Time Management

1/1/2008 10:25:45 AM

I had a time management meeting with myself the other day. When I had Team5, I was working a regular 9 to 5ish kind of work week. These days, I don't even set my alarm clock anymore. I just wake up when I wake up, and sleep when I want to sleep. Not having a defined work week and not being in an office environment is great because I can "make my own hours". I know that people think musician (or other creative type) equals lazy. That people "without jobs" don't do work. I feel as though I do more work than ever. I just enjoy it and it doesn't seem like work. I do feel as though I am trying to get too much done. I have LOTS of ideas for projects (CDs, DVDs) as well as websites and other projects. (I'd love to get my book done eventually too!). With all these things I need to think "what can I REALISTICALLY do in the next year". If I spend hours and hours making CDs then I'm NOT spending hours and hours promoting them which is a problem. I also feel that if I try to get a bit less done, I'll get more done. I have so many ideas for projects that I find myself thinking about them in circles where I could just be thinking about 2 and spend the time working on them. It's all in finding a balance.

Welcome Back Carmine

11/8/2007 12:42:18 AM

I always get this itch every 2 years...the need to change my website. I always feel as each iteration gets better and better. Showing the current state of, well, me. November 1st was the 2nd year anniversary of me leaving work and beginning my life is a full time musician. Since leaving work, I've been to Turkey, Greece, Hungary and Mexico. I've also been to several states throughout the country. Most importantly I have touched tons of people. It brings me great joy to have people who have never played a musical instrument before take one of my workshops and leave being able to play a bunch of rhythms. I used to not understand how people went to work at 9am and left at 5pm and LEFT WORK. But now I understand completely. There is more to life to work... "no is buildings, is peoples". I have left this journal behind. But I'm returning to it now. I want to make it more than an advertisement, and return it and myself to the original state of innocence, wanderlust and self realization.

