Adam Rafferty’s Blog – Guitar and Spirit

We are Living in an Exciting Era for Fingerstyle Guitar. Where’s it Going Next?

(At the end of this post, I’d very much like YOU to tell me and the readers where you think fingerstyle guitar could possibly be heading next….)

This is a really exciting time in the fingerstyle guitar scene, and I feel blessed to be playing guitar at this time in history. We’re all going through this very cool time together – and it is time for you to get involved…

In case you didn’t know this – back in the 1950’s classical guitar wasn’t an option in conservatories, in fact guitar was not even considered a “real” instrument. Yet, Andres Segovia stepped up to the plate when everyone thought guitar wasn’t a real instrument and said “here’s some Bach…now deal with this!”

In the 80’s classical guitar became accepted in the major music conservatories. Wow. Doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is.

In the 60’s Wes Montgomery came along and put mainstream jazz onto a guitar with a level of touch, taste and groove that he influenced a whole generation of guitarists and still does. Chet Atkins put songs on the guitar with his signature “boom chick” sound and practically defined fingerstyle guitar as we know it. Not to mention, Chet played on countless old rock & roll albums.

Today, Tommy Emmanuel has brought the “ultimate Michael Jordan” experience to the guitar. Every time he plays, it’s beyond a slam dunk. Chops and energy meet invention, harmonics and beauty. He has inspired me and thousands of young guitar players.

I find this evolution fascinating…of course there are many many more players who have pushed the guitar into new territories, too numerous to list here. And there are tons of new guys working hard at the craft! Andy McKee has taken the tapping – percussive approach and evolved it.

One of my goals is to “play the groove and counterpoint” that a whole funk band might play. Funky guitar in a band setting is one thing, but funky guitar with 2 or 3 independent moving basslines is a challenge. I guess that’s why I have gravitated towards Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5.

(In case you are interested in playing my Jackson 5 arrangements – the new instructional DVD with tab booklet will be available for purchase the second week of August, stay tuned! This launch is a major event that I’d like you to be part of…so stay tuned…)

If you think about it, playing the music of the J5 is a New York City kid’s version of just what Chet or Tommy is doing. The common denominator? We’re all playing songs and making people happy – only I am playing with the grooves I heard here in New York in the 70’s and 80’s, not a Nashville boom chick groove.

I really look forward to YOUR contribution and encourage you to dig deeply into your musicality. Please practice hard, post your videos to youtube and let me know what you are up to.

Where do you think fingerstyle guitar is heading next? Leave a comment here…I am very curious as to what you have to say about this topic.

Until next time…

Adam

Youtube Copyright Violation, Prince, Van Morrison and an Impossible Task

By Adam Rafferty 1 Comment

Greets friends. I spent the morning studying more blogs and articles about the Youtube copyright issues, videos and accounts and cane up with interesting info.

Prince and Van Morrison Zero Tolerance for YouTube Videos
Prince and Van Morrison have a zero tolerance policy and hired a company called “Web Sheriff” https://www.websheriff.com/websheriff/ to police unauthorized videos on Youtube and get videos and maybe even accounts deleted.

On the Wikepedia page, Web Sheriff claims that CD sales were better than ever since the pulling down of these videos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Sheriff#cite_note-WS_guardian-12

Web Sheriff, this is bullshit. Sales were better? Better as compared to what?

D’oh #1: If you are comparing an artists sales to that of his last CD, you have to factor in that the presence of the videos you deleted could have in fact contributed to the new sales. Logic strikes again.

D’oh #2: I searched on Youtube for “Prince Purple Rain” a few years later the alleged “web sheriff sweep” and found 5012 related videos to “Prince Purple Rain”. Wow you guys did a great job of really cleaning up the unauthorized videos. 🙂

D’oh #3: Compared to artists who don’t have stuff removed? Do many artists who have stuff up on YT for free sell better or worse than those whom you have helped with your service? The point is, we DON’T KNOW if Van Morrison is selling more than people who are freely all over YouTube.

Van Morrison and Prince pay you guys, so of course you’ll say they are getting their money’s worth. They are your clients!

Fighting Mother Nature and Losing
Two “mother nature” issues come to mind. Man usually loses battles with nature.

It looks like eliminating one copyright violator is akin to stepping on one stray roach when 10,000 are lurking behind the stove of each apartment in an infested building. And, weeds which are fragile and weak will bust their way up and grow through concrete. Nature wins over man.

With 200,000 videos uploaded daily, and about 300 MILLION youtube accounts, do you really think that even eliminating 1, 1000 or even 10,000 accounts will put a dent in the copyright issue? The sheer numbers show the impossibility of your endeavors.

Copyrighted material getting uploaded to YT is like weeds growing. There is no stopping it. There’s no stopping newcomers and those who don’t know the rules.

