Vivienne Aerts on “Current”, Mindfulness, Creativity, and Community

The link takes you to the podcast and video formats of this interview, as well as the show notes with all the other important links!

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. I strongly believe that we need to teach mindfulness stuff any way, any shape or form to people in the arts because or actually anybody, but it's so intensely connected to how you perform because the way we feel the way we perform. If we identify ourselves with how well we play and then we judge ourselves, that's not going to be good. The need to sound good gets into the way of sounding good. Are we really free, free of self-judgment? All these techniques are just basic cognitive behavioral therapy.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, you’re listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman, which I hope inspires you through the personal stories of a fascinating diversity of musical guests. Vivienne Aerts is a NYC-based Dutch Singer, Educator, and Psychologist, for many years on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music. I’ve been following her inspiring creative practice for a couple of years and I’m excited to tell you that for this episode you’ll be hearing clips from her beautiful upcoming album Current, produced on a tiny 1951 Dutch sailboat, blending jazz, electronics, and vocal loops with water-inspired soundscapes. Her husband, the renowned pastry chef Ted Steinebach also made a documentary film about the journey, which features several other wonderful musicians who hopped on the boat to record. I found it uplifting to get to know Vivienne’s interdisciplinary approach, rooted in mindfulness and how she got started as a student creating interesting opportunities for artists. You’ll also be hearing clips from a couple of her previous projects including the award-winning Tpuhthang featuring 100 female musicians which supports Congolese female cacao farmers through a partnership with Original Beans.In this age of AI, I’m inspired by Vivienne's trust and hopefulness in the need for us to engage all of our senses and the power of mobilizing micro-communities to support meaningful creative work. You can watch this video on my YouTube or listen to the podcast, and I’ve also linked the transcript.It’s a joy to bring these inspiring episodes to you, and I do all the many jobs of research, production and publicity. Have a look at the show notes of this episode on my website, where you’ll find all the links, including different ways to support this podcast, other episodes you’ll enjoy, and Vivienne’s website with a pre-order link for Current!

Hey, Vivian, thanks so much for joining me here today.

Vivienne Aerts:

Thanks so much for having me. Such a pleasure.

Leah Roseman:

So I do study Dutch. I have this connection with the Netherlands, but I didn't actually know that your last name meant earth.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes, it does. Aerts. It means from the Earth actually. And it's the Belgian spelling because ... Yeah. Yeah, just the history of the name.

Leah Roseman:

So the name of this boat that your new album current is de Vouw means the fold as in-

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

So is that meaning in the water, what we see?

Vivienne Aerts:

Well, it was a joke towards origami because our friend's kid was really into origami. So we posted like, "Hey, anybody has a name for this boat?" And there was a bunch of different names coming up and this kid was like, "Yeah, to fold because of origami." And it makes a fold if you go through the water, it does make sense. So we're like, "Yeah, this is a great name."

Leah Roseman:

Well, thanks for sharing this album with me before it's released. I've so enjoyed listening to it.

Vivienne Aerts:

Thank you. You're one of the first to hear it.

Leah Roseman:

Well, I've been following your project for a while and I was really excited and to see the images of the boat. I do understand you've also made a documentary film that'll come out as well.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes, it's crazy. We can call ourselves documentary makers now. It's a 28 minute short documentary. There's no talking. You just see me on a boat and then I go around the little canals and the waters and the lakes of the Netherlands where we have our boat starting in Leiden all the way up to Amsterdam, but there's no talking. You just see me on the boat sitting with my gear and my field recorder and my hydrophone recording the bubbles on the water. So you just see the landscapes and then a bass player jumps on and she records some parts and there's a harmonica and a saxophone player also in Amsterdam. They jump on and it was such a trip, two weeks on that little boat, which is ... Yeah, it's mentally and physically interesting because there was no house on the boat. It's really, really small boat, but the acoustics and the sounds on the water were amazing. (Music: clip of track 1, Nothing Needs the World, album Current)

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, we can hear this. So let's talk about the first track right away when we dive in. So Hermine Deurloo on Harmonica and Adinda, is it- Meer

Vivienne Aerts:

Meertins

Leah Roseman:

Meertins on bass. Yes. How did a bass fit? How did this work?

Vivienne Aerts:

Well, that was actually it. Nothing else fit. It was basically ... So the boat is 11 meters long. This type of boat is from 1951. It has the number in the ... There's a fin under it. So it's the teeniest sailboat, but it's a very common. It's called a BM16 square meters. So people in the Netherlands really know this boat historically and many people back in the day went on holiday with it if they're into water. Many people, because two thirds of the water is below sea level, so there's a lot of water in the Netherlands and we're historically trained to work with water. So boats are very common. We got this boat during COVID and then for 250 bucks and Teddy, my husband was like, "Well, this is a cheap holiday, right? Any hotel room is way more expensive and it's COVID so we don't have to bother anybody." And I'm like, "Yeah, right, whatever." But it turned out in the night you build a little tent on top of the sail and that becomes a little cabin for the night.

But basically the space on the floor where you lay is basically the size of two yoga mats. That's really it. And then we have some storage in the front and the back and also you can sort of stand in the back if you want to, because we also have a little motor. So basically that's how we picked up the bass player, Adinda Meertins, in this place called Roelofarendsveen, which is I would say 10 minutes south of the airport, Schiphol, by car then. And so she went to Roelofarendsveen and we picked her up and she jumped, I mean, she stepped on the boat with her bass in the middle of it. And then Teddy, I was sitting also in the center of the boat and Teddy was on the back deck using the motor for us to motor out to the middle of the lake because that was the plan. We wanted to have the bass tracks recorded in the center of the lake, which is called Braassemermeer.

Leah Roseman:

Okay.

Vivienne Aerts:

I'm sorry for this. I mean, you've been to the Netherlands a lot, so you know a lot of these words that are really funnily pronounced.

Leah Roseman:

Actually, I find Dutch is very phonetic in contrast to English. It's consistent, right?

Vivienne Aerts:

I guess so. Yeah. But there's Braas - There's a lot of (guttural sounds) in it.

Leah Roseman:

Well, you mentioned your husband, the renowned pastry chef, Ted Steinebach. And you have done a bunch of multi-sensory experience design with him. So maybe we could talk about that a little bit in terms of even coming into the project.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah, totally. So we got to know each other during my studies at Berklee, but I was here in Boston. Well, now I'm in New York, but I was in Boston. He was still in the Netherlands and it was very inconvenient. So it's over 10 years ago and I'm like, "Well, let's just have fun for the summer." But basically that didn't happen. We were now married for over 10 and a half years. So he started off as a pastry chef. When I was done in Boston with my studies at Berklee, I wanted to move to New York and he's like, "Whoa, that's cool. I want to go too." So I'm like, "Yeah, you better find a job." So he got a visa to work at this very famous restaurant as a pastry chef called, it was called 11 Madison Park. At that moment it was the third best restaurant of the world and during his year became the best. Three Michelin star super fancy fine dining and he would make the desserts, but also the baked goods and the pralinés and some of the ... There was a cheeseboard with all these different components to it.

