How Much is Left?

They say that boxers have about 100 fights in them before they hit a wall and their bodies basically shut down from being able to take the abuse that comes with the sport,  marathoners have but so many miles that they can run, and so on.

How many performances does a full time musician have in them...particularly the ones with no management or outside help?

I have been thinking, lately to myself, that there seems to be so much happening to my body in the past 6 months or so, which all seems to have something to do with the constant pushing that I've been doing over the past nearly 15 years, that perhaps I may be starting to reach the borders of my own limits. 

First, there is the CONSTANT tiredness I have been feeling for the past 5 or 6 years.  Then, there are the several times I have almost passed out during performances.  Also, there is the hearing loss I have experienced, as well as what seems to be a slight loss in short term memory.  The latter I blame on sleep deprivation (up until recently, I basically averaged 3 to 5 hours of sleep a night for nearly a decade). 

The newest item to add to this list is my development of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in both my right and my left hands, which has been diagnosed as being a side product of the countless hours spent on my computer researching venues, typing emails, designing my website, updating all of my social media, designing all of my graphics and promotional materials, typing press releases, and the list goes on!

When I look at some of the greats of the past, such as Miles Davis, they have all either taken a short break of some kind, an extended hiatus, or have retired from music all together.  As I look at what is happening with the breakdown of my body of late, I'm caught asking myself, "How much do I have left?"

by Shenole Latimer

How I Lost 70 Pounds

Back on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, in a blog post I titled "Crunch Time", I mentioned how my weight had ballooned to 270lbs and that I wanted to do something about that.  Unfortunately, my good intentions were out-weighed (no pun intended) by the rigors of life as a full time musician and of being a home owner.

Time went on and then something happened.

One day in October of 2010 I was putting on a pair of slacks to wear for a gig I had later that day.  They felt sort of tight.  I happened to glance in the mirror (I was in profile) and I truly was appalled at what I saw.  I quickly pulled out the scale and took my slacks off.  I stepped on the scale and saw the needle go all the way to 280lbs!

I realized then that I was closer to being 300 lbs than I was to even being 250lbs (still overweight for my height of 6'3").  I was instantly depressed.  I thought about how athletic I was in high school and college, and also about the nearly 30 medals, 2 MVPs and 1 MIP that I had won as a track star.

My depression lasted all of about 30 seconds, because I realized then that this was it.  The only direction my weight gain would go would be backwards rather than forward.  I'm proud to say that since the first week of October, 2010, and as of the morning of writing this blog post, I have officially lost 70lbs!  I'm only 5lbs heavier than I was when I was a competing athlete in college.

Ok, enough with the background and set up, here is what I did.

STEP ONE:  Figure Out Goals and Game Plan (Time Frame = 2 Days)

I already knew that one of the main reasons that some people fail at weight loss is because they don't have a game plan.  I also knew that another important reason that some people fail at weight loss is because they don't set logical, realistic goals.

I decided that, in order to be successful, I needed some time to figure out a game plan and a goal that was realistic for me.  I took two days from my schedule and cleared them out of as much as I reasonably could so that I would have NO DISTRACTIONS.

After much research and honest consideration, I figured that a realistic goal for me, considering my age, time I had available, current weight class, etc., was to try and get down to somewhere between 215-220lbs.  This is because I didn't think my body, age, and demanding lifestyle as a musician would allow me to get down to my dream weight of 205lbs (my college weight as an athlete).  I also thought that it would be realistic to give myself a year and not fall for the 5 and 6 month plans I was coming across online.  People seeking weight loss often make the mistake of trying to loose too much too fast.  Ultimately, they end up gaining it all back and then some!

My overall strategy was to make small changes over the course of time that would allow me to ease into an eventual and complete change in my eating and rest habits.

STEP TWO:  Set the Plan in Action (Time Frame = 12 Months)

I mentioned 12 months as the time frame for this step, but in reality you can really break it down into "phases".

(PHASE I:  Oct - Dec, 2010) - During the first phase of my weight loss plan I decided to completely cut out drinking soda.  At the time, I was drinking up to 2 or 3 litters of soda a day.  Soda was MY water!  Also, since I had begun to tour a lot (which meant doing a whole lot of driving by myself), I was drinking Coca Cola for the caffeine to help keep me awake on the road.  This is because I don't drink coffee.