Pennsic 2006 Week 1

9/21/2006 5:57:48 AM

Yeah.. I know it's way overdue.. but I just realized I never really did blog about pennsic... So i'll make 2 entries... one for each week. Last pennsic (i'm talking 2005)... was my first. I had soooo much fun playing music and partying and especially teaching, that when I returned home, I decided to sell my business and make music my full time job. This pennsic reaffirmed my decision... big time! This Pennsic (now my second) was all about the music. I played EVERY NIGHT with Melissa (clarinet) at a party, sometimes 2 sometimes 3 parties in one night. This pennsic I went during setup week. It was a real pleasure. There wasn't that many people around. There were no lines at the food courts, no lines in the showers. The water was actually warm :) The parties were more low-key but still awesome with great people whom I loved spending time with. This year I camped across from Orluk Oasis with Durr. Which is also close to 3 skulls (right behind us) where Suave and Conner camp. Also close to where Samira Shurik camps and also close to Pandora's Box, Pentwyvrn and many other great camps with great parties. Melissa and I were pretty much on tour all pensic... the first week went like this... Monday - Wolf Den We showed up. No one was doing anything! People were hanging out and drinking and chatting... Durr was there and some others waiting. Melissa and I took out our instruments of mass destruction and started the party going. The drumemrs kicked in. It was great. The hosts were very nice to us offering us drinks and stuff and making sure we were ok. After a while, more and more and more drummers showed up, and I decided to stop playing to let it become a drum jam.... I lead the drumming for a while (someone was nice enough to loan me a drum) the drummers were awesome and it started to set the tone of good drumming for the rest of pennsic... I could tell people were getting the idea that it'll be different this year.. . the musical bar will get raised... Tuesday - Orluk Hafla I love love love playing at Orluk. This hafla was great. Good music, good amount of people. Chengir told stories. We were accompanied by some great musicians and people. I'm a really big fan of the Orluk area for a hafla. Wednesday - Orluk impromtu hafla So.. with nothing to do Wednesday.. Melissa and I talked to Durr and others and decieded "let's turn the lights on". Not an official hafla.... but.. let's turn the lights on, take out our instruments and see what happens. We invited people we knew to come down and dance. It was a nice more initimate hafla... I really like switching from huge party one night to something more intimate the next. Pennsic is a great chance to connect with people I do not see to often... Thursday - Watan Watan's hafla's rock! Aminah is our gracious host. She treats Melissa and I very well. We had food! Now... this year... this hafla really kicked ass! I think by this time, Melissa and I had played 3 parties already.. so by now we were much tighter, more organized and just playing better more freely, more exciting etc. We attracted alot of drummers to us this night. But it was different... the people who played with us were actually listening to what Melissa and I were doing. I became known as the "Cat Hearder" Since I can talk when I play (Melissa can not on clarinet) I was able to cue the drummers on rhythm changes in songs. The all followed great! The energy level was high and everyone held it together great without being too loud, crazy, etc. It was a night of GREAT music! As a result... We got some great drummers to play with us the rest of pennsic. These guys and gals were great to spend time with and make music with. Also.. special shout out to Melissa my partner in crime for doing some of the sexiest taksim's ever heard at Pennsic :) Friday - Raquy After Party, Ochoda Raquy stopped into Pennic to do a show on the first Friday. Before Pennsic, she stopped by my house and we ran through a bunch of her songs (I already know a bunch of them). During her show (which was KILLER!) I played mostly Riq, but also some bass doumbek. The performance tent was PACKED. The show was completely awesome. I was really excited to accompany Raquy. I played about half of her set. Following Raquy... Melissa, Me, Zahira and Conner did a short set of bellydance tunes. People cleared chairs out of the way and made a quick dance floor space. It was a spontaneous small club :) TONS of people dancing in small space. I invited Samira onto the stage, Suave and others... The time went by really fast, next thing I know the person running the tent was telling us to stop... ah well.. off to the next party.. When we finished playing like 15 people were like, "Umm.. where are you guys going? Because where you're going, we want to be!" (a great compliment that made me feel good about the music that Melissa and I were providing for people)... We went over to Ochoda with a big group of musicians and dancers. When we got there, the party had already started with Sadika, Jas and others. I chilled out for a while enjoyed the music, and eventually hooked up my oud and stuff. Now here is the kicker... we were playing some song (I forget if it was Sisler or Istemem Babachim) but when the solo section came up, people were still playing Ayub and would not switch to Malfuf.. so Melissa shouts... "CAN I PLEASE GET A MALFUF!!!!" (or something like that). It was a pretty classic Melissa moment :) Saturday - Watan Back at Watan on Saturday.. only even better.. Now Melissa and I had been playing together for 6 or 7 haflas. Melissa did another one of the most sexiest taksim's ever with a nice slow sexy chiftitelli that even the drummers felt was hotness at it's slow tempo. I really felt the drummers connecting to us this time. The musical bar had been raised...

CUMBUS DOWN!!!!

8/28/2006 5:59:23 AM

:( :( While I was at Pennsic, I was sitting at the Touch The Earth booth. I leaned my Cumbus on the bench I was sitting on and I was giving an impromtu lesson... Out of nowhere, my cumbus fell down 1 foot.. and EXPLODED... We just looked at it on the ground in a bunch of pieces and were in complete disbelief! I've dropped it tons of times, it's been knocked over at clubs/bars. The one time it falls 1 foot onto GRASS (yeah, not a concrete club floor). It breaks :( I took a look and noticed the L shaped bracket (replaceable) with connects the neck to the body snapped right in half. A piece of it was on the neck and the other piece on the bowl. This is why I didn't just sit there and cry. I figured the bracket was a replacible thing. The neck was fine, the bowl was fine, the strings were even fine. Just this one piece. Now here in the U.S. you can't just go to Guitar Center or Sam Ash and get Cumbus replacement pieces.... I saw Jas (from Khafif) right after my Cumbus broke. He told me he had a friend with a machine shop in Pittsburgh who could put the piece back together. I gave him the 2 pieces and walked back with my almost dead cumbus :( (what's in the picture). Within a couple of days, I got the piece back (in one piece). Jas's friend said it was a very porus piece of metal kind of crapily made, and that he could make me a steel one of I wanted (wooo ooo). When I get to Istanbul in a week, I'm going to try to get some replacement parts :) I'm kinda stuck here if something goes wrong with mine again. Many thanks to Jas and Jas's friend (who'se name I never got). For fixing the broken thingy. And thanks to my friends who were supportive through the temporary loss of one of my favorite instruments.

