Wait this wasn't in the Script!

So this entry isn't addressing Music but it is pertinent to all our quests and that is Life itself!
Now we all have our own story and some are more eventful than others but all have value and all live's have an impact on an unimaginable amount of people in the grand scheme of things. So this is just my little story. The story that lit a fire under me to get things done and stop wasting so much time. Here goes:

In the summer of 1993, I was a newlywed to my second wife "Laura". She was a school teacher and I was working at an electronic's manufacturing facility and had also just enrolled in a computer programming course at DeVry University. Life was good, crazy and busy with 4 kids in the mix!

Around July the wife and I went on vacation to Sedona, AZ and were enjoying ourselves but I started getting a pretty bad cough and got some dizzy spells. Upon returning home I made a Dr. appointment and found that I just had "Bronchitis". This "Bronchitis" lasted about 2 months overall and gave way to an "inner" ear infection so they thought. The coughing stopped but the dizziness was getting worse, then one day I got up to go to work and I could NOT get my balance and stumbled back into the bed.
On another day I got a funny taste in my mouth on the way to work, I pulled over and threw up a large amount of blood! I returned to the doctors and also noticed something odd with my vision! For some reason everything I saw was shifting downward to the left something like this:



After dealing with this for about a month, I noticed that the vision continued to slip ever to the "left and downward" then I began to see "Stars" similar to when you get hurt! I went back to the dr and long story short was sent to get an MRI.  The MRI Scan revealed that I had a large brain tumor underneath the cerebellum and was pushing up against optical nerves etc.. There was fluid massing up and the pressure from this was causing the vision distortion and vertigo.

Up to this point I had been working and going to school as normal including driving myself as I had no solid reason to NOT being doing these things. Up till now I though I had inner ear issues never did I or my doctors suspect a Brain Tumor! My Surgeon told me I had to get this removed or I would die pretty soon! So I had the surgery just 3 days later.

Here's where the tumor was removed, see the matter scooped out in the lower left.


The Power of Prayer
One of the most memorable experiences about the surgery was the coming together of family and the support I got from friends and family. Somewhere during the procedure, I got the clearest picture of my Father and uncles huddled around each other and singing the old Mexican songs of my heritage like "Las Mañanitas". I actually felt the love from everyone and was overwhelmed with emotion, it was like healing virtue was running all thru my body! Later I found out that while I was in surgery, my father and uncles were in fact huddled around in the waiting room, praying out loud over me!

The Miracle Recovery!
It was early October of 1993 and Just 5 days after major brain surgery I was back home. My head looked like something from the movie "Hellraiser" I had 26 staples going from the top of my head to mid way down my neck! In the 3 months I was back to work with my vertigo completely gone and my vision restored to about 95%!  Yes to this day I still see everything with about a 5% shift to the left! But aside from that no "serious" complications!

There were a few small complications however, the first being a numb spot on the left side of my head that to this day feels a little bit like when your foot is falling asleep, do you know that "tingling sensation? Well I've dealt with this for over 20 years now.. The second issue was the tremendous amount of tightness in the back of the neck due to the muscles and nerves being pulled back together and stapled closed after the surgery. They had to remove a chunk of bone at the base of my skull about 3/4" and that was not replaced by any prosthetic material just covered up by pulling the tissue together.

Enter Acupuncture!
After discussing my state of discomfort a friend suggested that I try Acupuncture to remove and or release the tension in my neck. So I did just that and after about 10 sessions of Acupuncture, cupping and herbal remedies, my neck tension was diminished to about 80%. The cupping treatments especially seemed to help in releasing the tension and stiffness in my neck but I wont' lie it HURT like crazy. It felt like 3 large lamprey's sucking on the back of my neck and it left huge welts! Thank God for cupping! It worked!

So that's it, that's how I got an extension on my lease in life! And it helped me go on to graduate with honors from DeVry and pursue a degree in Computer Information Systems. I definitely have a better perspective on life and an attitude to get things done now more than I did prior to my wake up call.

We only have a limited time here in this world so I suggest we all try to make the best of it, lets put aside our stupid differences that will, in the end, not add a minute to any of our lives. I love how motivational speaker Dr. Wayne Dyer said "Don’t Die With Your Music Still In You"!

Time to get back to practicing!

