Videos

6 Pieces of Guitar Gear I Can’t Live Without

By Adam Rafferty 30 Comments

Hey Gang!

I was just peeking through the mountain of “Fanbridge” questions that I have, and I came across a recurring theme…

Question: “Adam what guitar/strings/gear do you use?”

I get asked about this 10 times a week.

With the “mountain” of gear that one sees in catalogs & stores it is easy to get confused.

Since I carry most of my stuff myself (no car – yep, I’m a New York guy), it has to be portable, easy, and sound great.

All of what I am listing fits in a backpack (except the guitars), and I am ready to play any size concert hall or festival.

Keep in mind, this list WILL change, and “there is more than one way to do it” – but this has been working for me.

[Read more…]

How to Kick Butt on Guitar – Creativity Plus Discipline

By Adam Rafferty 36 Comments

Being a guitar player is not that different from being an author, photographer, magician or pizza parlor owner.

Huh?

In actuality – it’s only ONE field…we’re all self-employed entrepreneurs getting our creations out into the world, providing value for people, and earning something in return.

As an entrepreneur, you have to self motivate. It’s the “long haul” tactics and daily habits that build into something worthwhile, over time.

Short bursts of inspiration can’t build musicianship or a great career, but a little bit of work every day – towards a worthwhile goal, most certainly will.

I just read an article by my one of my favorite information marketers, Fred Gleeck, and he talked about the writing process…this quote rang true to me as a creative musician.

He says…

The one thing I suggest you do is that you MAKE yourself sit down and start writing every day for a given block of time. Writing is an act of creativity AND discipline.

This is exactly the process I use in regards to practicing guitar… I use “creativity AND discipline.”

You are the CREATOR, not the CONSUMER

As a CONSUMER, and lover of music – when you listen to your favorite musician or band, it’s as if you are getting the most delicious dessert at a fine restaurant, served to you.

Mmmm yummy!

No work is required. You sit back, hit play and enjoy watching and/or listening. Easy as pie.

As the CREATOR of that dessert, you will not likely “feel the feelings” that the consumer feels!

This is precisely the spot where, for example, little kids at music lessons realize they need to practice and “it’s no longer fun.”

The shiny new thing loses it’s luster, you see the errors and really have to polish your work of art.

A Recent Real Life Example

I recently did a stretch of arranging, videotaping and uploading 9 Beatles tunes to YouTube. Here’s one of them for your enjoyment – “In My Life”

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_31xKFzSy4″]

The Discipline:

As the musical “dessert chef” I spent, on average

2-3 days creating the guitar arrangement & practicing it
1 day video taping & recording
Maybe 1 day more recording the video again after “sleeping” on the problems of the first taping
For each of these 5 day projects I have a delicious 3 minutes to present to the world.

The Creative:

Even though it’s “covers” some serious “creativity” went into choosing this stretch of tunes, before I even picked up the guitar.

I felt it was time to inject some new life into my repertoire, and I love hitting the “bullseye” musically for my audience.
Almost everyone loves the Beatles – so it’s as if I am coming “back from the bullseye” like a Zen archer. (See my C + Y = R post)
With a nice set of Beatles songs, I can maybe do a Beatles DVD
I can offer to now teach a Beatles class at a guitar workshop
Of course I’ll have more GREAT tunes to play on concerts
If people like the videos, they’ll share them socially
Maybe a Beatles CD is worth doing…
I strove to get GREAT versions of these songs onto the guitar that really convey the music, better than I’d ever heard…

When I saw what I wanted to achieve, I determined that it would be well worth the discipline and time needed to whip these tunes into shape and make videos, upload etc.

Is there “Luck” involved?

It makes me almost want to barf when someone says “oh you are so lucky – you get to do what you love…”

Are you kidding? I work my tail off and claim it….it ain’t luck!!!

🙂

Hopefully this gives you some “inspiration” to be disciplined, put the time in daily, and stick to a plan – and achieve your dreams!

Now….git to work!

If Paul McCartney Can’t Read Music, Why Should I?

By Adam Rafferty 7 Comments

I hear this often from students and guitar fans.

And I am into a 2nd Venti at Starbucks.

