Tips from a Funky Fingerstyle soul Adam Rafferty .
Here you have my first Podcast with an interview to the great Adam Rafferty You can also read transcription with some very interesting links. Do not miss it this is gold. Enjoy it!!! :)
1) When I was starting with the acoustic guitar. One of the very few sites that existed on internet that offers very good quality pedagogical materials was adamrafferty.com.
Shelter Island was my very first approach to your music. And I love the story behind that song. Could you explain it a bit for the audience ?I think that it is good starter.
I’m very delight it that you enjoy the site and the materials. And I tell you a little bit about schertler island. Right at that time on my life I had shure that hit the end of wanting to try to push touring with a jazz group because of some experience that I had a year before it was just very difficult for personal reasons and financial reasons. It’s hard to pay 3 guys and to pay for all the travels and I discover Tommy Emmanuel and I became very inspire of course by him as we all are. And right on that time it was a time of my life where everything seem to be shifting and I had just enter the relationship with a lady at that time who said: “ Hey why don’t you play me something on the guitar”. As a jazz guitar player it was evident to me that I couldn’t really play anything for her. It make me very aware I didn’t have any solo stuff to play and we have gone on a lovely vacation to a place called Schertler Island and I hear this little melody on my ears and at that time there was all kinds of inspiration flowing so I snak that little melody. Originally I wanted to make it sound like Tommy song Dixie MacGuire with thumbpicking and I actually recorded once like that on an album call Chameleon. But that didn’t really work the more sure of rolling acoustic sound the ballad, I said ballad gentle approach was the way that I originally heard it and that’s the way that it actually sounds the best and that’s the way I play it now.
2) I really appreciate how much love do you put on your students and in your blog. Actually I can say that you are like a fingerstyle guru ore fingerstyle Coach. This is a three questions in one .When do you sleep? How do you organize so well your time? Which one are the persons that you follow to reach that level of professionality?
At 1 let’s just clear this up. I had a very close relationship with my teacher Mike Longo. And I can of felt that he was like a Guru or Zen master or whatever and so that can be a kind of a dangerous thing to see somebody as a like a Guru but is cool to see them as an example you know. And actually I’ve has seen somebody is like a guru has a lot to do with the student how they see the teacher so I definitely fall into that I looked up to Tommy Emmanuel very much as we all do as I said before I listened of what he tells me to do so anyhow. Yes I do really love my students and I see them as individuals and I see them all as very different and I know how much I appreciated have an a great teacher who gave me advice where it kind of bled outside the round of music as well you know there is a spiritual stuff, there is business stuff you know my teacher was someone that I can really rely on. On a lot of levels and his musical thing was terrific I’m talking about Mike Longo. When do I sleep? I sleep plenty I don´t organize my time as well as I would like I always try to organize it better. We can talk a little bit about that but the people that I follow to reach the level of professionality I’m gonna list two guys who I think that musicians should check out and this are productivity guys and sure of self management guys who are geniuses. One guy is named Bryan Tracy and he is about 80 right now he is a success coach and I really like his style he is very direct he stays very calm of course he tries to shell you all his stuff but he is terrific. And another guy is Jack Candfield. He wrote the famous chicken soup for the soul book which I haven’t read but I’m gonna talk about a couple of their books later on on one of your questions. They were definitely life changers for me and so this is stuff that musicians don’t normally stumbleupon but I think that people who, you know, probably hit their late 20s or 30s and really realized that they need to be organized especially as freelancers. We are freelancers as musicians. This 2 guys are super they really lay things out. Routines wishes, discipline wishes, priority wishes, business wishes. I really love particularly Brian Tracy.
3) When we listen to your music we could feel how much important is the groove on it. It is that the reason Why you named Funky Fingerstyle Guitar?
The groove for me is literally everything I’m not always saying my groove is perfect, but for me is the most important thing. This was hammering to me by my teacher Mike Longo and all my experiences playing in NY particularly when I had the chance to play with older musicians who play with Sony Rollings or play with the Count Basie orchestra or played with Duke Ellington I got to played with people who played with them and I also got to played with Dr Lonnie Smith and Alvin Queen and what you find is that in the end nobody cares how much chops you have. You need a certain amount of chops but what they really care about is if the groove feels good and everybody can play together and get into a packet. The other reason I named funkyfingerstyle guitar and that actually took me a couple of days to come up with that. It’s very important I think for all musicians, this is a basic marketing thing to have a differentiating factor and to know what sets you apart so that you can tell it to people really quickly like with a sentence. You know my tagline is actually funkyfingerstyle guitar from NY City because that it’s easy to say and it also gives people an idea when they wanna print something really quickly in a magazine or in a concert flyer you know I’ve differentiating myself I’m not just a guitar player and so everybody should do that.