If I get suspended today, I could open up 100 accounts on YT tomorrow and put videos up again. It’s like the 1977 New York blackout. People can walk into stores and take stuff (looting) because no one can stop them.

And, if Youtube is losing $470 million a year (according to Credit-Suisse) the whole thing is this weird, entertaining losing game.

https://www.slate.com/id/2216162/?GT1=38001

As the artilce says at the end, “YouTube and its fellow user-contributed sites really did change the world. Too bad nobody could find a way to pay for it.”

=-=-=-

According to Wiki Answers, here are some interesting (but unfounded) stats:

Total number of YouTube videos — over 120,000,000

Number of videos uploaded per day — about 200,000

Time required to see all the videos — over 600 years

Number of videos watched daily — over 200,000,000

Amount of content uploaded every minute — 13 hours

Number of accounts on YouTube — over 300,000,000

Percentage of videos violating copyright — over 12%

The top categories of uploaded videos — music 20%,
entertainment 15%, people/blogs 14%, comedy 13%
sports 7%, educational 6%, automotive 5%, film 5%

The source of videos — amateur 80%, professional
(meaning “partners”) 15%, commercial/corporate 5%

Top countries uploading videos — United States 35%,
United Kingdom 7%, Philippines 4%, all of the these
countries have around 3%: Australia, Brazil, Canada,
France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Turkey

How Big Goals Define Your Daily Activities

By Adam Rafferty 3 Comments

Wow gang! I just looked over my blog a year back to kind of see “what was on my mind” and much to my surprise I saw that it has been a year (364 days) to be exact, since the passing of Michael Jackson’s death.

Before his untimely death, I had sent in requests to publishers for permission to do tabs and maybe a guitar DVD of his music. Ironically, I’ll be editing the new “Jackson 5” guitar instructional DVD tomorrow, June 25, the one year anniversary of his passing.

This post is not about MJ though. It’s about the goal setting process and differentiating between “urgent” and “important”.

Today, I woke up with my brain slightly scrambled. Meaning, I have 5 or 6 things on my to-do list and was not sure what to do first. However, it has become an instinct to ask myself “What is necessary to achieving my big goals” and “what is an A level, must-do task and what can wait?” and even “what can I drop completely?”

But you gotta have big goals to do this properly 🙂

The “what’s necessary in terms of achieving my big goals” a good approach that I have practiced by studying my success gurus like Brian Tracy and Jack Canfield. Writing an inspired blog entry is important to me, so I am attacking this first.

In younger years, I’d respond to the “urgent” rather than the “important”. For example, laundry could seem urgent. Or getting CDRs from Staples could seem urgent. Or, getting the coolest new gadget was urgent. Or doing cool rollovers for my website buttons could seem urgent.

These would be “contained” activities – meaning, once they were accomplished it was like a stand-alone 30 minute sitcom episode which ended. No relation to yesterday or tomorrow, and tomorrow is the same problem of meaninglessness all over again.

When people follow the “urgent” they end up not doing the really “important” stuff. But, if one doesn’t have big goals and life is meaningless, dealing with the “urgent” at least can add temporary meaning or be a nice distraction. With no goals, we can’t even define what the important stuff is.

That’s a very unsatisfying way to live. After a year one asks “what the hell have I done this past year?” . I’ve had people like that in my life and I see their deep unhappiness and neurosis and want to tell them “you gotta have goals!”

So in looking at that one year old blog, I see that I had a big goal – a Michael Jackson flavored guitar DVD. I even put the DVD on my Photoshop “Vision Board” by making a mock DVD cover. It’s satisfying now to see that I have been following through all this time.

Over this past year each small step has led me closer to the fruition of yet another satisfying goal – producing a Jackson 5 Guitar DVD. I see that by having the vision of this DVD, I scheduled and followed through with “important” things instead of reacting to “urgent” things.

Some examples of “important” things that were grunt work for this project

– several emails back and forth with publishers
– entering, editing, and laying out the notated sheet music and tabs
– practicing the music
– rehearsing the actual video lessons
– designing myself, but then hiring a real designer for the DVD cover and disc
– moving Youtube videos to a second video site in case of copyright problems
– rethinking my e-commerce shopping art situation (current phase)
– shooting and editing video (current phase)
– getting DVDs manufactured (still to do)

So…I encourage you to think about BIG goals. Why? Not for the money, but because life is all the more satisfying when you live this way.

Whether it’s a creating painting, a DVD, raising a family or even being a great pre school teacher – when you set a goal and achieve it, you get to look at life and know yourself to be a “creator”. The process of “how you proceed” is more important than the “what you are doing”.

To know oneself as a “creator” rather than a “victim / reactor” is empowering and inspiring, and highly recommended! And through this muddle of goals, making a living, and brain work, our souls and actually learn something very profound in the realm of spirit when we can fully declare “I am Creator”.

Now…get to work! 🙂

Jackson Five Guitar DVD Update – Video Shoot Done…Edits on the Way!

