37 Luke F. Walton right right it's

14:38 Greg Byers So a brief overview.

14:41 Luke F. Walton good no and i think that that speaks a little bit to the the question of why are concerts so expensive now it's like think about all the people that you're helping to feed in those concerts it's not all just going to profit or the promoter or whatever like obviously there's there's problems with Ticketmaster and all of that that we could get into it a little more

14:59 Luke F. Walton or intensive podcast maybe with a lawyer or something but like the the reality is all these people on stage they need to eat they need to have support their families they invested time resources into going to school and conservatory and getting really good at yeah this really specific thing and then also once you get that gig you don't you never want to give that up you've got like your 401k or your pension or whatever tied up into that

15:22 Greg Byers Yep.

15:22 Luke F. Walton orchestra so you want to you want to stay there until you retire right Right? Is that usually what it is, or do people hop very often?

15:29 Greg Byers So a lot of it has to do with what you're talking about and that supply demand, you

15:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:35 Greg Byers know, I don't know how many people are graduating from music school intending to go into an orchestra, but I guarantee you it's probably. 10 times more than the amount of orchestral positions opening up or

15:49 Luke F. Walton yeah for

15:49 Greg Byers being created right

15:51 Luke F. Walton sure i feel like it's like a it's like a sports draft you know like you you have like the nba only has like 500 players and there's more than 500 students graduating that all want to be in the nba every single year and just you can't

16:05 Greg Byers yes that's a that's a great analogy and i mean i don't know i mean just like the yeah the nba could like uh franchise some new teams but

16:14 Luke F. Walton Mm

16:15 Greg Byers like

16:15 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

16:15 Greg Byers doesn't happen every day in

16:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

16:17 Greg Byers the same way that like yeah i guess like i don't know new york city could have another great orchestra just pop up but like it's not immediate it's not a guarantee there's no guarantee on that it's and things are sort of trending the opposite direction sadly so um i that that math

16:47 Greg Byers difficult that path would be and i knew that i say wasn't like, adamantly in love with playing in an orchestra, that was not going to be the path I wanted to take, you know?

16:58 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes. And so then how did you, how did you kind of navigate this? So I'm reading in your bio that you've been a recipient of various grants. You've also been artist in residence. So you had a very interesting career and I'm sure that a lot of people are, you know, listening to this and going, hey, like, that resonates with me. I am really good at.

17:16 Luke F. Walton whatever instrument uh concert or bass clarinet one of my favorites really good bass clarinet how how am i going to stitch together my my living what how can i how can i kind of not do the orchestra route but but find another way to really be active in this industry for the rest of my life how have you done it how have you kind of navigated that how does that work

17:38 Greg Byers Yeah, that's a great question. I'm just going to start with a story.

17:43 Luke F. Walton Sure.

17:43 Greg Byers I was at a 10-year high school reunion a while back.

17:47 Luke F. Walton Cool.

17:49 Greg Byers one of my friends or you know I've got friends from high school that are doing all these like one works at Google another

17:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

17:55 Greg Byers is you know an educator a high-up educator all these people are doing great things and they were all so flabbergasted that I was a professional musician flabbergasted

18:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:06 Greg Byers and I'm like well I'm not like rich or anything and they're like no you're you're still making that's what you do how

18:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:13 Greg Byers do you do that you know and I think that's the biggest question for people particularly

18:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right,

18:18 Greg Byers when like i feel like generally the follow-up when they hear i'm a musician or a cellist the follow-up is like what band are you in or what orchestra are you in right

18:29 Luke F. Walton yes.

18:29 Greg Byers and i am in bands absolutely um you know i think the best piece of advice i can give to this was talking about what my goal was coming out of high school because that drive set up a lot of things later on in life for me for where I'm at now so

18:56 Luke F. Walton Okay.

18:57 Greg Byers uh that was really really critical that moment in high school where it was like what do I want to do with music and

19:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:04 Greg Byers I know a lot of people that uh might want to i don't know start a band or you know do an independent thing or whatever uh for me it was simply make a living let's make a living through music and that can be teaching that can be performing that can be composing that can be recording uh whatever i just wanted to do it through music and uh maybe more particularly i wanted to be able to support a family through music um

19:36 Luke F. Walton Cool. Yeah.

19:38 Greg Byers and i realized that that wasn't a given it's

19:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:41 Greg Byers not like a lot of other jobs where you walk in after you get your degree you get hired and then boom you got your salary and you're set right so uh i knew it wasn't gonna be as smooth as that but having that goal of like

19:57 Greg Byers I'm going to support myself with my art and sometimes that might have to be a little more corporate or that might have to be adjusted I might have to adjust my musical desire for the client but that means that I can make a living doing this right and it doesn't mean that I have to ignore all the music that I like it doesn't mean that I can't do really inspirational creative projects

20:25 Luke F. Walton Mm

20:25 Greg Byers it just means I have to be real about the economics of it and I'll be perfectly frank when I was in high school when I was in college I didn't want to think about that stuff at all didn't want to worry about it Didn't want to think about it, want to put it as far out of my mind as possible and just focus on the music. And then I graduated college and I was like, oh, wow, I got to pay bills, you

20:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:50 Greg Byers know, like this is real. And, you know, one of the most important times in my life was that year after I graduated University of Miami, still living in Florida. And.

21:07 Greg Byers there were times where i was waiting on checks from gigs and i like i couldn't spend a dollar i

21:12 Luke F. Walton Right.

21:13 Greg Byers could not spend a dollar and it was like it was like wow okay uh i gotta work really hard so the financial situation is better if this is the goal i want to make here you know what i mean because of course i could have gotten a day job doing something but that that wasn't the goal right um

21:34 Greg Byers So, so I think having that goal in the first place of like making a career through music and not, you know, putting that sort of financial piece first was a big impetus for a lot of the other decisions that I've made.