4) How we should work to improve our internal groove?
I’ll be real quick here. Something I learn from Mike Longo wich he learn from Dizzy Gillespie is a series of African drumming exercises where you count various polymeters and it’s a little bit too complicated to explain here but what it does it’s get’s the rhythm out of your head. Out of counting it’s really one of the most profound deep musical thing I’ve ever learn in my life and for ever great to Mike Longo for showing it to me and there is a little bit more that he show me that I show to my students cause pretends more actually to jazz improvisation but I have a full training program for this on my website wich is studywithadam.com there is a section call improve your groove and there is a free fourteen day trial I know I’m doing a little promo for the website but anybody hearing this can just hop on over there even if you dont wanna sign up you can just do the free trial and check out this groove video.
5)The non musician people usually think that is so cool to be all day just playing music. Many people doesn’t know how many skills do we need to be visible. And what I mean is how to be your own manager, publicist, sound engineer, graphic designer, webmaster, photographer… bla bla bla. Which one do you think is more important for an entrepreneur musician?
Well Tanausú they also wonder how cool it is to not make as much money or not make reliable money the way that a person who has a regular job does I remember when I was a single guy in NY looking for a girlfriend then I would go on dates I can feel the enthusiasm and my date just like go away when I said I was a musician because of course they think how do you survive? So of course we are not just playing guitar all day in fact I have to make myself practice because all the business and internet stuff can really take over and actually I find it very interesting because I have to make sure that I close the computer and then I pick up the guitar. I just practice for a few hours today.
5b) I got extremely lucky with coming in to youtube on the right time in 2007/08 I warranty that if I came in with the same stuff now I probably wouldn’t have the same amount of hits. There was a little bit of timing involve.
5c) There a lot of tasks that as an entrepreneur musician we must be shure of proficient at I happen to be pretty good at web stuff and decent enough at graphics because in the years 98–2000 I had a little job on a web design firm because at that time I had a website very early on and I have to figure out the very basics on html of how to change gig dates and how to upload new photos I was sure of always the guy that didnt want to rely on someone to do that I really had to study hard and I go a little bit into programing. That’s a kind of a hobby for me I enjoy that stuff as a balance to play music. I think a lot of musicians like computer stuff. A lot of people enjoy recording, enjoy doing videos and we tend as musician to think like that so in terms of your questions when you say sound engineer graphic designer webmaster I think this answer will differ a little bit from everybody but here it goes:
If you enjoy doing something and you can do it like recording yourself for example, then by own means DO IT. So do the skills that you enjoy more or you are good at. How ever if you are not good at something for example I’m not good at designing a CD cover. That it’s something you should delegate to somebody who is good at it because they’ll do a good job and faster and cheaper than you will. So for example for me I have a company at the E.E.U.U. call disk makers. They reproduce my CDs. I let them design the cover they have stuff there and the covers look great. Another example I do my website by myself because I’m pretty good at it and I trust my judgement and I build things safely and securely and I don’t use cheap tools. Again another example after having gone to a recording studio a couple of times I kind of know how to record myself however after I do the edits I delegate the mixing and the mastering to someone else whom I trust I just put all the tracks online they pull them down so they mix and master, so you have on your skill set what do you do best I don’t do any guitar repair or set up . I don’t know anything about being a luthier the minute I have a crack on the guitar the minute something is shaking or wobbling I g to a repair person some guys like to do that themselves so that’s up to everybody to decide.
6) Personally every single year I think that is going better and better but, how it was your experience here in Spain at the third edition of the Spain Guitar Workshop in Altea?