So that was basically his job for that year. And then after that it was like, "What's next?" So we decided it would be either a new city or a new restaurant, but I wanted to stay in New York because it was really cool and I loved the city and we have friends here and so we were like, "Okay, well let's just see what it brings." And we started collaborating where he ... Well, we were both invited to this random party of our friends, Dennis Galante, who was doing parties in Soho. He's like, "I want you both on my party and then you do music and he does some food." And Teddy was like, "I don't make cupcakes. You don't even have a kitchen in your loft." It was more of a business pad and I don't really do background music too much. So I'm like, "What am I?

I just want to hang. It's our friend." So then we're like, "What shall we do? " So we just were like, "Let's get it over with and just do it at the same time." And then it's sort of an event and then afterwards we can get to hang. So we basically, he made a painting from dessert ingredients, throwing cake, cream, gel, ganache, all these different textures, edible flowers, all on this one big table that became like Jackson Pollockish painting that you could eat while I make sound. I use a lot of electronics, iPads apps. I just made this soundscape to his movement, to his painting. And that was so fun that that was in 2016. So we've been doing it for 10 years now. By now we did world's biggest pastry painting for 1500 people in Germany and we're featured on Japanese TV. We were in museums.

We're like, discuss how does Rembrandt sound or how does blue taste or the conceptualization of these projects is very, very fun. So that's how the collaboration started. And then there was this chocolate brand that was like, "Well, you're drawing with food, but you better have sustainable, fair, honest chocolate." And this chocolate brand is good for the people, good for the nature and they're really good quality because after World's 50 best, I think two thirds of them use this brand. It's called Original Beans. So we started this collaboration with Original Beans and because of that, I decided to have one of their chocolate bars with my last album that came out in 2023, which was quite a big project.

Leah Roseman:

I want to do a deep dive into that project, but I'm wondering, should we stick with Current for a while?

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

Because I want to get people excited about it.

Vivienne Aerts:

There's so much information.

Leah Roseman:

There's so much. There's so much to talk about. I know. But I did think it was relevant because of the multisensory thing and Ted was involved.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes. We love working together and he's very flexible. And then after we started desserts and songs and then he was like, let's do ... He's writing a book, a cookbook, he's writing different books and that will come out and it will take our times. And then it was like, "Yeah, let's produce this album." And he's really good with visuals. So he became the filmmaker on the boat as well as the sailor. It's been just fun to work together.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, that's wonderful. Okay. We talked about the first track a litle bit because Hermina and Adinda was there. Is there anything you want to say about that song?

Vivienne Aerts:

Well, I was inspired by Buddhism. For the last years I teach at Berklee. I was first involved with the Effortless Mastery Institute. I grew his brand massively for nine years. I did basically everything for Effortless Mastery at Berklee and then I went to Berklee like nine years and they were like, "Yeah, you do you. " So I developed my own courses now. I teach mindfulness related techniques for the performer. I teach things using my psychology background because I am a licensed psychologist as well. I did too many studies in the Netherlands and in America. I even worked as a psychologist. So that whole Buddhism thing, I think this new album is really me because it speaks to the mindfulness state, to the peace that we create, the acceptance or plowing through, pushing ourselves to become the best, but in a gentle way, in a compassionate way, in a way that we actually carry ourselves.

So that really came through, maybe not even purposely, but it just happened because I just went writing like crazy and I'm like, "Oh, here's the songs." But I realized the word nothing is what the world needs, right? Because there's so much things going on that are worrisome and people are just upset and angry and there's all the feels. And I think what the world really needs is self-compassion and that means stillness. That means everybody being okay with the moment with the now. Yeah, that first song is about that mindfulness, nothing. Nothing needs the world. That's the title of the track. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

So Vivian, I definitely wanted to get into the psychology and the effortless mastery, but I'm going to leave that for later in the conversation. But what we were talking about the documentary film, I would love to see it. How are people going to be able to see that?

Vivienne Aerts:

Well, we're shopping it for festivals and probably in the fall we hear what festivals we got selected for. There will be some private streamings, but there also will be some small footage sprinkled all over the platforms.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. And once you've done the festival circuits, I understand this takes time.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes, there will be showings. I didn't know the timelines of these festivals are-

Leah Roseman:

They're long. I've heard from other filmmakers, but will you have it eventually on Vimeo as a rent to-

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

Okay.

Vivienne Aerts:

And hopefully on Amazon. I mean, we have some friends that are in film and they have it on Amazon. So at some point I'm sure we will have it available on streamers.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. Just what you were talking about with mindfulness and being in the moment, just your description of the film and the little bits of footage as you were filming it. I remember last summer seeing little clips and thinking, oh! Let's go back to Current. So track five, this beautiful improv and you have a few of these on various of your albums. (Music: clip of track 5, Current Improv 1)

Vivienne Aerts:

In this new album, there's two improvisations. I recorded a bunch of them actually, but this was the selection I made and then I found out that ... So the basic of the track is really improvised. It's just me hitting record and then adding synth, adding layers of my voice through a looper, which I use on the iPad. It's called Loopy and it's very fun for even people with kids, it's really L-O-O-P-Y. I strongly recommend and I'm not endorsed. So I layer all these voices on top of the synthesizer and then in the after edit, I edit some birds, some sounds from a water lock, some bubbles from the hydrophone, some wind, you hear some squeaking. (Music: clip track 5)

But there is also some effects that were actually on the boat. So at some point I think in that first track, which is called Current, the other track is called Waterlock. Those are the two improvisations, but I think in the middle of the song Gathered, you hear sort of like a ... Which is actually Teddy stepping on the floor of the boat and then my looper effect took on it and then I had an echo effect and it just came out so well. So it's real, I would say live except for some bird sounds that I added on it to create the atmosphere. Yeah, I like those soundscapes. I do a lot of that. Even at Berklee, I do experimental ... I teach the experimental improvisation ensemble that I came up with. So it's my class in which we improvise with mindfulness in mind and we just create on the spot and I use a lot of these different approaches and effects because I'm really interested in soundscapes and atmospheres because that brings me inspiration also for songs.

