Tour Diary

The Rope, the Snake, and a Happy Ending for this April Fool

April 1, 2010

Greets friends…I am cruising at about 30K feet on the first leg of my journey to the UK to play the Oxford Jazz Festival, Liverpool Philharmonic and more.

I have a happy ending to tell you about. I’d like to talk about perception, and also discuss reading personal meaning into impersonal events.

It’s quite easy to read about spiritual and psychological principles and nod one’s head and say “I understand that”, but when the rubber hits the road and we feel uncomfortable, and have a mini inner disturbance or crisis – we see what we are made of, and hopefully learn. 🙂

One of my favorite teachers, Lester Levenson, uses the following example. Imagine that you see a poisonous snake in a dimly lit room, curled up waiting to attack. You feel fear, panic, you go into survival mode and freak out. You turn the light on and then find a coiled up rope, which you thought was a snake. The whole panic, fear and mental ride you went on was your creation.

How often at work, with family, at school do we have “panic attacks” over the coiled up ropes of life that we think are snakes? Fortunately I am getting mellower and mellower but I certainly have experienced this feeling and have to laugh at myself when I see the “rope”. It’s like panic over lost keys which you find in your back pocket after tearing up the house for 15 minutes.

Now, dear reader, here’s a slightly different topic which will have a tie-in, I promise. The Buddha taught not to feel one way or the other regarding praise or criticism, and this is a tough one for me much of the time. It’s not that effort is employed to “not let” criticism pull one down, but when you are grounded in a more real, quiet, ego-less state – you see that there is no “you” in the first place who can receive praise or blame.

And now here is the priceless April Fools story which involves the tie-in of each of these ideas.

I received an email from a customer a few weeks ago because he ordered a DVD and 2 CDs – and one CD was missing from the package. He was from Germany – which is where I tour most these days. I love the German folk, and one quality I admire in the culture is a “conversational directness”…they often say what’s on their mind with no buffer and little humor.

The email stated the following. “Dear Adam, Just to let you know, the Gratitude CD was missing from the order. The Stevie Wonder Guitar DVD is wonderful, and your Chameleon CD is awful. ”

Huh? Did he really just say that? What?

I reacted internally. I emailed friends. Stomach acid. No, I am not yet always above praise or criticism.

I decided then that it was my duty re-record and re-release my CD’s because I feel that I have improved, as has my recording technique. I composed (but did not send) a letter of apology to him, saying yes, the micing of the guitar could be better, the performance could be better,and that I’ve learned a lot since recording that CD. I offered a complete refund if he was dis-satisfied. I chose not to send the email though. I clarified my thoughts, and that was fine.

I felt truly awful. I did my best, and really disappointed someone with this artistic effort. How could these words affect me so?

And I thought – if he had the nerve to actually say it, how many people simply bottled this sentiment up and were too kind to tell me? Maybe he’s the only one of thousands who has the nerve to speak his mind. Like the guy with the bad toupe whom no one says anything to, but everyone knows it’s a bad toupe…and one man calls out the bad rug.

Eventually I got over it as I had to carry on with touring and a career. The CD is done, no turning back.

Last night in Munich my buddy Zane and I did a 2 guitar gig for a small, intimate audience. I couldn’t help but notice a young couple grooving and enjoying the music and humor. From the stage, I made lots of eye contact with them and enjoyed their vibe very much.

On the break the fellow from this nice couple comes up and says “Hi Adam, I’m Stefan. Man you sound great!!! By the way I still haven’t received the Gratitude CD. Oh – and I am so sorry about the email. I meant to say the Chameleon CD is AWESOME, not awful – and I didn’t realize the language mistake until afterwards. Ha ha ha!” He then hands me the Chameleon CD to get it autographed.

Well, we had some great laughs. I informed him that he almost put me in the mental hospital, and that I was happy to meet him. I announced him from the stage and told the story, and I promised him and the audience that the next CD would be even more….awful!! 🙂

Of course my little ego, my separate self heaved a sigh of relief. But the big SELF, looked at this entire story and knows that a hipper, happier place would be to be grounded in a peaceful, higher zone where I wouldn’t have felt bad in the first place. That’s the real place to be.

The only place I have found this rest, this relaxation and pause from ego is in and from meditation and mindfulness. Going within and going quiet is the only place I have find peace. You really do catch glimpses that there is no separate you and you (I) see the idiocy of the ego. But, it takes practice to stay on top of it all.

So while it’s nice to be loved and have this fellow think the CD is awesome – that’s not the cure, it’s just a band aid for a situation.

The cure is in knowing through and through that you, I and him are not separate beings no more than waves in the ocean being separate from the water itself. The cure is to know the big SELF, not the little self.

