第 408 期·中文精讀
塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德：音樂、吉他、貝斯、傑夫·貝克、Prince 與萊昂納德·科恩
Tal Wilkenfeld: Music, Guitar, Bass, Jeff Beck, Prince, and Leonard Cohen
貝斯手塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德談年少成名的經歷，與傑夫·貝克、Prince、萊昂納德·科恩合作的故事及創作心得。
官方音訊00:00 / --:--
已從上次位置繼續 ·
中文精讀由 AI 基於原始訪談改寫，非官方翻譯，可能存在偏差或錯誤；表述以原音訊與官方文稿為準。說明
2007年，十字路口吉他音樂節（Crossroads Guitar Festival）。這是埃裡克·克萊普頓（Eric Clapton）辦的場子，全世界最大的吉他節之一，一整晚四百個吉他手輪流上臺飆 solo。壓軸時段，傑夫·貝克（Jeff Beck）走上臺，彈到《Cause We've Ended as Lovers》。這曲子是施蒂夫·旺德（Stevie Wonder）寫的，但所有人記住的是傑夫的版本，記住的是他在那首歌裡的那段 solo。
那天晚上他沒彈。他把這段 solo 給了一個二十一歲的貝斯手。
影片裡，塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德（Tal Wilkenfeld）低著頭，手指在琴頸上跑，臉上沒什麼表情，像是剛從水裡抬起頭換氣。一曲終了，傑夫·貝克轉過身，對著她鞠了一躬。
萊克斯·弗裡德曼（Lex Fridman）在播客裡問她，當時怕不怕。
腎上腺素上臺前會湧上來，這是自然的。但你一旦把恐懼帶上臺，你就是在給自己設限，你把自己和所有人隔開了。你在怕什麼？你只可能是在怕犯錯，那說明你正在用完美主義的方式對待音樂。音樂不能這麼來，這麼來它就不會開闊，不會脆弱，也不會真。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
恐懼是一堵磚牆，自信也可以是
她把話說得更直接：恐懼是一堵磚牆，自信同樣可以是一堵磚牆。兩種牆都把人關在裡面。
她換了個詞。自信這個詞她不太用，她用的是信任。
自信像是一個貼在身上的信念，關於"我是這個東西"。信任只是知道自己能上臺，能接住接下來發生的任何事。前者是收緊的，後者是開啟的。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
這個區分落到舞臺上就是生死問題。一個滿腦子"我很牛"的樂手，注意力在自我形象上；一個處在信任狀態的樂手，注意力在別人身上。前者聽不見鼓手在幹什麼，後者聽得見。
萊克斯追問，為什麼要站在懸崖邊上。她把這句話當成一種方法論在講。
懸崖邊上是什麼？是所有可能性，是未知。你不知道下一秒會發生什麼，我喜歡待在那個未知裡。不然呢？我上臺就是個小丑，給你展示我在臥室裡練了些什麼？不。我要的是此刻正在發生的純粹表達，是對現場的一切做出實時反應。我一旦不在那個狀態，那就是在浪費所有人的時間。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她承認自己磕過，掉下去過。她反覆強調的是犯錯之後的處理能力。
你從懸崖上掉下去的次數越多，你恢復得就越快，可用的恢復方式也越多，快到某種程度，它被藏得太好，聽眾可能根本不知道你正在救場。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
迴避錯誤是另一種訓練目標，練的是不許出錯，越練越緊。她練的是在失控裡保持清醒，越練越野。
她也沒有把這一套當成萬能鑰匙。流行或鄉村的錄音棚裡，人家要的是穩：把該彈的部分彈好，律動和時間到位，別亂跑。這種活兒她幹過很多。最近她彈奧爾曼兄弟（Allman Brothers）樂隊的歌，整晚都站在懸崖邊上。
就算我磕了一下，磕了就磕了，什麼算錯誤？如果我不是整晚都那麼野地站在懸崖邊，我根本彈不出我現在彈的一半東西。我不在乎那幾個小地方。我在乎的是整體表達。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
食物中毒那天的試音
她跟傑夫·貝克的合作，起點是一場身體狀況極其糟糕的試音。
飛機上食物中毒，落地直接進救護車，在醫院待了一夜。經紀人來接她，又開了三個小時彎彎繞繞的鄉間公路，到她敲開傑夫家門的時候，人已經是廢的。傑夫開門，問：準備好彈了嗎？
兩人上樓，把整場曲目過了一遍。到《Cause We've Ended as Lovers》，傑夫只說了一個詞：solo。
她彈了。他喜歡，就留下了。在那之前，他的樂隊裡沒有貝斯 solo 這回事。
萊克斯問她，食物中毒的狀態下怎麼還能彈得出來。她說，就是能把身體和表達分開。
這句話後面藏著的東西，比看上去要多。大部分人上臺前做的準備是讓身體進入狀態：熱身、調音、喝口水、深呼吸。她的做法是承認身體已經廢了，然後不去認領那個廢了的狀態。
我感覺到身體累了，但我不認同它。累的是這具身體，我不是那個累。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
後來她講到，這種抽離也用在評價自己的演出上。她仍然會覆盤，會想"這個地方下次換個選擇可能更貼合這首歌"，但那不會滑向"我彈砸了所以我是個廢物"。批評還在，只是不再用來削減自我價值。
蒙特勒那顆音符，和一份魚子醬
她二十一歲那年，跟著傑夫·貝克去了蒙特勒爵士音樂節（Montreux Jazz Festival）。她說那是她心裡最酷的爵士音樂節，邁爾斯去過，所有人都去過，音響系統是全世界最好的。她興奮了好幾個月。
鼓手 Vinny 在去程的大巴上練了八個小時。所有人那天晚上都在燃燒。
然後她彈了一個自己不喜歡的音。
臺上她放過去了。一下臺，人整個塌了。所有人出去慶祝，她一個人坐在航空箱上，一臉苦相。
音樂節的創辦人克勞德·諾布斯（Claude Nobs）走過來，問她怎麼了。她說，我彈了一個壞音。她說自己當時就像個小孩。克勞德跟她講了一堆邁爾斯·戴維斯當年說給他的道理，把她哄好了，然後問：有什麼能讓你好受點嗎？
她說：魚子醬？
十分鐘後，老頭端著一大坨魚子醬回來了。
那是個玩笑。是個玩笑，但他真的給我端來了魚子醬。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
這個故事在訪談後面還有一個回聲。她第一次見萊昂納德·科恩，是在一間排練室。她坐在科恩的禪宗老師旁邊，一位一百零五歲的老和尚，法號羅希（Roshi）。兩個人握手，老和尚握著她的手不放，看著她的眼睛問：你在哪兒？
她答：在這個握手裡。
老和尚說：對了。
五分鐘後，萊昂納德·科恩跪在地上，開啟一罐魚子醬，開始喂這位老和尚吃。
那不是我在玩梗。他就那麼跪著喂他吃魚子醬，那一刻把我當年在蒙特勒的那點傷心永久治好了。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
"最糟的一天，你依然是個狠角色"
這句話出自斯梯夫·蓋德（Steve Gadd）。
說給安東尼·傑克遜（Anthony Jackson）聽的。安東尼是傳奇貝斯手，當年只要彈錯一個音就會陷入抑鬱。斯梯夫就一遍遍跟他說：最糟的一天，你依然是個狠角色。
後來安東尼成了塔爾十七歲時的第一個導師。
他們的上課方式不太常規。不彈琴，坐在他的車裡，一坐幾個小時，放音樂，聊。
"你在這兒聽到了什麼？""我聽到了這個。"就這樣討論下去。那是我經歷過的最好的學習方式。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
不是爵士，什麼風格都聽。這種訓練練的是耳朵和判斷力。一個人在車裡被問上幾百次"你聽到了什麼"，慢慢就會知道自己喜歡什麼、為什麼喜歡、什麼東西在什麼位置起了什麼作用。
她說現在不怎麼覆盤演出了，最多感覺身體疲勞。三小時的演出加一到三小時的調音，天天如此，耳朵也疲勞。就這樣，別的沒了。
2016年，三個人接連走了
2016年4月，Prince 突然去世。11月，萊昂納德·科恩去世。中間和之後，格雷格·奧爾曼（Gregg Allman）、湯姆·佩蒂（Tom Petty）也走了。這些人都跟她合作過。
她說跟家人去世不一樣。祖父母走的時候，她心裡沒有未盡之言，是平靜的。而這幾位，是另一類連線。
科恩不只是我在音樂和歌詞上深受啟發的人，我們在精神層面有很深的連線，那是我們大部分對話的基礎。那段時間我覺得自己身上有一塊東西丟了。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她把自己關起來，一個音符都不想彈，甚至想把所有東西都扔掉。一個朋友把她拉去了喜劇商店（The Comedy Store），洛杉磯喜劇演員的大本營。
她當時的反應是：喜劇商店？我去商店買小丑服嗎？
她只看過電視上的宋飛，從沒看過現場脫口秀。去了之後，那幫喜劇演員一天之內就把她當家人收編了。她交了二十五個最好的朋友，把所有東西塞進倉庫，找了個小房間住，房租用出借裝置來抵。
我不想承擔任何責任，財務上的也不要。我只想徹底自由，好讓我能處理這件事，不用覺得自己必須對任何工作、任何創作承諾負責。我只想拔掉插頭。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
以前她的做法可能是去寺院待幾周幾個月。這次她換了個方式：跟喜劇演員混在一起，住在那個小房間裡。
她說那段時間教會她的東西改變了她的人生：學會對任何事、一切事發笑。她的祖父是 Holocaust 倖存者，也是個能對任何事笑出來的人，這股勁本來就在她身上，跟喜劇演員待久了被放大了。
2023年1月，傑夫·貝克去世。兩天後她要跟 Incubus 上路巡演。
綠日樂隊（Green Day）的 Mike Dirnt 打電話來，說知道她正在經歷什麼。她隨口抱怨了一句：我連自己要彈什麼都還不知道，這次我想要一把六十年代的老爵士貝斯，我手上只有七十年代的，不太合適。
第二天 Mike 開著一卡車的老 P bass 和爵士貝斯來了，全搬進她的錄音室讓她試。她從一個琴盒裡抽出一把，奧林匹克白（Olympic White），跟傑夫·貝克那把一樣的顏色。
我不只是起了雞皮疙瘩，我直接哭了。我扭頭看 Mike，他也一樣。他說，我猜傑夫會為這個高興。他說這把本來不想出手，只是想讓你開心一下，也許借你巡演用，但你要是真想要，它就是你的了。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
那把琴現在叫"傑夫"。她帶著它走完了 Incubus 的巡演。
她說自己現在更會處理悲傷了。悲傷沒有變輕，變化在於她手上多了一套走過這條路的方法。
科恩教她的一件事：第二天早上再讀一遍
她第一次在 YouTube 上放出《Chelsea Hotel》的翻唱，就是那次科恩發郵件讓她過去的緣起。她住過切爾西旅館，那是他們初次見面聊的頭幾件事之一，在她住進去、旅館被拆改之前。
關於這首歌，萊克斯念念不忘的是結尾那幾句：我不想暗示我曾最愛你，我數不清每一隻墜落的知更鳥，我清楚地記得你在切爾西旅館，就這樣，我其實並不常想起你。
他說最後那句總讓他心碎。她反問：為什麼一定是心碎？也可以只是美好，他們有過一段小小的風流。
關於那句引起過爭議的歌詞，她給出了很乾脆的判斷：
我覺得那是個了不起的句子，是整首歌最好的句子之一。他後來後悔的重點不在句子本身，在於這件事被說出去了，在於隱私的那點分寸。而且他後來在臺上重寫過無數歌詞，唯獨這句，他一次都沒改。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
科恩給她的寫歌建議，是這次訪談裡最實用的部分。
寫完一首歌，第二天早上第一件事就是讀它。然後出門散個步，抽根菸，再讀一遍。去跟你女兒吵一架，回來，再讀一遍。喝醉，再讀一遍。放一個星期，再讀一遍。這樣從每一個狀態、每一個位置看過去，你的鏡頭就越寬，越接近聽眾的視角。你要讓一件事能意味著很多件事。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
《Hallelujah》寫了十五到二十年，中間堆了大概八十段主歌，最後收成四段。
她說有些歌是一氣呵成的，有些歌要磨很多年。她自己更隨性，先讓該出來的東西出來，回頭再看這份東西需要什麼。桑德海姆（Sondheim）走的是另一條路：歌詞、旋律、和絃同步推進，一處不滿意就不往下走。
兩種做法沒有高下，但結果不一樣。同步推進出來的東西結構緊，是工程；放任流淌出來的東西氣口松，是呼吸。真正難的是一首歌裡同時具備這兩樣。
每天只能練三十分鐘，於是她學會了在腦子裡練
十四歲拿起吉他，家裡是學術導向的環境，練琴時間被限制在每天三十分鐘。
於是她學會了在腦子裡看指板。像《後翼棄兵》（The Queen's Gambit）裡那個女孩盯著天花板下棋一樣，她盯著天花板練琴，一練一整天。
我建議每個樂手都這麼幹。你只在手上練，你沒法確定到底是腦子會了還是肌肉會了。把手拿開，在腦子裡過一遍，你就知道自己到底會不會。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
那三十分鐘她也用得奇怪。彈兩分鐘，停下來一分鐘，再彈。她發現第二遍和第一遍差別巨大，而如果不停下來一直重複，進步會慢得多。
停下來的那一分鐘她幹什麼？就是待著。她說感覺像是大腦在說：歇一下，資訊夠了，讓我消化一會兒。
幾個月前她看到安德魯·休伯曼（Andrew Huberman）的一個片段，講的就是這個。研究顯示，練一分鐘左右之後讓大腦休息三十秒到一分鐘，在這段休息裡，大腦會以快二三十倍的速度反向重放剛才的動作。
我當時想，哇，這太酷了。因為我小時候就是這麼幹的，現在有科學證明它成立。有些樂手一天練六七八個小時，我從來沒這麼幹過。到現在我一天也沒練超過一小時。這就是我的方法，它管用。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
現在她練得更少了。她說自己更多是在腦子裡寫歌，所以喜歡安靜，喜歡空酒店房間，喜歡一個人待著。旋律和句子在洗澡時、走路時、洗碗時冒出來，或者在跟朋友、跟喜劇演員聊天時冒出來，有人隨口說了一句好話，她掏出手機記下來。
她說現在寫歌詞比寫旋律多。理由很實在：這世上的音樂已經太多了，如果要寫一首歌，她希望這首歌是關於點什麼的。字是有分量的。
慢下來，慢到能聽見每一個音
訪談裡她現場演示了一段練琴的方法，很多人會跳過它。
她說她可以彈得很快，但練習的時候會故意放到極慢。
那些微小的動作全都在發生，你一旦快起來，就沒法注意到你從每個音裡拉出來的確切音色。手指怎麼觸弦、從哪個方向過來、落點在哪、用多大力氣擊弦、帶著什麼情緒和意圖去打這根弦，這些全都有講究。哪怕你能彈快，也把它放到極慢，看看你能多深地嵌進那個律動裡，去感受每一個細節。這樣等你提速的時候，它還跟著你。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
"提速的時候它還跟著你"這句話是關鍵。慢練的價值在於建立一套完整的感知，然後讓這套感知在高速下繼續執行。很多人快起來就只剩下動作，音色丟掉，情緒丟掉，因為他們從來沒有在慢速裡建立過這些東西。
她把音樂和身體感受連起來了。
情緒上來的時候，人會變得特別忙，動作特別快，因為你不想感受它。那種時刻恰恰是你該慢下來的時候。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
萊克斯接了一句：然後去觀察它，憤怒、嫉妒、孤獨。她說，就跟它待著，跟它好好相處，愛它，愛那個憤怒。
這套邏輯在練琴和修心之間是同一套。慢練是把自己放進一個極小的尺度裡，觀察那些平時被速度掩蓋的細節。靜坐是把自己放進一個極安靜的尺度裡，觀察那些平時被忙碌掩蓋的情緒。方法一樣，只是物件不同。
Prince 的錄音棚裡沒有"修補"這個詞
她跟 Prince 合作過一張專輯。他的開場白是：我想跟你組個樂隊，我很喜歡你跟傑夫·貝克在做的事，我想做一個三重奏。你喜不喜歡傑克·德約翰內特（Jack DeJohnette）的鼓？
她當然喜歡。他說，聽起來你對鼓手挺挑的，那鼓手你來找，我信任你，你 audition 幾個人，給我發兩段錄音，我從裡面挑。
她找了幾個人，他挑了一個，進棚。
然後是最顛覆她習慣的部分。他會先把結構口述一遍：A 段這麼走，B 段我想去 G，橋段可能去降 B，但也可能先按住不走到那兒，大概這樣。然後喊 1、2、3、4，直接錄，錄在磁帶上。
他不允許補錄。他說，我最愛的那些唱片，就是當時發生什麼就是什麼，那是那個時間點的一刻。我們要造一個新的時間點。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
