Funky Fingerstyle Guitar
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]
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:
But on the positive side you will experience things like:
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.”
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!
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.
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.
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?”