Tommy Emmanuel, in his infinite wisdom once told me “what other people think of you is none of your business”. This is deeper than it initially sounds…

Enjoy life, and until next time keep swingin’

Roll Over Amadeus!

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Every now and then as one goes through life, events happen to which we ascribe meaning. I had such a moment yesterday.

I had the wonderful opportunity to do a solo guitar concert 2 nights ago at the “Mozarthaus” in Vienna, Austria. Mozart lived on the ground floor level of this building. The building sits on “Domgasse” – the Dome being St. Stefan’s Cathedral.

The concert was in the basement where they now have a lovely small hall for chamber music. The building is now a historic landmark museum, and they host concerts, events…it’s just so cool. I’ll need to go back as a tourist and check it out!

It was in this building that Mozart and Haydyn met. It was an honor not only to set foot in this place, but also perform music there. Holy powdered wigs, Batman!

As I walked in, and throughout the concert I couldn’t help but think of the towering genius of Mozart – and here I am doing my little ol’ funky fingerpicking, playing Billie Jean, beatboxing, and so on. The ridiculousness all of it was humbling and totally hilarious at the same time.

During my first guitar and beatbox tune “Chameleon” the melody lines wove in and out of eachother, the beatbox groove hit and I saw smiles in the crowd. I knew then and there, old Wolfgang would approve and it made me feel good. He was a playful groovy son of a gun…I felt him smiling.

Afterwards, as the audience was screaming, and I had to just take it in and enjoy kicking butt musically in the former home of one of our worlds greatest musical geniuses!

But, lets not forget Mr. Fux either. “Who’s that?” you ask.

Last night at the concert as I introduced my tune “America”, I told the folks that the tune was born as I studied “Gradus ad Parnassum”, Johann Fux’s book on counterpoint (which Mozart also studied by the way). You can actually buy this book at Barnes & Noble. It’s a music education classic – just a small pocket sized paperback, but heavyweight in the concepts!

Fux lived during the same time as Bach and was the “Cappelmester” – i.e. choir leader, organist and head teacher in charge of music there at St. Stefans Cathedral in Vienna.

His book was (and still is indispensable) to my musical education and to my fingerstyle guitar approach. The ability to “juggle” more than one “voice” and see where voices in the music hit at the same time – or don’t hit at the same time (called counterpoint) was strengthened by doing all the written exercises in his book over coffee each morning for about 2 years. Once you can visualize the concept on paper, playing it becomes easier.

This work translated into “seeing possibilities” as a composer and arranger rather than just thinking like a “guitar player”. That’s why I always try to teach students “concepts” as opposed to just songs. The mileage you get from a correct concept can be the spark for hundreds of songs and arrangements.

Special thanks to Mozart, Fux, Bach and the all the Masters of music, you are all a never ending source of inspiration to me. My dream is to provide people with music that is not only entertaining, but intelligent too, and I hope you were groovin with me last night, (and I kinda think you were).

Your student, Adam.

Amen.

Financial Tip for Touring Musicians – The Numbers Don’t Lie!

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Years ago when I started touring Europe I was not too financially organized. Primarily because I didn’t and still don’t “do it for the money” – I do it for the love of music and travel. However, deriving “feelings” from looking at your wallet at the end of a tour is a very inaccurate way to do this.

Whether you feel “good” or “bad” you really have no idea what went down financially unless you do the math. You could feel very rich (or extremely poor) looking at the money in your pocket at the end of a tour. What about all the money and credit card bills for the travel, hotels, food? Those expenses may have happened months before – so you cannot tell by looking in your wallet at the end of a tour!

On my first few tours back in the late 1990’s, I’d front the money for the band’s plane tickets, train tickets, food, hotels on nights off for the band, and of course – their pay was guaranteed. It was then up to me to sell CD’s and collect gig income and “pray for the best”.

I can remember feeling as though I was on an emotional roller coaster when I spent money, or when I felt I made some, and in the end – no idea whether I made or lost money because I had no system for tracking the income / expenses.

One year I decided to start keeping track of my income and expenses using a simple excel spreadsheet. If you are touring, and own a laptop this is actually kind of a fun little morning activity – assuming you didn’t party too hard the night before. Any spreadsheet program should be fine – Excel, Apple Works, Open Office – are a few available.

In just about any spreadsheet program, you can set up a whole region of several rows and columns to sum the numbers so your totals of income and expenses. I simply enter expenses as a negative number, and income as a positive number. I even got geeky and have columns for US dollars as well as Euros so that I can translate it all into dollars at the end.