By Adam Rafferty 5 Comments

Greets Friends! I hope you are feeling good and having a great summer so far!

I am back in NYC after all my road travels this year and am buckling down with the JACKSON 5 DVD production. “Lights, camera – action” was last week. This upcoming week myself and the team will be editing ferociously to get this ready as soon as possible.

I’ll post updates as we progress.

I feel really good about this project and one of the most important things to me is the sensation “of a job well done.” I thank you for loving these songs originally posted on YouTube, and commenting in such an encouraging way. I hope that if you are a guitarist, you’ll enjoy learning these solo arrangements.

Here’s one of the tunes that will be on the DVD, fully tabbed and walked through slowly…Enjoy!

[viddler id=97eacde7&w=437&h=370]

These Jackson 5 songs have now been officially “road tested” i.e. all those gigs on tour and hours in hotels playing the arrangements over and over (and over) really paid off.

You’d be amazed how over time, adjusting a fingering here and there “puts the polish” on the tunes. All too often I have uploaded to YouTube too soon after just learning the song – posting rough draft of sorts. The slow brew and aging turns the tunes into “fine wine”. Well, I think I am a proud Daddy! This process really takes time…

You might like to know something quite interesting that most people would never think of – I had to rehearse my spoken teaching through the songs for a week. This was crazy work! Guitar was easy…speaking on camera was hard (at first).

I think all the dust mites and my couch now can play my four Jackson 5 arrangements 🙂 Seriously though, I spoke through the teaching every day for a week so that I could easily clarify points and concepts in front of the camera. Glad I did. The lessons rolled off my tongue pretty easily at the shoot!

At first glance at the playback, the sound and image looked awesome and I suspect this will be a totally kickin’ instructional DVD. You are in for a treat! The coffee did wear off during the last song, but I think we all pulled through 🙂

I’ll post again as the editing is underway to let you know what’s happening and recount comical moments.

Awakening to Your Own Inner Harmony

By Adam Rafferty 5 Comments

Greets friends!

I am in the midst of preparing my Jackson 5 Guitar Instructional DVD and am really excited about the music. I am totally immersed in, and enjoying the teaching process of this music – and finding myself in a very feel-good place.

Funny though, as a young classical guitar player I was never able to dig into the music on the level that I do now. As I look back, I think – “what was the difference?” I am really truly happy now – but was not happy back in the day. What am I doing right, and what was I doing wrong? 🙂

I recently returned from a guitar festival in Bermuda where I got to hear and hang out with a great classical guitar duo – the Brasil Guitar Duo. Awesome musically and technically. You could feel their 100% commitment to the music. This made me think…what are they doing that I wasn’t?

I just let the cat out of the bag! But let’s rewind…

Many times, as I played classical guitar I felt a “veil” between myself and the music. a feeling of “I’ll never get it” or “it’s too hard” or something. This was very frustrating for me as a young player. I loved love classical guitar recordings – but somehow feel “locked out”.

I feel totally the opposite with the Jackson 5 music I am preparing for the DVD. By now, my cat should be able to play the songs after having heard the instruction ad nauseum.

As I teach this the music, I am constantly thinking to myself, “what inner message must the student realize in order to play this music, and how can I convey this?”

The music is not exactly easy. It’s a full plate of technical, rhythmic, and melodic challenges. These are delicious musical puzzles that I have figured out. But what is it on the inner plane that has enabled me to play this music – and what must the student do?

The answer is simple. Isn’t it always?

One must LOVE IT enough that they are willing to do the work.

Knowing what you love means that you are awake to your INNER harmony. Not what you think is “cool” or “interesting” – but that which touches your heart and soul.

This sounds simple and easy – and it is when you allow it. But – fear regarding the approval of others (teachers, parents, peer group etc) can twist, distort and hinder you. Or fear of survival (I’ll never make a living doing that) or fear of control (how will I do that consistently) can derail you.

Even as a jazz player, my soul would really light up when I was deep in a blues zone, or a funk zone, or an authentic bebop zone. At other times I’d feel “off”.

But – once you care about the approval of others and compromise your honesty, you’re lost.

And so it was for me with classical guitar – as I see in retrospect. I love the beauty of the art, but I never had the feeling of 100% commitment and love for the music. Not enough to put me over the top!!!

But enough about me….more about YOU.

What do YOU love? When no one’s watching and no one can comment – what is your love, your dream? What would you do for no money? What would you do if you only had 6 months to live? Answer that honestly and you can achieve anything.

And that’s why I have the strength to practice Jackson 5, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder songs for hours on end. I love it that much. I am willing to do the work. And – I’d do it without getting paid! 100% commitment…and the hell with what anyone thinks!

In the words of Joseph Campell…”Follow Your Bliss”. Awaken to your inner harmony, and watch the world roll at your feet. The previously impossible and insurmountable become easy, delicious and inevitable.