I love songs with lyrics too. And in the last album with the hundred female musicians and the chocolate, I added because I got these sounds from Congo, from the female cacao farmers and because there was this lady, Penny Taylor from the BBC radio and she was there because it's basically not safe to go, but she was there in 2016 interviewing these women about the cacao and she sent me all her interviews. I have like gigabytes of her asking interviews and there's also extraneous sounds like birds in the jungle and motorcycles and digging in the ground. So what I decided for the last album was use these little sounds into a soundscape and that inspired me for this boat album to also use a lot of these more edited little samples throughout the songs in Current. There's this drum pad in the last song which goes like it's in five and there's just a lot of squeaking of the rudders and the sails and it's like. (Music: clip track 11)

There's this duck occasionally. So yeah, I sampled these into this drum beats, but sometimes it's just a synth pad that was originally boat sound. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Vivian, do you know Ineke Vandoorn?

Vivienne Aerts:

Oh yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. So she's actually been on this podcast twice and I met her in person in the Netherlands.

Vivienne Aerts:

I have not seen her in a long time, but yes, she's amazing.

Leah Roseman:

And one question I asked her is why she doesn't write songs more in Dutch. Why in English? So I'm going to ask you the same thing.

Vivienne Aerts:

Dutch is a really hard language to write lyrics in for some strange way. My husband actually does write a lot of Dutch poetry. So I have considered and there is something on the shelf that needs to be released where I actually use that lyrics. I was in Korea and so now I'm talking about it. So this is going to be my official ... Now I do need to have this out at some point, maybe in a year where we did a free improvisation session in Korea with my friends, Gaiyang and Sangha, this great bass player. So we had the trio where we just improvised. It was very experimental. And then at some point I took his Dutch poetry and they were really into the sounds of Dutch. So it was quite funny. We had this conversation where we used the word panenkoeken, pancakes. Yeah. It was really, really good.

So yeah, I do have to look at that one. But Dutch lyrics for my songs, it didn't come to me. With English, I just start and somehow it just appears. And then I carve it to make it work or to change it or I move it around, but with Dutch, I don't know. I should try. I agree.

Leah Roseman:

What were your impressions of South Korea?

Vivienne Aerts:

Oh, I loved it. Yeah. I've been friends with since my studies in 2012 with so many Korean musicians because they all went to Berklee and we still connected. And so one of my best friends, Ga Young, she's also on the last album. She did the arrangement and the piano for one of the songs called Concept of Falling. And she's been saying for 10 years, "You should come, you should come." And then you know how it goes, it's far and you need to schedule. And then just when the last album came out in 2023, I called her like, "We're coming." And she's like, "Yes." So she booked me three weeks of concerts and we went everywhere, all the clubs, all the things that I could ... You really have to speak the language, but she arranged it all and we had so much fun and we loved the food and the people are so nice and the stages are really fantastic.

People sit and listen and yeah, it was a wonderful experience. We had a blast. So hopefully we can go actually next summer. She was here to visit us just in February, so we were hanging with her, which is nice. So she's like, "Yeah, next year. And if we finished the experimental album." That's great. Yeah. So much to do if you do it yourself, right?

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I mean, I'm with an orchestra and we were there in South Korea for just a week last June.So it was my one only experience.

Vivienne Aerts:

All over or just in Seoul?

Leah Roseman:

In Busan and a couple of other places. I can't remember the names. Yeah.

Vivienne Aerts:

Beautiful. I mean, the people are so sweet.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. And the listening, the audience's attention is really special.

Vivienne Aerts:

I totally agree. It's so different. And yeah, it was really, really so warm. And then afterwards they came up and maybe they don't get a lot of that. So there's really this real honest need and interest for it.

Leah Roseman:

One thing that struck me, I remember waiting to play, like we're on stage warming up or whatever and this huge hall because it's orchestra, they weren't talking amongst themselves. They were just sitting so quietly waiting and I thought you can chat. We're not started.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. Yeah. My friend Ga Young, she told me that she was trying to teach her audience to applaud for a solo. So sometimes she would just like, yeah, yeah, you're going to ... She would wave her hands and make them applaud if you ... Or she even talked about it before they would start the set. She would just tell her in Korean, her audience like, "If you really feel this is really good, then you can also clap in the middle of the song because in jazz, that's totally fine if you really feel it. " And then I remember there was one person that was really feeling it and they're like, "Woo, yeah." It was so funny. They were really digging it.

Leah Roseman:

There's a guy, wonderful Bansuri player in India, Milind Date that I had on the podcast and we did the interview from his home there and he had gone to South Korea many times to improvise. I remember he said he got there and they just put him on stage with a bunch of jazz musicians and said, "Go." And they just found common language and he's done that a lot without ... He's not a jazz musician.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah, he'll fit in.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah.

Vivienne Aerts:

It's totally what we do.

Leah Roseman:

So let's go back to Current. There's so much to talk about. Track eight, Closer, this vocal ensemble with overdubs that you created, it brings me back actually to your earlier album, Polaroid.

Vivienne Aerts:

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Which I also enjoyed. And let's talk about Closer first. (Music: clip of track 8 Closer, Current)

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah, Closer. I just had that phrase and I didn't know what else to offer, but it made sense. Then I had this synth pad that I came up with on the boat. I was just jamming on top of it and then I'm like, "Oh, maybe I can expand it. " And I was thinking a little bit about James Blake, how sometimes he just has a word or sometimes they're just one phrase and that's the whole song. It just evolves onto beats and stuff and I don't feel like I'm so hip, but I'm like, "Wow, I got this synthesizer and let's see what it does." And then it just morphs into stuff and then at some point there's a bird flying backwards where it just ascends from the water. And then I flipped it around and then at some point there's a beat where I just press on the board of the wood, of the boat. So I added these elements to make it a song.

Leah Roseman:

Actually, what did you do for electricity? Did you have a big battery?

Vivienne Aerts:

We had two car batteries and then just we had a converter to stabilize the power and then I had a lot of power banks and then basically we did some calculations on all the gear and we were able to go two full days with those two car, actually three days with two car batteries and then we had to switch one out over an And just have it charged overnight on the shore. But in the Netherlands, there's coffee places everywhere and we know a lot of people that live on the water, so we just dock and it just give them the battery and they just charge it for us.

Leah Roseman:

Okay, cool.

Vivienne Aerts:

But we didn't have to charge that much. The calculations were like if you use it for the full 24 hours, but I never used it for 24 hours. Basically I charged my computer and then I didn't need to plug it because basically my mic, even though I know officially we should battery power it, but it was drawing the power from my computer and then at some point my computer was done so I had to recharge my computer. And so basically it was sort of a chain of batteries.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. No, I was just curious about the logistics.

Vivienne Aerts:

With the album artwork, there comes a whole list of all the things that we brought onto the boat, which is great. Yeah. We figured it all out. Waterproof bags, different mics, different cables, all the things that you could hypothetically need. Sunscreen, mosquito stuff. Yeah. The artwork is going to be fun. It's going to be a water map and then different dots on the map where we were and what we did.

Leah Roseman:

And did you journal beyond doing the film?