21:52 Luke F. Walton Yep.

21:53 Greg Byers The second piece, the big, big item is like saying yes.

21:59 Luke F. Walton Okay.

21:59 Greg Byers saying yes to things a lot of the stuff that i do now i don't know if i really knew how to do it when i started but at some point somebody asked me to do a thing and then i said yes and then i trusted that i would have the what's the right word

22:23 Greg Byers uh integrity to make sure i understood that thing by the time it needed to happen right

22:28 Luke F. Walton Cool.

22:28 Greg Byers so like uh when i was living in california i applied to teach at a art studio and they had one cello student so i got one cello student and they said we can triple the amount of students you have

22:43 Greg Byers If you play violin and if you can teach violin and I was like, well, what's going on? And they said we have these two twins and they can't understand their Russian violin teacher.

22:54 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

22:54 Greg Byers And so I was like, OK, well, they're like, do you teach violin? And in my head, I was like, no. but I can get a violin and

23:04 Luke F. Walton Yep.

23:04 Greg Byers I teach music and I understand string instruments.

23:07 Luke F. Walton Yep.

23:08 Greg Byers So yeah, I'm going to teach these two eight-year-olds beginning violin and I'm going to practice violin every single day so that when we get to their lesson, you know, we're ready for it and it was fine and it all worked out, you know.

23:20 Greg Byers But it's that sort of mentality of like really trying to say yes to a lot of things, even if I thought it was outside my wheelhouse or, you know. going to be whatever challenging different

23:34 Luke F. Walton Right.

23:34 Greg Byers awkward uh saying yes to as much as possible in the beginning really helped shape uh a lot of relationships that i have and just open doors and now that i'm like now that i'm further in my career i have a little more leeway to

23:56 Luke F. Walton Yes.

23:56 Greg Byers sort of like say yes and no to things but i still i like to say yes to as much as possible you know i

24:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:04 Greg Byers love doing this i love getting to make music with people and work with all sorts of different people and all sorts of different styles so uh i

24:15 Greg Byers guess a lot that was very very helpful um and then not to be too long winded on the subject but it is oh go ahead

24:22 Luke F. Walton No, I just just to summarize that I really like the idea of you say yes, especially in the beginning.

24:27 Luke F. Walton it's like almost like a little graph like a hundred percent yes in the beginning and then it kind of goes down as your career continues but i think that that's the magic because you don't know you don't know what your career is going to be in the beginning so you say yes to everything and that kind of helps you go down the labyrinth of finding out what your career even is and then eventually you go okay no i am xyz these are my strengths this is where i'm adding the most value and will therefore receive the most money and so i'm going to focus on the things that you know i'm specialized in but in the beginning you don't really have anything

24:57 Luke F. Walton anything that you're so so specialized in except for maybe your primary instrument that it's like you kind

25:02 Greg Byers True.

25:02 Luke F. Walton of just you got to do it all yeah yes

25:05 Greg Byers Well, and cello is a specialty instrument, right?

25:09 Luke F. Walton that's true

25:09 Greg Byers So

25:10 Luke F. Walton right right

25:10 Greg Byers for me, that was the specialty in a certain sort of way. And then simply being able to walk into any other genre as a cellist and be like, yeah, I can hang.

25:22 Luke F. Walton that's

25:22 Greg Byers That was sort of like. My specialty in the beginning,

25:27 Luke F. Walton Yes,

25:27 Greg Byers right?

25:28 Luke F. Walton right.

25:28 Greg Byers And that's still a pretty broad specialty, For right?

25:31 Luke F. Walton sure. For sure.

25:33 Greg Byers But

25:33 Luke F. Walton it's it a good

25:34 Greg Byers was

25:34 Luke F. Walton thing yeah yes

25:35 Greg Byers also good to just build the musical skill of making other people sound better. And

25:42 Luke F. Walton yep

25:42 Greg Byers it is amazing how many people want to perform with you when you are good at making them sound good, right?

25:48 Luke F. Walton no i mean and that was that was one of the weirdest things for me in music school there were a lot of there were a lot of people that didn't that didn't do that Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends.

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26:41 Greg Byers For me, I've got kind of like three areas of focus, mostly performing, followed by teaching, a little bit of recording. However, it's funny because the recording piece, I don't know a lot of cellists that have their own home recording setup.

27:03 Luke F. Walton Yes.

27:03 Greg Byers So like that's a piece that I feel like I've been able to specialize in and it has massively helped me in my career, not just because people can call me up and hire me to record some cello from them remotely but

27:19 Luke F. Walton Yep.

27:19 Greg Byers because it then also allowed me to learn more about music engineering and so then when i do other projects or i talk to music engineers or play a live show i have much more knowledge and information with which to communicate with them so um i've i've done more teaching than performing at points um i love teaching I absolutely love helping students discover some of these like really, really fun things in music. And

27:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah

27:55 Greg Byers I feel like when you can get some of those technical elements to an unconscious level, you can really just relax and enjoy the experience. And so I love doing that. However, the student load required to. really turn a big profit is massive either

28:16 Luke F. Walton Okay, yeah,

28:17 Greg Byers that or you have to be particularly nowadays comfortable with charging a very very high number for

28:25 Luke F. Walton yeah.

28:25 Greg Byers an hour of someone's time and it's not that i don't believe i'm worth that it's just hard to like think about how much my cello teacher's lessons cost back

28:39 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

28:40 Greg Byers in the day and

28:41 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

28:41 Greg Byers then be like oh well i want like five times as much as that you

28:44 Luke F. Walton Yes.

28:45 Greg Byers know and

28:45 Luke F. Walton Right.

28:45 Greg Byers it's like what wow okay that

28:48 Luke F. Walton Yes.