The other thing that I did at first was to cut down my portions a bit.  I still would eat ANYTHING I wanted to, just less of it.  Instead of 2 slices of pizza, I would only have 1.  Instead of having 2 plates full of food for dinner, I would only have 1, etc.

One other thing that I did was to stop eating past 7pm in the evening.  Because of late night performances and the general demands of my schedule as a full time musician, I was often eating big meals after midnight and then going to bed about an hour or two after that.  In other words, I never had the chance to burn it off.

By the way, I think it's important to mention that I substituted drinking soda with drinking seltzer water.  I had come to discover that it wasn't necessarily the sweetness of the soda that I was hooked on, but the fizzle of it!

After about 2 months and loosing about 25lbs I hit my first plateau or road block.  As hard as I tried I just could not break the 255lb barrier.  This is when I decided that I needed to go into another phase of action...PHASE II!

(PHASE II:  Dec, 2010 - Feb, 2011) - I cut out ALL fast food, with the exception of Subway, Quizno and Chipotle's.  I stayed with these places because they all offered filling meals that contained less fat than comparably priced meals from McDonald's, Burger King, etc.  Also, the former establishments' foods were generally less caloric than the latters'.  To put it succinctly, I started watching both my calorie intake and my fat intake.

This worked!  I got past the 255lb barrier and proceeded to loose about another 20lbs.

By the time I went on my February 2011 Tour I had managed to get down to about 237lbs, which is when I hit another barrier (plateau).  This was a VERY tough barrier to get through.  It was at this point that I realized I had to adjust and enter...

(PHASE III:  Feb - June, 2011) - I pondered and pondered what my problem could be.  I then realized that it was two fold.  One issue was that I wasn't doing any exercising what so ever up until this point.  Frankly, my schedule in both my business and personal life had become too dense.  My house was in foreclosure, my wife was out of work for a total of 2 years by this point, and I was gigging and touring on the road like a mad man to try and pick up the slack.  I was hoping that yet another dietary change would be enough.

Finally, I figured out that I was taking in too many carbs.  I was still eating a lot of pastas and white bread.  I made the switch to whole wheat and rye breads, and then cut my pasta intake by a good 80%.  That did the trick!  It took longer than it had for the previous phases, but by June, 2011 I had gotten my weight down to the 225lb mark.  And then, you guessed it, I hit another plateau!

(PHASE IV:  June - Sept, 2011) - Progress was slowing way down for me by this point.  I was beginning to think that it was not feasible for me to get any lighter than I already had.  It would take a lifetime search for something completely unrelated to my weight loss, and a medical scare, to get me to the next level.

In July, two things of great significance happened.  The first thing was that I managed to track down my biological father and 7 half siblings that I didn't know I had.  The second thing was that I began encountering spells where I would almost pass out on stage during performances.

How these two completely different things tie in together is that, when I met my second oldest brother (Kenny, who lives in New York City) for the first time, I told him about nearly passing out during several performances and how I thought it may be tied in with either my diet, or that perhaps I was encountering a blood sugar imbalance...maybe even becoming a diabetic.  He then told me (and this would become useful to me again later) that the men on  my father's side needed to eat frequently...five or even six times a day.

I thought about it and realized that I basically needed to speed up my metabolism.  One way to do that is to eat more frequently, and also smaller (fist sized) portions at each meal.  My father further advised me to take my regular 3 meals a day and simply divide them in half.  This was good for another 5lbs of weight loss!

By the way, I hope you are starting to see a few patterns here.  One of the patterns being that, as you get closer to what your target weight is (or perhaps should be), it becomes increasingly difficult to lose any kind of weight...certainly at the amounts that were previously possible.

(PHASE V:  Oct - Dec, 2011) - An interesting thing happened to me exactly one year after I had first started trying to lose weight.  I was packing up my car to go to a gig when I suddenly noticed that the large speakers that I use as part of my sound system seemed unusually heavy to me.  I couldn't understand why this seemed to be the case, as I had actually had plenty of rest the night before, and was not hungry or dehydrated.

It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.

All of this time I had been focused on weight loss, but I never considered doing any weight training to minimize the loss of muscle mass I would experience from losing so much weight from dieting alone.


DUUUUUUUuuuuuuuhhhh!

I promptly set about creating a weight training routine for myself.  I realized that by increasing my muscle mass, not only would I not lose anymore of my strength, but the added muscle would also help me to burn fat and keep my metabolism up.  This was good for another 5lbs of weight loss over the course of about a month.  My weight by the week before the Thanksgiving holiday was 215lbs.