How I got to this moment in time!

Back around 2001, I was attending a church were I was the head musician for Praise and Worship. We had several line ups that changed from time to time but the one constant was the lack of a dedicated Bass player.

Enter the Internet..
One day while browsing the Internet for guitars I stumbled onto a picture of an instrument called "The Austin Douglas guitar" made by Mark Warr. It was then I realized I had to get one of these and my Bass player woes would be gone! Well.. as things would go it didn't turn out to be an easy transition and long story short.. I ended up purchasing a used Chapman Stick instead after what seemed like an eternal wait and not without its own drama!

Ironically, by the time I finally received my used Chapman Stick I was no longer attending that church! Life is so full of irony isn't it? So I began my journey with 2 handed tapping using the "Freehands" technique as taught by Emmet Chapman. Rather quickly I found this instrument to be a wonderful composing tool for me! Much more than keyboard because of my Guitar background.

At this time, I started attending a new church and found that just participating in the congregation was a nice change after years of playing music in church! I was doing pretty good with learning and attended a few Stick seminars in Oceanside CA with Greg Howard and Tom Griesgraber. This was  a great time for learning and composing!

Then, the praise and worship leaders of my new church learned of my musical background and asked me to join them but on Guitar and perhaps working in Chapman Stick when possible. So there I was once again playing guitar for church. However it did in fact work out that I was able to incorporate the Chapman Stick with some of my original tunes, although it was not very frequent.

The Start of Jacob's Ladder...
Tragedy struck our awesome church, our senior pastor (Jim Roam) became fatally ill and actually departed from us with much sadness. The transition of pastors was difficult but we ended up with an interim pastor (David Wright)  that was incredibly supportive of my Chapman Stick work. In fact it was this pastor that asked me to work up a set and play a jazz concert at a park for our "Friends Day" picnic. This event would inspire me and 3 of the musicians from this line up to form the band  "Jacob's Ladder".

The Recording Project...
The timing was right so I purchased some gear to get a ProTools recording setup at home and went to work recording all the songs I had composed on Chapman Stick.

The project featured myself on Chapman Stick, Guitar, Bass and Keyboards with additions from:
  Joseph Gonzales (my son) on Drums
  Jon Heideman  on Keyboard
  Darrell Owens on Alto Sax
  Matt Horne on Alto Sax
  Tim Freeman on Trombone.

I had the CD replicated in 2007 and then we started gigging as Jacob's Ladder with an additional musician on Bass Guitar, Curtis Clark. This line up lasted about a year with a handful of performances but it was a tough time for me physically due some health issues so we didn't get out as much as I wanted to and because we were all adults with families of our own, time was at a premium.

Our bass player moved on to form his own Jazz trio, so we regrouped with an additional musician (Andrew Ferrell) on Guitar. In his audition, he was supposed to audition for Bass but when I heard him play guitar, I told him STOP. You're playing Guitar! I'm playing Bass!

2 Pots on the Stove...
As things would go, Jacob's ladder continued to rehearse and play a few gigs. However I got approached by my former pastor (David Wright) to fill-in for his guitarist during a hiatus and would only be temporary. So I did! There I was back once again, playing guitar for church and the temporary status ended up turning into 2 years! It was at this time I pulled the plug on Jacob's Ladder! Things were starting to feel too much like work with playing at church and trying to get 5 grown men with fulltime jobs and families to make time and effort to learn new songs and the gigs we were getting were not what I was hoping for. It was a sad time but the last gig we did was the nail in the coffin for me! We did a great performance and our sets went without a hitch however the hiring client and some of the hosts there were so rude!! I told myself, I'm done!

Departure from the Chapman Stick...
So as time went on I began spending more time on Keyboard and less time on guitar and almost NO time on Chapman Stick. Not sure why, it just didn't appeal to me anymore, so I sold it back to Stick Enterprises. I spent most of my time after selling the Chapman Stick on Keyboard but my composing stalled out.

Enter the Megatar...
After about 2 years from selling my Chapman Stick, I got the bug again to get back into 2 handed tapping guitar but perhaps on my own "homebuilt" instrument. So I ran the numbers and even made several "clay" models to figure out what this instrument would look like.. So of course after a lot of consideration I began to look at some other instruments out there and I came across an instrument that I swore I'd never own but you know the more I looked at it, I realized that the instrument I was going to attempt to "build" was already there waiting to be purchased. So I sold off  a few instruments and ordered my Megatar.