28:48 Greg Byers seems crazy but like there's been a lot of inflation and like i'm in a different city and like i have a different skill set and blah blah blah you know i mean so uh i love teaching currently i teach at carlton college it's great um And even there, though, I love my students. I love what I get to work on.

29:09 Greg Byers But it's a finite amount of students and that does not equal all the income I need to survive. Right.

29:17 Luke F. Walton Yep. Right.

29:18 Greg Byers And that's OK, but it's just part of the puzzle for me and understanding that like. I need to do all of these things so that in totality they can add up to a great career, you know?

29:32 Luke F. Walton Yes.

29:33 Greg Byers And then as far as like the performing piece, I do creative performances. I play my own music, but a lot of the stuff I do is also very focused on performing for a specific client. So maybe that client is a wedding couple. So I'm playing a wedding ceremony or wedding reception or something like that.

29:52 Greg Byers You know, I do plenty of those. I have a group that's exclusive with an agency here in town, Geelberg. It's called the String Showdown. And the String Showdown is a wacky, high-paced dueling strings show,

30:10 Luke F. Walton Cool. Sweet.

30:11 Greg Byers kind of similar to dueling pianos.

30:13 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

30:14 Greg Byers And so we sing, I play cello, I play bass, my buddy plays guitar. We crack jokes. We have a great time. And I don't think that's the sort of project I saw myself doing coming out of

30:28 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

30:29 Greg Byers college. However, it was one of those say yes moments and

30:34 Luke F. Walton Yes.

30:35 Greg Byers an opportunity arose inside of the agency. They were looking specifically for this style of act. And my friend Mike happened to become aware of it. And so we kind of, you know, found our way, you

30:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:55 Greg Byers know, working into this and it's been phenomenal. It's been so cool and it's been really, really great performing for just very like white collar.

31:12 Greg Byers rural audiences that's not all our audiences we have a wide diversity of audiences but i'm used to playing in more urban areas and more urban audiences and so going out to south dakota or iowa to some of these smaller towns and making music honestly like it's it's really really fulfilling to

31:35 Luke F. Walton Cool.

31:36 Greg Byers play music that they like

31:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

31:37 Greg Byers and to find a medium of you know not being like you know mike and i we both went to school for jazz right like

31:45 Luke F. Walton right

31:45 Greg Byers if it were up to us we could just play bebop for an hour but there's something really really powerful about you know playing music that's going to resonate with your audience even if it's simple you know or whatever right um and that's something that i've really come to enjoy lately um

32:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yep,

32:09 Greg Byers making music for other people and i think that's why we've been successful as a band because we're

32:15 Luke F. Walton yeah

32:16 Greg Byers there to make music for the crowd and so we put our personal interests aside in many ways and we're like okay well what's gonna what's gonna get this crowd riled up is it devil went down to georgia yes okay then we're gonna play devil went down to georgia have i played that song more times than i care to admit yes and i will keep playing it with a smile on my face you know and

32:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:37 Greg Byers a lot of it is because I think a lot of it is because like at 18 I wasn't playing Devil Went Down to Georgia I wasn't doing that sort of thing and so like I had to get my vocal chops together I had to get my stage presence together I had to get uh I don't know my banter in between songs together I had to get all that stuff together and now it's like oh wow this is like yeah like

33:02 Luke F. Walton Uh

33:02 Greg Byers there's

33:02 Luke F. Walton -huh.

33:02 Greg Byers so much more than just like playing a cello concerto my gosh you know

33:07 Luke F. Walton Yes, totally. Totally.

33:09 Greg Byers and i i think that's a huge huge part of why i'm able to make a career out of music because it's not i i love my original music and you know i'll talk about that all day for sure but

33:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah

33:27 Greg Byers uh i also understand like what the lay person generally listens to you know what i mean um and that is different than my esoteric cello jazz you

33:41 Luke F. Walton Right.

33:41 Greg Byers know so

33:42 Luke F. Walton Right, right.

33:42 Greg Byers uh that's okay the people that love that i hope they love that and i i really tried to make that something people like uh but it's a different thing between playing as vm news Seifert this polish jazz violinist playing a composition by him versus playing garth brooks right

34:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:00 Greg Byers like

34:00 Luke F. Walton Right.

34:01 Greg Byers it's just gonna be a different experience so um Yeah

34:06 Luke F. Walton I always find it interesting to talk about simple music because I think that that's especially to like lay persons, somebody that doesn't even play. They see it and they go, yes, that has a lot of notes that doesn't have a lot of notes, simple, complex.

34:20 Luke F. Walton And it's like it's not the line in the sand is not as clear. I feel like when you talk to professional musicians, they're like, yeah, the simple stuff can be really hard. Like I was watching a video of a trumpet player and he had like a.

34:33 Luke F. Walton like a 10 minute long rest and then he had to do like a perfect fifth like right at the right time perfectly intonated with after just like sitting there for 10 minutes and he's like that was the most stressful thing I've ever done because it's just like locked in

34:48 Luke F. Walton and and having to focus while there's nothing to focus on and just these little things where it's like that's simple but that's not quite so simple can you talk about that just like how do you define simple music how did how do you how did you feel like approaching these like Garth Brooks and stuff like that and and discovering the nuances or the things that like really make it tick you know beyond the notes

35:09 Greg Byers Totally, totally. So I think. As somebody that studied a lot of music theory and still can talk about that and

35:20 Luke F. Walton Right.

35:20 Greg Byers say jazz, you know, generally when we talk about music being like simple or complex, we're talking about the harmony. And it's not that there can't be complex rhythms or simple rhythms, right? Absolutely. But I think generally we're talking about the harmony. And...

35:40 Greg Byers I love this quote by this guitarist, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and he says that rhythm is the physical element of music.

