Funky Fingerstyle Guitar
Hey Gang, I hope that if you are an Australian fan and guitar picker, you can come to one of these very special concerts!
Michael Fix, Andrew Veivers and I will be doing the “Acoustic Guitar Spectacular” from August 14-22, 2015 in Australia.
For ticket info please visit www.REDCHAIR.com – see you there!
AR
I get a lot of emails asking questions like :
A great classical guitar technique is a thing of beauty – and I worked on it
a long time.
However, for “African” based music, you need an entirely different “touch”. The “groove” is built into the “touch”. You can’t separate the two.
Continue Reading
(Note – a reader just alerted me that this may have been written by Kim McMillen, and somehow was attributed to Charlie Chaplin…well, whoever wrote t – it’s awesome. Enjoy!)
As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is AUTHENTICITY.
As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody as I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it RESPECT.
As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it MATURITY.
As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment, so I could be calm. Today I call it SELF-CONFIDENCE.
[Read more…] about As I Began to Love Myself: Charlie Chaplin on his 70th birthday
I’m often asked the question “do you use a set list when you play concerts?” This brings up the question of how to put a set together for a good show. I use a loose set idea with a game plan which I will describe.
But first…has the following every happened to you… Continue Reading
Hi. I am 15 years old and have just started playing acoustic guitar and you are a great inspiration to me. I love all of your music, but especially the Michael Jackson tunes because he is my favorite artist. The question that I wanted to ask you is do you arrange all your music completely by ear and if so do you just listen to the music over and over or do you find the basic chords or something to get started?
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Hi Gang, I am submitting my blog to technorati and have to post this code…
– AR
Greetings Friends.
I know it’s been a while since I have written. To be perfectly honest, I like to write when I am spiritually flying, so that I can exude great vibes and raise everyones spirit.
It’s been an exciting, busy successful time since August but it’s been very trying at times, with personal, emotional and physical rough spots. I did not feel right writing. I now feel I am getting back on track, and wanted to reach out to you.
No worries – I am in great shape now, but life is just ….well, life!
This year I had set myself a bunch of goals, and I have achieved them:
1) Release “Chameleon” CD
2) Release the Stevie Wonder DVD
3) Release a Christmas CD (announcement coming soon)
4) Continue Touring
But like anyone who works hard – be it a business owner, a medical student, a stay at home mom – if you do the job at hand, other aspects of life can and often do get stressful. Relationships, a feeling of grounded-ness, and loving care for one’s body easily slip.
What happened yesterday though was amazing. A friend visited me for lunch and he was beaming, as he had just been to Santa Fe. For him it’s a very spritually charged place, and he just looked rejuvanated.
Simply in his presence I listened to him and looked at him, and chose not to speak much. I felt my troubles simple drop. If I started talking, and telling myself “my story” again my tensions would come back.
I saw this ability to simply “let go” which the Release Technique and Sedona Method are based on. It is very deep to see that the feeling about an issue is not the issue. Let me repeat that – becasue it is easy to gloss over this idea. The feeling about something is not the thing.
We can in fact let feelings go and not hang on.
The Release Technique and Sedona Method give specific and awesome techniques of inquiry to facilitate this. In my case yesterday it was more intuitive and spontaneous, but I felt like myself again – in an instant.
I’m black! Err, I mean back……
🙂
So friends, I’ll write from the road – I leave for Swizerland tomorrow to play with Jazz Drum Legend Alvin Queen for a week!
This past month has been interesting. I have left my hometown of NYC to be in Colorado and California to spend time practicing guitar, recording, and breathing easy. Many New Yorkers think if they’d get away from NY life would fall apart. Funny, there is life outside NY and I feel fine.
However – there are a few universal principles to remember. 1) wherever you go, there you are 2) you take yourself and baggage with you wherever you go.
I found yesterday – exactly one month in, that I took my baggage with me. A feeling of “it’s not good enough” and “I want more” and “everything will be ok when (fill in the blank)”. Ahh, the tendency to deny the present moment was something I got into my “carry on item”.
Luckily I found the medicine I needed. A quick profound message from a Sadguru on Youtube, and then one from Lester Levenson. Sadguru observes how there are people who create their own heaven and their own hell. I realized that I already have everything I want in life, and that once I have gotten “the object of desire” – it is utterly transparent. To want more, and to deny the present moment – is a mini hell I create, and to sit quietly is a heaven I create.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jgs1ubkMhU]
Another teacher (not the one posted above)Lester Levenson describes it quite simply. He has observed that we already are whole, complete – and that through desire we create a disturbance, an added unhappiness, and when we fill that unhappiness with the object of desire, we find our wholeness which was there the whole time. The mind quiets, we call it happiness – and then get on the merry go round again. The happiness is simply our natural state. It is that we “assume” a lack which is not real.
Just hearing the words of these enlightened teachers is a perfect reminder. I can reflect on all the desires I have fulfilled over the years, and can also see that these did not bring me lasting happiness. Knowing that, I can breathe right here right now and allow myself to be happy.
Our happiness is not “coming” at “a future time, a better time then now” when we have something, or when something special happens. We can listen now. We can breathe now. We can let it all be, and allow a profound peace to pervade.
As a stone cold, New York, Harlem bebop funk kinda guy the last place I ever thought I’d appreciate and love is Nashville. Wow, it was amazing!
I have just returned from 2 trips to Nashville in a course of 2 weeks. First trip was to visit the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society (CAAS) annual gathering. The second trip was to attend Summer NAMM where I did demos for Cole Clark Guitars.
It was my second time at CAAS and already it feels like a family. Correction – it is a family. And youtube makes it all the stranger and lovelier…I walked in knowing the names, faces and music of many of the fine players there and they knew me. It really makes me wonder…how love and appreciation of guitar and music draws certain souls together. Beautiful!
I spent quite some time hanging out with Tomi Paldanius of fingerstyleheaven.com, Joscho Stefan, Joe Robinson…but there were so many other fine players there…Edgar Cruz, Muriel Anderson…the list goes on. Oh yeah, there was also some talented guy named Tony Enamel…Emmanuel…or was it Tommy? I forget what the heck his name was, but he seemed to play pretty good 🙂
NAMM was also neat-o! The convention is much more personal and less of a freakshow than L.A. NAMM. Everything has it’s place, but I really liked the vibe of this NAMM show. HIghlights included – buying a “porchboard” and rocking the house (product review will come), Muriel Anderson’s All Star Guitar Night (best guitar concert I have ever seen), Jerry Douglas stopping by the Cole Clark guitar booth, and eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel 3 days in a row. More butter, please.
The musicians in Nashville are generally…well…awesome to say the least. Great taste, great feel and no room whatsoever for attitude. For a guitar picker like me it felt like home, I must say!
Well…back to work. I am still preparing my handouts and lessons for the Swannanoa Gathering where I’ll be teaching “the ways of the funky fingerstylist” from July 26 to Aug 1, 2009.
Until next time…God Bless, and keep pickin it – never let it heal!
Adam Rafferty and Tommy Emmanuel in Kulttuuritalo, Helsinki, Finland 2009
Superstition & Chameleon solo – then Tenderly, Duo