有一首叫《Same Page, Different Book》，他講完結構，又讓她在每個樂句之間彈東西，做那種小的填充。她事先完全不知道會這樣。他非常喜歡。
他就喜歡讓我坐在椅子邊上，隨時掉下懸崖。那是我第一次真正意義上被別人按在懸崖邊上掉下去。現在我一個人也這麼幹，因為它好玩，也因為那對音樂最好。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她還講了錄音的一條經驗：她最喜歡的進棚方式是不聽 demo。聽了 demo，你聽到的就是製作人或作者已經想好的每個樂器該彈什麼，你腦子裡有一半在追那個目的地。她寧願讓人坐在鋼琴前清唱一遍，或者抱把吉他彈一遍，然後所有人進房間，直接從 take one 開始。
她說大概八成的機率，第一條就是金子。裡面可能有一兩個錯，可能有人忘了進 B 段，需要補一小塊，但所有的魔法都在那一條裡。或者錄到第五遍開始想太多，出去吃個飯，回來再錄的第一條又對了。規律是有個停頓。
Prince 那張專輯叫《Welcome 2 America》，2010年錄的，壓了十一年，2021年才發。
歌曲在流派之前
萊克斯問她，搖滾和爵士在技術上、音樂上、精神上有什麼不同。
她說精神上沒有不同。音樂上有，每個流派都有自己的語言，有一套"該做什麼"和"不該做什麼"。她判斷一個樂手獨特的聲音，恰恰是被這兩件事共同定義的：你選擇做什麼，和你選擇不做什麼，是同一枚硬幣的兩面。
甚至包括你做不到什麼。有些人的音色之所以獨一無二，是因為他們的手只能這樣，或者他們的身體只能這樣。缺陷本身就是簽名。
她自己的排序是：歌在前，流派在後。
我把歌放在第一位。歌是旋律、歌詞、和聲，還有律動。然後我會想，在 X 這個流派的語言裡，這個部分通常怎麼處理。接著問，我怎樣才能最好地服務這句詞。再問，我還能從哪裡借一點東西進來，給這首歌加一點扭轉。但我不喜歡為了扭轉而扭轉。有人寫奇數拍、寫一堆 riff，只因為他會，因為他能彈 11/16。可如果這東西根本不動人，你做它幹什麼？（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
這段話其實回答了一個更大的問題：技術到底服務於什麼。她的判斷標準很具體：這段東西會不會讓某個人被移動。會，就留著；不會，彈得再難也是噪音。
空酒店房間，和十二小時的靜默
她每天冥想。巡演的時候，她會要求全團在上臺前一起靜坐至少二十分鐘。她不定形式，不放引導音訊，各人做各人的，有人可能在心裡祈禱，都無所謂。關鍵是把手機放下，所有人在一個房間裡，在能量上、精神上連一次，讓各自的生活暫停一下，然後直接走上臺。
有那麼幾場，我們時間不夠，沒做。我能聽出來。演出差別很大。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她說以前只有上臺才能進入那種流動狀態，下臺就崩。後來她想改變這個，想讓自己一直待在那兒。問她成功了嗎，她說好多了，還在路上，但確實好了。
空酒店房間在她這裡是療愈的。這一點跟大多數人的直覺相反：巡演路上的酒店房間，通常被描述成孤獨的容器，一個人對著行李箱和白牆。她的版本是：
我就坐在那兒，不用管那些亂七八糟的東西，那些沒有意義的牽掛。我帶著我的行李箱，必需品，有時候是三個箱子。我可以坐著冥想，跟自己待著，太爽了。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
巡演的事務提前處理完，路上就可以一天一天地流動。她最近一次巡演打破了這個節奏，酒店一週才住一次，大部分時間睡在巴士上。她說自己非常想念那種空間，只好想辦法：等所有人都睡著了，鑽到巴士後廳去冥想，或者趕在大家起床之前。
那陣子正好撞上一場線上的冥想靜修，一天十二小時的靜默。組織者知道她在巡演，說你有空就進來。於是她就在行駛的巴士後廳裡，電腦螢幕上 Zoom 畫面晃來晃去，坐在那兒靜坐。
我當時想，對，就是這個。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她參加的這類靜修含有靜默之外的內容。一小時裡五十分鐘靜坐，中間穿插開示。她欣賞這批人的地方在於，他們把螺旋動力學（Spiral Dynamics）和禪宗放在一起。
萊克斯讓她解釋這是什麼。她提到肯·威爾伯（Ken Wilber）的整合理論：意識有發展的層級，這些層級跨越所有宗教和非宗教，從你起步的地方一路通到覺醒。基督教也好，佛教也好，吠檀多也好，都不影響這套框架的適用性。
我喜歡它把每個人、每種來路都算進去。自我實現是有路的，而自我實現的人來自各種背景，路徑差別極大。沒有唯一的路。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她自己走過的路不止一條。跟吠檀多老師讀《奧義書》，一讀幾個月；住過寺院；也試過各種冥想方式。她不推薦"就試這一個"。
她區分得很清楚。你的頭腦是思考的工具，它不構成你的全部，你不是你的頭腦，不是你的念頭，不是你的身體。真正做判斷的是那個"知道"，當某樣東西在那兒產生共鳴，那通常就是你該走的方向。
寺院：凌晨五點的鐘，和一間只有一張床的房間
萊克斯問起寺院生活。她的第一反應是：最好。
房間是空的，一張很小的單人床，一條床單，一個枕頭，沒了。所有人吃一樣的東西，非常樸素便宜的基礎伙食。她說這對她挺有意思，因為她平時對飲食相當挑剔，上節目都自帶二十來種配料。
一天是這樣的：凌晨五點，鐘響，起來，然後一直冥想，到睡覺。中間只有兩頓飯。
她待過禪宗寺院，也待過吠檀多的。兩者差別很大。禪宗那邊是紀律：把屁股放在墊子上，坐著，等。也許會發生什麼，也許不會，繼續坐。身體在排東西，很多反應，你未必知道正在發生什麼。
吠檀多那邊幾乎不怎麼靜坐，主要是"冥想經典"，一頭扎進《奧義書》裡。
兩種對我幫助都極大。我一鑽牛角尖，吠檀多那套知識裡就有答案。禪宗那邊是你只能坐，坐完再坐。像我這樣的人需要兩樣都要。我需要一個完全不確定但完全有紀律的地方，就做那套刻板的事。另一個我，從分析的角度得到滿足，想知道什麼是粗身、什麼是細身。我想理解作為人這件事到底是怎麼回事。我兩個都喜歡。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
萊克斯追問，理解人是什麼，是靠耐心跟自己坐著做到的？
她說，更多是靠分析那一部分。但跟自己坐著，是面對所有心魔的最好教育。它們全會出來，而且不會好看。可越過去之後發生的那些事，深刻得難以言說。
問她見過大部分心魔了嗎。她說，出來過的那些見過了。萊克斯說，可能還有？她說，誰知道呢。
最好的情歌，你分不清它在講什麼愛
她寫過一首情歌，靈感來自《計程車司機》（Taxi Driver）。萊克斯提到這部電影裡的孤獨：特拉維斯·比克爾是個計程車司機，極度孤獨。
孤獨是感覺自己跟世界分開、跟別人分開的產物。這種分離感越少，你就越不孤獨。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
問她多久會有這種孤獨，她說一年比一年少，因為她在這件事上很用力。怎麼用力？冥想，讀經文。
萊克斯丟擲一個更硬的問題：人類經驗裡是不是有一種根本性的孤獨？所有的掙扎、所有的痛苦，說到底是你一個人經歷的？
她反問：是嗎？
萊克斯說，也許在最底下，不是。
她接著講了一段關於"給出去一塊自己"的話。2016到2017年，她感覺自己是丟了一塊東西，那塊東西她給出去了。她說人在感情裡都會有這種感覺，長期的短期的都一樣，你把一塊自己給了對方，對方死了，或者你們分手了，你就覺得那一塊沒了。
這跟另一種經驗完全不同。另一種是你向某個人、某件事開啟自己。開啟不帶來孤獨，開啟本身就是愛的經驗。丟了一塊自己才會孤獨。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她補了一句更徹底的話：如果你跟所有人是同一個自己，你根本丟不了任何一塊。
聊到情歌，她說自己最喜歡的那些，是你分不清它在講什麼愛的：是愛情，是對神的愛，是對生命的愛，還是純粹的愛。她舉了喬治·哈里森（George Harrison）的《What Is Life》，還有鮑勃·迪倫寫、哈里森翻唱的《If Not for You》。
萊克斯提到《Wonderful Tonight》，說這歌他本來覺得很直白，直到埃裡克·溫斯坦（Eric Weinstein）給他講了一個完全不同的版本：那不是男人在欣賞妻子的美，是男人在想象一個已經失去的妻子，因為自己人生裡做過的那些決定。所以那首歌底下是痛。
她聽完說，我愛這種解讀。
這段對話說明了一件事：一首歌的開放度來自容量，含糊撐不起這個容量。寫得好的歌詞像一間層高很高的房子，不同的人進去，能擺下不同的傢俱。
貝斯：slap、指彈，和一個拒絕 slap 的人
萊克斯問她指彈和 slap 的區別。她演了一下兩種。他說這看起來太酷了，那個大拇指的動作是怎麼回事。
她說自己幾乎不 slap，用得極少。它有一個非常獨特的聲音，對一首歌做的事也非常獨特，而今天的音樂裡她很少聽到這種需要。放克里有它很合理，很好聽。但有一陣子被用濫了。
然後她講了安東尼·傑克遜的態度。
他拒絕 slap。他原話是，你要是想讓我 slap，我就退出這個活兒。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
萊克斯立刻抓住這個：看，我就說這是敏感話題。她說，是他敏感，我不敏感。
她也講了在電貝斯上彈爵士的處理方式。正經的爵士一般要的是低音提琴（upright），電貝斯的聲音本來就不對。如果非要在電貝斯上彈，她可能會用手掌悶音（palm mute），做各種讓音變短、減少共鳴、快速衰減的動作，因為低音提琴天生就是那樣的。她還有一把空心（hollow body）的 Harmony 貝斯，音色更接近低音提琴，她的《Under the Sun》就是用它錄的，有原聲貝斯的質感，但延音更長。
萊克斯後來提到 Hendrix 用左手彈右手琴、把琴絃倒過來裝這件事，說可能沒什麼實際影響，也許只是精神層面的。她不同意，說她試過把琴倒過來彈，出來的東西確實不一樣。
她還講了骨科醫生給她的建議：演出結束後，把琴整個翻過來，用完全相反的方向做一模一樣的動作，能把身體平衡回來。她的左肩常年承重，這個建議她記下了。
每個樂器是同一件事
吉他、貝斯、人聲，是不是各自的旅程？
她說都是。每個樂器有自己的強項、美感、限制，以及可以被擴充套件的音域，擴充套件多少看人，比如小號，有些人就是能比別人吹得更高。但說到底，大家都在彈同樣的十二個音，或者二十四，看你把八度怎麼分。從這個角度，全都是同一件事：音樂，或者說藝術，或者說表達。
但每個樂器都有物理層面要過，肌肉記憶那些。她希望這個階段越快過去越好，因為卡在第一階段太無聊了。
萊克斯在這裡說了一段自我剖析。他鋼琴和吉他彈了多年，技術上相當熟練，但他覺得自己的腦子是欠發育的。他能感受到音樂被創造出來的那個瞬間，但他沒法從感受出發去創造。他從來沒有練過把感受投射到音樂上。他說那是一種不同的肌肉，如果你真想創造出美的東西，創造發生在別的地方，不在手上。
她說，在更裡面一點。手指那一層更靠外。
這個說法配合她前面那段慢練，是同一件事的兩面。慢練把注意力沉到最微觀的層面，沉到手指觸弦的方向和力度；沉下去的目的是聽見音色背後的意圖，是讓意圖和動作之間沒有斷層。手上的功夫練到最後，是為了把心裡的東西無損地送出去。
口傳心授，和 YouTube 替代不了的東西
她基本上是自學。但她有各界的導師，而且她說自己極其幸運，因為這些導師本身就是她最喜歡的音樂人，科恩、傑夫·貝克、韋恩·肖特（Wayne Shorter），都是她心裡的第一流。
她說現在的人有一個她當年沒有的機會：所有東西都在 YouTube 上，每個天才的每個訪談都能看到，不一定要當面才能接觸到這些人。
然後她立刻自我修正：是，也不是。
我確實相信，有些情況下你跟一位大師同處一室，會發生一些東西，它不屬於智識層面，語言也帶不出來，是另一種東西，它可能發生，我經歷過，我非常看重它。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
萊克斯接過這個話題，講他跟奧運金牌選手待過幾天的經驗。他說偉大有一種氣場，會滲透周圍的空間，哪怕你不練那個專案，你也能從中學到東西，只要你看得見。
關於導師，她的態度很明確。好的導師是支援性的，並非《爆裂鼓手》（Whiplash）裡那種。
任何一個真正對某件事有熱情、想做到極致的人，腦子裡已經住著那個罵人的傢伙了。你不需要再來一個人替你做這件事。你需要的是愛、接納、指引、支援、時間、你開口才給的忠告，就是一個空間，一個友善敞開的空間。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她說自己的導師全都是這樣的。他們從不告訴她該做什麼。他們憑什麼要為她要去哪兒投入？只有她自己知道她要去哪兒。要是哪個導師跑來說"你就該這麼練"，她會問：憑什麼？萬一那不是我的路呢？那可能是你的路。
她把界限劃得很清楚：那樣就變成體育了，比誰跑得快。
萊克斯接了這段。他說體育和藝術確實不同。體育裡完美真的就是終點，技術上的完美是你要到的地方；藝術裡，技術完美常常變成一條讓你在通往別處的路上迷失的岔道。但他承認，自己是那種喜歡一個獨裁教練的運動員，需要有人把他逼到極限。
她反問了一句很關鍵的話：那個逼你的力度，其實還是你在定，導師是你自己選的。
《爆裂鼓手》裡那個學生並沒有選。
萊克斯提到一些奧運選手的經歷：父母逼著去訓練很多年，直到某一天他們自己發現了那件事的美，然後愛上了它。那麼一個看起來像虐待的東西，從哪一刻起變成了禮物？他說這非常奇怪。
她的回答很個人：她太熟悉內心那個批評者了，隨時能把她叫出來，這方面不需要外援。她說那個批評者曾經超負荷運轉，所以現在才要下這麼大功夫。
萊克斯說，你現在整個人有一種很快樂的氣質。她說謝謝。他說，你很禪。
為什麼某些和絃會讓人想哭
萊克斯提到布魯斯·斯普林斯汀（Bruce Springsteen），說很多歌會帶出一種憂鬱，一種渴望。他想知道，在接收端，人身上到底發生了什麼。
頻率。每個頻率會引出不同種類的情感反應。這是真實的，有科學依據的，物理層面的。再加上合適的詞和合適的旋律、合適的和絃，就會引出非常特定的情緒。這可以被分析。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
她自己不願意去分析。她不想帶著這套東西進入創作，不想讓它提前規定方向。她更願意讓感覺自然地把她帶到該寫的地方。
然後是詞的部分。詩本來就是寫給每個人不同意思的，它不該只有一個意思。你把一句詞留得越寬，它能觸達的人就越多，甚至包括寫它的人自己。她說自己唱五年前寫的歌，會突然發現"我當年根本沒想過它還能是這個意思，但它確實是"，然後在臺上突然笑出來，因為一句詞在某個新的經驗裡擊中了不同的位置。
問她有沒有聽歌哭過。她說當然，在浴缸裡哭得像個嬰兒。誰的歌？萊昂納德。她說他的作品是神聖的。
儘早走向那些嚇人的東西
萊克斯問她，給年輕人什麼建議，才能過一種自己會為之驕傲的人生。
儘早處理那些心魔。透過你的藝術，透過冥想，透過任何方式，寫日記也算。走向那些讓你害怕的東西，因為你不去，它們就會膨脹。你迴避它們，它們就變大。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
問她現在還缺傑夫嗎。
我永遠會想念傑夫，但我不再覺得身上缺了一塊。科恩也一樣。我確實給過他們一塊自己，也許他們也給了我一塊，我帶著，珍惜著，但那不讓我覺得少了什麼，也不讓他們變少。你學會欣賞萬物的無常，除了意識，大概只有意識是永久的。所以其他的一切，你學會欣賞它的無常，因為這具身體裡的時間是有限的，這個限制本身很迷人，它給了你一個截止日期，我喜歡這個。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
萊克斯問，所以你接受了自己的那個截止日期？
她說，對。如果今天死掉，她會對自己的人生非常滿意。不是那種"啊我還有這個那個沒做"的遺憾。她說自己從二十出頭就是這麼活的。她不想死，沒有理由死，但如果真到了，她知道她已經把全部的努力、全部的熱情、全部的愛放進她做過的事情裡了。
問她愛在這整個事情裡扮演什麼角色。
愛就是一切。如果你說的是浪漫的愛、父愛母愛，那是一種。如果你說的是東方傳統裡的愛，比如吠檀多，愛就是意識，愛就是一切。（塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德）
萊克斯說，那是唯一永久的東西。她說是。或者從禪宗、佛教的角度，他們會說空。空性，對滿。
兩首歌，和一盤沒吃到的餅乾
訪談的最後，她現場彈唱了兩首。
萊克斯問她要不要先試個音。她說要。他對著麥克風數：一、二。她說，就這樣？他問，我該怎麼數？從九開始？還是從三開始？兩個人笑了一陣。