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah, I tried to journal every now and then, but it was also I'm there stuck in the middle of the lake supposed to record this album, but I didn't want to feel stuck to make a documentary. So when Teddy tried to interview me, "Hey, what you're doing?" It really took me out of it. I'm like, "Well, I'm recording a bird and now I hear you talk on my ... So maybe we cannot do this this way because I just want to sit here and create." And then you just ... I mean, yes, we had coffee and it's not like I didn't talk to him for two weeks and we're stuck in a boat together. But no, we had a lot of fun, but it was really about the process and he just captured whatever he could capture being a fly on the deck.

So that was the same for me journaling because if I then had this whole big day, then in the night it was dark. So it gets dark rather quickly in the middle of the lake. So then I still had to write stuff down. It didn't really make sense. So it was more of an after capturing the thoughts after it, but we documented it with video. We were able to retrace our steps like, "Oh, on this day we were here, on this day, we were there." And then we also had a plan of where we went throughout the days. We had to be at some point, we had to make sure that we were in Amsterdam. So in order to be in Amsterdam in the morning, we had to pass a big waterlock. So we had to do calculations and that means that we couldn't sleep.

Also, you cannot sleep with your boat in Amsterdam. That's illegal. So you can also not sleep next to Amsterdam in the lake. You need to sleep in this really tiny harbor. So the day before we entered Amsterdam, in order to make the waterlock in time to make ... Because this is a massive waterlock for really big boats. So you have to calculate the timing and it takes a while to go in and out depending on how many boats or what's the deal. So yeah, there was some scheduling going on during those weeks.

Yeah, there was little notes, but it was not like me writing for an hour every night, I wish.

Leah Roseman:

I was just thinking, Vivienne, constraints often help us be more creative. So the fact that Teddy couldn't interview you, it created something maybe more beautiful.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. He made some cool shots. It's like one shot I remember. And also, I don't know, I'm not that visual. I mean, I know aesthetics a little bit, but he has a way better eye for it. So there's this shot of super slow panning of the landscape and really it takes forever, maybe one and a half minutes. You see just panning, panning, panning. And then at some point you see just the head of the bass and then it goes down and it's just all one shot and then it moves sideways. It doesn't make sense, but it's on camera. It looks so good. Yeah. Just things that I would never see. Yeah. The way he frames the picture was, yeah, I think it's really special.

Leah Roseman:

So when this episode is released, the album won't quite be out, but the pre-order link on Bandcamp will be in the show notes for people. So I'll just remind people about that.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes, it'd be there.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, just a really quick break from the episode. I wanted to let you know about some other episodes that I’ve linked directly to this one in the show notes, with Sara Caswell, Nadje Noordhuis, Ineke Vandoorn, Stephen Nachmanovitch, Avi Kishna and Dorothy Lawson of ETHEL. In the show notes you’ll also find a link to sign up for my newsletter, where you’ll get exclusive information about upcoming guests, a link for my Ko-fi page to support this project directly, where you can buy me one coffee, or every month, and my podcast merchandise store with a design commissioned from artist Steffi Kelly. You can also review this podcast, share it with your friends, and follow on your podcast app, YouTube, and social media. All this helps spread the word! Thanks. Now back to my conversation with Vivienne.

So if we could go back to your early album, Polaroid, I was wondering, could we include a clip of Streetlights from that?

Vivienne Aerts:

Oh yeah, of course. It was recorded in, geez, 2011 and I published it in 12. So it was the year before I went to Berklee. So I was super young and I sound like very young. It's quirky, but what happened was I met this producer from Australia from Perth and he was on tour in Europe and he went to Leiden and I met him and he's like, "Whoa, jazz, I love jazz." And I always have visitors staying because I had some space and so I remember he stayed for a month in my place and then we would record an album.

So he just went, "Oh, can you sing the song?" I had the songs, the lyrics and the chords, but I didn't have arrangements for that whole album. It just went on the fly. So he would go, "Oh, let's just do the rhythm or let's do the, can you sing a bass?" And I would sing a bass. "Oh, maybe you can sing. "I would stack the melody. "Oh, maybe you need some harmony." So we just really produced the two of us for a whole month. We just go produce ... And some of these songs have like, I don't know, 50 layers.

It's really dense, but all arranged on the spot. Later on, I thought, why didn't I write anything on paper? Because then I was like, "Oh, how do I perform this? " I mean, again, with my chocolate and women album, that was the case. How do I perform this? And then now with the boat album, how do I perform this? But we'll figure it out. I mean, I can always go like singer songwriter style, me on the piano, but for this next round, there will be more electronics. But basically because of Polaroid, that completely acapella album, I got into looping. Yeah. The Loopy app just came out and I've been using it since. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Wonderful. That's cool. (Music: clip of Streetlamps from Polaroid)

Actually, just back to Current after this, the last track Outside, Inside Out, you talk about pressure to succeed and also you have layered solos from the saxophonist Susanne Alt. And she was featured on your podcast, Vivi Talks, as part of your previous album, which we're going to get into.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes. Yeah. She's really amazing. I know her very well and we go back quite a long time. Yeah, wonderful saxophone. She's also a DJ.

She lives in Amsterdam originally from Germany, but she's been in the Netherlands for a long time. Yeah. So I asked her to record some solos. She has two songs that she solos on in this album and we went to meet her near Beatrix Park, the canal that lays next to it in Amsterdam. And I was like, "Oh, I hope there's not a lot of noise because there's always cars passing by." And I mean, it's the center of Amsterdam pretty much, but it was fine. We played around with it and I could still chop out some stuff if there was a lot of noise in between, but her way of recording was fascinating because she told me, "Oh, I don't want to talk between the takes. Just give me the place and I'll just solo and then start another take." So we did like nine takes in a row, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

But she already told me, "Around take six is going to be real good." And I mean, I didn't prepare anything, right? We just met. I didn't give her sheet music. I didn't give her anything. I just presented myself with a chord sheet and some lyrics and a track that she could play on with a click and some chords and some bass. It was really fresh, but I know she's amazing so she could do it. I wouldn't offer her something that she really has to dig into. I wanted it to be free, but yeah, this track is in five, so it's like a three plus two and she just gave me so much good stuff that I could not choose. And then I was like, "Well, maybe I should choose because shape up, pick your favorite solo." And it was just too hard, but I also didn't want to make it a patchwork of all different solos.

And then I was thinking, "Well, maybe it's unconventional anyway. Let me just choose a bunch of them." And then I highlighted all the things and at some moment she plays really out, like the super jazz, altered stuff that doesn't go. And so I couldn't mix that one with the in stuff. I highlighted stuff and I made sure all could work. (clip of track 11 Outside Inside Out from Current)

Yeah. It came out like some sort of a sax battle, but yeah, I loved it. And then Jeremy Lucas, who did the mixing later on on shore, after I did all the editing and the production, he put her through a physical delay. So there's this Roland's tape delay and so it records on the tape and it plays back right away. So you hear this spacey stuff about it, really, really good. And then he puts it into space, right? So he makes sure that the one saxophone line is a little further in this distance than maybe on the right speaker or the left speaker. So he spaces it out so it's not as dense and in your face in the middle. So that did help with all these layers.

