Adam Rafferty’s Blog – Guitar and Spirit

Everyone Needs a Coach

A few days ago I walked out of my apartment, on the way for a Starbucks coffee and lo! I saw 2 young fellows and one of them was stringing an acoustic guitar.

He was winding the pegs slowly by hand, so I had to pre-empt the Starbucks trip.

“Hold on, let me help you.” I went back upstairs, snagged a pegwinder (with clippers) and an extra set of strings, and a CD as a gift.

“Gimme that” I said. I showed him how to wind strings on quickly using this tool. I offered him the strings as a backup, and the CD was simply to inspire him.

I asked the guys their plan.

“We’re gonna play in the subway and see if we can make some money.”

“Cool, kick ass!” I told ’em.

On the way back from Starbucks, they were still in front of my building, rehearsing.

“Hey do you guys have a postcard or something to give out to people?” I asked.

“Um, no.”

“What if you draw a crowd and people dig it? You gotta hand them something otherwise they’ll have no idea who you were. They’ll forget about you in 10 minutes.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

We went on with a few other topics, but my point is that these guys needed a coach.

My years of experience allowed me to call up “bullet points” in seconds, and quickly identify the “holes” in their strategy.

That made me think “Heck, I am no different. I need a coach, since there are probably things slipping past me too!” (In fact, I’d love to still be taking guitar lessons…)

I went home immediately and called Rick Goetz – (https://musiciancoaching.com/) a well respected music coach – to set up a session for myself. I meet him at 4:30 today.

With a the new “I Remember Michael” CD out – I bet there’s something that Rick can teach me strategically.

I’ll let you know how the meeting goes, I am excited.

Michael Jackson Guitar

By Adam Rafferty Leave a Comment

Hi Gang!

I just wanted to share this little interview with you – it’s the EPK for the new Michael Jackson Guitar Tribute CD “I REMEMBER MICHAEL”.

I speak a little here about my inspiration from MJ & hearing his music as a kid growing up in New York City in the 80’s.

Enjoy!

– Adam

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

Nerves and Gigs: Particles or Waves?

By Adam Rafferty 4 Comments

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.