第一首唱完，萊克斯說，你太厲害了，這太厲害了。她說，把音量擰到十一試試。他說，從耳機裡能看見嗎。然後又問，你能再彈點什麼嗎。她說，不能。他說，不能。她補了一句：真是個專業的。
他說，我該給你做下一張唱片。她說，拜託了。
第二首唱完，萊克斯說，此刻我沒有別的地方想去。謝謝你，謝謝這場私人音樂會。你很厲害，真的很厲害。見到你是榮幸，今天跟你聊天是真正的榮幸。
她說：那我現在能聽一場你的私人音樂會嗎，你自己跟自己下棋？
他說：時間到了，我們得走了。
這期播客裡還有一個沒被展開的小片段，值得單獨提一句。萊克斯問她，被人稱作"世界最強貝斯手之一"是什麼感覺。她沒接這個詞，開始認真討論餅乾口味：巧克力曲奇太容易了，到處都能買到；她喜歡夏威夷果的，配白巧克力。
萊克斯說：這世上最不該做的事就是變得容易。
這一小段能被剪掉，但它其實很說明問題。一個在臺上整晚站在懸崖邊的人，被問到"你是不是最強"的時候，注意力落在了一塊餅乾上。那個問題對她不構成座標，所以她沒有謙虛，也沒有接招。
一些可以拿去用的東西
這期訪談裡能直接搬走的東西不少，不是道理，是方法。
- 練琴時用"兩分鐘彈、一分鐘停"的節奏。停的那一分鐘什麼都別做，讓大腦自己整合。休伯曼講的那套反向重放機制，在她這裡是十幾歲就摸出來的本能。
- 把手從樂器上拿開，在腦子裡過一遍。你能在想象中彈對，才算真的會了；只在手上彈對，可能是肌肉在替你決定。
- 把最熟的東西放到極慢練一遍。慢到能聽清每一個音的起音方向、觸弦力度、音色變化。提速之後這些東西還跟著你，才算練進去了。
- 寫歌的人，第二天早上第一件事是把昨晚寫的讀一遍，然後散個步、隔一陣、換個情緒再讀。讀的遍數越多，視角越接近聽眾，一句話能承載的意思也越多。
- 進錄音棚之前先別聽 demo。讓人清唱一遍，所有人進房間，從第一條錄起。八成的好東西在第一條裡，剩下的兩成在吃完飯後回來的第一條裡。
- 情緒最難纏的時候，把動作放慢，不是加快。忙和快是迴避感受的方式，慢下來才是跟它待著。
- 上臺前如果有條件，讓整個團隊在同一間屋子裡靜坐二十分鐘，手機放下，各做各的。這不是儀式，它改變演出。
- 選導師時先想清楚自己要什麼。你需要的是一個給你空間、看見你、不評判你的人，而不是一個替你把內心的批評者再說一遍的人。那個人已經在你腦子裡了。
- 被人誇"最強"的時候，可以去聊餅乾。有些評價對你沒有用，接住它反而會變成包袱。
訪談結尾，萊克斯引了瑪雅·安傑盧（Maya Angelou）的一句話：音樂曾是我的避難所，我能爬進音符之間的縫隙，蜷起背來，對著孤獨。
塔爾·威爾肯菲爾德大概會說，縫隙裡其實不孤獨。她站在懸崖邊上，站了很多年，掉下去過，也學會了怎麼在掉下去的過程中把動作藏好。她說懸崖邊上是所有可能性，是未知。
而她喜歡的那些歌，科恩的歌，迪倫的歌，哈里森的《What Is Life》，恰恰也都是站在那個位置上寫出來的：不知道自己在對誰說話，不知道那句話最後會落到誰身上。寫的人留出的那片空，最後成了聽的人放自己的地方。
文稿來自 Lex Fridman 官網公開發布的官方 Transcript（含說話人與時間戳）。
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:00:00): I am standing on the edge of the cliff the entire night, and if I mess something up, mess it up, what even is a mistake? But if I do a little clunker or whatever it is, it’s like, so what? I wouldn’t have played half the stuff that I’m playing if I wasn’t constantly standing on the edge of the cliff, like wild.
Lex Fridman (00:00:22): Why stand at the edge of the cliff?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:00:24): Because at the edge of the cliff is all possibilities.
Lex Fridman (00:00:30): The following is a conversation with Tal Wilkenfeld, a singer-songwriter, bassist, guitarist, and a true musician who has recorded and performed with many legendary artists, including Jeff Beck, Prince, Eric Clapton, Incubus, Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger, Jackson Brown, Rod Stewart, David Gilmore, Pharrell, Hans Zimmer, and many, many more.
Lex Fridman (00:00:54): This was a fun and fascinating conversation. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear, dear friends, here’s Tal Wilkenfeld.
Lex Fridman (00:01:08): There’s a legendary video of you playing with Jeff Beck. We’re actually watching it in the background now. So for people who don’t know, Jeff is one of the greatest guitarists ever. So you’re playing with him at the 2007 Crossroads Festival, and people should definitely watch that video. You were killing it on the bass. Look at that face. Were you scared? What was that experience like? Were you nervous? You don’t look nervous. Confident?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:01:37): Yeah, I wasn’t nervous. I think that you can get an adrenaline rush before a stage, which is natural, but I think as soon as you bring fear to a bandstand, you’re limiting yourself. You’re walling yourself off from everyone else. If you’re afraid, what is there to be afraid of? You must be afraid of making a mistake, and therefore you’re coming at it as a perfectionist and you can’t come at music that way, or it’s not going to be as expansive and vulnerable and true.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:02:10): So no, I was excited and passionate and having the best time. And also the fact that he gave me this solo, the context of this performance is that this was a guitar festival. It’s one of the biggest guitar festivals in the world because it’s Eric Clapton’s festival, and there’s 400 guitarists that are all playing solos all night. And we were towards the end of the night, and I could tell Jeff got a kick out of, I’m not going to solo on one of my most well-known songs, Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers. Well, Stevie Wonder wrote it, but people know Jeff for that song and his solo on it. It’s like, “I’m going to give it to my bass player.” And he did, and like-
Lex Fridman (00:03:02): You took it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:03:03): The fact that he’s bowing, he didn’t have to do that.
Lex Fridman (00:03:03): But you really stepped up there.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:03:14): It just shows what a generous musician he is, and that’s evident in his playing across the board. He is a generous, loving, open musician. He’s not there for himself. He’s there for the music. And he thought, “Well, this would be the perfect musical thing to do.” And it kind of all started when I went to audition for him, which was an interesting experience because I got food poisoning on the plane.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:03:46): And so literally when the plane landed, I went straight into an ambulance into a hospital overnight. The manager picked me up and I showed up at Jeff’s door, which was a three-hour drive through windy country roads, and he answered the door, and he is like, “Okay, you’re ready to play?” So we went upstairs and started rattling off the set. And when it came to this song, Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers, he just said solo, and he loved it and kept the solo in it. So that’s how, there was no bass solo before I was playing in his band. So this whole thing was kind of new.
Lex Fridman (00:04:24): So even with food poisoning, you could step up?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:04:27): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:04:28): That’s just like what? Instinct?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:04:30): It’s just being able to differentiate from the body and from expression, music.
Lex Fridman (00:04:37): It’s interesting. You said fear walls you off from the other musicians, and what are you afraid of? You’re afraid of making a mistake. Beethoven said, “To play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable.” Do you think the old man had a point?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:04:54): Yeah. Different styles of music invite varying degrees of, I would say, uncertainty or unsafety in the way that people might perceive it. So for instance, the tour that I was just on playing Allman Brothers songs, I am standing on the edge of the cliff the entire night, and if I mess something up, mess it up, what even is a mistake? But if I do a little clunker or whatever it is, it’s like, so what? I wouldn’t have played half the stuff that I’m playing if I wasn’t constantly standing on the edge of the cliff, like wild.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:05:38): And so I don’t care about those few little things. I care about the overall expression. And then there’s other gigs that, for instance, if I got called for a pop or a country session or a show. In those environments, they may want you to play safe, just play the part and play it with a great groove and time and great dynamics and don’t really veer away from the part and stuff. And I’ve done plenty of those gigs too. It’s just a different hat you put on.