A New spin on the same technique...
Now the Megatar is NOT a replacement for the Chapman Stick and to say that it is, would be a rather silly statement!

The Stick has a very proprietary ergonomic all of its own. In addition to that, it has a sharp fast attack when the strings are struck and very "Bright" sound overall. The Bass strings have a sound somewhere between slapping and plucking, a very unique sound all its own. The string spacing on the Chapman Stick is tighter than that of a regular electric guitar so it makes forming chords on the bass side very easy especially due to the inverted 5ths tuning. It's very easy to accompany the melody side by playing both bass notes with tritones or simple triads on the bass side of the instrument. This is called the "Pop Baroque Technique".

The Megatar has a much more traditional electric bass guitar sound and feel with Bartolini pickups and wider string spacing. The attack is not as sharp but does have added sustain, the overall tone is much more of  a "Fender Bass" rounded out sound. The thinner melody strings have a very "Humbucker" tone also vs the bright single coil sounding "Stickup"(think Les Paul vs Strat). The difference is so apparent, that Chapman Stick Players often say the Bartolini pickups on Megatar's and Warr Guitars sound dull and lifeless. After playing the Megatar for over 3 years now, I just hear "Bass Guitar" but when I hear the Chapman Stick even in my own recordings I can really hear the bright fast attack.

The Next Steps...
So this leads me to where I'm at now. My goals have shifted over the years but this year I've drawn a hard line in the sand. I'm determined to find "Mastery" in music on Touchstyle guitar in the genre of Jazz/Fusion or whatever its called these days! Progress is slow and steady but I haven't noodled around like I used to in about 6 months! The past 6 months have been very deliberate and almost a day hasn't passed where I'm actually playing or working on something new or that needs more work! True practice as opposed to the horrible ruts I found myself in most of my adult life!

Looking forward to bigger and better things!

Moving In and Unpacking

What to do next! So the new place is all cleaned up refinished and ready for business, now all I have to do is move everything in and get everything in its correct place. Let the dust settle then get working! The problem is there's just too much stuff to unload and then unpacking everything is going to clutter up the new place so bad that it will probably look worse than before we moved in! Add to that where to put everything! What a nightmare that can be, there's only so much free space to work with. Oh great, here comes that "overwhelmed" feeling again. Well then this is a good time to take a break and hey I'll have more clarity tomorrow morning! Oh wait, its only 10 am.. Hmmm...


So this is me right now, KNOWING what needs to be done but making it into such a mountain that I find it hard to even attempt moving one pile of junk into the other room or even just throw it away! Sound familiar? So yea here comes the music thing... Ok so I have all these basic foundational things that need to be done, but not just done, MASTERED! I mean really get this down deep so the fingers and heart play the notes, not me thinking ok here comes the ii V I. So I turn on the beatbox, pull out the exercises and get playing them in all 12 keys. Ok one down! Whew I'm exhausted, I think I want a break now! Then comes that guilt and the overwhelming thoughts like "I'm too old for this" yada yada...


The first goal then, has to be getting to the house warming party! Yea that's it a party! Now we're talking, that would be fun! Here's the dilemma, how do we make the basic rudiments feel and seem fun and even enjoyable? You know something with an instant reward right? We're all about instant rewards aren't we? Nobody wants to wait 4-6 weeks for shipping these days! No, we pay premium so we can have it tomorrow! Same with our work etc.. Its easy to talk about but how do we address this, how do we stay inspired in the day to day grind. Its not like my job is going to pay me to practice at night after I leave work so theirs no monetary reward at least not yet. Most days I'm pretty exhausted from being at a computer all day, now I need to sit or stand in front of sheet music and metronome for how long each day? If I can turn this into "fun" then hey I'm there, isn't that a reward in of itself?


I don't think there's an easy answer to this, I wish it were easy but something keeps popping into my head.. Something from a movie. Yea that's it, "Million Dollar Baby"! In the movie, there's a quick scene with the actors talking in a boxing gym. Behind them is a huge poster that says simply "Winners do, what Losers Won't!".


