Funky Fingerstyle Guitar
I got an email yesterday from a YOUTUBE fan that prompted me to write him a response at 2 am. He’s actually in New York City as well and came to my house once for a private lesson.
He expressed his overwhelming frustration with trying to improve his guitar skills. The ups, the downs – one day it feels good, the next day it doesn’t, he feels “stuck” and so on. He feels that he has hit a wall.
[Read more…] about The Secret to Improving Your Guitar Skills and Battling FrustrationLate last night I listened to one of my favorite “modern day” spiritual teachers – Marianne Williamson, and was reminded of a simple but important message.
The more “wanting” and “gimme” you have in your attitude – the more of that you experience in life – and you feel like the world is saying “gimme” to you. The more “abundance”, “having” and “gratitude” you have the more you experience and the more you feel as though the world is giving to you.
A wanting state implies that “I lack” or I don’t have. I think this is what one of my favorite teachers, Lester Levenson actually meant when he said “want equals lack”.
At first it is counter-intuitive, but through insight you can see that our psycho-spiritual “mechanism” operates this way.
Deep, huh? 🙂
Seriously though, as a musician freelancer there is always a dialogue inside me of how I want more, how can I get more? How can I get more gigs? How can I sell more CDs, more books? What tunes can I learn and re-arrange to get more of an audience? What instructional videos would sell…and so on. I need to be extremely careful regarding this dialogue.
While this kind of mentality is praised and honored as industrious and clever, it is not a very “high up there” kind of mind.
I tell you – the most blissful, most sweet, most delectable experiences and states I have had in recent years were in the writing of the music for “Gratitude”. I remember sitting and “receiving” tunes and melodies from “source” or God or whatever you want to call it – and literally being brought to tears by the sheer beauty.
That’s right – no cleverness, no “how can I get ahead”, none of that crap. The gift was given to me, and I made a commitment to give it back to listeners and the utter joy, through and though was unreal.
I am very thankful for having experienced this good that life has to offer, and I am thankful to see when I have steered in a wrong direction.
And now as I leave you to go about my week I ask the question, “what can I give?” and from there I will practice music, email people and act.
Keep Swingin’
Adam
Alternative title to this post could be “Shame on You Airlines!!!”
Let me start by saying that if you have any brilliant ideas about traveling with acoustic guitars, I am all ears. I am sitting in the Prague airport, still a little perplexed, as I write. Luckily I am here with guitars which are all in one piece and did not go broke getting them here.
Just when I think I’ve got the “flying with a guitar dilemma” licked, the ever evolving chess game between the dark forces of the airlines and us good guys (musicians) takes an unexpected twist.
I did everything by the book. I loosened the strings, bubble packed the neck within the hard shell case, and as I have written in an earlier post – I then pack the case in my casextreme.com travel case, like a good acoustic guitar student should. 🙂
I know many guitarists just show up to the gate either with a hard shell or a gig bag – and this is Russian roulette. God forbid they tell you is has to be checked, you are in trouble – or maybe you just don’t take the flight.
This tour was pretty extensive – so I traveled with 2 acoustics, and an electric. So, all in all thats:
2 acoustics in road cases (playing solo, one needs a backup axe)
1 Electric in a soft case (fits in overhead)
Suitcase
Laptop & Gear case
Guess what? The fun started when Swiss International Air charged $200 for taking a 3rd luggage piece getting out of the gates in NYC. That’s just one way, folks.
Ouch.
And flying from Koln to Prague – I had paid for 3 luggage pieces online ahead of time – but basically that just gave me the “privilege” of dividing my 23 kilo allotment across 3 bags.
Why must there always be surprises? At the counter I was told it would be 140 euros. But fear not – a creative solution came…
It did not take long to figure this out –
$200 NYC to Europe
$200 approx (140 eur) Koln to Prague
$200 Europe back to NYC
That would be $600 for this tour alone if I just took my lumps and handed my credit card across the counter. And guess what – I’m coming back to Europe in the Spring…another $400 – $600. That could amount to $1000 or more – just to shlep a backup guitar 2 times that I almost never play.
And The Solution Is…
First off, I twisted their arm to let me take a hard shell in the cabin, and left a road case with my friend in Koln. Having another person there to pass gear off to was key!