I am Venti-ing.

I get very disturbed when a young student tries to “shirk” away from the work because one of his or her heroes can’t read music.

Often, accomplished musicians who can’t read music will “put down” musicians who can read – and bolster their own position of illiteracy with the voodoo of…

I know something’ because I don’t know nuthin…and if I learn too much, I might lose the sumthin’ I gots….

I have played with many great musicians who thought their illiteracy made them special.

It’s their musicality that made them special – not their inability to read!!!

Let’s review the options…. [Read more…] about If Paul McCartney Can’t Read Music, Why Should I?

What’s More Important – Musical Essence or Technical Perfection?

By Adam Rafferty 45 Comments

Here’s a peek into my mind as to how I craft something musically for solo guitar.

I recently arranged the Beatles “Michelle” for solo fingerstyle guitar and while I feel it could be way better ‘technically’….it looks like people are digging it, from the comments. (thanks Youtubers!)

It is very far from perfect – but it feels good! There’s a different “perfection” in the good feeling I am talking about.

The Musician’s Cure to Social Media Madness

By Adam Rafferty 5 Comments

THE SCENARIO

This last week, I spent a lot of time online, doing my research, keeping up with social media, new (to me) sites like Pinterest.com and Chill.com.

(does this sound familiar?)

Sites like Facebook, twitter and Youtube are helping me reach fans and book gigs…so I wanted to see “what I’ve been missing” and how I could ramp things up, career wise.

Oh boy…all I did was make myself nuts!

Like many musicians, or managers or “labels” I’m scratching my (bald) head wondering what’s next, and will the sites I’m signing onto even last?

Some sites will be here to – stay (for a while) while others will bite the dust like Myspace.

My head started to hurt.

Questions like this plagued me this week (don’t worry – this post will end happy…)

Some of my personal issues:

How can anyone hope to compete with a Youtube channel with millions of subscribers?
To get more hits & views, must I simply play every crappy cover song I can think of, in incredible voluminous amounts?
Will Youtube yank my videos / channel, since I still am doing covers?

then…my personal hell….since I get asked for tabs of my covers constantly…

How the hell can so many guitar instructors out there sell tabs with ZERO licenses in place, and I choose to go the high road and get licenses, am I an idiot?
Will social media change, because right now I don’t want to know about someone’s cat barfing…so I “shut off” and others do too.
Where is it all going? And am I wasting time trying to figure it out?

The irony is…(drum roll please)

By asking these questions I was simply “creating my world” and seeing the world as “I am” not the way it is.

BUSTED.

What appeared to be “out there” was “in here.”

This is kind of heavyweight information when you think about it.

I create my world and you create your world, minute by minute, whether we complain and worry, or whether we rejoice and give thanks!

THE CURE

I picked up the guitar.

I decided to start learning a new tune….”IMAGINE” by John Lennon. It was time to be a musician and not a social media manager for a few hours.

After hours of ironing out an arrangement, I uploaded it to Youtube:

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dELdAQ25kT0″]

This video was done with NO end result in mind….only “love” in mind, honest to God. I wanted my fans to have something nice and soothe them.

I fell completely into the song, the lyrics, the tone of the instrument, Lennon’s voice, intention, and so on.

THE AFTERMATH

As I walked out into the street in NYC after uploading the video and I felt “all my troubles seem so far away” 🙂

The pain, headache, uncertainty and frustration I was feeling were GONE.

What?

I found myself in a “bliss” state.

Immersion into music, with no thought of “what I’d get out of it” is what got me there.

I saw after this that I have the personal power to choose one state or the other.

THAT’S BIG! Do you get this?

What I previously thought “the world was doing” was MY creation.

My NEW (forgotten) mantra “I am responsible for 100% of my life.”

THE IRONY

Once I dropped the video onto Youtube, Facebook and Twitter – it was something useful that people wanted to share.

That’s the way to use social media! (I.E. that’s the horse before the cart…)

THE MEDIUM IS NOT THE MESSAGE

Social media is a pipeline.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Good meaningful stuff in, good meaningful stuff out.

The lesson….offer something good….really good and everyone wins.