So its getting later into the evening and I want to call it quits. I push myself for about 15 more minutes of intense practicing. NO NOODLING AT ALL!!! I've learned that is the fastest way to ruts and wasting time. So now with 45 minutes of solid "real" practice (learning mode) I have to take a break. I do something else for about 20 minutes and guess what? I'm thinking you know I could put in another 20 minutes at least. So this is how it is, some days I'll put the instrument down about 4 times but still pick it back up a little bit latter. I got the idea of shorter practice sessions from Kenny Werner the author of "Effortless Mastery" a book I think all non-prodigy musicians should spend some time on.


  Where is it written that you must practice for 4 hours each day without pausing? I used to do that when I was young but after a lot of reflection I realized that those "so called" practice times were also filled with a lot of random noodling and brainless rehashing of things I already knew! That's not "practicing" in the sense of becoming a master, that's staying where you are! Well I'll tell you I have come to  realize that I probably spent about 20 years of my life in that mode! Lets think about this, seriously! Aren't we all supreme masters of dental hygiene by now? I mean we brush our teeth everyday right, so we must have really improved on it? Hmmm.. interesting concept. Kenny Werner asked a simple question about "how much is enough/ how well do I need to know the basics etc.." then he said.. "How well does the tight rope walker know his craft before stepping out onto that wire"? Yikes! I think you get the point!


Stay tuned!

The Old Manufacturing Plant

So I have an old manufacturing plant. Its been mine since I was about 16 years old. Its full of many things, some completed units, many unfinished and some assembled with parts missing. Definitely few items worthy of leaving the plant to be sold. The walls and structure are in need of repairs and refinishing if we want to open up for business once again!

Where do we start? Well I can start by cleaning up thru a process of categorizing items into "Trash" or "Save". Then move on to essential repairs, then refinishing. Think of those times when you make even more of mess in order to cleanup things right! When all this is done, we can again open the doors and hopefully do business like never before!!

Ok so I lied, I don't have a manufacturing plant perse! But what I do have is years of performing music in several different environments; Weddings, Parks, Festivals, Dinner shows, private parties but mostly in Church as part of a Praise and worship team. However things like "LIFE" happened and for whatever reasons that contains, the music venture came to a stop, a full stop. One of the biggest reasons however was the lack of mastery that haunted me constantly. I new there were holes in my playing and for whatever reason, I continued to ignore these!

Time passed by.. then suddenly (last year) I had an epiphany about playing music as a sort of Partial retirement or who knows what! The Torch of Inspiration had been rekindled once again with a new and refreshing aspect. The new aspect being, fix and repair all the holes in my music knowledge and performance ability. Add to this. that unlike before, my goal is to master music using 2 hand TouchGuitar (In my case the Megatar) versus standard Electric Guitar which has been my mainstay since I was 13 years old!

So why pursue Mastery? Is it even attainable? Well.. There's a lot of folks that think that is attainable but then again the term mastery could mean different things to different people. Is it merely attaining a state of proficiency in the language of music or say specifically "Jazz Music" (which is my passion)? Or is Mastery broader than this?  Does it not include being able to connect with an audience or write music that is received well? Is it having your own voice after learning to speak the language of music? Is it being able to deliver a solid performance night after night, week after week?

I would have to say the answer is most likely "all of the above" and that's a daunting task. Much like the old saying of how do you eat an Elephant comes to mind! And yet performers do this everyday!

Onward.. So where I'm at right now, I'm back to basics and I mean "basics" but going after "Mastery" at every turn. No longer will I breeze thru exercises that seem mundane or not really helpful only to get to the "good ones"! NO, those exercises are there for a reason, even Charlie Parker was known to run thru some very very rudimentary exercises when he warmed up backstage! So everything needs to reach the smoothness that I'd want to hear myself at my favorite artists concert.


So how will it go? What will be the outcome? We'll have to wait and see.

However, if the years have taught me anything, its this: "Doing everything the same way will get you what you already have". Also, doing nothing will get you nothing!

My Father in-law always says "The Years are going to pass whether you do something or not". So the way I look at it now, I don't have any more minutes to waste!

Please stay tuned and follow me on my Journey!

Pete.

P.S. Please check out my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNm63wMiuSh3-8Y4f_LUDvw