35:53 Greg Byers Harmony is the mental intellectual aspect of music and melody is the spiritual aspect of music, the soul of music. And

36:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah

36:04 Greg Byers I love that description. And I think. I like to utilize that awareness when I'm arranging a song and I say that because when you present more complicated rhythmic ideas

36:22 Greg Byers the lay person generally can understand what's going on and can feel that rhythmically

36:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Okay.

36:30 Greg Byers if it's

36:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:30 Greg Byers in if it's in time even if it's like a weird odd meter thing you still can sort of feel the repetition and the cycle right um and the pattern i mean if it's super jazzy weird no okay no right but uh you know mostly And I think if you look at like club music, club music is not harmonically complex. It's rhythmically very complex,

36:58 Luke F. Walton Yes.

36:59 Greg Byers right? Because people are, it's a very physical thing. People are in the club, they want that physical sensation. They're not sipping their drinking Chianti and, you know, socializing and discussing great literature, right? Okay. And so I've noticed that.

37:18 Greg Byers write that push pull of like how much um write how complex we get in one particular direction you get much more complex rhythmically and still keep your audience engaged if you start going super complex harmonically you might lose some people in

37:36 Luke F. Walton Okay, yeah.

37:36 Greg Byers the same way

37:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

37:37 Greg Byers that if i

37:37 Luke F. Walton yeah,

37:37 Greg Byers if

37:37 Luke F. Walton yeah.

37:37 Greg Byers i just start spouting a bunch of you know esoteric you know sat words you

37:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

37:45 Greg Byers know

37:45 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah.

37:45 Greg Byers maybe

37:46 Luke F. Walton That's what I talk

37:46 Greg Byers not

37:46 Luke F. Walton about the

37:46 Greg Byers everybody

37:47 Luke F. Walton New Yorker.

37:47 Greg Byers could follow my conversation because yeah just like a new yorker um right but like yeah not everybody is going to follow my conversation because i started using two fancy words you know uh but at the same time i want to say the words i want to say to get my point across the best anyways uh so in terms of like performing or just like yeah

38:14 Luke F. Walton Uh...

38:17 Greg Byers we'll say performing you know some of these styles of music it's interesting because i always knew that my favorite like pop composers were doing

38:32 Greg Byers unique i don't want to say complicated but just unique things with simple ideas and

38:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, right.

38:37 Greg Byers like the beatles the beatles are like the perfect example i love stevie wonder for this as well stevie wonder like they're not they didn't invent a new chord progression they didn't invent anything new with the harmony but they took sort of like the elements that were there and they rearranged them in ways that we hadn't heard before um and uh yeah just to

39:06 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

39:06 Greg Byers me that's like true brilliance when you can do a lot with very very simple tools in

39:11 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:12 Greg Byers that way right um

39:13 Luke F. Walton Right.

39:13 Greg Byers and so now it's it's really fun because um this group the string showdown we exclusively play cover songs we

39:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:22 Greg Byers cover other acts so As we've picked up more songs in our repertoire, we dive deeper into these songs and

39:31 Luke F. Walton Cool.

39:32 Greg Byers you see how much musicality is in some of these compositions.

39:36 Luke F. Walton Definitely.

39:36 Greg Byers And I'll give you two examples of songs. The first one, shameless plug, The String Showdown just released a music video for Stand By Me for Valentine's Day.

39:48 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

39:50 Greg Byers um that

39:50 Luke F. Walton Oh,

39:51 Greg Byers was a song

39:51 Luke F. Walton yeah.

39:51 Greg Byers that was requested a lot at our shows so i knew that song i just didn't like know the song so then of course we played it a couple times and we were like oh we should like make a music video so i start listening to the song i didn't realize there was a whole string solely in the original there's like a whole orchestrated string section doing a thing and i was like oh my gosh like you know i mean like Just as

40:18 Luke F. Walton tucked in a there.

40:19 Greg Byers kid i i just remember so darling santa right you

40:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

40:22 Greg Byers know whatever

40:22 Luke F. Walton right,

40:22 Greg Byers um

40:23 Luke F. Walton right.

40:24 Greg Byers so so then we like made a track and so now every time we do that song like we have the actual string solely and

40:30 Luke F. Walton Yes.

40:30 Greg Byers it's beautiful it's

40:32 Luke F. Walton Yes,

40:32 Greg Byers it's

40:32 Luke F. Walton exactly.

40:33 Greg Byers gorgeous and it's like you know i mean it's like you know i'm sure the people that grew up with that song probably remember that moment but like i that wasn't really my generation i didn't grow up with it i just remembered you know listen to it on the radio as a kid with my parents but coming back to it

40:51 Greg Byers it now is like a seasoned musician i was like this like for a four chord jam this song has got layers you know like

40:58 Greg Byers Yes, it really yes, yes. does um So that that was a great one of just like wow, there's some really cool stuff going on here and the other one We'll laugh about here is don't stop believing

41:10 Luke F. Walton Nice. Awesome.

41:11 Greg Byers right and

41:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:12 Greg Byers we do a lot we do a lot of karaoke We all we have a lot of people come up and

41:16 Luke F. Walton I

41:16 Greg Byers sing or

41:16 Luke F. Walton love that. Awesome.

41:17 Greg Byers we'll take requests and yeah, I love when people come up and sing it's great It's and once again, it's about it's about people interacting with the music and engaging with the music.

41:26 Luke F. Walton Yes.

41:26 Greg Byers You know, I mean I can be here in my studio and sing and play whatever darn song i want you

41:32 Luke F. Walton Yep.

41:33 Greg Byers know but

41:33 Luke F. Walton Yep.