Leah Roseman:

Wonderful. Well, so let's go, first of all, how do you pronounce the name of your previous album?

Vivienne Aerts:

"Type of thing" (Tpuhthang) because it's not one type of things. It's a lot of type of things and everybody's confused, but it's a non-existing word that everybody says all the time. I hear everybody say, "Yes, one type of thing, blah, blah, blah." People say it all the time. I just wrote it out.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. So you have over a hundred female musicians and I understand some of that was because you'd asked a bunch of people to send you one note.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes. Well, I just went with like, if there's 1500 women making chocolate and this bar of chocolate goes with my album, I'm supporting their business with like living wage because that's what they get for their chocolate. And it needs to be women too on my album. So I just went with a little list of my friends that I love their music and they're playing and that list just become longer. And then I started it with like, "Hey, can anybody send me one note so I can create some soundscapes?" And all these notes I recycled later on into this album as well, but I also went and asked a couple of different friends, arrangers, "Hey, can you arrange this your way?" So my friend Zahili Zamora Gonzalez, who's a great Cuban pianist teaching in Boston at Berklee too, colleague, she made my song that was originally like (singing), like straight ahead jazz standard type of composition.

She changed my song into Cuban Bolero for big band. I could never come up with that because it's really, she's the expert on this and she really put her heart in it. And then so we had to find the whole big band for it. (Music: clip of track 9 Tphuhthang)

Same with my friend. She used to live next door, Mariel Roberts cellist, maybe you know her amazing avant-garde experimental like cellos are scared of her. I asked her to do my song that's really a lovely melody with some chords and then she's like, "Are you sure you want me to do it my way?" And I'm like, "Yeah, you do you. Don't worry." And she created this pad of like ... And then my melody lays on top of it, which is like beyond. I thought that was just the weirdest but coolest thing ever. (Music: clip of track 4 Tphuhthang)

And then there's my friend in Sweden, Linnea Lundgren, she made one of my songs into a choir piece and that's like 26 singers. So I had to get all these parts and put them all in my DAL. In Logic, I use Logic Pro, so I put them all. So yeah, that whole process of hundred women just ended up being a lot of different layers. (Music: clip of track 1 Tphuhthang)

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, it's a really special album. So Original Beans is the company you were referring to, the chocolate company. So it's beyond fair trade. It's really a living wage.

Vivienne Aerts:

That's right. Fair trade is flexible. It's a little bit above market rate, it goes up and down, but stable living wage is two and a half times higher than fair trade and stable, which is crazy. Yeah. So this way the farmers can actually hire somebody to help them out if it's busy season and then they can spend the money on their kids going to school or new equipment and they can actually grow their business. Fairtrade didn't grow with times.

Leah Roseman:

So there's a couple of musicians who've been on my podcast who are featured Nadje Noordhuis and Sarah Caswell.

Vivienne Aerts:

That's right.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I think track six, Silence, maybe they're both playing on that.(Music: clip of track 6, Typuhthang)

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes. Nadje's doing the solo. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's my favorite solo all time. She couldn't have done that. I just sent it to her and this is what she gave me back, I'm like, "Whoa, this is it. " Yeah, she's wonderful. Yeah. Same for Sara. She's on the Silence, that track as well. Yeah, wonderful. And she's a colleague at Berklee, too, Sara.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I'll link both their episodes in the show notes for people because it's nice with the community of musicians.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. It was actually great to talk to all these people. I still have to continue it. I did, I think, 43 episodes. It was a lot of work, but it was also very fun to talk with everybody about their stuff. Yeah, Vivi Talks, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it's not me talking. It's basically me making them talk.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I listened to some of that. So that podcast is linked to your website or should we link it separately in the show notes?

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah, however you want to do it, you can find it.

Leah Roseman:

It's great when people have a really good website like you, like everything's there.

Vivienne Aerts:

I try.I recently rebranded. Somehow I noticed that my education thing was not ... There was no page, no button, no nothing on my website about my education, but I've been teaching it. I've been working at Berklee for over 10 years. Yeah, recently I add a page that says education. Yeah, I do songwriting workshop, mindfulness. I have this course, Musicians' Equilibriums. I try to update a website.

Leah Roseman:

So you're doing stuff separate from Berklee in terms of teaching?

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. Not too much, but it's more like project based. Yeah. So I do a workshop or a course or an intensive or one of these. I mean, Berklee is two full days. It's pretty intense. It's wonderful. I do my own thing. The students are amazing. I really like working with them. In my case, I get a lot of freedom with the teaching I do because I teach non-regular classes. I teach the courses I designed, like mindfulness related technique for the musician, experimental, improvisation ensemble. And I have this thing called directed study, which is the everything class and they can just take it to work on any project of their choosing. So we set goals among each other, but it's not like, oh, at the end semester you have to know these 20 songs. Not at all. It's like every week it could be different. I'm working on this album that's just ... Or I'm trying to write or I'm trying to do better improvisation.

And it could be also any instrument. So I have this semester, I have a mandolin player, I have a banjo player, I have a saxophone player and a pianist and just for one hour private and we just work on whatever. And then I think I see 80 students a week, in different group sizes doing all these different classes. So outside of Berklee I do not a lot of teaching, just like special workshops like, "Oh, we're going to do a three day songwriting intensive sign up." Or, "Oh, let's do a masterclass on how to ... " Yeah, I do more of these.

Leah Roseman:

What's the commute like from New York to Boston?

Vivienne Aerts:

It's four hours. Yeah, it's eight hours. I go with the car because of the schedules of the trains. So yeah, drive on Tuesday and I'm back on Wednesday night, so it's two full days. I stay over one night. I don't teach in the summer so I get to travel, which is nice. So yeah, the commute is, I don't know, it's four hours in, four hours out.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Okay. And for this Tpuhthang album, you did do some crowdsourcing for funds.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yes. Yeah. I like to do pre-order campaigns because it's not like, oh, I'm a poor artist, but if I know that I already have an audience for it, then it makes sense to do it. And so with Tpuhthang, I knew it was going to be expensive because paying hundred women, having these ... I mean, the artwork was really extensive too and I have a publicist and I mean the whole thing was quite expensive. So the pre-order in combination through Indiegogo in combination with the grants I got from the Netherlands American Foundation, the SENA Production Fund, which is Dutch, like the Dutch ASCAP, I would say. They have a grant to produce some and then I had some private investors and then the same for current. I had some pre-order still. I just send it out to my newsletter and then give it a little push.