The result? Well you start to see some very interesting things like:

– How much it costs to go on tour
– How much each gig “costs” so you get an idea of what fee you need to ask for
– Where you can cut expenses
– Did you break even and cover costs, and if so, when?
– Most importantly you can come home feeling good when you do earn money, it is inspiration and motivation for the next tour!

Note – even if you don’t earn money a tour can be successful, because the benefit can come from the relationships and fan base you are establishing. Think of that kind of scenario as an investment.

If you are paying band mates as you go rather than in a lump at the end, you can enter that as an expense on a given day – so that the 50 bucks here and there can all be accounted for in case of misunderstandings.

The numbers do not lie. It is totally enlightening to see the numbers added up, and if the spreadsheet does it properly, there is little room for error, as long as it’s set up right.

As musicians we think like artists and not accountants, so this activity may not come naturally. However as we move into the 21st century, we have to be responsible in new ways. By taking care of ourselves financially we end up taking care of ourselves emotionally and that becomes our physical and musical well being too!

These all are in support of the music, even though they may seem like distractions. So – fire up your spreadheet software (excel, apple works, open office – whatever) and start fooling around with this idea. You’ll be glad you did, and this will help your musical life too!

Greets from The Road – Voelklingen, Germany

By Adam Rafferty 6 Comments

(this post was written March 8, 2010)

Greets friends. I am writing to you as I sit on the train to Frankfurt for a solo concert this evening.

A few days ago, I was in Linz, Austria and fell into some delightful, deep contemplation while taking a nice stroll on the Hauptplatz (main square). Linz was one of the first places I ever played on a Europe tour with a jazz trio, and I returned to precisely the same venue and stage, 10 years later for two sold out solo concerts.

Returning to a place I rarely come to after all this time put me in a time warp of sorts! Allow me to digress…

I am fascinated by the idea of what’s “out there” in the world we see vs. what’s “in here” in our minds and bodies.

The more that we look at our own minds and bodies, we see that everything we experience is inside and it is in fact impossible to experience anything outside ourselves.

When you see a bird, what’s actually happening? Actually, light waves zap into your eyes and your brain puts a picture of the bird together. Like it or not, your brain sees the bird. You “see” the image in your brain. You never experience the actual bird.

The same for sounds, smells, tastes, colors, emotions, touch and so on. Our sense organs pick up frequencies and it is our brain that registers them, interprets and assembles them. Past that, the brain can choose to add meaning – but that’s a whole other topic! 🙂

There is a famous story about two Zen monks. One monk looks at a flag waving in the wind one sunny day, and the other monk says “is it the flag that is moving, or is it your mind that is moving?”

In looking at the Linz “Hauptplatz”, seeing in my mind’s eye the memories of years past, remembering the feelings, dreams, loves, ups and downs I saw something that the Zen monk saw. Did I experience Linz? No I experienced my own mind and inner workings.

Sure I experienced events there, but they were the simply the out picturing of precisely what I was looking for due to the Law of Attraction. This experience this time was completely different, because I am looking for new things in music and in life.

The feeling was Merlin-esque. My whole sense of past, present and future somehow felt like it was collapsing on itself. Side note: I also saw that without a doubt any picture I hold in mind comes to fruition. Take time out of the equation and it is as if you can snap your fingers and have anything.

Even when I sit on the meditation cushion and the mind starts to wander, I laugh at myself….in a 20 minute session I can feel the feelings, sight sand sounds of Bangkok, my apartment in NYC, people in my life, my cat, life as a school kid…and physically I am in one place. It’s so easy to see in that setting that it is the “mind moving” and not “the flag”.

The holograph in my mind of course is “inside”, but what must be realized is even when you are “there” and “seeing things for real” the holograph is still an inner experience. So, really no difference between being in Bangkok and seeing things vs seeing the memories in my mind. Why? All I ever saw was my mind anyway…

What’s even more interesting is when two or more people experience something allegedly tangible – for example, attending a concert. For each listener, there is a brain assembling music and meaning and an experience. The music is not an outer experience, even at a concert…it’s an inner experience for each person there.

I dance around this topic without a real conclusion for you in mind. To see that it is all inside me, the entire cosmos, everyone I know, everything I have seen or heard is in me, fills me with wonder.

What, if anything is “out there” past my consciousness? This may be something we’re not allowed to know on this plane of existence. However, knowing that everything is inside is a level of taking responsibility for ones thoughts and life.

You may think that even this blog entry is outside you, but guess what? Everything you are reading and seeing is an inner experience, being put together by your brain. It’s in you.

Cool, huh? Until next time, feel good, love those around you, love yourself and keep swingin’!