41:33 Greg Byers if i'm getting paid on stage i want you to come up here Right. and belt your heart out and i don't care if you sound terrible uh we're still gonna have fun you know uh but don't stop believing we got a lot of requests for that started getting

41:50 Greg Byers you know putting that song together and there's so many little intricacies that i just never noticed until you're trying to like really transcribe the song and really check out all the parts and then it's like oh verse one they play this lick like this but then verse two they change it up slightly and then i really thought the drum part was going to do this but then it did this and then like do you realize that the song starts with acoustic piano

42:17 Greg Byers now but then after like one minute and 30 seconds the acoustic piano is gone from the song forever more never comes back like and just these things that like you know maybe i knew on a surface level but it's like whoa there was actually a lot of stuff going on here you

42:33 Luke F. Walton Yes,

42:33 Greg Byers know so

42:33 Luke F. Walton totally.

42:34 Greg Byers uh yeah to me like i think Oh, and I'll end with a Yo-Yo Ma quote that

42:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

42:42 Greg Byers I heard

42:42 Luke F. Walton I from love it.

42:43 Greg Byers him in high school.

42:43 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

42:44 Greg Byers He said, our goals, our goal as musicians is to make the complex moments sound simple and the simple moments sound complicated. And I love that. I love that idea of. If I'm doing something really challenging, I need to practice it to the point where it's effortless and maybe it isn't effortless, but I want the audience to think it's effortless. Right.

43:10 Luke F. Walton Right.

43:10 Greg Byers Right. And then the stuff that's really simple and boring, you got to sell that Yeah. you have to act like that's really complicated,

43:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:19 Greg Byers you know.

43:19 Luke F. Walton Right.

43:20 Greg Byers So I think it's a brilliant way of framing framing that.

43:24 Luke F. Walton I agree. And I'm back to your back to your analogy with with words. I think that's a good one where, you know, you can have a normal conversation speaking in plain English, but every once in a while you need that vocab word because it's exactly what you're trying to say. You can go and just continue and continue and continue and be like, no, that's particularly morbid. It's like, oh, that's a spicy word.

43:46 Luke F. Walton But if you use too many spicy words, people are like, OK, this guy sounds like a professor like.

43:51 Luke F. Walton not interested but you dip into your bag every once in a while and that's that's like stevie wonder you know he he he was a king he is a king of doing that of standard pop song and i'm gonna hit you with a haymaker every once in a while just so you know i've got this endless bag i could be doing all this harmonic stuff but i just i reserve it for the right moment i love that And

44:15 Greg Byers Yes,

44:16 Luke F. Walton then the Beatles thing

44:16 Greg Byers absolutely.

44:17 Luke F. Walton is like a recombination of like, you know, you have all these rock chords. and normally this chord goes to that chord and there's an established pattern and the Beatles were all like surprise we're doing this now and part Yep.

44:32 Luke F. Walton of it's like the drugs and the time and all this kind of stuff but it was also the confidence they're the freaking Beatles like they can do whatever they want and because of that they allowed themselves to do whatever they want and then they actually did it like that's one of my biggest frustrations with famous people today is you have unlimited license if you're miley cyrus or taylor swift or lady gaga or whatever just take

44:55 Greg Byers Yeah.

44:56 Luke F. Walton a left turn every once in a while that just blows people mind not not a complicated turn just a turn that no one ever would have expected to push music because you have the license to do so a lot of people they stay reserved and i think it's because of fear of complexity or you know like

45:12 Luke F. Walton to get very successful sometimes you need to have a very clearly defined lane and there's a bunch of like corporate structure to try and keep you in that lane um but i love i love music that surprises me um even if it's very simple so

45:26 Greg Byers Mm hmm.

45:26 Luke F. Walton i need i need some double doses of like i didn't see that coming yeah

45:31 Greg Byers Well, I want to go into that if I can,

45:34 Luke F. Walton please

45:34 Greg Byers because I am a huge fan of I'm a huge fan of Joni Mitchell.

45:38 Luke F. Walton yes

45:39 Greg Byers Love Joni Mitchell and Joni Mitchell. she's talked about this like

45:44 Luke F. Walton Okay.

45:44 Greg Byers at various points in her career and she had a career i mean she's still alive uh but she she had a career and there are so many

45:56 Greg Byers different pockets of like starting out as like a singer songwriter and then um going into more like pop territory with a full band and then going more like 70s jazz and doing an album called mingus and playing with pat metheny and then like and there was a whole 80s era that's like very stylistically different than anything else she had done before that and then like and then she even did stuff later in her career that's like

46:24 Greg Byers were produced a kestrel that's totally different too and so uh you know here's this artist that has like really challenged herself and expanded what

46:34 Luke F. Walton Yes

46:35 Greg Byers she does throughout her career and um she's talked a lot about that and one of the things um i think it's from a live recording um

46:50 Greg Byers she talks about you know people asking her to play a song and requesting the song and she said you know she started painting she was originally a painter and she still paints but that was her first artistic medium and she said no one ever asked van gogh to paint a starry night again you

47:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

47:11 Greg Byers know nobody asked any of these painters like hey like picasso can you paint this again no that was like they were in the moment they felt that emotion they put on the canvas boom it was done and so Joni Mitchell is sort of alluding to the fact that like she was in a moment she felt an emotion she put it on a guitar she does this recording and now as she tours the world every stop wants to hear that exact version of that exact recording

47:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Right.

47:44 Greg Byers right so she's got a paid story night every single night 300

47:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

47:49 Greg Byers more times you

47:51 Luke F. Walton Yep.

47:51 Greg Byers know um and so uh i thought it was so just like honest to admit to the audience like i'm human and like i love this song and i love that you love it but i can only play it so many times you

48:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:09 Greg Byers know before i'm gonna go crazy uh and i think a lot of artists uh realize that like they get that one song that everybody wants to hear and they're like i better do a lot more like this in this little square right here uh

48:27 Greg Byers And I understand because they don't want to lose their audience. You know, people expect to hear one thing and like and Joni Mitchell struggled with that. Like she never had the popularity per se that she did in some of her early phases because that was just she was a singer songwriter folk artist when that was a really big deal, you know.