Yeah, it really helps because how else? I need to know I'm selling these albums in advance.

Leah Roseman:

I was just curious because also you're mentoring younger musicians or maybe not necessarily younger, but the beginning of their career. So it seems to me you're really community based, really collaborative and you- I think

Vivienne Aerts:

That's the only way.

Leah Roseman:

And you developed that so early in your career as well.

Vivienne Aerts:

Well, I needed to go to Berklee, right at some point I grew up in the Netherlands and then I did my high school and then after high school I did two studies at the same time. I went to the conservatory as well as to university. So at the conservatory I was doing singing and then conducting and then at the university I was doing my bachelor and master's psychology and during these studies I organized festivals, I worked for the university, I played with my little band everywhere I was very active in like organizing stuff. I worked for three years as just a side gig for the national railroad organizing events festivals in their little waiting rooms, these glass things on the platforms. They had them available for my festival. For three years I worked for the national. I did all these things and then at some point I'm like, "Wow, I got this Berklee scholarship in Italy." Berklee goes to Italy to do a workshop and I just had a lot of fun and after that workshop, they gave me a scholarship and I was like 20 or so and super excited, but I'm like, "Yo, Berklee, thank you for the scholarship, but I still have to finish psychology and conservatory.

Can I delay it? " And they're like, "Oh yeah, yeah, just finish it. " So after I finished my studies and I already actually, I worked for a couple of years as a psychologist in the daytime and as a conductor in the evenings, as a performer in the weekends, I called Berklee, "Can I still go? " They're like, "Yeah." So then I was like, "Oh, now I actually need to pay for it. " Okay. Because the scholarship wasn't full. So I had the Berklee Scholarship. I got the Fulbright Scholarship, which I never heard about, but somebody told me, "Whoa, that's really cool you got this. " And then I Googled and then it was actually cool. And then I made so many Fulbright friends with this. I totally recommend checking out the program. It's really wonderful. Senator Fulbright wanted world peace and by making a scholarship that goes from America to the world and from the world to America, you create intercultural understanding and exchange where people are less prone to fight because they know the other, whoever the other is.

It's not us versus them, it's just we're all people. So I got all these scholarships and then yeah, I went into my community, yo, I need to go to Berklee, buy my album. I sold a lot of albums when I was 20. I think I sold 5,000 albums by hand. It was not even in stores.

Yeah, I was able to go to Berklee because of that. And then later on I'm like, "Yo, my album Polaroid is coming out. " So people just bought it. And then with the women, I'm like, "Yeah, this is going to be an expense because I want to pay everybody. It's been COVID. We need to do that. " Yeah, I just reached out to the community and said, "Yeah, I'm doing this fun thing. You want to dig along or be part of it? " Yeah, in some way.

Leah Roseman:

Just to back up a little bit, this railway festival thing, so it was music on the platform.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. Well, actually all things. I did not even perform. I was organizing it. It depends on the station. There was Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Groningen, all the different stations and they all had different number of waiting cabins. So I would book like a poet or a dancer or some theater or some cabaret, all different little half hour slots and people would move from half hour to another platform to just hop around through the ... Yeah, that happened because I initiated this festival in 2008 which was called STUKAfest Student kamer room Festival where there was like I think 20 student rooms that were a little like So far Sound type of before SoFar. It was way before Sofar Sounds. So it was living room concerts in dorms. So in order to create that, it was a national thing, I believe, and I was appointed for Rotterdam, but then they found out I lived in Leiden and then they're like, "You need to do Leiden instead as a board." And I'm like, "Well, I don't have a board." So I went to one of the university opening academic year or something and I met two girls that wanted to join my board.

So now we had three girls and then we're like, "Oh, we need a guy to be part of a board." And we were like super young, right? 2008, so that's 20 years ago. Is that right? Yeah, 20 years ago, super young. Oh, we need a guy because guys can carry a lot of stuff. We have three girls. And then how are we going to promote this? Festival, because the logo was a sock because you have to clean up your dorm room if then people come and engage in a concert. So we basically decided to collect 2000 socks. So we knocked on all the dorm rooms in the whole city, which is quite extensive. It's 120,000 people live in the city. It's a really big university town. So we knocked on all the doors, all the fraternities, all that, "Hey, do you have dirty old socks behind you? And then we collected 2000 socks we actually counted. And I had a visual artist from Amsterdam come into Leiden and to make the biggest sock ever in the middle of the town. And that got national press, which was kind of dumb and crazy.

Leah Roseman:

From the socks?

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah.Okay. Yeah. She sort of knitted all the socks together into the most massive sock and we hanged it next to the church in the city center. It was hilarious and the national news picked up on it and our festival was known, right? It was the best PR campaign ever and most funny too. So because of that, it was very successful this festival for the students. And then the National Railroad was like, "Oh, hey, we have this thing in the train stations. You want to do it? " And my board was like, "Oh, we're busy studying." And I'm like, "Yeah, I'll do it."

I love multitasking and I don't need a lot of sleep so I love all these things. But yeah, I recently remember that because I was telling my students at Berklee, you can just organize your own stuff. Spotify doesn't pay and even if they would, right? I mean, they pay other stuff and we can discuss if that's good or bad, but I don't think we need to support. If you work, if your business is built on musicians, then probably you want to pay musicians to make this, right? You can invest different ways, but yeah, it would make sense for a company like Spotify to reinvest in music. But hey, I'm not the boss. But basically if they would even reinvest, the model would still not cater everybody fairly because we couldn't make a living even if we spread it out over all the creators in the world.

So there wouldn't be enough money anyway. I think the only solution is to create your own bubble, create your own audience and think of platforms like Bandcamp or platforms like there's this new thing called Subvert. It looks like Bandcamp, but then it's a co-op.

So everybody's technically owner because that's what a co-op is and there's this forum with it and have your own email list. So everybody that you meet that likes what you do or that you connect with, support them and they support you. Micro communities are, I think, the only way to go now. If they don't book you, you organize your own festival. You rent out your own. I've done that a lot. We did like 20 course desserts dinners. Sorry, no, it was 10 desserts, 10 desserts and 10 songs and then 200 people signed up. So we had to make 2000 desserts, but in that case, we'll deal with it. We hire a person to help out, but we rented our own venue in the Netherlands and because who's going to do that for us? Nobody. And we'll just make it fun. I think that's the only way to go now.

Just create your own event, however that makes sense. You can find a friend and then together they do the business part and then you do the music part. You don't have to do it all alone. I always have people around me, but that's the only way to go. Yeah. Even with other styles of music, it's not ... I mean, in jazz or in classical, it's everywhere. It's happening everywhere.

