Adam Rafferty’s Blog – Guitar and Spirit

Nerves and Gigs: Particles or Waves?

Greets Gang! I’ve just returned from an uplifting week teaching at the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina.

It was exhausting, but it feels great to inspire students and be around a large group of people all fired up and excited about music.

The topic of how to deal with nerves in performance up in a few conversations, and somehow I found corollary to quantum physics.

People asked me if I got nervous. Sometimes I do – but these days it’s less and less. I myself wondered, “why am I less nervous than I used to be?”

In quantum physics, there’s a nifty experiment called “the double slit” experiment.

Physicists became awestruck at the fact that when light was shot at photograhic paper one photon particle at a time, it still printed on the paper as if it were a wave, not individual light particles.

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YqgPAtzho”]

What this raised in my mind was the idea that any singular event in our life may look like a “particle” but is really part of a larger “wave.”

If you don’t perform on stage very often, it may feel like a very important singular event (a particle) of your life.

You want everything to be perfect – the sound, your performance, and so on. There’s a lot of pressure there for that one particle of time to be perfect!

When you perform on stage 100 times, you naturally encounter things such as:

the sound wasn’t perfect
the monitors were not loud enough
the guitar was out of tune, the lights blinded me
I botched a few notes

But on the positive side you will experience things like:

wow that was a great performance
they loved it
the soundman did a great job
everything fell into place just right
man it felt really good, etc.
I got offered another gig at this one

I am illustrating the following – that over the course of 100 gigs (or any semi large number) you will experience a host of scenarios, ups, downs, good, bad – and by gig number 101 you feel all the gigs to be a “wave” of events.

Each gig is still important, but now each gig is part of of a whole, and you can actually enjoy yourself more because there is less pressure on any single gig “particle” for everything to be perfect.

The same holds true for anything you do regularly whether it’s practicing your instrument, exercising, meditating, eating right, and so on.

The more you do it, the easier it gets because the behavior becomes a “wave” of activity in your life rather than a singular “particle.”

“I REMEMBER MICHAEL” Michael Jackson Solo Fingerstyle Guitar Tribute CD by Adam Rafferty – Coming Soon!

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Hey Gang, here are some fun videos shot during the recording phases of I REMEMBER MICHAEL, the new MJ solo acoustic fingerstyle guitar CD.

We’re aiming for a release date of August 29, 2011 – Michael Jackson’s Birthday! I will keep you updated, I promise. CD’s are in production now, and will be available soon.

Stay tuned, and thank you!

Some thoughts on Music “Success”, “Making It” and “PR”

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

A fellow musician recently asked to pick my brain about how I’ve been promoting myself, achieving some modicum of success on YouTube and keeping a busy tour schedule going.

I think they are looking for a technique that they can add on to what they currently do rather than change what they do from the inside out.

There are a million gurus out there who are teaching techniques and social media techniques, but I will tell you something that’s maybe scarier.

There is no one magic bullet, no one activity that will be a “fix it” add on for music career success. The reality is that the answer you seek comes from the inside, not the outside.

People have to like what it is you do (your music), and you can’t buy that. Once you have a viable “product” (again, your music) that people honestly and truly LOVE yes it makes sense to pay for PR, promo – but first you must see if what you have is actually working, and be honest with yourself.

At a certain point around 2006 I realized that what I was doing musically was not working spiritually, musically and financially. This was frightening, but at least it was honest.
I got quiet and did some “zero based thinking.” Meaning, I said “if I could clear the table and start over, what would I do or not do?”
I have gotten totally honest with myself about music that I love to listen to and love play, regardless of who approves of my choices (this is a biggie and it could change your entire social circle, relationships and life!)
I’ve gotten quiet regularly and listened to my intuition and gut.
From the silence, I have allowed new creative ideas to come to me rather than force ideas.
When I tossed the first videos up on Youtube, I paid attention to what people liked. I did nothing crafty to make videos “get hits” – it just happened.
I constantly pay attention to what people like in general – not that I copy or do it, but I watch people, take notes.
An audience is 2% musicians, 98% regular folks, so I stopped caring what musicians thought of me.
I pay attention to and seek out the perfect intersection of my personal integrity and what people like.
I play from the heart and am committed 100% to it, but I pay attention to my world inside AND the world outside like a martial artist.
Like Thomas Edison, who failed over and over and over with the invention of the light bulb, I’ve kept trying different things until I see what works – as opposed to forcing one thing that does not work.
I am ready to adapt at any moment.