48:49 Greg Byers But as a musician and as a fan, like I'm so glad that she challenged herself. to

48:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:54 Greg Byers grow and evolve throughout her musical career because I think it's so much more interesting, you know?

49:01 Luke F. Walton Absolutely. I mean, I'm feeling that right now, like I'm making my record and it's a it's a weird thing to like.

49:06 Luke F. Walton do a thing that you're not sure if the people that like your music right now will like this next thing but if this is what i want to make this is what i feel compelled to make so i'm going to make it but the the feelings of self-doubt and of like am i straying from this path are so real and i think that it's even um more uh i don't know

49:31 Luke F. Walton more extreme due to algorithms and the computer wanting to put you in a box too where it's like you are related to these artists so therefore you need to sound like these artists because we're going to put you in an algorithmic radio and if you have a song that's over here and it doesn't fit then people are going to turn off the radio and then they'll close the platform and then we'll lose money so we're not going to promote you anymore and it creates this weird feedback loop of like

49:54 Greg Byers Yeah

49:54 Luke F. Walton get deeper into your box don't expand like get even closer and so i think that like how do we fight against that it's through people like the fans need to give their artists room to explore and support them and challenge themselves to say oh this is different from this artist i'm gonna i'm gonna give it a couple listens um and then also

50:15 Greg Byers Yep.

50:16 Luke F. Walton the artists need to let themselves face their fears you know that's the scariest thing to do is something new and something you don't know if it's going to work and those are probably going to be the things that at least some people are going to like the most so it's scary though

50:29 Greg Byers Yep. Mm-hmm. And so it's so funny, the Spotify algorithm thing.

50:34 Luke F. Walton Uh

50:34 Greg Byers I just

50:34 Luke F. Walton -huh.

50:35 Greg Byers want to speak to that because I am in real time dealing with this.

50:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

50:38 Greg Byers During

50:38 Luke F. Walton yeah.

50:39 Greg Byers the pandemic, I was offered a very loose record deal, but

50:48 Luke F. Walton Okay.

50:48 Greg Byers essentially I was commissioned to write two lullaby albums and record them.

50:54 Luke F. Walton Yes.

50:54 Greg Byers So one is one is original music. One is. public domain lullabies

50:59 Luke F. Walton Okay.

50:59 Greg Byers right um

51:00 Luke F. Walton Right.

51:01 Greg Byers and so i was given a flat fee to make those but i don't see the streaming revenue right that was sort of the trade-off uh well they're under my name they're on my spotify account and the vast majority of people listening to my spotify account are there for like twinkle twinkle little star right

51:26 Luke F. Walton Huh. Yes.

51:27 Greg Byers but

51:27 Luke F. Walton Right.

51:28 Greg Byers that's not like what i do right

51:31 Luke F. Walton Yes.

51:31 Greg Byers so then i like you know i released a new album last year and it's like there ain't no lullabies on that there's to me some very beautiful music you know but like that's not the same sort of album you know uh and yeah spotify cannot handle that one you

51:52 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

51:53 Greg Byers know it's like this guy does two genres we we can't have that you know so all all the people where it's like you know spotify will be like this artist sounds like you know and all the people under the sounds like are lullaby artists and god bless them there's nothing wrong with that

52:13 Luke F. Walton Yes.

52:13 Greg Byers and i'm happy that i have a killer twinkle twinkle little star version Heck it's fire

52:18 Luke F. Walton yeah.

52:18 Greg Byers yeah gonna put you to sleep Yeah, um but

52:21 Luke F. Walton man.

52:22 Greg Byers like but also it's like but i want like that's not who i am i want my stuff to be like

52:31 Luke F. Walton Right.

52:32 Greg Byers what people are seeing and

52:33 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

52:33 Greg Byers then like oh he also does lullabies but like that's spotify you

52:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:38 Greg Byers know so

52:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:39 Greg Byers i i just laugh about it i'm not like that deeply concerned about it but but it's also at the point where like maybe i start a new band name simply because the algorithm will feed me better if i do it that way as opposed to keep it under my name which feels really asinine But,

52:59 Luke F. Walton i mean

52:59 Greg Byers you know,

53:00 Luke F. Walton that might

53:00 Greg Byers what are you going to do?

53:01 Luke F. Walton that might be it i mean that might be the future is like maybe like you look at the beatles they might have three different band names nowadays so

53:10 Greg Byers you know you

53:11 Luke F. Walton that they can have their different music go to different places yeah

53:13 Greg Byers know i feel i feel like yeah nowadays like i mean i know they did their solo thing later once they disbanded but they might have had some like side projects going on you know but that's a whole nother debate

53:26 Luke F. Walton that is that is you know it's it's a fascinating time and yeah also like these things will evolve and I think that the artists need to have

53:35 Luke F. Walton a say and how they evolve and so i think that those are important things for spotify to hear however they hear them i don't know how to get to spotify that's the billion dollar question but like they should they should hear that feedback so they can improve their stuff because artists want to be artists fans want their artists to be artists we're not all just wallpaper playlist music we're we're infinite beings of infinite complexity and let us be that

54:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Anything else? Any other like pet peeves or pet projects or any, you know, we were talking about melody being the spiritual thread. Like anything else that you'd want to talk about in that kind of domain?

54:15 Greg Byers I'm going to geek out because I don't know where else to geek out about this.

54:18 Luke F. Walton I love

54:19 Greg Byers And

54:19 Luke F. Walton it.

54:19 Greg Byers I feel like

54:20 Luke F. Walton This

54:20 Greg Byers this is

54:20 Luke F. Walton is your

54:21 Greg Byers a place

54:21 Luke F. Walton space.

54:21 Greg Byers to do it.