Lex Fridman (00:06:14): What do you get from the veering? From the veering off the beaten path? You just love it? Or is that going to make the performance better? Why stand at the edge of the cliff?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:06:28): Because at the edge of the cliff is all possibilities and unknown. You don’t know what’s coming. And I love being there in the unknown. Otherwise, it’s just like, “Well, why are we doing this? Am I just like a clown on stage showing you my skills or what I’ve studied in my bedroom?” It’s like, no, I want to be pure expression happening right now and responding in real time to everything that’s happening. And anytime I’m not doing that, it’s like it’s a waste of everybody’s time.
Lex Fridman (00:07:06): Have you ever messed it up real bad?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:07:09): Messed what up?
Lex Fridman (00:07:11): I mean, all comedians bomb. You’re a big fan of comedy.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:07:13): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:07:14): Have you ever bombed on stage?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:07:16): Probably. I think it’s all about recovery. And the more times that you fall off the cliff, the quicker you know how to recover and the varying ways that you can recover to the point in which it’s concealed so much that maybe a listener might not even know that you’re recovering.
Lex Fridman (00:07:38): And eventually you learn to fly, if we take that metaphor all the way, off the cliff. [inaudible 00:07:44]
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:07:43): Remember one time when I was really young. Well, not really young, but when I was 21 or-
Lex Fridman (00:07:44): What is age anyway?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:07:52): 22? Yeah, exactly. But when I was first playing with Jeff Beck and we played at what I consider the best, the coolest jazz festival, it’s Montreux Jazz. And Miles played there, everyone played there, and they have the best speaker system ever. I was excited for months, and the drummer, Vinny was practicing for eight hours in the bus on the way there, and everyone was on fire on stage. And I remember playing a note, just one note that I really didn’t like. And I let it go in the moment on stage, but as soon as I got off-stage, I was really sad.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:08:37): And so I sat on this road case, everyone was out celebrating. I sat this road case, look with a sad face, boo-hoo. And then Claude Nobs, the owner of the whole festival, came out to me. He’s like, “Tal, what’s wrong?” And I’m like, “I played a bad note.” I was such a child. And he said all this wise stuff that Miles Davis had imparted to him and it fully cheered me up. He’s like, “Is there anything that would make you feel better?” And I was like, “Caviar?” The dude came back 10 minutes later with this huge thing.
Lex Fridman (00:09:18): Oh wow.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:09:18): It was a joke. It was a joke, but he actually brought me caviar. But anyway, that’s the one time that I remember being sad about a performance. Now I’m just like, “Okay, whatever. It’s done.”
Lex Fridman (00:09:30): Was it a physical slip of the fingers or did you intend to play that note?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:09:35): That I can’t remember. I can’t remember if it was just a bad choice that sounded like a clanger, why it happened. It was so long ago, but I don’t get depressed about that anymore.
Lex Fridman (00:09:48): That’d be funny if that was your biggest and only regret in life is that note, and that haunted you in your dreams.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:09:53): And then I’m on my deathbed and everyone’s just bringing me caviar because the one-
Lex Fridman (00:09:59): Joke went way too far. You talked about confidence somewhere. I don’t remember where. So I want to ask you about how much confidence it takes to be up there. You said something that Anthony Jackson told you as encouragement, line that I really like. That quote, “On your worst day, you’re still a bad motherfucker.”
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:10:17): That’s actually a Steve Gadd quote. And Steve used to tell that to Anthony because Anthony used to get real depressed if he did a wrong thing or not perfect thing. And Steve Gadd used to say this to Anthony Jackson. And then Anthony was my first bass mentor or just mentor in general.
Lex Fridman (00:10:36): For people don’t know, he’s a legendary bassist.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:10:37): He’s a legendary bassist. And I started playing the bass when I was 17 and I moved to New York and I met Anthony and he started mentoring me bit in a very not typical way. He would just sit in his car with me for hours and talk music.
Lex Fridman (00:10:55): You guys just listen to music and analyze it?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:10:57): Exactly. And that was the best form of learning, I think. Just like, “Well, what do you perceive here?” And, “Well, I heard this” and just discussing that.
Lex Fridman (00:11:08): Jazz usually?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:11:09): No, all styles of music. And yeah, he told me that story about on your worst day because yeah, even then when I was 18, 19, I’d get sad sometimes about performances. “I could have done this.” I don’t do that anymore, thankfully. Or I’d be miserable.
Lex Fridman (00:11:29): So you always kind of feel pretty good?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:11:31): Yeah. Yeah, now I do. Now it’s just I sense the body feeling fatigued, especially if it’s a very long show. The ones I just did with three hour shows and we did one to three hour sound checks. So that’s a lot of physical activity every day. So I just feel the body being tired, fatigued, the ears are fatigued. That’s about it. I don’t really reflect on the show much.
Lex Fridman (00:11:59): You’re almost like from a third person perspective, feel the body get tired and just accept it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:12:05): Yeah, I don’t want to identify with it then I’m tired, but I’m not tired.
Lex Fridman (00:12:09): It’s very Zen.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:12:10): I’m usually energized.
Lex Fridman (00:12:12): It’s like with the food poisoning, the mind is still capable of creative genius, even if the body is gone.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:12:18): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:12:19): Something like that? So no self-critical component to the way you see your performances anymore?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:12:30): There is critique, but not in the way that it would diminish my sense of self. It’s different. I can just kind of look at something and be like, “Okay, well actually next time I’ll do this choice and this choice, maybe. Maybe this would serve the song better. Maybe this would help the groove feel more like this.” But it’s not like, “I suck because I did this and I’m a loser.”
Lex Fridman (00:12:58): Do you think that’s bad? Even when I asked that question, I had a self-critical thought that, “Why’d you ask that question? That’s the wrong question.” I always have the self-critical engine running. Is it necessarily a bad thing?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:13:12): It depends. If it’s affecting you negatively.
Lex Fridman (00:13:14): What is negative anyway?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:13:15): Well, if it brings your frequency down and you feel less joyful inside and less, you don’t feel like complete, you feel less than, less worthy of something, than you could call that bad if you aspire to not feel that way.
Lex Fridman (00:13:35): Yeah, I aspire to not feel that way in the big picture, but in the little picture, a little pain is good.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:13:41): That’s fair.
Lex Fridman (00:13:43): So confidence. You seem like in this performance, you seem confident. You seem to be truly walking the bad motherfucker way of life.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:13:55): A word that I prefer over confidence is trust. Because I think with confidence is almost like is a belief assigned to it that I am this thing.
Lex Fridman (00:13:55): Ego.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:14:08): That you believe in. Whereas trust is just simply knowing that you can get up there and handle whatever is going to come your way. And it’s more of an open feeling where it’s like, “Yeah, I could do this. Sure.” But not like, “I’m a bad motherfucker.” You know what I mean? There’s a huge difference because I’ve shared the stage with people who have a lot of confidence and it can be like a brick wall, just like fear is a brick wall.
Lex Fridman (00:14:40): So the brick wall is a bad thing. The thing you have with Jeff here on stage-
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:14:44): Is not a brick wall.
Lex Fridman (00:14:45): There’s no wall, just chemistry.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:14:46): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:14:47): How can you explain that chemistry the two of you had?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:14:49): Trust and lack of fear. Yeah, and also I will say that each individual has developed likes and dislikes over their lifetime. And that can be like in this case, we’re just talking aesthetic likes and dislikes. So in this particular case, obviously our likes and dislikes are very much aligned such that the things I do to complement him, he enjoys and vice versa. But it could be two very trusting open musicians on stage that don’t have walls up, but their choices are very different. And one person likes heavy metal and the other person likes classical. So it’s got to be both.
Lex Fridman (00:15:33): So you guys were good at yes and-sing each other musically?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:15:37): Definitely.
Lex Fridman (00:15:37): Is that where you’re most at peace in a meditative way? It’s on stage?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:15:46): It used to be that it would only be on stage. It started with that. That was almost like my way into flow state and meditation was playing music. And then back in the day when I’d kind of crash after shows, I wanted to change that. I wanted to always feel like I’m in flow state.
Lex Fridman (00:16:09): Have you succeeded?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:16:10): I’ve gotten a lot better. I’m still obviously on the journey, but yes.
Lex Fridman (00:16:17): So you meditate? I think you said somewhere that you meditate before shows or just in general?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:16:21): I meditate every day. When I’m on tour with my band, I ask that we all meditate together for at least 20 minutes. And I don’t dictate which type of meditation. I don’t put on a guided meditation. Everyone has their own thing they want to do. Maybe someone might be praying in their head, it doesn’t matter. It’s just the idea that we all put our phones down and we all are in one room connecting energetically, spiritually, and just letting our lives go for a second. And then we walk straight on the stage and it’s always really connected. And there were a couple gigs where we ran out of time for that, and I could tell. There was a major difference in the performance.
Lex Fridman (00:17:07): So it both connects you and centers you, all of those things.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:17:11): But then when I’m home, I love to meditate and I’ve tried various styles of meditation and studied various types of things. So I don’t do just one thing. I kind of customize it depending on where I’m at in my life.
Lex Fridman (00:17:30): You and the world lost Jeff Beck a year ago. You told me you really miss him. How’s the pain of losing Jeff change you? Maybe deepen your sense of the world?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:17:43): It’s hard to accept that we won’t create something musically again in this lifetime. But in terms of the grief, grief was easier for me because I went through a major grief period in 2016 and 17, and that was the first time I’d really gone through the process of grief in a non-family situation with friends and mentors and people that I’d created with, which is different. It’s a different kind of connection. When my grandparents died, it’s like there was nothing left unsaid. And I was at peace with what was happening.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:18:40): With this, when Prince died out of the blue in mid 2016, and then Leonard Cohen died in November, that just tore me to shreds because Leonard Cohen was not just someone that profoundly inspired me musically and lyrically, but spiritually, we had a very deep connection. And that was the basis of a lot of our conversation was spirituality. And so at that time, I felt like a piece of me went missing. And that was a very long process where I just stayed in my place and didn’t want to play a note of music. I kind of wanted to just get rid of all my stuff. So I had a friend come over and he’s like, “You should just, why don’t you come to the Comedy Store?” I’m like, “Comedy Store? What am I going to go to some store and buy clown suits? What are you talking about? What’s a Comedy Store?” He’s like, “No, no, no. The Comedy Store, the place where comedians go.”
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:19:54): I’m like, “Okay, well, I’ve never seen standup. I’ve seen Seinfeld on TV. That’s the extent of my standup experience.” So he took me to the Comedy Store and every single one of those comedians embraced me like I was family. It didn’t even take a day. I was part of the family and I made 25 best friends, and I ended up throwing all my stuff in storage and finding a little room to stay in where I rented my gear out and my rent paying was me loaning the gear. I didn’t want any responsibilities, financial, I just wanted to be completely free so that I could just process it and not feel like I had to commit to anything work-wise or creatively. I just wanted to unplug.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:20:50): And so this was a fun and very different way to unplug, because previously I may have just gone to a monastery and spent weeks at a monastery or months, but in this case I was like, “You know what? This is a different kind of experience. I’m going to just hang out with comedians and stay in this room.”
Lex Fridman (00:21:09): With no responsibility, really.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:21:11): Other than to really deeply connect with this grief that I’m experiencing. I’m not going to negate it. I’m going to really fully connect to it. And I did, and it was tough. And then more people in 2017 were leaving. Gregg Allman, Tom Petty. I mean, these are people, I worked with all these people and had great connections with them, and they were all going, and the world was mourning the loss of these people because of everything that they’d given to the world. They’d changed the world’s lives, not just mine because I knew them personally. And so that was also complicated. And why, for me, it was interesting to be grieving the loss of these musicians with comedians.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:22:04): And I learned a lot. It changed my life. I learned to laugh at absolutely anything, everything. I mean, my grandpa had a really great sense of humor too. My grandpa was a Holocaust survivor, and he could just laugh at anything. And so I already kind of have that in me. But being around all these comedians just kind of exaggerated that for me, and that really changed things for me for the better. So then when Jeff Beck died, it was like, “Okay, I’ve got these tools. I know what this is and I’m going to go through it again, and I’m going to be on tour with Incubus in two days.”
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:22:45): So Mike Dirnt from Green Day, he called me up and he said, “Hey, I know you’re going through a lot.” And I said, “I don’t even know what I’m going to play. I really want a vintage jazz bass for this, and I only have a seventies one that I don’t really think is appropriate. I really need a sixties one, blah, blah, blah.” And Mike’s like, “I’m going to hook you up.” He showed up to my place the next day with a truckload of old P basses and jazz basses and brought them all into my studio, and I’m playing them.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:23:16): And then I pull one out of the case and it’s Olympic White, just like Jeff Beck and I play it. And not only did I get goosebumps and started crying, but I looked over at Mike and same thing was happening, and he’s like, “I guess Jeff might be happy about this.” And he’s like, “Well, I didn’t want to let this one go. I was just trying to cheer you up a bit and maybe loan it to you for the tour, but if you really want it’s yours.” And I was like, “Oh my God, this is… Mike Dirnt is the nicest guy ever.”
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:23:59): So that happened. So that bass’ name is Jeff, and it’s a white jazz bass, and I played it on the Incubus tour. But yeah, I do feel like I’m more equipped to handle grief now.
Lex Fridman (00:24:11): Tell me about the Comedy Store a little bit more. Do you think comedians and musicians in some deep fundamental way are made from the same cloth? Are they spiritually connected somehow?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:24:25): I think everyone’s connected spiritually in the same way. So I think personality wise, comedians and musicians are quite different, actually.
Lex Fridman (00:24:38): In what way?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:24:40): Well, you’d have to subdivide even musicians into different categories too, because the thing that I appreciate about comedians is that you go to a restaurant with them and all the observational humor of, they’ll notice everything and make you laugh about it, which a really great songwriter does the same thing too. And my favorite lyricists, like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Warren Zevon, they add comedy into their lyric. And so those types of people I would liken to hanging out with a comedian.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:25:16): It’s very different from say somebody that is an instrumental guitarist or something like that, that they’re more focused on, whether it’s a kinesthetic thing or a physical thing or whatever it is. They’re not quite doing the observational thing in the same way. So I just appreciate, my favorite thing to do is go on and laugh, especially because I can tend to be pretty analytical and be in my head. So anything that just kind of lets me be in my heart and just enjoy life is great.
Lex Fridman (00:25:54): I think there’s a photo of you with Dave Chappelle on stage. What was that about?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:25:58): So right after Leonard Cohen passed away, the Comedy Store threw me a birthday party. It was this crazy lineup, and it was like I’d play a song with my band, and then Jackson Brown sat in and sang a song, and then Dave Chappelle came up and said some jokes. It was one of my favorite nights ever.