So friends – the solution is (drum roll, please) I will be leaving lots of gear here across the pond. Actually, guitarist and instructor Stefan Grossman put the idea in my mind so kudos to him – park guitars and other equipment junk in Europe, and travel light.
So, a Taylor, a Yamaha Electric (Killer axe – I bought 2) and maybe a boss multi-efffects board will stay here. I just can’t bear to pay the offensive B.S. money they want to charge.
Assuming my guitars foster parents will humidify it regularly, I should be in good shape.
I’d rather buy more guitars with the money I save. 🙂
Greets Friends!
I am traveling once again on the good ol’ German rail system – and figured it is as good a time as any to give you a tour update.
Today I got to immerse myself in the joy of practicing. This tour has been hard work and lots of travel – but I have really gotten in some good practice in hotels and can feel new musical areas opening up, and it is very exciting for me.
It’s something I can’t quite explain…it feels just so darn good to work on my acoustic guitar playing! I worked long today and yesterday on re-arranging my own tune “Shelter Island”.
The tune is not yet recorded, as I knew it “wasn’t quite there yet” – but the solutions I had been seeking popped up over the last 48 hours! It will be “unveiled” on youtube soon. It is a pretty, sprightly little travis picking ditty with a nice melody that just feels great and sounds great. When the right hand fingers are firing just right….well I don’t want to stop playing it!
At some point, a voice in my head said “hey, try this slighlty different hand position” – and next thing you know, the strings were poppin’ effortlessly under my right hand.
As well, on the Bennie Wallace tour I started investigating new phrasing techniques by using “the feeling” of hammer ons and pull offs in the right places to get melodies to “lay” more the way Charlie Parker and Dizzy would phrase. Not many guitarists use the left hand fingerings in this way. I felt a new level of steadiness in the time and “locking” with the drums.
It’s awesome…there is always new stuff to work on, and I will never get it done.
There must be some kind of similarity to practice and meditation in terms of brain waves, or “states”. If I am not mistaken, the “alpha” state is our regular waking mind – and as one slips into meditation one achieves a “beta” state.
It never fails – it takes 30 minutes or so of practice for the guitar to “open up” – which is really my state slipping into another mode. Musical solutions reveal themselves, new tunes appear and music plays itself.
And all I can say at that point is “thank you” to whomever is giving me the gems, the ideas and the music lessons from some other realm.
Until next time, be well and keep swingin’
Greets Friends!
I am writing you from about 10,000 feet just on the other side of the Atlantic in a Swiss Int’l Air Plane. I am embarking on a long 7 week tour in Europe. I can’t sleep, and guess what – I play hours after landing in Hamburg! .
Well, why not write a blog entry? 🙂
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As I chatted on the plane with my row companion, we discussed how artists are not taught business. Hmm, well in music school I learned NO business stuff -it has all been from life experience.
Years ago on my first tours I’d find that I had a fanny pack full of Austrian schillings and have no idea if I made money, lost money or what on a tour. Having money felt good, but it was so fuzzy….
This occurred to me when Mom & Dad would say, “how’d you make out?” and all I had was a blurry memory of beer, selling CD’s, buying train tickets and having a great time. But oh no – here comes the credit card bill with the plane tickets for a trio!
And then a voice spoke to me – “the numbers don’t lie”.
I’d love to teach this to young musicians. (And if anyone out there has any suggestions for me as to getting better at budgets & planning I am all ears! Maybe a good book?)
I realized that with a spreadsheet program (I use excel) I could easily enter expenses as negative numbers in one column, income in another and voila – have it do some fancy totaling and see how well I did at a glance, and update anytime I pop in new numbers.
I actually just spent some time here on the plane setting up the template and could semi – project the tour income. Ok, there will be meals, then who knows what the CD sales will be – but all I have to do now is pop in numbers every day (USD or EURO – I set up conversions & totaling ) and I have a nice red box at the bottom with my “bottom line” in USD.
Of course when you are building a career & following your passion money is not the only measure, but “the numbers do not lie”. It’s always worth it to get out and play – but it is nice to come home with some dough too!!!
A great thing about this process is that I can see more clearly now that if I’d like to up my overall income, I need to earn a certain amount each gig, which amounts to setting firm prices for concerts. This process makes clear what I’d have to say “no” to, and helps me navigate my negotiations more clearly!
Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this…time to try and sleep some.
Stay tuned!
🙂