54:21 Luke F. Walton This

54:21 Greg Byers And is so

54:22 Luke F. Walton your space.

54:22 Greg Byers if you want five more minutes, I'm going to give you a topic that I guarantee no one has ever talked about on here before.

54:28 Luke F. Walton Bring

54:28 Greg Byers You ready?

54:29 Luke F. Walton it. I'm so ready.

54:31 Greg Byers uh we're gonna talk jazz and brazilian jiu-jitsu okay

54:35 Luke F. Walton Cool. Heck yeah.

54:36 Greg Byers so here's the deal um pandemic happened and we were coming out of it i got my vaccination and i was like man i am not in good shape i've been going for my walks but i'm just feeling old feeling yucky i need to go do something and i've tried going to like you know the la fitness and

54:56 Luke F. Walton Yes.

54:57 Greg Byers i just am never motivated i

54:58 Luke F. Walton Yep.

54:59 Greg Byers that does not motivate me like staring at a bunch of weights and moving around sorry not my bag you know um and i've gone and just never seen results so i was like well that's not gonna happen and i was like let me just i've always wanted to try martial arts always liked kung fu flicks like let's check this out uh and happened to go to a brazilian jiu-jitsu class

55:21 Greg Byers not knowing anything about it like never grappled in my life i don't even know if i did wrestling as a unit in middle school right like

55:28 Luke F. Walton Uh

55:28 Greg Byers so

55:29 Luke F. Walton -huh.

55:29 Greg Byers like really out of sorts uh but just had a blast found

55:34 Luke F. Walton Cool.

55:34 Greg Byers it was really social it's kind of like dance in the sense that it's like a partner exercise

55:40 Luke F. Walton Right. Yes.

55:41 Greg Byers you cannot do it on your own it has to be done with a partner uh and i found like

55:49 Greg Byers well i know nothing about this which i kind of loved as like a 30 something like

55:53 Luke F. Walton Uh

55:53 Greg Byers i

55:53 Luke F. Walton -huh.

55:53 Greg Byers know utterly nothing and it was just like this was also the best workout of my life you know uh

56:00 Luke F. Walton Yes,

56:00 Greg Byers nothing

56:00 Luke F. Walton yes.

56:01 Greg Byers motivates you like someone trying to play kill you you know turns out turns out so um i caught the bug and i think the prevailing wisdom would have been like why the hell are you endangering your hands doing

56:17 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

56:18 Greg Byers this sport you know why are you putting your career at risk and I think those that's a very valid concern you know uh but I mean I got more injured playing soccer as

56:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

56:31 Greg Byers a kid when

56:31 Luke F. Walton right,

56:31 Greg Byers somebody stepped on my ankle and broke my ankle so

56:34 Luke F. Walton yes,

56:34 Greg Byers like there's inherent risk living our lives you know um

56:38 Luke F. Walton yes.

56:40 Greg Byers And the things, the similarities between, I'm going to say jazz because I'm a jazz musician, but

56:51 Luke F. Walton Yes.

56:51 Greg Byers really just improvising in a musical setting and improvising in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu setting.

56:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:59 Greg Byers it's shocking how much overlap there

57:01 Luke F. Walton That's

57:01 Greg Byers is it's

57:02 Luke F. Walton awesome.

57:02 Greg Byers absolutely shocking and so like it's one of the coolest things um what i love about brazilian jiu-jitsu is we have the same rolling or sparring right uh a lot of other martial arts with striking if you start sparring you can give somebody a concussion you're not going to have a good time you're not going to have fun um a lot of rolling in jiu-jitsu once you understand

57:28 Greg Byers the game and how to keep yourself safe it's pretty safe you

57:33 Luke F. Walton Cool. Yeah,

57:34 Greg Byers know there's

57:34 Luke F. Walton right.

57:34 Greg Byers only been one or two moments where there's been a little bit of a scary thing for me but I've been doing almost three years now and it's been pretty easy to take care of myself and more importantly I think for the musicians listening it has completely changed like how I play my instruments

57:54 Luke F. Walton Cool. Amazing.

57:55 Greg Byers and i i like okay yes like greg plays big instruments yes he plays cello he plays bass they're physical instruments right and i guess it should be obvious that like if i got stronger i would be able to play my upright bass better right

58:11 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

58:12 Greg Byers but

58:12 Luke F. Walton right.

58:12 Greg Byers i did not realize just a lot of the minor aches and pains I had going on in my hands and stuff have

58:22 Luke F. Walton Wow.

58:22 Greg Byers completely disappeared because I'm taking care of my body now and like a big part of that is after I go train I have like a 30 45 minute cool down period where I'm stretching I go on a sauna drink like eight gallons of water you know the whole deal And it really goes to show that, you know, the body thrives under pressure like

58:54 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

58:55 Greg Byers the body does not thrive like, yeah, if you're injured, stay at home, take care of yourself.

59:02 Luke F. Walton Yes.

59:02 Greg Byers But the body actually does better under adversity, you

59:08 Luke F. Walton Yes.

59:09 Greg Byers know.

59:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

59:11 Greg Byers that's how muscles work if you

59:13 Luke F. Walton Right.

59:13 Greg Byers don't use them they atrophy

59:14 Luke F. Walton right Yeah.

59:15 Greg Byers uh and so uh just just you know my two cents to all my musician friends out there like i know a lot of us we love music we live it you know 24 hours a day and that was me for a long time but it's really really nice to have something that takes me out of my music brain puts

59:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

59:38 Greg Byers me in a different setting allows

59:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

59:40 Greg Byers me to be physical creative social you know have fun the whole thing and then I come back to the music and it's it's super fresh like I feel like I can play longer because my physical conditioning is in a way way better place and then um You know, yeah, as I joke, like, man, if like.