Lex Fridman (00:25:59): Yeah.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:26:23): Yeah. It was cool. It was a very healing birthday party.
Lex Fridman (00:26:27): Yeah, there’s something magical about that place.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:26:29): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:26:30): It’s really special.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:26:31): Yeah. Well, the Mothership has some magic to it too. It’s really cool. It’s different. Totally different vibe, but super awesome.
Lex Fridman (00:26:40): You said that Leonard Cohen is a songwriting inspiration of yours. I saw you perform his song Chelsea Hotel, brilliantly on the internet. It’s about, for people who don’t know his love affair with Janet Joplin. How does that song make you feel?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:27:01): Great. I love that song.
Lex Fridman (00:27:03): Which aspect? Musically, the melancholy feeling, the hopeful feeling, the cocky feeling? All of it, every single line has a different feeling to it, really.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:27:16): Yeah. But as a whole piece, I appreciate it so much. I actually lived at the Chelsea Hotel, and when Leonard and I first met, that was one of the first things we talked about was that I lived there, where all that stuff went down before they tore it apart. And yeah, it is just a beautiful song.
Lex Fridman (00:27:44): What makes me sad, the way it ends. “I don’t mean to suggest that I loved you the best. I can’t keep track of each fallen robin. I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel. That’s all, I don’t even think of you that often.” That line, ” I don’t even think of you that often” always breaks my heart for some reason.
Lex Fridman (00:28:00): … I don’t even think of you that often, always breaks my heart for some reason. How ephemeral, how short lasting certain love affairs can be. Just kind of like, huh.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:28:14): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:28:14): Do you think he meant it? I always think he’s trying to convince himself of it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:28:19): It could be both, or either. That’s the beautiful thing about poetry and lyric, is that it’s supposed to be open.
Lex Fridman (00:28:27): Yeah. I wonder if it’s also open to him, depending on the day.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:28:30): Definitely. The thing that he taught me, or his advice to me was when you’re writing a song, look at it the next morning, just first thing, and read it. And then take a walk, smoke a joint, read it again. Go have a fight with your daughter, come back, read it again. Get drunk, read it again. Wait a week, read it again. Just so that from every state and every position, the wider the lens is going to be from an audience perspective. You want things to mean multiple things.
Lex Fridman (00:29:12): There’s one line I read somewhere, that he regrets putting in the song, so I’ve got to ask you about it. It’s pretty edgy. It’s about, “Giving me head on the unmade bed.” You think that’s a good line, or a bad line?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:29:27): I think it’s an amazing line. It’s one of the best lines in the song.
Lex Fridman (00:29:30): Yeah, right?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:29:30): When he put that song out, obviously he didn’t regret it, or he wouldn’t have put that lyric in the song. I think what happened was that eventually word got out, either from him or from somebody else, that the song was about Janis Joplin. And so at that point, he regretted the indiscretion. It wasn’t that he regretted how great the line was, it was just the privacy factor. But then again, Leonard’s known for rewriting his lyrics. In his live shows, you’ll see a bunch of songs where it’s like new lyrics. And he didn’t do it because he didn’t like the old lyrics, he just did it because he could, because he’s Leonard. And it’s like, why not have fun with words the way musicians have fun improvising solos on stage? And he could have changed that line in Chelsea Hotel after, in retrospect, and he never did.
Lex Fridman (00:30:26): “I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel. You were talking so brave and so sweet. Giving me head on the unmade bed, while the limousines wait in the street.”
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:30:35): It’s so powerful.
Lex Fridman (00:30:36): It’s a powerful line. It just kind of shocks you.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:30:39): Well, that’s what’s so great about it. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:30:42): But also heartbreaking, because it doesn’t last. Especially actually, to me it adds more meaning once you know it was Janis Joplin. It’s like, okay, these two stars collided for a time.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:30:54): Yeah, but why is it heartbreaking? It could also be just beautiful that they had a little fling.
Lex Fridman (00:31:00): Yeah, everything is beautiful.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:31:02): Thank you.
Lex Fridman (00:31:03): Even the dark stuff. What’s not beautiful? Everything is beautiful, if you look long enough and deeply enough. What were we saying? Oh, what do you think about Hallelujah? What do you think about the different songs of his, and why’d you choose Chelsea Hotel to perform?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:31:22): Because I lived there, and it meant something to me to sing that song. And actually when I put that song out on YouTube, that’s when he sent me an email. He’s like, “Hey, do you want to come over?”
Lex Fridman (00:31:37): Nice. This is how you guys connected?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:31:39): No, we met in a rehearsal studio. I ended up watching their whole rehearsal, and sitting there next to Roshi, his 105-year-old monk, which was really great. I remember when I was shaking his hand, it was just me and Roshi on the couch watching Leonard with this band. And we are shaking hands, and he grips my hand like this, doesn’t let it go. And he looked in my eyes, he said, “Where are you?” And I said, “In the handshake.” He says, “Yes.”
Lex Fridman (00:32:13): Wow. You passed the test.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:32:15): Passed the Roshi test. And then what’s funny was that the next thing that happened about five minutes later, was Leonard Cohen got down on his knees and opened up a jar, I’m not kidding you, of caviar. This is not a callback.
Lex Fridman (00:32:28): Well, it is in a way. In a deep, fundamental way.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:32:32): I know, I know. He started feeding the monk caviar, and that healed my Montreux Jazz Festival sadness forever. The end.
Lex Fridman (00:32:41): Do you think there’s a kind of weird, there’s a sense of humor to it all somehow? Why does that happen? Why does that happen? Why stuff like that happens, or that the Jeff Bass speaks to you?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:32:57): Why do we need to know?
Lex Fridman (00:32:59): You believe in that stuff?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:32:59): In what stuff?
Lex Fridman (00:33:01): That there’s a rhyme to the whole thing, somehow? There’s a frequency to which magical things of that nature can happen?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:33:19): I’m divided about that answer. Because I think just things are flowing, I don’t think anything’s planned out.
Lex Fridman (00:33:32): Like through time, it’s like an orchestra playing of different experiences and circumstances that are somehow connected.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:33:40): I think everything’s connected, so yes.
Lex Fridman (00:33:43): But predetermined means-
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:33:45): I don’t believe in the predetermined stuff necessarily, which is different from whatever your previous karma is. And karma is a whole other conversation, I don’t mean karma as in good karma, bad karma. Just karma meaning the collection of things you’ve acquired over this lifetime or other lifetimes. Just whatever that is, is going to influence your future.
Lex Fridman (00:34:13): Well, you had a really interesting trajectory through life. Maybe I just read it that way, because I’ve had a lot of stuff happen to me that’s lucky, feels lucky. And sometimes I’ll wonder, huh, this is weird. It does feel like the universe just kind of throws stuff at you with a chuckle. I don’t know. Not you, the proverbial you. One.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:34:37): One, yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:34:40): You said you sometimes watch classic movies to inspire your songwriting, and you mentioned watching Taxi Driver. I love that movie. And I think you mentioned that you wrote a love song based on that movie. So Travis Bickle, for people who don’t know, is a taxi driver and he’s deeply lonely. What do you think about that kind of loneliness?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:35:02): I think that loneliness is a product of feeling separate from the world, and separate from others. And that the less you experience that separation, the less you’ll feel lonely.
Lex Fridman (00:35:20): How often have you felt lonely in this way, separated from the rest of the world?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:35:25): It’s less and less every single year. Because I work very hard at it.
Lex Fridman (00:35:34): Feeling like a part of the world?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:35:37): Yeah, just meditating and studying scriptures.
Lex Fridman (00:35:40): Don’t you think that, isn’t there a fundamental loneliness to the human experience?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:35:45): In what sense?
Lex Fridman (00:35:46): That all the struggles, all the suffering you experience is really experienced by you alone?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:35:51): Is it?
Lex Fridman (00:35:53): Maybe at the very bottom, it’s not.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:35:55): It’s kind of all the same stuff.
Lex Fridman (00:35:57): You didn’t feel alone in 2016, 2017?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:36:02): I felt like I lost a piece of myself that I had given to somebody else. And I feel like people feel that in romantic exchanges, whether it’s long-term, short-term. You give a piece of yourself, and then if that person dies or you break up with that person, you feel like you’ve lost that piece of yourself. Which I feel like is a very different experience than if you just are opening yourself. Rather than giving a piece of yourself, you’re just opening yourself to somebody or something.
Lex Fridman (00:36:39): So opening is fundamentally not a lonely experience.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:36:43): No, it’s a loving experience.
Lex Fridman (00:36:45): And then losing a piece of yourself can be.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:36:50): Yeah. Because you can’t lose a piece of yourself, if you are the same self as every other self.
Lex Fridman (00:36:57): Right, right. If you see yourself as together with everybody, then there’s no losing.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:37:01): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:37:02): Yeah, yeah. It’s a beautiful way to look at it. You said that there’s something healing about being in an empty hotel room, with no attachments except your suitcase. A lot of people will talk about hotel rooms being a fundamentally lonely experience, but you’re saying it’s healing.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:37:23): It’s healing. Yeah. Because I just get to sit there, and not worry about all this stuff, these meaningless attachments. I’ve got my suitcase with my necessities, or my three suitcases sometimes. And I can just sit there and meditate, and just be with myself, and it’s so awesome. And usually you plan your touring for, you get the business aspect of things taken care of in advance, so you can just really be flowing day to day on a tour. And it’s a great feeling. It’s funny because this last tour that I did, we didn’t have hotels every night. We had hotels maybe once a week. And I hadn’t done that before. Usually I’m frequently in hotels. I didn’t get that space that I’m really used to getting.
Lex Fridman (00:38:18): You missed them.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:38:20): I very much missed it, and had to be very creative. And I ended up going into the back lounge when everyone was asleep, and meditating back there, or before everyone woke up. And I actually joined, there was an online meditation retreat that was happening. It was 12 hours a day of silent meditations that happens once a year, and I love this particular group of people. And they knew I was on tour, so they’re like, “Just join when you can.” And so I was on the tour doing the meditation retreat at the same time. It was so fun. It was so fun. Because I was in the back lounge, the bus is moving around like this, my laptop, the Zoom is like… and I’m just sitting meditating. It was like, yeah, this is the shit.
Lex Fridman (00:39:12): It’s silence, so they’re all connected to Zoom and just doing silent 12 hours a day?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:39:16): Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:39:16): That’s cool.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:39:17): These particular retreats that I started doing, it’s not straight silent. There are silent sits every hour for 50 minutes, and then there’s some talks. And these people that I’ve been working with are really cool, because they’re integrating spiral dynamics into Zen, and it’s like the coolest combination.
Lex Fridman (00:39:43): What’s spiral dynamics?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:39:45): Like Ken Wilber? Do you know Ken Wilber, Integral Theory?
Lex Fridman (00:39:49): Yes. Can you explain a little bit? I vaguely know of him because of this notion that everything is one, everything is integrated, that every field has truths and falsehoods, and we should integrate the truths.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:40:07): Yeah. It’s hard to explain how it applies to this type of meditation, because it’s in the guided parts of the meditation that this whole holonic theory is brought in, about transcending and including every aspect of your being. Because he talks about levels of development in consciousness, and how this applies to every single, religion or non-religion, that there are these levels of development, that go all the way up to enlightenment. No matter what you start off with. It could be Christianity, Buddhism, Vedanta, it doesn’t matter, anything.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:40:57): I like it when everything and everyone is taken into account. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, that there is a way to be self-realized, self-actualized. There are self-actualized beings from all walks of life with very, very different paths. There’s no one path. In this particular retreat I do, there’s a lot of silent sits, and then there’s some guided meditations. But I’ve tried a lot of different avenues, and they’re all great. I wouldn’t just say, just try this one thing. I’ve studied the Upanishads with Vedanta teachers, and gone through those texts for months and months, and stayed at monasteries. And how they break it down makes total sense to my mind and heart. And more importantly than my mind, my inner knowing, it resonates.
Lex Fridman (00:41:49): Inner knowing.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:41:50): Yeah, because your mind is the thinking tool. It’s not you, you’re not your mind, you’re not your thoughts, you’re not your body. It’s like, just the you, that knowing that you have. When something resonates there, that’s usually when you go with something.
Lex Fridman (00:42:12): What was living in a monastery like?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:42:14): It’s the best.
Lex Fridman (00:42:15): What are we talking about?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:42:17): It’s just an empty room, with a tiny single bed, and a sheet and a pillow, and that’s it.
Lex Fridman (00:42:22): That’s it?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:42:23): You have to eat the same thing as everyone.
Lex Fridman (00:42:25): What’s the food like? What is it?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:42:27): Very plain, cheap, basic food. Which is funny for someone like me, because I’m pretty particular about my diet.
Lex Fridman (00:42:36): Yeah, you brought over like 20 different ingredients.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:42:41): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:42:43): What was the day in the life of Tal in a monastery?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:42:48): You wake up at 5:00 a.m. to the bell, and you go and meditate constantly until bedtime. Other than two meals.
Lex Fridman (00:43:00): How are you sitting? Are you in a group? Is there other people there, and you’re just sitting there?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:43:06): Well, if you’re talking about the Zen monastery, because I stayed in Zen monastery, and I did a thing with the guy I was telling you about, the integral Zen thing where he uses Ken Wilber’s work in combination with Zen. That’s a little bit different, because he does talks, we talk about things. That’s very separate from the Vedanta monasteries I’ve stayed at, which there’s very little meditation in terms of sitting silently. Instead, we are meditating on the scriptures, like the Upanishads, and we’re diving into that.
Lex Fridman (00:43:46): What were the differences, the takeaways from the experiences? The two different, the integral one and the meditating on the scriptures?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:43:56): They’re both incredibly, have been incredibly helpful to me. Because the Vedanta, anytime I go into my head about something, the answer is there, based on this knowledge. And with the Zen monastery, it’s like you just got to put your butt in the seat, and sit and wait. And maybe something will happen, maybe it won’t, but just keep sitting. And it’s very disciplined, and you go through a lot. Your body’s purging a lot. There’s a lot, and you don’t necessarily have the answers as to what is happening. And so I think for somebody like me, I need both. I need to be in a place where there’s complete uncertainty, but complete discipline, and just doing the regimented thing. And then there’s the me that feels very satisfied from an analytical standpoint, understanding what’s happening, what is the gross, and the subtle body? I want to understand these things about what it is to be a human. I like them both.