I absolutely loved it. It was extremely relaxing, it was extremely soulful I really enjoyed being with you and Klaus and Heiko and all the students and teachers like Jimmy he was awesome Jimmy Wahlsteen. My only concern with any kind of seminar, and this something i think about a lot and the definition of seminar is like to put seeds in something and of course when we as teachers give to our students the knowledge we give them seeds that’s not the same as a ongoing weekly training with the teacher. So I’m always afraid that I’ll show student something and a year later they go “ wow that was a cool idea”. So if it inspired them, then that’s great but I will really love it if the students practice what I told to them and they really stick in practicing every week because that’s is how they get the real results. For example on the groove exercise on the drum you can’t get that by learning once you’ve got to repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes natural.
7)What are you listening these days? (Check the spotify links)
Well I feel like currently I’m not doing enough listening and I really need to be because that’s what inspires me to play fingerstyle guitar it’s to listen to other kinds of music and get my imagination going. Right now I’ve not being listening quite enough but my most recent listening over the last couple of years is jazz singer Gregory Porter the jazz R&B singer and guitar extraordinary Raul Midón he is incredible. There is a nordic R&B singer she’s got a band it’s call Beady Belle. She is really interesting and most recently I revisit to listening the gospel acapella group Take 6 and I started following what some of the guys from take 6 are doing now in their solo careers you can see them all at youtube. This guys are incredible musicians they are all jazz pianist, jazz arrangers and when they sing all together it’s like magic.
8) One book for musicians (Check the ebooks links)
Ok I’m gonna give you 5 books. I suggest getting them and devouring them, they are great and I’ll get you on a track of this kind of thinking that I’m talking about. I could suggest you more books but I can’t narrow go down to one book. So here where they go:
-Jack Canfield has a book call The Success Principles get that and read it.
-Brian Tracy has a book call Eat that Frog that’s a very short book but is about 7 priorities.
Let’s just stop at this 2. This 2 books I was devouring when I started posted on youtube and when I did my first acoustic CD Gratitude so this 2 are essential.
-Let’s keep going there is an Author named Robert Cialdini and he has a book called Influence you got to read that.
-Then there is guy named Al Reis & Jack trout — 22 immutable laws of marketing there is a lot on internet but get the original book.
-And a really other good book by Gary Keller is called The One Thing and he talks about really zeroing in on the one thing that you do well and let’s not worried about the others stuff. And actually in the last year or 2 I think that I’ve been guilty of violating what he says in his book because I haven’t really focus on the thing that I’m good at on guitar I’ve been trying you know doing things on the guitar that other people are much better than I am so his book really gets you focus on what you are good at and staying with that because that will be the source of your success.
9) Which one is the question that no ones does to you on an interview and you are looking forward to reply it?
Well. Nobody ever really talks about spirituality and I believe in good and I’m not triying to approach to anybody but I think that having spiritual basics is really the basis of all the music stuff even the one trying to have careers or prosper with what you do I think that’s the ultimate most important thing I know that when I’m going away from my spiritual grounding everything is mess up and when I stick to my spiritual grounding I meditate 30 min today and life it’s much better and I find to be fascinating topic and I encourage that for anybody doing music.
10) Next concerts, projects and where can we follow you.
I’ll be honest I don’t know what is coming next time I’m taking a little break from been on the road I’m gonna really focus my concert time to October/November next year and I’m gonna try to do some new and creative stuff which I’m not sure of what’s that gonna be it will hopefully be composing maybe some nylon string guitar maybe playing with the funk band but I need to take a little rest from constantly practicing the same stuff on steel string guitar the same way I mean is kind of crazy. I play Superstition now from about 10 years and I practice several times today and my video superstition is over 10 years old and if you consider the entries beatles career was 10 years it’s pretty wild to think that I’m still practicing a lot of the same tunes. I would like to open myself to some new musical possibilities this year.
Already Tanausú men I hope that this questions help you and I thank you for the opportunity to do this interview and if I can ever be any help to you or anybody here listening to the interview feel free to contact me.
My websites are:
There is a contact form there. There is also an online voice mail there you can send me a question that maybe I use in a podcast.
And my online study site is:
There is gonna be all kinds of new lesson coming out and there are several fingerstyle guitar tutorials works through theory of groove stuff and there is a forty days free trial.
Adam thank you, thank you, thank you very much.
Thanks so much for the opportunity for this interview.
For me this is like a dream come true these were the questions that I always wanted to ask you. And I believe your words are gold .There is so much information. And I hope the listener will appreciate a lot as I do. Thank you to everyone that is listening. And feel free to comment, to share and we see us n the next podcast.
God Bless.
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