60:04 Greg Byers the worst gig experiences i've had pale in comparison to some dude trying to choke me out so

60:11 Luke F. Walton totally

60:12 Greg Byers like you know like you gotta put it in perspective gotta put it in perspective uh but

60:17 Luke F. Walton that's so good yeah

60:18 Greg Byers yeah i don't i don't i don't have a lot of people like it's such a small little niche you

60:22 Luke F. Walton for sure for

60:23 Greg Byers know both of

60:23 Luke F. Walton sure

60:23 Greg Byers these

60:23 Luke F. Walton yes

60:23 Greg Byers things so i don't have a lot of places to geek out on this about this but uh if if you know folks out there you enjoy a steep learning curve like learning the cello i highly recommend brazilian jiu-jitsu as well super

60:38 Luke F. Walton yeah cool yeah

60:39 Greg Byers steep learning curve but once you get past that you have a great time and

60:42 Luke F. Walton yeah i mean that is that is music right that's language learning it's all these great things to to do with your time it's it's hard to do but it's

60:50 Greg Byers same

60:50 Luke F. Walton worth

60:50 Greg Byers dude

60:51 Luke F. Walton it

60:51 Greg Byers the same thing when i when i teach uh my students when i teach improvisation it's the same thing like There's a bar, and if you're under that bar, it's really challenging to improvise because you're still thinking,

61:06 Luke F. Walton yeah

61:06 Greg Byers the

61:06 Luke F. Walton yep

61:06 Greg Byers wheels are still turning, and when you get over that bar, we just start having fun.

61:11 Luke F. Walton exactly

61:11 Greg Byers You start letting

61:12 Luke F. Walton yeah

61:12 Greg Byers things happen, you know?

61:13 Luke F. Walton yeah then you get surprised it

61:15 Greg Byers Shocking.

61:16 Luke F. Walton is and i love like this is something that nobody explained to me when i was um coming up on guitar and maybe it's because some of the people that i was learning from didn't have this but when you get good enough at improvisation or music just in general your fingers start doing stuff and you go oh wow that was cool fingers wouldn't have thought of that that and that's that's that's like the most that was the most

61:40 Greg Byers Totally.

61:40 Luke F. Walton addictive thing to me it's like okay now my my like body and my mind have got their own two paths and they some they they intersect and then deviate and something happens you go i've never played that before I love it. Yeah. It's beautiful. Um, one last question. I know that I know that I've kept you for a long time, but this has been really fun.

62:01 Luke F. Walton Um, so I always, I always like to end the pod this way. Um, the show's called love music more. The segment's called love music. Why? And this is just an opportunity to talk about why you love music just itself. Like why do you wake up every morning and go, I'm excited to do this again. And you look out into the future and go, I'm excited to keep doing that every single day for the rest of my life. Why?

62:21 Luke F. Walton Why do you love music? Take it wherever you want to go.

62:28 Greg Byers Oh, wow. Good question. Good question.

62:31 Luke F. Walton Brutal question.

62:31 Greg Byers Um, I mean, I'll give you two.

62:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

62:37 Greg Byers Um, music, I mean, music's just been part of my life always. And in a way. Well, not in a way. A major driver for me is gratitude and being grateful for all that music has given me and continues to give me to this day. I was lucky enough to study with Charlie Hayden and Charlie Hayden, phenomenal jazz bassist, played with all sorts of great musicians.

63:07 Greg Byers What are the things he talked about? I didn't learn a lot of like X's and Y's and technicality from him. It was about appreciating music and appreciating the gift that we get to have every day when we make music and how many people in the world don't get to do that every day.

63:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

63:26 Greg Byers And putting it in that perspective helps me be very grateful that I do get to have conversations like this, you know. I think the other thing. I think when I started music, it was kind of for selfish reasons. It just was something I enjoyed and I was good at and et cetera, et cetera. And I don't know, I've been doing music all my life.

63:56 Greg Byers So, you know, the musical things I want to hear, I can just sort of like concoct in my head, right,

64:02 Luke F. Walton Right.

64:02 Greg Byers or whatever. So. For me, it's so much more about other people now. And so there's nothing better than playing a show and just having the crowd be totally immersed in what you're doing. And, you know.

64:23 Greg Byers if you play for a bunch of senior citizens and they're like up and dancing like they're 20 again you're like that's the best feeling that's the best feeling like we did that through music we did that through this energy you know um or even when i'm working with my students and helping them like

64:42 Greg Byers figure out a concept and like really integrate it into their playing or like take their playing to the next level it's like that's so cool that's such a good feeling that i can help you achieve that you know so i think the two big ones for me are yeah gratitude just being so grateful that

65:01 Greg Byers This is what I get to do every day, you know, and helping people and seeing what music brings to their lives because I know what it's brought to my life.

65:14 Luke F. Walton Very well said where can where can people connect with you where can where can they find you where can they listen to your music?

65:19 Greg Byers Totally. My website is CelloGreg.com. I'm on Instagram at CelloGreg, C-E-L-L-O-G-R-E-G. People add all sorts of extra letters, so we might as well spell it out.

65:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah, it's funny.

65:31 Greg Byers On Spotify, you can look me up as Cello Greg. You can also look me up as Greg Byers if you want all those hard-hitting lullabies.

65:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

65:39 Greg Byers Go check out Greg Byers on Spotify. And then the two projects I currently kind of am pushing. the string showdown we're on instagram uh we play all over the place uh mostly in the midwest but we have like the busiest performance schedule so

65:56 Luke F. Walton Cool.

65:56 Greg Byers check us out we're around and then um my other creative group is called the minneapolis string project and that's sort of a violin guitar cello jazz and beyond trio um There you go.

66:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah, everybody check that Thank out. Thanks

66:18 Greg Byers you so much for having me today.

66:19 Luke F. Walton It was it was it was really really beautiful. Thank you for a great conversation

66:23 Greg Byers You're so welcome.