(PHASE VI  where I'm at now) - Fortunately, Thanksgiving did not add anything to me that I couldn't get rid of within 3 days of going back to my usual routine.  But by now, I had decided to change my goals.


I realized that I had managed to get to my target weight range, but I felt I could actually make it to my "dream weight".  Not only that, my confidence has allowed me to come up with the goal of reducing my overall body fat to around 8-10% (beach body/underwear model body) by Summer, 2012.  This will take a lot of work!  I think I look good now, but I'm just now curious to see what I'm capable of. 

My oldest brother, Luis (he lives in Port St. Lucie, Florida), has lent me a hand by providing me with a book on weight lifting and nutrition.  What he and I both like about the book is that it is all based off of several studies that have been done in the last decade.  In other words, there is some science to back up what they have to offer you in terms of work outs, nutrition, etc.!  The book is called "The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises".  There is a similar book for women.

So anyway, following the advice in the book, I have managed to loose another 5lbs in about 2 weeks. 

IN CLOSING - I think if anything is to be taken from this marathon of a blog post that I have done, it is:

1 - Set realistic goals

2 - Come up with a sensible game plan to reach those goals

3 - Plateaus will happen.  Use those times to evaluate and adjust your tactics.

4 - Give yourself a realistic time frame to work with. (I first gave myself a year and am adding another 6 months to achieve my new goal).

5- It's cliche but it will take discipline, sacrifice, hard work, and time!


So, I sincerely hope that this post will help someone out there.  Just remember, if a 38 year old, self employed, full time musician (who is constantly gigging and touring on the road), father of an energetic daughter, and former home owner (who had to deal with doing his own house repairs, landscaping, etc.) can loose 70lbs, so can you!   : )

Written by Shenole Latimer

My Theory About How To Achieve a Successful Career in Music

So, here's the big question...is it possible to make a living as a musician?


Without hesitation, my answer is a flat out yes. I have been a full time musician now since 1998 and I have managed to make a middle class living with it. But, this has not come without a price.


First of all, there is the fact that I have next to no social life at all. The reason? I spend so much time either researching opportunities for performances, or actually performing that, when I finally do have some rare free time, all I want to do is either sleep or spend a little time with my family.

Secondly, there are the rigors that my body must constantly go through. There are many late nights and, with a young daughter to raise, very early mornings. This means that I the average amount of nightly sleep I'm able to get is far below what most people experience (I average about 4 hours to 5 hours of sleep a night). I have little down time because I must constantly be doing things to keep the ball rolling. Not to mention, some of the harsh environmental conditions I have been submitted to...ie, doing high energy outdoor shows in blazing 100 degree weather, with little time to hydrate or even eat because of the lack of time available to set up. The list goes on and on.

Before I go any further, I would like to make PERFECTLY CLEAR that I am NOT complaining. I am simply trying to enlighten those who do not understand what it takes to do this for a living. I lovingly call these folks "civilians".


Now, I would like to get to the point of this blog post, which is to share my thoughts as to what I feel it now takes to have a successful career in music, especially in this new millennium and digital age that we are in. I feel that there are several ingredients or "conditions" that must exist. They are as follows:

1. 
   
   
   
   You must start young - This is true for ANY musical genre. And, it is gravely important in regards to achieving a highly proficient level on your instrument of choice. This is because if you want to be purely a performer, you are going to spend so much time looking for opportunities that you will find time for practicing rapidly being eaten away.
   




2. 
   
   
   
   You must be able to put a team of people around you - In other words, you will need to think in terms of being a small business and find a way to acquire someone to eventually take care of the researching of venues and performance opportunities, someone to handle certain aspects of your marketing, someone to do the actual phone calls to get you booked, etc.
   
   I know a ton of musicians who read this will probably roll their eyes, but they CANNOT deny the simple fact that, as long as you must do EVERYTHING yourself, there will always be a ceiling as to how much money you can ever earn. It's simple math...the more time you must use up trying to handle the "back office" end of things, the less time is left for the actual performance end of things. The less you perform, the less money you can earn through performing or selling merchandise during that performance.
   
   By the way, how do you compensate this team of people I'm suggesting you have? Well, that is somewhere where one must use the creativity that we are born with as artists, because that money isn't going to be there in the beginning.
   