I'm really big in Japan	7/18/2006 7:49:16 AM
So... every month I get checks from CD Baby and Film Baby for sales of my Shake Em Up bellydance drum solos DVD. I noticed someone in Japan keeps buying 5 copies every month... so I googled and googled and found this: (scroll about halfway down) Japanese Bellydance Shop? Neon's gothic DVD is there too! Niiiiiice! :)

India Love

7/7/2006 11:36:03 AM

So... I don't usually go over my credit card bill much... but this time I just happen too.. and I noticed some strange charges... $1000 to Save the children charity $638 to Verio... Then... yeah.. a whole bunch of Indian dating websites... Apparently someone got hold of my Corporate Credit card (I have NO IDEA how this happened).... I use it for online stuff sure.. but ONLY for business related purchases... no umm.. questionable websites :) Anyway... whoever got the card signed up for like 6 matchmaking websites... fropper.com, match.com, some IndiaLoveSomething site and a bunch others... poor guy... how did he intend to pay for all the dates he got from these websites with no credit card of his own :)

Djinn comes to Manhattan

7/7/2006 10:52:09 AM

Last Month, my group Djinn performed at Lafayette Grill. It was one of our first performances outside of Brooklyn (and inside Manhattan). Whenever I perform at a new place, I always get nervous (yeah still). The night rocked... here's how it went. When we first got there, the place was kinda empty... after a while about 30 people showed up... which doesn't look like much as LG is pretty large... We got setup and did a soundcheck, and everything was pretty normal. Sera taught a dance class... she was fantastic as usual.. the amount of people started to pick up big time. I was especially happy to see lots of folks from the Cabaret dance community. I've been going to their gigs for a long time... it was nice that they were checking out what I'm up to, and what the Tribal scene is like here in NYC. Djinn kicked in... and we sounded AWESOME... I felt amazing! The sound was GREAT at LG. I've never heard the band sound so good... people got up and danced... (by this time about 70 people were in the crowd). The place was packed... weeeee Sera, Darshan Sarah Locke and Susan Frankovich all performed. They were all very strong. Everyone was fantastic in their own way. Each performance was stunning/amazing/diverse/cool/breathtaking/wanted-to-see-more... During the middle of the show, we were asked to come back (and we are!). I also want to note that the staff of Lafayette Grill treated us extremely well... probably the best of any venue I have played yet.

Crossing the Bridge Diner

7/7/2006 10:40:29 AM

A couple weeks ago was F.A.L.O.'s annual Springfest! I've been going to this event for the past 8 years (I think). You know.. the usual.. dress up like an elf, run around the woods, fight with padded swords, play lots of music kind of thing. On our way up, Vince, Teal and I stopped at this random diner in the middle of nowhere. I had this pretty cool 50s theme to it. Anyhoo... we were talking about movies we had all seen recently. I started talking about Crossing The Bridge. It's a movie about music in Istanbul. I had just said a couple of sentences about it, when a woman at the booth in front of us said, "At the Angelica theater in Manhattan?" Holy Canoli... turns out she had seen the movie the same day I did, only during lunch time and I saw it at night. What are the chances, that someone who had seen an independent film the same day I did, at the same theater in Manhattan would be sitting next to me at some random diner in the middle of nowhere? This is why I blog...

iTunes Me!!!	6/19/2006 7:59:16 AM
My Not Alone album is now on iTunes!!! Woooo!!! This is my all acoustic guitar instrumentals album!!! Nice... I'm super excited. It makes it all more real in some way... Click Here to check it out on iTunes. Or search for "carmine guida" P.S. I want to give mad props to the folks at CDBaby.com for making this so easy to do... it's a wonderful site and every unsigned artist should use them...

Cümbüş Noodle

5/19/2006 8:00:44 AM

A while ago I started (on tribe.net) a group for fans of the Cümbüş The members are from all over the place. I'm great to meet others who are falling in love with this super cool instrument. I have a woping 22 members :) Melissa the Loud and I are having a who will have less members in their tribe contest. She has the Hurdy Gurdy Tribe. I thought it would be nice to upload a clip of just me playing so the members of the group could hear it... (and maybe get some others to put up some clips too)... I'm not sure what the difference between a Noodle and a Taksim... But here is my Cümbüş Noodle