But there's people that want real experiences because music can change. Music can without music or the art life wouldn't be worth. So we need it and people need to have experience that are real. And I think that's why AI and all that stuff is not going to replace us. I'm not so worried because people are craving for the real stuff because, yeah.

Leah Roseman:

So speaking of multi-sensory experiences, your album launch in New York Harbor is on a boat.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah, it had to be, right? Yeah. It's coming up June 28th. I got a very big boat this time because my boat in the Netherlands is tiny. We'll do that. We will do that in August in the Netherlands where we have the tiny boat be the center of the collection of a massive boat gathering where they can all sit on their respective boats and watch me on my little boat. But in New York that was ... Because our Dutch boat is not sea worthy. It does have a fin, but no way it can go to sea. It's not high enough. It's just for lakes and sailing and canals. So yeah, I needed to have a big boat. So a friend of mine, I don't know, Joe Cohn, the son of Al Cohn, this saxophone, historic Al Cohn played with Stan Getz and so it's sort of this history.

So Joe Cohn is a great friend of mine, guitar player and he ... Well, we were joking about it because his babysitter was Billy Holiday. So he grew up among craziness for sure. And then so he played on this boat many times. He's been on this boat as just entertainment. They do jazz cruise in the nights in the summers. So I've seen him on the boat and all of a sudden I'm like, maybe this boat could host my event too. It's a special one off because I'm not going to do the jazz dinners. They generally do. So it should be special event, but I cannot rent the boat because that's ... Yeah, it's a Clipper. Yeah, it's one of these big historic boats. So I went to the guy from the boat, Tom, and he's like, "Wow, Joe Cohn. Yeah. Joe Cohn was my babysitter." And I'm like, "Wow. So Joe was your babysitter?" And then Billy Holiday was Joe's ... Yeah, that was funny. And then he's like, "Yeah, let's discuss. Let's have an event."

Leah Roseman:

Okay, wonderful.

Vivienne Aerts:

And then yesterday actually I talked to another boat owner. Actually, he's the owner of the museum of the USS Constellation in Baltimore and we confirmed it for July. So we're going to do two Big Boats concerts in the summer, which I'm excited about.

Leah Roseman:

Wonderful. Are you going to have other musicians with you or solo?

Vivienne Aerts:

It's going to be solo. Okay. Yeah. I'm still considering a horn player, but I think for ... Yeah, it needs to be solo with all the ... Yeah, I want to have this challenge to work it out because there's so much ambient sounds on the album I need to figure out a way to do it live. There might be a horn player doing solo stuff. There might be a bass player, different settings, but yeah, it'd be a good challenge to figure out how to do this live.

Leah Roseman:

Okay.

Vivienne Aerts:

That's the goal. I'm setting myself.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I was curious about Dutch and American culture. You've lived in New York for so long, but it seems to me a lot of your perspective is Dutch. You don't think so?

Vivienne Aerts:

I'm not sure. I'm really weird for the Dutch I think. In the Dutch, there's a story of Calvinism and because of that, they want you to be normal. They want you to be safe and maybe a little conservative. They're very liberal, right? You do you. In that sense, it's really open and that's what's been celebrated a lot. The Dutch, everything is possible in the Dutch. That's why the pilgrim fathers fled. It was way too crazy in the Netherlands. Let's just go cross the ... They were in England and then they went to actually Leiden my hometown and then they're like, "Oh no, they're crazy." That's why the pilgrim fathers went to America back in the day. They're way too crazy. But for me, I always had to explain, I do two studies. They're like, "No, just why? Why? Why do you? " And they just couldn't understand it.

And they thought it was arrogant or too ambitious or why you can just choose one, right? And I'm like, "No, I just enjoyed both of it and I'm trying to do it well. I put a lot of energy in it. " But yeah, so in that sense, I think America has been really great because if I'm excited about something, people will join. They're like, "Whoa, that's cool. Good for you. " And maybe it feels, but it could work. There's the chance of succeeding as that is the American dream. And in the Netherlands, that's not so much. It was really weird that I was ... I mean, I didn't have to pay for two studies. It was all free. I could do it, but they'd rather have me do one. I mean, that's how I experienced it. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

I think a lot of people might have that attitude towards people because people get, I wouldn't say intimidated, but if they can't imagine doing so much in their own lives, they feel like it's that you're at risk of burnout or what do you ... Maybe it's out of concern a little bit.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. Oh, well, I remember my mom, they're the sweetest. I have really sweet parents. I remember when I was 18, "You don't have to go to university. You could just get a job." And I'm like, "No, no, no. I need to do two studies." And she's like, "No, no. I mean, you can. We're proud of you, whatever you do. " And that's in a way it's very sweet, but somehow it brought out just like, "I'm going to do it. " Anyway, because it's in my character. Yeah. It's really part of what I do. I like to combine all the different elements into on melting pot and meet a lot of people and in different ways. And even though I'm not a psychologist in America, even though I'm licensed in Europe, I still work with people with the mind. So everything comes still handy to me and I don't see it as separate things, but yeah, I understand that for people it's easier to say, "Oh, she's a singer." But then I don't see myself as a singer.

I'm more of a creator, but I mean that word now, everybody is a creator, so that's a little iffy. But yeah, I just like experiences.

Leah Roseman:

So Kenny Werner's Effortless Mastery, I read that shortly after it came out. How did you get to work with him?

Vivienne Aerts:

So it was his first semester he was hired in my last semester and I'm sitting in a room and there's nobody there. I'm like, "Aren't you famous?" He's like, "Yeah, they gave me times and space but no students." They wanted him to be the director of the Performance Wellness Institute mapping, yoga, Alexander Technique and Qigong. They would meet every semester, I believe. And that was called the Performance Wellness Institute, which later then changed its name to the Berklee Effortless Mastery Institute. I was there from the very beginning getting everything up and running. And then when my semester ended, I was done, they gave me a job because I gathered a community around him and he got very famous. He didn't have an Instagram, he didn't have a YouTube, he barely had a website running. I did all that. For nine years, I run his business and that did mean that I didn't really run my business too. So honestly, that took a toll on me and it was really clear that at some point I had to quit working for him

Because I mean, the concepts in the book are amazing, but they're not new. Buddhism was there all long. I didn't make anything up either. It's breath. We breathe and we connect with our body. It's just a way that it's taught that might be new and it's very necessary. So for all these nine years, I was strongly advocating for it and very successfully. We grow and then Berklee was like, "Oh well, the classes are too full or you need to teach too." So eventually it became not an admin. It became a teaching job and then it expanded. We wrote course proposals for his classes that are now credited and we wrote like a minor and it became a whole thing.