Lex Fridman (00:45:15): Understand what it means to be a human, so having that patience and just sitting with yourself helps you do that?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:45:22): Yes. More so the analysis part.
Lex Fridman (00:45:26): Oh, so the analysis, the actual… okay, got it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:45:29): But sitting with yourself, there’s no better education of facing every demon. And it’s all going to come out, and it’s not going to be pretty. But then there’s things that happen on the other side of it that are so profound.
Lex Fridman (00:45:45): Have you met most of your demons?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:45:48): I’ve met the demons that have come out.
Lex Fridman (00:45:50): Oh, there may be more?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:45:51): Who knows? Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:45:53): Okay. Well, to be continued. Since I think I heard you say that you wrote a love song after Taxi Driver, what kind of love songs do you write more of? You’re a songwriter first, for people who don’t know. They might think you’re primarily a bassist.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:46:14): But they’re wrong.
Lex Fridman (00:46:16): Do you write mostly broken heart ones, or hopeful love songs? In love songs, about to be in love songs, soon to fall in love songs?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:46:27): Well, the last album I put out is pretty self- explanatory as to what that is.
Lex Fridman (00:46:31): A lot of pain in that one?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:46:34): There was, yeah. Some of it was storytelling, and some of it was real experience, and it’s always a combination of things. I serve the song. Sometimes you use your own life experience to tell a song, and sometimes you may watch a movie, and part of that script merges with your own experience, and that tells the right story for the point you’re trying to make in the song. It varies from song to song in terms of how autobiographical it is.
Lex Fridman (00:47:14): Yeah. I always think at the end of the Taxi Driver, when… what’s her name, Betsy? Because Travis becomes a hero, she tries to get with him, and he rejects her. That was powerful.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:47:28): My favorite love songs are the ones where you’re not sure it’s about romantic love, or love of God, or love of life, or just pure love. I was thinking George Harrison writes songs like that, What is Life? Or Bob Dylan’s song that George Harrison covered, If Not for You?
Lex Fridman (00:47:54): Yeah, just grateful. Grateful for his love. Yeah.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:47:57): Right, right. That’s kind of like what I’m experiencing now, and so who knows what’ll end up coming out.
Lex Fridman (00:48:05): So you’ve been writing this kind of-
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:48:07): Yeah, I’ve been writing.
Lex Fridman (00:48:09): A little bit?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:48:10): I don’t have an intention of putting something out in any particular timeframe, but I’m just writing and letting things flow. And yeah, there’s a bunch of Leonard Cohen songs too where you’re like, there’s so many ways to interpret this song. There’s so many ways. I just love songs that aren’t so specifically about one thing.
Lex Fridman (00:48:39): I really love the song to play it, to listen to it, Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. And I thought it was pretty straightforward. And then I had a conversation with Eric Weinstein, who’s a mutual friend of ours, and he told me it’s not about what I thought it’s about.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:48:54): Oh yeah, what did he say?
Lex Fridman (00:48:57): It’s a more complicated story. It’s actually a man… Wonderful Tonight is a story about a man being just finding his wife beautiful, and appreciating it throughout. But he said it was actually a man missing his wife, he’s imagining. That she’s lost, because of the decisions he’s made in his life, so it’s pain. He had a long, beautiful Eric Weinstein-like explanation of why.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:49:28): I love those.
Lex Fridman (00:49:29): Have you and Eric played music?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:49:32): No. We’ve just hung out and had very long conversations about everything.
Lex Fridman (00:49:37): He’s a bit of a musician, you know?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:49:38): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:49:39): Okay. You picked up the guitar when you were 14, let’s go back. And one interesting thing that just jumped out at me is you said you learned how to practice in your head, because you only had 30 minutes. Your parents would only let you practice for 30 minutes. I read somewhere that Coltrane did the same. Not the practice part, but he was able to play instruments in his head as a way to think through different lines, different musical thoughts, that kind of stuff. Maybe, can you tell the story of that?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:50:14): Yeah. I just grew up in an environment that was focused on academia. And I fell in love with guitar, and really just wanted the focus to be that. My limit was 30 minutes a day for, I don’t even remember how many times a week. Might’ve been every day, five days a week, whatever.
Lex Fridman (00:50:36): So your parents didn’t want you to play more than that?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:50:39): No. And so, I just learned how to visualize the fretboard in my head, and I’d practice all day in my head. It’s kind of like, you know The Queen’s Gambit, the TV show with Anya Taylor-Joy, and she just on the ceiling? I used to do that with the fretboard, and just practice. And I actually recommend it to every musician. Because if you’re just practicing here, you don’t know what is more dominant necessarily, is it this or is it your motor skills? If you just take that away and do it here, you know you’ve got it. I’m glad that that happened and that I learned how to do that.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:51:24): And in terms of learning fast, because I had to try to absorb a lot of information in a short amount of time when I did have the instrument, I kind of would do things in bursts. Even in that half an hour, I would just play for a couple minutes, and then I’d stop for a minute. And then I’d do it again, and I noticed there was a huge difference between the first time and the second time. Whereas if I just kept repeating stuff, it would be much slower.
Lex Fridman (00:51:56): What did you do in that minute?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:51:59): Just hang out.
Lex Fridman (00:52:00): Just integrate?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:52:01): Yeah. It’s like my brain was telling me, just chill out for a sec. That’s enough information. Let me take a second to integrate that. That’s at least what it felt like to me. And the most hilarious thing happened a couple months ago. I know you’re friends with Andrew Huberman. He put out some clip, which was a part of one of his podcasts, about learning. And he said that there was some research done on learning fast, and that if you practice something for a minute or so, and then you let your brain rest for 30 seconds or a minute, that in that 30 seconds or a minute, your brain does the repetition 20 to 30 times faster, and in reverse. And I was like, whoa, that’s so cool. Because that’s what I used to do when I was a kid, now there’s science that proves that. Which is really cool for musicians to know that that’s a good way to practice efficiently. Because some musicians, they’re practicing for six, seven, eight hours a day. I’ve never done that. I’ve never practiced more than an hour a day, even now. That’s my technique, and it works.
Lex Fridman (00:53:17): Are you also practicing in your head sometimes?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:53:20): Now, I’m not practicing as much. I’m more always writing songs in my head, so that’s why I like silence. That’s why I love being in the empty hotel room and being alone. Songs come to me while I’m showering, or walking around, doing the dishes. Or occasionally when I’m hanging out with friends, or comedians, and people will just say shit. And I’ll be like, that’s a cool line. Just jot it down on my phone.
Lex Fridman (00:53:46): So it’s not always musical, it’s sometimes lyrical.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:53:48): It’s more lyrical than musical now. Because for me it’s like, well, there’s so much music in the world. If I’m going to write a song, I want the song to be about something interesting. And so, yeah, the words matter to me.
Lex Fridman (00:54:07): Yeah. And the right word has so much power. It’s crazy, like we said with Leonard Cohen. And then they’re often simple, the really powerful ones are simple.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:54:18): And when you mentioned Hallelujah, he wrote like 80 verses to Hallelujah before he narrowed it down to four. And it took him like 15, 20 years to write that song. Some writers will do that, and then other writers just vomit it out and it’s beautiful. I’ve heard that Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell, they’re fast writers. It just kind of comes out.
Lex Fridman (00:54:41): That makes me feel so good to know Leonard Cohen wrote so many verses of that. That was so deliberately crafted, extensively rigorously crafted.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:54:53): He just would spend months and years, constantly refining, refining.
Lex Fridman (00:55:00): Do you have songs like that for yourself, where you refine for many years?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:55:03): Yeah, it’s song dependent. Some just flow out and it’s like, oh, there it is. Everything’s there. And then other songs, it’s like, you might have started it with music, and there’s some words that come out. And then trying to fill in the rest of the words, sometimes it can be like a square peg in a round hole, and other times it’s like, oh no, I can… it depends. Sometimes it becomes like a math problem, and hopefully it doesn’t. Because you just want to say what’s right for the song. And usually when you write it all together, like the lyric, and the melody, and the chords and everything’s developing at once, at least for the first draft, that’s very, very helpful. Sondheim used to write like that. He wouldn’t move on until… he would just go this way. Whereas for me it’s just like, I’ll just go with what seems to be coming naturally, and I’ll just let it be what it is. And then you come back and you say okay, well, what-
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:56:00): Truly, and I’ll just let it be what it is. And then you come back and you say, okay, well what do I have to do to this now? What’s needed?
Lex Fridman (00:56:07): Just to linger on the learning process, what would you recommend for young musicians on how to get good? What are the different paths a person can take to understand it deeply enough to create something special?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:56:26): I think first and foremost, understanding why you are playing music. If it’s because you have something that you’re trying to express or that you’re just in love with expression itself, with art itself, those are great reasons to start this journey.
Lex Fridman (00:56:47): The why should be-
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:56:49): I think the why is really important because it’s a jagged lifestyle and there’s a lot in it. And so if you don’t have your purpose, if you’re not centered in your purpose, then all that jagged lifestyle is probably going to get to you.
Lex Fridman (00:57:06): Jagged.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:57:06): It’s jagged.
Lex Fridman (00:57:07): Interesting word.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:57:08): Yeah, it’s jagged. It’s all over the place. It’s uncertain. It’s one thing one moment, and a completely different thing another moment. You never know what’s going to happen. And if you thrive on variety, which I love variety, then it’s perfect. But also every human being needs a certain amount of certainty and structure, and so the certainty can come from your inner knowing knowing that you’re doing exactly what you want to be doing and knowing what your purpose is in doing it in this expression. Otherwise, you’re just kind of like a leaf blowing in the wind.
Lex Fridman (00:57:48): In the early days touring, just playing clubs seems like tough.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:57:52): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:57:53): It’s a lot.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:57:54): Yeah, it’s a lot of the physical labor aspect of it is really hard. Playing on stage to two people, or 2000, or 20,000, that doesn’t make a difference. I mean, it makes a difference to the ticket sales, which informs what level of luxury you might have on the road or not. But other than that, it’s just people there listening to music. The music doesn’t change.
Lex Fridman (00:58:19): Does it make it tough when it’s two people versus 200?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:58:21): No.
Lex Fridman (00:58:23): So even if nobody recognizes whatever the thing you’re doing.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:58:26): No, because the idea is to be having a great conversation on stage.
Lex Fridman (00:58:33): The audience can come and go.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:58:35): Yeah. I always, there’s certain points in shows where I am just like, I consciously am like, oh yes, there’s an audience over there. So wrapped up in whatever’s happening on stage.
Lex Fridman (00:58:49): You forget yourself.
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:58:50): Or maybe I’m remembering myself.
Lex Fridman (00:58:52): Oh, damn. Call back, somehow feels like one. Okay. You think every instrument is its own journey. You play guitar, you play bass, you sing, just the mastery of an instrument, or let’s avoid the word mastery, the understanding of an instrument is its own thing, or are they somehow physical manifestations of the same thing?
Tal Wilkenfeld (00:59:19): It’s both. Every instrument has its strengths, beauty, limitations, range, possible range that can be extended to some degree or another depending on who you are, like trumpet or something. Certain people can hit higher notes than others, blah, blah, blah. But that being said, we’re all playing the same 12 or 24, however you divide the octave, that many notes. We’re all playing the same notes. So in that sense, it’s all the same thing. It’s just music or better yet it’s just art or expression. But yeah, every instrument has, you’ve got to go through the physical aspects of it, the motor skills and all of that, and hopefully you get through that really quickly so you can get to the expression quickly because if you get stuck in just that first phase, that’d be really boring.
Lex Fridman (01:00:19): But that’s a pretty long phase. The technical skill required to really play an instrument.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:00:27): For some people it’s a long thing, and some people it’s short. It very much varies. It might have to do with how you learn and getting to know your strengths in learning. More oral, or is it more… What’s your strength and playing off of those strengths. So for me, like I was saying earlier, it was just an intuitive thing that I knew. I can feel when my brain is full that it needs processing time. And so I listened to that. I don’t push past it, even if it’s one minute and I do something, I’m like, okay. Silence. And then I come back and I trust that it’s going to be there and it is there. So just trusting yourself I think is really important. Trusting that you know better than anybody else is going to know you.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:01:23): So that’s the kind of thing with teachers that can be either really, really helpful and great or really not great. I’m primarily self-taught. I’ve had amazing mentors of all walks of life, and I think I’m unbelievably blessed that my mentors are some of my favorite musicians on Earth, whether it’s Leonard Cohen or Jeff Beck or Wayne Shorter, whoever these people are, they are my favorite musicians. So not everyone has that opportunity, but what the opportunity that we have now that I didn’t have when I was starting is that everything’s on YouTube. Every interview with every genius. You don’t need to necessarily have these people in person now. I mean, and then I’ll say to that, yes and no. I agree with myself, and then I don’t agree with myself. And the reason is I do believe that there is something that happens when you’re in person with a master in some cases, that there is something transferred that is not intellectual, it’s not spoken, it’s something else that happens, that can happen, that I’ve experienced, and I really value that.
Lex Fridman (01:02:47): And I think that applies to specific disciplines and also generally. I’ve been around Olympic gold medalists just to hang out with them for several days, and there’s something about greatness. There’s a way about them that permeates the space around them. You kind of learn something from it, even if you don’t practice that particular discipline, there’s something to it if you’re able to see it. I also like what you said about the playing stuff in your head, that it forces you to not be lost in the physical learning of the instrument. I think that’s one of the things I probably regret a little bit. So I play both piano and guitar, and I’ve become quite, over the years, technically proficient at the instruments.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:03:43): I’ve seen.
Lex Fridman (01:03:43): But I think my mind is underdeveloped because of that, meaning I can’t really… I can feel the music when it’s created, but I can’t create out of the feeling. I haven’t practiced projecting the feeling onto the music. You know what I mean? I’m not like a musician. It’s a different muscle that I think is if you really want to create beautiful things, you have to, the creation happens here, not with your hands.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:04:17): I think it’s more here.
Lex Fridman (01:04:18): Or whichever it is, some part of the body, but it’s not with your fingers.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:04:21): Yeah, because I think the fingers is more of this.