People who honestly love what I do has contributed more to the touring, magazine articles, etc than anything I could do one a technical level to “promote myself.”

This being said, I’ve now “tested the waters” and made sure that what I do is worthy of some PR, which I plan to do on the upcoming CD release of “I REMEMBER MICHAEL” – my Michael Jackson Guitar Tribute.

PR is expensive, but that’s how you get more eyeballs. That comes after you’ve tested the “product” – not before.

Doing PR for something people don’t like could be financial suicide, so test, test, test and first make sure that you and your audience love what you do. If a restaurant has sucky food, all the advertising in the world won’t make people love the menu! So – audience first….test…then, PR.

Do people really and truly love what you do? Be honest! You may need to “clear the table” and start over rather than persist in something that does not work.

Yes it is scary and yes it takes guts.

Keeping Promises to Yourself

By Adam Rafferty 4 Comments

One of the most positive, affirming things you can do is keep promises with yourself.

Be clear with yourself at the onset of any goal you set. If you plan do do something, see it through to completion; if you don’t plan to do it, don’t even get started!

There is a hidden benefit in the completion of tasks you set for yourself, whether they are small or large. This benefit extends past the task itself.

Every time that you follow through on a promise to yourself, you get an enormous self esteem boost. This self esteem boost is the inner voice saying “I am a winner!” This is very healthy.

You will actually experience an endorphin rush through your body and get addicted to this wonderful inner drug! You’ll become addicted to the “I am a winner” feeling and want to repeat it again and again.

Your goals can be small such as committing to a single task that you will follow through on today – “I will jog for 30 minutes tonight”. It can also be a large project, and you can commend yourself each time you chip away towards it’s completion. It may not be finished, but by taking a step closer your inner voice knows you are a winner.

Following through on what you say you will do builds your “foundation” and character from the inside out. No approval from anyone else can give you this, no money can buy this, it has to be cultivated and earned within. You wll approve of yourself, build your winner mentality thereby becoming magnetic to others.

On the flip side, when you make promises to yourself that you don’t keep, your inner voice says “I am a loser.” You come to know yourself as someone who does not follow through, and this builds a failure mentality. This is not good for self your esteem.

A negative inner dialogue and self interpretation will then color your future aspirations and hang over you like a dark cloud with feelings like “I never accomplish anything” and so on. Stay away from this like the plague!

So – I am very careful about what I promise myself to begin with…I don’t promise things to myself like “I will run 10 miles every day” simply because I know if I don’t keep my promise I’ll put my self esteem in the gutter. I can promise myself that I will run 3 times a week, or more.

You can start with very small things like “I commit to practicing guitar for 15 minutes tonight.” When you wake up the following day, you will feel that you followed through, you will experience a self esteem boost, and you are in a far better position to achieve more – because you activated the “I am a winner” feeling to which you’ll be addicted.

Now…get to work!

Cause and Effect

By Adam Rafferty 1 Comment

I just finished reading “The Master Key System” by Charles F. Haanel on my iPad. Apparently this book inspired Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard and build a tiny little company called Microsoft.

I enjoyed this book very much and plan to read it over and over regularly. The book was written before “self help” and “law of attraction” were an industry…so there is a seriousness and passion in the delivery of this information. Charles Haanel was not seeking to be a Guru – he was seeking to convey information about which he was passionate.

The writing style is very early 20th century and almost technical. It is not a warm and fuzzy read, but as you get in deeper, it shows a deep reverence for the magical process of bringing things into the physical world through use of the mind. About halfway through, I found the book to be a very spiritual book indeed!

The main idea in the book is that every effect in our lives is brought about by a cause. Preceding that – the first cause of anything is the thought in our mind. When we impress the thought of our mind on the unseen substance of the universe, we then get the effect.

As I read, I studied events and achievements in my life over the last few years and determined that what has gone well, been successful and brought me happiness.

Then I asked myself “are these things causes?” Actually the answer is no….the touring, the income, the friendships, the happiness, the satisfaction and excitement for ongoing achievements are all effects.

So what are the causes?

Meditating, practicing guitar, creative thinking, contacting people and being in touch, producing CDs, DVDs are casues…and they all start as thoughts.

Pesitive effects are delicious, like chocolate ice cream. Causes take work and brains and may not feel fun all the time.

Any person can see effects…it’s like looking in the rear view mirror. Many people deal with effects but not causes. It takes a creative person to pay attention to causes through their own thought.

My new axiom is to work on “causes” every day, and to always ask myself “am I working on cause or effect?”