3. 
   
   
   
   You must become well established and reach a certain level of success by your late 20's - This is another thing that I think a lot of musicians are going to roll their eyes at me about, but I will hold fast in my opinion. The reason I state this is because, as one gets older, and certainly by their mid to late 20's, one will have more financial responsibilities. That's just a fact of life. There is no one out there that can tell me that their level of expenditures has not changed and gotten to be more expensive between the ages of 16 and 26.
   
   So, when I say you must reach a certain level of success, I mean that you must reach a point in your career where you can pay ALL of your bills and still have something left over after you have done so. If you can't do that, then it is time to look at doing something else with your life before you reach your 30's and start to have to worry about even more complicated things like a significant other, or kids, or a house....you get the point.
   




4. 
   
   
   
   You must master time management - I think this one is obvious! Even if you can find other people to take care of some of the other things that you must do, as I mentioned in #2, there are still so many things left to do that you will still have to take care of yourself.
   




5. 
   
   
   
   You must master technology - If you are a musician (or any type of artist) and you don't have a BETTER than average command/knowledge of the internet, computers, social networking, etc. you might as well pack it all in now.
   




6. 
   
   
   
   You must have some sort of game plan - I don't care how many different ways you can say this, but it is simply a fact that if you don't know where you want your destination to be, you can't possibly find a route there!
   




7. 
   
   
   
   You must have a drive that is so strong that it borderlines on fanaticism - This is such an important ingredient! Music and the arts in general are so challenging to make a living at and be successful that I feel that you actually need to be a little bit "crazy" to do it. There are so many factors that are constantly working against you, and you will face so much rejection, and so many people telling you that this or that can't be done (most notably, even some of your closest relatives), that you honestly must have the absolute strongest of convictions to stay the course.
   

So, certainly I think most of the musicians who read this will think I'm full of it or don't know what I'm talking about. But, as I was careful to mention at the top of all of this, this is MY theory or opinion.


Of course, any of this could be completely offset if one were to get super lucky, be discovered or signed to some sort of big record deal. However, these are simply not likely scenarios. The overwhelming majority of musicians and artists out there are "D.I.Y." (Do It Yourself).


So why am I writing all of this?


I'm not doing this to vent my frustrations...I'm not frustrated! I'm doing this because (A) I think "civilians" need to have a better understanding of those of us out there who are serious about what we are doing as artists and that we are not all flakes, as is commonly perceived, and (B) if a young person should happen to stumble upon this blog, and actually take the time to read all of this, I want them to know the honest truth about what being a musician really means...especially if you want to actually make a living at it.


This is not for everybody and it most certainly is not a game. And even if it were a game, this would be chess, not checkers!

by Shenole Latimer

A Little News Update: Vlog Post 26

Possible Crossroads?

I personally believe that there comes a time, at least once in everyone’s life, when there is a special convergence of forces that can dictate the rest of how that person’s life will progress… a crossroads, if you will. I believe I may have reached such a point in my life.


I’ll start with things concerning music.


To date, I have completed several extremely successful tours with my program “What’s All That Jazz About?”. Without exception, every single venue has asked me to make a return. But, what pleases me the most are the connections I’ve made. One connection I am particularly happy to have made is with a musician that I met in Spartanburg, South Carolina, by the name of Daniel Z, who would very much like to become a partner of mine in expanding my programming.


The timing of meeting Daniel is interesting, as I had just been complaining about my lack of help in my endeavors. I had also begun to think about expanding my programming to encompass more venues along the east coast. Plans have also begun towards my first sortie into the west coast.


Then there are some physical matters that have been of recent concern.


My hands are starting to show the signs of too many hours on the computer in an unnatural position. I have continued numbness in the last three digits of each hand, making it more difficult to type and, most unnervingly, making it more difficult to play my saxophone. But this isn’t where my physical concerns end. I have also been experiencing light-headedness, shortness of breath, and some weakness on a few of my recent performances when it has been the hottest and I have had to perform outdoors. Interestingly enough, I usually feel better after eating some food.


Could this be a sign of diabetes, high blood pressure, or even heart disease? One thing I know is that my body is clearly trying to tell me that it is nearing its limits pertaining to the type of daily abuse it must endure in order to maintain self-employment as a fulltime musician.


Now I shall move into an occurrence that is more of a personal nature.