Lex Fridman (01:04:22): Sure.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:04:24): And then…
Lex Fridman (01:04:25): Yes, it is here.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:04:27): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:04:27): Right. And it’s just nice that you said that because it’s really good advice if you want to create.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:04:34): Yeah, slowing down is really great too.
Lex Fridman (01:04:38): What do you mean slowing down?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:04:40): Slowing everything down? It could be, I can play something really fast, but I may want to practice it like…
Lex Fridman (01:05:09): Go slow as possible.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:05:12): All these micro movements that are happening that if you just go, you can’t pay as close attention to the exact tone that you’re pulling from each note. And there’s a lot to pay attention to how my fingers are touching the string here. I can change my tone a million ways just by the direction of this finger, and same with how this lands and how hard I’m attacking the string and with what intention am I hitting the string emotionally, physically, and so even if you can go, play that so slow, see how locked into a pocket you can be, see how you… Feel every aspect of that because then when it gets sped up, it’s still there with you.
Lex Fridman (01:06:07): That is brilliant.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:06:08): It’s like the transcended and included thing that Ken Wilbert talks about.
Lex Fridman (01:06:14): I guess that’s what meditation can do for you is to really listen, to observe every aspect of your body, the breath and all this. Here you’re observing every element, every super detailed element, of playing a single note.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:06:26): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:06:27): It’s cool that if you speed it up, it’s still there with you.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:06:30): It is, Yeah it is. Because there are certain people, it’s like they play really fast, but I don’t hear the fullness of tone always. And it’s like, well, it’s probably because maybe they didn’t slow it down and really sit with each note and let it resonate through their whole being. It’s spiritual. It’s like a spiritual expression. It’s not a sport. A lot of people treat music like a sport.
Lex Fridman (01:07:04): Since starting to learn more like Stevie Ray Vaughan versus Jimi Hendrix. I would spend quite a long time on single notes of just bending, just listening to what you can do with bends, spending. Just thinking people like B.B King and all these blues musicians spend a career just making a single note cry. There’s an art form to that.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:07:28): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:07:29): And I think you putting it, taking it really slow, which I never really thought of, is really good idea. Really slow it down.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:07:39): It’s the same with sitting with your own emotions. It’s like when emotions are overwhelming to us, we get real busy or we move real fast because we don’t want to feel our feelings. Those are the moments to slow yourself down.
Lex Fridman (01:07:57): And observe it, anger, jealousy, loneliness.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:01): And just be with it. Be cool with it. Love it. Love the anger.
Lex Fridman (01:08:06): It’s all beautiful. Can you educate me on the difference between bass.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:13): Bass and bass? Okay, well, one is a fish.
Lex Fridman (01:08:16): At least I pronounced it correctly. That’s good. It’s all about the bass.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:20): Can you pronounce my name?
Lex Fridman (01:08:22): Tal.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:23): Wow. Most people say Tal or tall. You said-
Lex Fridman (01:08:29): Tall, who says tall?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:31): So many people.
Lex Fridman (01:08:32): In the south, maybe tall.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:34): I don’t know. But the fact that you said my name right.
Lex Fridman (01:08:34): Oh, honey tall.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:36): You get extra points.
Lex Fridman (01:08:37): Tal. I didn’t know this was a game. Am I winning?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:41): Yep.
Lex Fridman (01:08:41): I like winning. How do you play the bass? What’s the difference between finger style and slap?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:48): Slap is like this finger styles like this.
Lex Fridman (01:08:50): Have you ever played bass with a pick?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:52): Yeah, sometimes
Lex Fridman (01:08:54): I’m not accusing you of anything.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:55): No accusation taken.
Lex Fridman (01:08:57): I don’t know if these are sensitive topics.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:08:59): That would be pretty hilarious if I was sensitive about bass techniques, but not about love.
Lex Fridman (01:09:05): It just looks so cool to slap it, and I don’t understand what that’s about. That thumb thing that…
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:09:11): Yeah, I slapped less, a lot less. Almost never actually. It has a very distinctive sound and does a very distinctive thing to a song that is not something I hear needed very often in music today, but in certain styles, like funk, it sounds awesome and it makes sense. It was something that was a bit overused at one point. For instance, my mentor Anthony Jackson, he refused to slap. He actually said, if you want me to slap, I’ll leave this gig. So I’m not like that.
Lex Fridman (01:09:56): See, that’s why I said sensitive. See, I was reading into it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:09:59): Because he’s sensitive about it. I’m not sensitive.
Lex Fridman (01:10:00): I was feeling the spiritual energy of the sensitivity of the topic.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:10:03): Anthony Jackson.
Lex Fridman (01:10:04): Anthony Jackson.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:10:04): And then I’m playing electric bass, so generally speaking, you don’t particularly want to hear electric bass on straight-ahead Jazz anyway, you want to hear an upright bass. But if I was to play jazz on electric bass, I might even palm mute instead of going like, I might go to very. Anything to make the notes shorter and less resonant and fade away because the upright does that naturally. And I have a different bass, like a hollow body harmony that sounds closer to an upright that I’ll use. In on my song Under the Sun, that I put out, that was on a harmony bass. And it has an upright acoustic kind of tone to it, but with more sustain.
Lex Fridman (01:10:58): And is Jazz fusion the style where you have an electric bass? Can you educate me?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:11:06): Again, you can have both. You can have both. You can have either on anything. There’s no real rules, now.
Lex Fridman (01:11:14): I’ve heard you say something interesting, which is, well, a lot of things you say is interesting.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:11:17): Just one thing.
Lex Fridman (01:11:20): Just one. That-
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:11:23): And it’s what time you’re leaving.
Lex Fridman (01:11:27): What time was that again?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:11:29): Three minutes.
Lex Fridman (01:11:30): That it’s maybe easier sometimes to define a musical genre by the don’ts than the do’s, the don’ts, than the do’s. What are the don’ts of jazz and rock? What are the don’ts of jazz fusion? What are the don’ts? At any domain of life, what are the don’ts?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:11:50): The don’ts is just to please leave your fear at the door and your do’s is to be open to anything and open your ears, respond to what’s happening now. I think that quote you’re talking about might have been more about an individual musician’s unique sound, because everyone has their sound. If they’ve developed their voice and they’ve listened to their own aesthetic preferences, of which everyone is slightly different, everyone has slightly different likes and dislikes, then you’ll have a unique sound on your instrument. And your unique sound is defined more by the choices you make rather than… I mean, it’s equally as defined by the choices you make and the choices you don’t make. I mean, it’s the flip side of the same coin, really?
Lex Fridman (01:12:46): Yeah. There’s certain musicians you can just tell. It’s them just, you hear a few notes and you’re like, okay, it’s them. Tone, sometimes it’s tone. Sometimes it’s the way they play a rhythm.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:12:56): Yeah, the quote you’re talking about might have even had to do with someone’s real limitations on an instrument that then that would define their sound as the things that they actually can’t do versus what you’re choosing to do versus not choosing to do. Which is that flip side of the same coin thing,
Lex Fridman (01:13:14): How many fingers you play with, because it seems like a lot of the greatest musicians aren’t technically perfect. The imperfections is the thing that makes them unique and where a lot of the creativity comes from. I mean, Hendrix had a lot of those things. The way he put a thumb over the top.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:13:34): Well, his hands were huge. There was no other place for the thumb to go. And it was great that he could reach the E string and that was an advantage.
Lex Fridman (01:13:43): And he was a lefty playing a right-handed guitar, flipped, I guess. That’s weird. That probably doesn’t have much of an effect. Maybe a spiritual one. I don’t know.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:13:55): Actually, flipping and guitar is different. It does bring out something different in you because I’ve done it, flipped it. It’s like, oh wow. Yeah, it really, it’s really different. I remember talking about osteopath about, because there’s so much weight on this shoulder while I’m playing all the time, and they were saying, well, just after shows, just literally just turn it upside down and do the exact same thing in the opposite way. It’ll even out your body. And I was like, that’s good advice.
Lex Fridman (01:14:24): Have you actually tried it? Okay. All right, I’ll write that down. All right. Well, do you know a guy named Davie504?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:14:36): I’ve heard of him.
Lex Fridman (01:14:37): I’ve recently learned of him. He’s a YouTuber and a bass player. He’s amazing.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:14:42): Cool.
Lex Fridman (01:14:42): He combines memes and also just these brilliant bass compositions and says slap like a lot. He’s big into slapping. He’s the one that made me realize this is a thing. And he also said that you’re one of the best, if not the best, bassists in the world. There was a bunch of his fans that wrote in and he analyzed the Jeff Beck thing that we watched at Crossroads is one of the greatest solos ever, bass solos ever. So shout out to him. What does that make you feel like you’re the greatest of all time?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:15:13): Chocolate cookies.
Lex Fridman (01:15:14): Chocolate. Is that your favorite?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:15:15): I like macadamia nut. If you really want to get into it, with white chocolate.
Lex Fridman (01:15:21): Yeah, that’s a rare one for people to say is the favorite.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:15:24): Chocolate chip is just so easy. You can kind of get them anywhere.
Lex Fridman (01:15:27): Yeah. Last thing you want to be is easy in this world. You don’t want to be easy. You said that I love Rock and Roll quote, “I love folk. I love jazz. I love Indian classical music. I really love all kinds of music as long as it’s authentic and from the heart.” So when you play rock versus jazz, you play all kinds of music. What’s the difference technically, musically, spiritually for you?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:15:49): Well, there’s no spiritual difference.
Lex Fridman (01:15:54): Okay. All right. Cross that off the list,
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:15:56): Well, musically, yeah, it’s like what was saying earlier, it’s like each genre has its language of what makes it that genre. And that would be a good thing to say. It’s defined by the do’s and don’ts, but because it’s like… I’m trying to think. Basically I put the song first and I think of the song as the melody, the lyrics, and then the harmony and obviously the groove.
Lex Fridman (01:16:34): So the song goes before the genre in a sense. Each song is like its own thing.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:16:39): They’re both things that are held in my mind. It’s like, okay, genre and then song, which is comprised of those basic elements. And I tend to kind of prioritize lyric because somebody is trying to express something over music. And so the lyric is very, very important. And so then the choices come from there. It’s like, okay, within the genre of X this is the typical language. And then how do I best serve this lyric? And then where else can I pull from that might not be in these two bags that would put a little twist on it. So those are all the kinds of things I might be thinking about.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:17:34): But I don’t like twists for the sake of twists either. I like twists because I want to hear something that might be fresh. But when someone does something just to be hip, it’s annoying to me. I think you can hear the difference. It’s like when people, they write in odd time signatures or they write all these riffs just because they can, just because they have the chops to do it or they know how to play in 11/16 and whatever. But if it’s not actually creating a piece of music that’s going to move somebody, then why are you doing it? And so I think a lot of the questions I’m asking myself when I’m approaching a song or mainly philosophical and aesthetic.
Lex Fridman (01:18:27): So you like to stand on the edge of the cliff, not for the thrill of it, but because where you find something new potentially.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:18:34): And it’s thrilling.
Lex Fridman (01:18:36): But you’re not doing it just for the thrill.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:18:37): I’m not doing it for the thrill. It just happens to be thrilling.
Lex Fridman (01:18:41): All right.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:18:42): Because you can always reel it back in.
Lex Fridman (01:18:45): Can you though?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:18:46): Yeah. You can do a totally disciplined, I can go into a session and… Okay, my favorite thing about going into a session with musicians that I adore is that we don’t hear the demo because if you hear a demo, you’re hearing what the producer or songwriter have already imagined that every instrument is playing. And then it’s like well, I’ve already heard what you want. Now my mind, part of my mind, is focused on what I already know you want and what the destination is going to be. Why did you bring me in here? I want to not hear it. I just want you to sit at a piano and sing the song, I want to hear the chords and the lyric or sit with an acoustic guitar, play it, and then let’s all go in the room.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:19:29): And then take one, I would say 80% of the time, take one has the most gold and there might be a mistake or two or someone forgot to go to the B section and you might want to punch that in so that you’re hitting the right chord. But all the magic is in that take. And then sometimes it happens where it’s like you go, it’s like we’re rehearsing and take 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then you’re thinking about it too much and then you go and you have a dinner and you come back and the next take one after dinner is the one. It’s usually after there’s some sort of a break, but obviously there’s exceptions to that rule. Sometimes it’s take two, or three.
Lex Fridman (01:20:10): Yeah. You said that this is something that surprised you about recording with Prince is that he would just, so much of it would be take one. So quick, it would just move so quickly.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:20:21): Yeah. Well, with that particular album that we made together, it’s called Welcome to America. He called me up and asked me, he said, I want to make a band with you. I’m really inspired by what you’re doing with Jeff Beck. I want to make a trio. Do you like the drum rolls of Jack DeJohnette, was like his first question to me. I’m like, well, yeah, who doesn’t. Who doesn’t like Jack DeJohnette, one of the greatest of all time?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:20:44): And he’s like, well, sounds like, because we had a discussion about drumming, sounds like you’re particular about drummers. So why don’t you find us the drummer and I’ll trust you to find the drummer. You can audition some people. Send me some recordings, maybe your two favorites, and I’ll pick out of the two or something. So I did that. Went on a journey, found a couple of guys. He picked the one. We went in and he basically just would be like okay, so the A section’s going to go like this, and then the B section, I think we’re going to go to G, and then the bridge, I might go to B flat, but maybe I’ll hold off and da, da, da. Okay, let’s go 1, 2, 3, 4. And then we recorded it to tape. There was no punch. He did not want me to punch anything.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:21:34): There was one song called Same Page, Different Book. And he talked through it just like he did. And then he had me soloing between each phrase like little fills. I didn’t know that that was going to come up. And he loved that. He loved to have me on the edge of my seat falling off the cliff. That was my first real falling off a cliff moment from somebody else holding me at the edge of the cliff. You know what I mean? Now I just do it on my own because it’s so fun and it makes sense. It’s the best thing for the music.
Lex Fridman (01:22:13): When you say punch the tape is that when you actually record it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:22:17): If you record to tape and there’s say you hit a bum note to punch in means to fix that note, re-record over that one little area and punch that note in. He didn’t want that. He’s like, all my favorite records, just whatever happened happened. That’s that moment in time. Let’s make a new moment in time. It’s great. Nobody makes records like that anymore. Everyone wants to edit and edit and re-record and this and that. And unfortunately with a lot of music, and I’m not saying all music, there’s plenty of great music coming out, but there’s the danger of it being flat because every little imperfection is digitally removed.