Yeah. I strongly believe that we need to teach mindfulness stuff any way, any shape or form to people in the arts because, or actually anybody, but it's so intensely connected to how you perform because the way we feel the way we perform, if we identify ourselves with how well we play and then we judge ourselves, that's not going to be good. The need to sound good gets into the way of sounding good. Are we really free of self judgment? All these techniques are just basic cognitive behavioral therapy, right? If we recondition ourselves to just be here instead of here, yes, we can study the techniques we know now where all the notes is the question is, does it play itself? Can I just enjoy this on a deeper level? I don't want to know something I want it to know itself. So I just want it to just come out and we cannot have that for everything right at once, but we can work towards a situation where something really plays from that, if you will, space of no thought, of no ... Yeah.

So yeah, nine years was rather long. The guy's a trip, but yeah, I decided to move my own way now. And that was actually the break point was when my album with the women came out I realized that I was more of a feminist and everybody has their own stories in ways you can't ...

Leah Roseman:

So now that you've been able to design your own courses, you talked a little bit about your approach. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. What I like is the holistic view. So in my course I explain the basic premises of mindfulness, but I also explain the background. So we touch on a little bit of Tai Chi, Qigong, Buddhism. We talk about Eckhart Tolle, we talk about Thich Nhat Hanh, different ways of breathing and then we play a lot. I have them play from a space and then I make up exercises where they feel more free while they play and we talk about how to be more effective, how to be more compassionate. For example, there's one meditation in the Effortless Mastery book that I by now I think is a little outdated because in that time he wrote it, it was the thing, but it says, "I am great. I am a master," which is actually now there's been a lot of research on self-esteem, which is actually problematic because self-esteem is being, "Oh, you're great.

You got an A, everybody needs an A. " And then what happens if you're not great, you become mean, depressed, you are back on the couch, you're not supporting yourself or your peers, you're elbow winging or you're a narcissist because I'm the best. So the whole self-esteem movement that started in the '60s has actually led to a society where everybody's just not caring for each other. And I don't think that has a place in music because that's the opposite of we want. I am great. I'm a master.

I rather instead of self-esteem, we should cultivate self-compassion. And this has been research by professors like Kristin Neff, who's really big into mindfulness and compassion research. There is research on this is way more effective because after a while self-esteem is failing where self-compassion will say, "Oh yeah, you want to be great, you want to be the best, you're not. That sucks. What can we do? " Becoming your own best friend is way more effective than saying, "I'm the best. I'm going to kick myself under the butt. I'll work harder tomorrow. I'll add the extra hours. Oh, I didn't practice today. I'll make up for it tomorrow." Just the whole pressure one puts on themselves because of self-esteem cultivation. It's just so tiresome and it backfires. It puts you back into ... A zebra doesn't have ulcers, right? I had to read this book when I was studying psychology.

It's called Why Zebras Don't have Ulcers. Why? Because the zebra just runs. He sees a tiger or a lion, whatever it is, and he's just like, "Oh, let me better run." And then if he survives, he's not going to ruminate on it. He's not, "Oh, what if I ran faster?" No, he's just going to be happy eating grass. He's not ruminating on the tiger. What do we do? We're sitting in a room, we're ruminating about a tiger, which is actually us, right? We're attacking our sense of self. So we're the tiger and the lion and the zebra at once, which is double the stress.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more.

Vivienne Aerts:

Right. So that's my vision and that's different than Kenny, honestly, which is fine because he's an amazing player and this book needs to be spread. But I think the nuances is that after all my research in these things, that's my little twist to it where I'm like, this is what I want to give everybody self-compassioninstead of self-esteem.

Leah Roseman:

It's not a little twist. It's a big difference.

Vivienne Aerts:

Yeah. I guess. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I'd forgotten that because it had been so long since I'd read the book, that thing about ... Yeah, I remember cringing and over these many years of dealing with performance anxiety and all these issues, I've read so many books and on this podcast, I've had a chance to talk to some of my heroes who really helped me, people like Madeline Bruser and Steven Nachmanovitch and Julie Lyonn Lieberman and different people.

Vivienne Aerts:

Love his book.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. And talking about these things. And many of these people are Buddhist, I've found actually.

Vivienne Aerts:

I share their stuff during my classes because I want to have different languages available of the same thing because there's no one way to get there. And the thing falls into place by itself. I cannot change anybody. I can guide them. I can coach them into offering different angles, but they make the change themselves because then only then also as a therapist, then it would be lasting if they make the change. If they're like, "Ah, my habit is because it was convenient in the past." It's a trauma that I have, therefore I have a certain habit or a certain behavior and therefore I respond certain ways. That was really good because it helped me survive, right? The whole trauma response with Gabor Mate, I don't know, he talks about that a lot, the myth of normal. I mean, that stuff is magic. Saying that, "Thank you, my old habit will actually give you a chance to say, I don't need you anymore." I had this drummer in my class.

He was drumming and then at some point he told me that he was drumming and he heard these voices saying, "Well, you don't need me anymore." His bad thoughts, his little annoyance, right? They were saying, "Oh, I guess you don't need me anymore." He had this superficial and then afterwards he was like, "I'm not crazy because I hear voices, right?" I'm like, "Yeah, no, this is great because now you're free of it. You don't need to give into whatever voice is in your head. They might be very real just letting go of that judgment of, oh, it's never going to work or whatever people have for voices, right? That's not helpful. Is this helpful?" No. Okay. Then I'll take a breath and become a body instead of a mind and then see if I play it, go back to the music and see what feels good.

Instead of saying, "Is this good?" You could say, "Does it feel good?" In order for it to feel good, it needs to be easy. In order for it to be easy, you might have to break it up. You have to do it slower. There's different ways to make it still feel good and have the thing happen, right? If it's brand new, it cannot feel good right away, but you could slow it down or break it up, just do one note or one bar. Yeah. Love Stephen Nachmanovitch too. That stuff, right? Free Play. The first step is of Effortless Mastery is actually in Stephen's book. It's there and Kenny is quoting him even in the book. And then this other book, Barry Green with the Inner Game of Music. There are so many fantastic books. Why? Because we need it. The more the merrier.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. Well, I want to thank you so much for this and I'm wondering if there's anything I didn't bring up that you want to talk about.

Vivienne Aerts:

I really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah. We went all over the place and because normally it's ... Yeah, I don't know. I feel that I do so many things, people get confused, but you were amazing in pinpointing all the different fields of my interest and noticing the holistic view of it because it's so connected in a way on the surface might seem, oh, there's chocolate and there is experience. Oh, there might be so many different things, but it is all connected in a way, right? Yeah. I think you did a great job in getting me to talk about that.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. Well, I encourage people to order Current and your other albums and follow your work, get on your email list. Thanks so much.

Vivienne Aerts:

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Leah Roseman:

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Keep in mind, I've also linked directly several episodes you'll find interesting in the show notes of this one. Please do share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at Leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. The podcast theme music was written by Nick Kold. Have a wonderful week.