When I was about two months old, my mother and father decided to separate from each other. Absolutely all contact was lost with my father and I was subsequently raised by my mother and grandmother. Later, my stepfather George Clark stepped into the picture. Unfortunately, my stepfather passed away on August 6, 2010. In any case, growing up, I had always had a curiosity about my biological father. I wanted to know who he was, how I may be similar or dissimilar to him, and whether or not I may have any half-brothers and sisters.


Just recently, in what seemingly would only be nearly impossible feat, I managed to find my biological father! Not only that, but I have also found out that I have seven half-brothers and sisters. I have met all of my siblings except my youngest brother, who was on a trip to Bolivia with his mother, and two of my sisters who live in Canada and that the rest of my family had lost touch with within the past few years. And, of course, I have had the opportunity to meet my father face to face.


One of the things that I find so striking is that none of the males on my father’s side of the family, not counting my youngest brother because he is only 6 years old, are shorter than six feet, three inches tall. Another thing that I find interesting is how similar my father, my two oldest brothers, and I are to each other. That is to say, that all four of us have the spirit of an entrepreneur, are intelligent, are very computer and internet savvy, and are readily comfortable talking to and approaching people.


So what is the point of all of this?


All of these things have occurred within an incredibly short amount of time, making me feel like there is both a convergence of forces taking place in my life, and that I am at an important crossroads of sorts. I have this strong sensation that the decisions I make at this juncture can have a massive impact on the rest of my life. There are other factors and occurrences that I have omitted for the sake of saving time and space within this blog entry, but suffice it to say that there are too many things, that potentially carry great significance to me, that are happening all at once or in near synchronicity.


My situation reminds me of the “choose your own adventure” books that were popular when I was a young teenager. Do I step into one doorway of the unknown or the other? The thing is, this time I can’t cheat and look ahead at what awaits me.





By Shenole Latimer

New Life for "Shenole Latimer.Com"!

Since October of 2010, I've been saying that I was working on an updated version of my website and that it would be launched "soon".

Well, 8 months later I'm finally on the threshold of the relaunch of www.shenolelatimer.com . To find out more, check out the video for some details and I'll see you at the relaunch!

By Shenole Latimer

Back on Track!

Two weeks ago marks FIVE YEARS since I had completed recording my last album and this coming October will mark FIVE YEARS since my last album was commercially released! Last year I had geared up to do my sophomore album as a band leader, only to have to put the project on hold.

What has been the hold up?

Life!

My original intent with this upcoming album was to call it "A Day in the Life of...", but with all of these delays, I feel like calling it "A Decade in the Life of..."! So anyway, at long last things are back on track, Tierra Records is happy, I'm happy, and the guys in my quartet are all ready to get going.

The music for this project will once again be a little more ecclectic than most jazz recordings. This time, it isn't because I'm trying to show off my versatility as a musician. Actually, the ecclectic collection of selections comes from the fact that (A) this album will be comprised by all original compositions of mine and (B) I did not try to force any of the songwriting to make it all sound like the same style of jazz or what have you. I simply wrote each song the way I heard it inside my head.

I don't know what that says about what's going on inside my head!

The actual recording date has not quite been set yet, but I can say that the recording will take place in October, 2011. In fact, I can narrow things down a little more for you and say that there is a 99% probability that the recording will take place sometime during the week of October 23rd. I just haven't decided on which day yet (we will be tracking the album all in one marathon recording session over the course of a 12 hour day).

Once the tracking is done, it will probably take anywhere between 2 and 4 months to mix the album, about another 2 or 3 weeks for it to be mastered and shipped to manufacturing, and finally about another 2 or 3 weeks for it to be available for ordering and download. So, with all of that said, the actual release will most likely be sometime within the first half of 2012. Who knows, maybe the release date will end up being on the anniversary of the recording date of my previous album...making it SIX YEARS since I recorded "Front and Center". There are a lot of variables in play, but the main thing is to get the tracking done.

By the way, the line up will be Art Hirahara on piano, Thomson Kneeland on bass, Kyle Struve holding down the drums, and of course me on saxophones. There might be a track with some guitar on it, and possibly one with mandolin, but I haven't made a final decision on those tracks yet.

In any case, all I can say is that I'm just real happy that things are back on track and that it looks like I will finally have a chance to follow through with this project!

Stay tuned for more news about "A Day in the Life of..."!

by Shenole Latimer