Lex Fridman (01:23:05): Well, that’s one of the promising things about AI is because it can be so perfect that the thing we’ll actually come back to and value about music is the imperfections that humans can create.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:23:16): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:23:17): There’ll be a greater valuation of imperfections.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:23:20): Yeah. I mean you can program imperfections too.
Lex Fridman (01:23:24): Yeah, sure. That’s also very sad. But then you get closer and closer to what it means to be human, and maybe there’ll be AIs among us. And they’ll be human, flawed, like the rest of us. Mortal and silly at times.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:23:42): Another big sigh.
Lex Fridman (01:23:46): Is it fair to say that you’re very melodic on bass? You make the bass sing more than people normally do?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:23:55): Is that a compliment?
Lex Fridman (01:23:56): Yes, I think so.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:23:57): Thank you.
Lex Fridman (01:23:59): Moving on to the next question. By way of understanding-
Lex Fridman (01:24:00): The next question is, by way of understanding, it’s just there’s something about the way you play bass that just pulls you in the way when you listen to somebody play a guitar, like a guitar solo.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:24:13): The thing I love about Jeff Beck is that he played the guitar like a singer, and I think the way that Wayne Shorter played his saxophone. It’s like a singer. And I think everyone, every musician, aspires to just sound like a singer.
Lex Fridman (01:24:29): You make it sing. Let me ask you about… Just come back to Hendrix, because you said that you had three CDs, Jimi Hendrix, Herbie Hancock and Rage Against the Machine. First of all, a great combination. I’m a big Rage fan.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:24:42): It’s so funny, because when I listen to some of the music that I create, my solo music, I’m like, “I could see how this is a combination of Herbie Hancock, Rage Against the Machine and Jimi Hendrix.” I hear the influences. It’s funny.
Lex Fridman (01:24:58): Just from your musician perspective, what’s interesting to you about… What really stands out to you about Hendrix? I just would love to hear a real, professional musician’s opinion of Hendrix.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:25:13): I love that he is two voices combined into one voice. So it’s like there is his voice on the guitar, there is his singing voice, and there is the combination of the two that make one voice. And of course the third element is songwriting. And all of this have this beautiful chemistry, and all work geniusly, perfectly together, and there’s nothing like it. And he always beat himself up about being a singer, and he didn’t like his voice, but my favorite singers are the singers that don’t sound like singers.
Lex Fridman (01:25:58): Bob Dylan.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:25:59): Bob Dylan.
Lex Fridman (01:26:00): You said you like Bob Dylan.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:26:01): Love Bob Dylan.
Lex Fridman (01:26:03): You love his voice too?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:26:04): I love his voice.
Lex Fridman (01:26:06): Can you explain your love affair with Bob Dylan’s voice?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:26:12): He’s expressing his lyrics. It’s just pure expression, exactly what he means. I feel everything that he’s saying with 100% authenticity. That’s what I want to hear from a singer. I don’t care how many runs you can do and blah blah blah. I want to believe what you’re saying.
Lex Fridman (01:26:33): Leonard Cohen is that.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:26:34): Mm-hmm. There’s countless, like Neil Young. I mean, there’s so many musicians. I love Elliott Smith for that reason.
Lex Fridman (01:26:44): Let me ask you about mentorship. You said teachers and mentors. You had mentors. What’s a good mentor for you, harsh or supportive?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:26:54): Supportive.
Lex Fridman (01:26:55): Supportive. You seen Whiplash, the movie? So that guy, somebody screaming at you, kicking you off the cliff?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:27:03): Not necessary. I feel like anybody that’s truly passionate about something that they want to be great at or a master of or this and that, they’ve already got that person inside their own head. You don’t need somebody else to do that for you. I think you need love, acceptance, guidance, support, time, advice if you ask for it, just a space, just a nice, open space.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:27:32): All my mentors were just that for me. They didn’t tell me to do anything. They don’t care, because they’re not… Why do they need to be invested in where I’m going? Only I know where I’m going. So for some mentor to come and be like, “This is what you need to be doing, and practice…” It’s like, but why? What if that’s not my path? That might be your path. So I’m not really… Again, otherwise it feels like a sport, like who can run the fastest race. And it’s like, well, okay, I get that for sport maybe it makes sense to have someone a bit more hardcore. But still, I would say athletes have the same mentality. They’ve got that in them already too. So I think more of a strategic approach to mentorship works really well, and mainly just having an open space and just being available to someone.
Lex Fridman (01:28:28): And show that they see the special in you, and they give you the room to develop that special whatever.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:28:35): Exactly, because if you do have that harsh critic inside you, it is nice to have somebody that isn’t your family, or someone that’s not obligated any way, that just sees your talent and they’re like, “Yeah, I dig what you’re doing. Keep doing it.”
Lex Fridman (01:28:51): Yeah. It’s funny that that’s not always easy to come by.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:28:56): Do you have any mentors?
Lex Fridman (01:28:58): I’ve had a few recently, but for most of my life people didn’t really… I’m very much like that too. Somebody to pat me on the back and see something in you of value. Yeah, I didn’t really have that.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:29:16): Do you wish you did?
Lex Fridman (01:29:17): Yeah, yeah. But maybe the wishing that I did is the thing that made me who I am, not having it, the longing for that. Maybe that’s the thing that helped me develop a constant sense of longing, which I think is a way of… Because I have that engine in me, it really allows me to deeply appreciate every single moment, everything that’s given to me, so just eternal gratitude. You never know which are the bad parts and the good parts. If you remove one thing, the whole thing might collapse. I suppose I’m grateful for the whole thing. That one note you screwed up so many years ago, that might’ve been essential.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:30:11): You do jujitsu.
Lex Fridman (01:30:13): Yes. Do you? Are you-
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:30:15): My dad does. My dad’s super into it. I love my dad. He’s the coolest. But no, I don’t do it. He’s a blue belt right now.
Lex Fridman (01:30:27): Nice, nice. You ever been on the mat with him?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:30:30): Not yet, but I plan on it.
Lex Fridman (01:30:32): Should do it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:30:33): What belt are you?
Lex Fridman (01:30:35): Black belt.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:30:35): Sick. Do you want to go?
Lex Fridman (01:30:38): Right. You got the shit-talking part of jujitsu down. [inaudible 01:30:41] do the technique.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:30:44): But for that, for instance, do you need a harsh mentor or teacher or-
Lex Fridman (01:30:53): Yeah, but you said it really beautifully. To me, I agree, there’s a difference between sport and art. They overlap for sure, but there’s something about sport where perfection is actually… Perfection is really the thing you really want to get to, the technical perfection. With art, it feels like technical perfection is almost a way to get lost on the path to wherever, something unique. But yeah, with sport, I definitely am one of the kind of athletes that loves to have a dictatorial coach, somebody that helps me really push myself to the limit.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:31:38): But you are the one that’s dictating how hard you’re getting pushed, in a way. You’re choosing your mentor. That Whiplash video is like… He didn’t ask for that.
Lex Fridman (01:31:48): [inaudible 01:31:48] he might’ve.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:31:49): Well, maybe. Maybe subconsciously. It’s a movie.
Lex Fridman (01:31:56): Next you’re going to tell me they’re just actors. But yeah, how do we choose things? You don’t always choose, but you maybe subconsciously choose. And some of some of the great Olympic athletes I’ve interacted with, their parents for many years would force them to go to practice until they discovered the beauty of the thing that they were doing, and then they loved it. So at which point does something that looks like abuse become a gift? It’s weird. It’s all very weird. But for you, support and space to discover the thing, the voice, the music within you.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:32:40): Yeah, it’s my personal choice, because I’m very familiar with the inner critic, and I can bring her out at any point. I don’t need help with that.
Lex Fridman (01:32:48): So you do have… She’s on call.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:32:50): She was on overdrive. That’s why now I had to work on that so much.
Lex Fridman (01:32:57): Yeah, you have a really happy way about you right now.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:33:00): Thanks.
Lex Fridman (01:33:00): You’re very Zen. Can I ask you about Bruce Springsteen?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:33:05): Yeah, sure.
Lex Fridman (01:33:05): A lot of songs of his I listen to make me feel this melancholy feeling. Not just Bruce Springsteen, but Bruce does a lot. What is that about songs that arouse a sad feeling or a longing feeling or a feeling? What is that? What is that about us humans on the receiving end of the music?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:33:30): Frequencies. Each frequency does elicit a different kind of emotional response. That is real, scientific-
Lex Fridman (01:33:40): You mean on the physics aspect of it?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:33:41): Yeah, yeah, the physical level. So there is that, combined with the right kind of lyric and the right kind of melody of the right kind of chord will elicit a very particular kind of emotion. And it is scientific. It can be analyzed. I don’t particularly want to analyze it, because I don’t want to approach things with that in advance. I don’t want it to inform where I’m going. I like the feeling to lead me naturally to where I’m writing. But yeah, there’s a real chemical element to that.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:34:19): And then also, like I was saying, the lyric, what it means to you, which… Poetry is supposed to mean something to everybody different. It’s not supposed to mean one thing. You can’t analyze and be like, “This is what this poet meant.” And like we were talking about with Leonard earlier, it’s like the broader you can leave a lyric, the better. You can appeal to people in so many different ways. And even to the songwriter. I’ll sing some of my songs from five years ago and I’ll be like, “I didn’t even think that it could have meant that, but I guess it does. That’s funny.” I’ll just giggle onstage suddenly, because a lyric will hit me differently, from a different, new experience or something.
Lex Fridman (01:35:05): Have you ever cried listening to a song?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:35:07): Of course. Weep like a baby in a bathtub.
Lex Fridman (01:35:12): Which? Who’s the regular go-to, then?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:35:17): Leonard.
Lex Fridman (01:35:17): Leonard?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:35:18): Leonard.
Lex Fridman (01:35:19): Yeah. Hallelujah is a song that consistently makes me feel something.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:35:25): It’s holy. His work is holy. And if you were in his presence… I guess there was a lot to that being.
Lex Fridman (01:35:40): What advice would you give to young folks on how to have a life they can be proud of?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:35:47): Just tackle the demons as early as possible, whether it’s through your art or through meditation or through whatever it means, diaries, whatever it is. Just walk towards the things that are scary, because if you don’t, they’ll just expand. They become bigger if you avoid… If you avoid the demons, they become bigger.
Lex Fridman (01:36:15): What does that mean for you today? Are you still missing Jeff?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:36:19): I’ll always miss Jeff, but I don’t feel like a piece of me is missing. And same with Leonard. It’s that I did give them a piece of myself, and maybe they gave me a piece of them that I hold with me and I cherish, but it doesn’t feel like I’m less than, or they’re less than, or anything’s less than. You learn to appreciate the impermanence of everything in life, impermanence of everything except for… Consciousness, I guess you could say, is the only thing that is permanent. So everything else, you learn to appreciate that impermanence, because the limited amount of time in this particular body, it’s enticing, gives you a time limit, which is cool. I like that.
Lex Fridman (01:37:25): So you’ve come to accept your own?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:37:27): Yeah. It’s cool that I’m like, “Okay, I’ve got this amount…” Maybe this amount of time. Who knows?
Lex Fridman (01:37:32): It could end today.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:37:33): Yeah, if I died today, I’d be really happy with my life. It’s not like I’m like, “Oh, I missed out on this and that.”
Lex Fridman (01:37:41): So you really want to make sure that every day could be your last day and you’re happy with that.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:37:46): I’ve always lived that way. Yeah. I felt this way since I was in my early 20s. I’d be like, “Yeah, I could die today. Sure.” I don’t want to die. I have no reason to die. But if I did, I know that I put my everything, all my effort and all my passion and all my love, into whatever I’ve already done. So if my time’s up, then my time’s up.
Lex Fridman (01:38:10): What role does love play in this whole thing, in the human condition?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:38:14): Well, love is everything. I mean, if you define love… If you’re talking about love as in romantic love or paternal or maternal love, or if you’re talking about love as in an Eastern tradition, like Vedanta for instance, love is consciousness, love is everything.
Lex Fridman (01:38:36): That’s the only permanent thing.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:38:38): Yeah. Or if you were to come from a Zen or like a Buddhist perspective, they would say nothingness. Emptiness is, versus fullness.
Lex Fridman (01:38:49): Well those guys are really obsessed with the whole suffering thing and letting go of it.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:38:55): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:38:59): Well, I was wondering if you would do me the honor of playing a song.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:39:07): Do you want a suffering song or a suffering song?
Lex Fridman (01:39:11): I think I would love a suffering song.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:39:12): Cool. Do you want a sound check and make sure I’m not-
Lex Fridman (01:39:23): Sound check. One, two. Yeah, it sounds really good.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:39:29): This one too? All right, count me off.
Lex Fridman (01:39:31): Yeah. I don’t know how to count somebody off. Where do I start? At nine? Or three? Two, one.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:39:31): Yeah, you got it. One, two.
Lex Fridman (01:39:31): One, two.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:39:31): (singing)
Lex Fridman (01:44:08): You’re amazing. That was amazing, Tal. Thank you so much.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:44:18): [inaudible 01:44:18]
Lex Fridman (01:44:20): Try turning it to 11.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:44:21): It’s quite loud. Can you see it from the headphones? [inaudible 01:44:27]
Lex Fridman (01:44:28): Can you play something?
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:44:29): No.
Lex Fridman (01:44:29): No.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:44:41): Such a professional.
Lex Fridman (01:44:46): I should produce your next record.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:44:46): Please.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:44:46): (singing)
Lex Fridman (01:49:12): Well, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now. Tal, thank you for this. Thank you for the private concert. You’re amazing. You really are amazing. And it was a pleasure to meet you and really a pleasure to talk to you today.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:49:27): Do I get a private concert now of you playing chess with yourself?
Lex Fridman (01:49:32): We’re out of time, so we got to go.
Tal Wilkenfeld (01:49:35): [inaudible 01:49:35]
Lex Fridman (01:49:36): Thanks for listening to this conversation with Tall Wilkenfeld. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Maya Angelou. “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
本集資源與出處
- 影片在 YouTube 收看
- 音訊官方 MP3 直鏈來自 lexfridman.com 官方播客 RSS
- 官網Lex Fridman 官網本集頁面
- 文稿官方 Transcript（lexfridman.com）