Practicing “The Gig” vs. Practicing “Guitar”

By Adam Rafferty 26 Comments

In Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles” he describes two olympic athletes who at each training session would do a “mock olympics”. The coach would call out their names exactly in the format that would go down in the real olympic competition, score them perfectly and award them the gold medal.

Of course the reason it appeared in Canfield’s book was that they did win the gold medal in the real competition. When they were in the competition they felt like they were back at their gym with their trainer.

This is a very deep lesson actually. It’s about bringing yourself through sensations – auditory, visual, and kinesthetic – into the feeling of the ACTUAL moment that you’ll be in. It’s a fast forwarding of sorts, and actually you can take yourself from the 4th dimension (time) somewhere else in the 5th dimension (all possibilities starting from now). By living in the end result, you find your way to get there….auto-magically!

I didn’t readily see how I could use this concept with music performance until last week.

Today is Feb 6, 2010. In about 3 weeks I start an 8 week tour through Germany, Austria the UK and I finish off in Belgrade, Serbia. That’s my “olympics”. I gotta kick butt, but practicing at home is so different from being on a concert stage. (Or is it?)

At home, I can just sling the guitar on and walk around in my pajamas and play a tune 100 times until it feels good. I can have a coffee, chat with a friend on a break, and go back to play some more.

The concert stage is totally different. (Or is it?) In concert…

I need to entertain for 90-120 minutes.There’s no going back to fix mistakes and no playing the same tunes 3,4,5 times.There are lights shining brightly in my eyes so I sometimes can’t see the frets.Playing through a PA presents a new sound problem – all of a sudden I need to adjust to a new sound.Jacket buttons hit the guitar unexpectedly.I get thirsty, I sweat and I gotta make people happy!I have to get the vocal mic (for beatbox) and the guitar to behave together sonically.I have to play a tune or two that may be a bit rusty, and play it like I mean it.It’s a jungle out there!

Doing the first few concerts is disconcerting if I have been off the road for a month or two, to say the least.

Then I realized the meaning of this story about the athletes. As well, after listening to videos and audio programs of great speakers like Jack Canfield, Brian Tracy, Esther & Jerry Hicks, and others – I realized that a SERIOUS amount of prep work goes into what they do. It’s no accident that they pull off their seminars and workshops with total finesse.

I had my AHA! moment. I decided I’d “do a concert” here at home by myself instead of my usual “practice routine”. Of course I’ve done many concerts before but I saw a new opportunity to improve my show and up my game! I could do exactly what the athletes did. For many this would be a “nice idea” but I decided to follow through and really do it, so that I could report back to you.

I set up my PA system here at home (my neighbors got a concert I think…) and wrote out my concert program. I got dressed up in my suit, and even shone my desk lamp in my eyes to simulate stage lights. I set up my mic, set a glass of water nearby, and everything. I put cologne on, and set up the video camera. I tuned up in the bathroom (my dressing room) and came out, announced myself the way most emcees do, and tore up 2 hours worth of music.

Unfortunately the only groupie in sight was my cat, Brina. 🙂

All I can say is WOW. I actually got so many of the “head trips” of playing a concert I saw that this is truly great performance practice technique. Duh, some people call it a dress rehearsal, but once again – this is something not generally “taught” to solitary musicians.

Solo musicians run their “pieces” but rarely “run their show” I didn’t think that it was possible in this habitat (my studio apartment) to access the difficulties of the concert environment, but it actually was!

My biggest goal now is to forgive myself for mistakes on stage and continue with the music, and to be more and more “in the moment” while playing. Great performers “flow” and it can only get better and better. I’m curious to report back from the road and say if this practice technique was in fact helpful.

It’s also interesting to feel the pacing of songs as they fall between other songs. I’ve done this now 2 days in a row, and the “flow” of the set felt much more natural today. Damn, I wonder where this will get to after a week, 2 weeks, etc.

In watching the video (I only caught the first hour, my flip cam hard drive got filled up) I was surprised, as I suspected I’d be. Songs I thought were “B” level were “A” level, and vice versa. I also caught some serious flaws in my presentation, realized I need a wardrobe and especially need hairdo upgrade. 🙂

I am sure my mind will churn for days on this, but heck I’d rather start this thought process now than after the first few gigs! Seeing one’s performance as an outsider is totally different than the inner experience of doing it.

Yes, it’s important to be a great musician, and a great guitarist or instrumentalist – but performance “chops” are a whole other set of skills. If you are performing anywhere as a public speaker, reader, comedian, magician or musician – set up a performance environment for yourself and try this NOW.

“Great musicians can be sucky performers and great performers can be sucky musicians.” That’s my quotable quote of the day. And, guess who gets the bigger money at gigs? 🙂

If you are a performer of any sort, do try this at home! You’ll be amazed at what you experience.