He was a chicken.  I don’t mean he was afraid to do things; I mean he was really a chicken.  Well, not in all actuality, but he was acting a chicken.

Let me explain.

I was performing at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Ballroom in some unremembered benefit back in the days when I did such things, and after I had finished my act, the stage manager asked me if I’d like to see the rest of the show.  I said that I would and during the blackout and set change for the next act I was quickly led to a front row table right smack at the stage proscenium.  I was so close to the next act that the comedian could have stepped on my head if he wasn’t careful.

I was not, this time, literally ‘in the wings’, but I was so up close and personal that it felt like it.

I do not remember the comic’s name, but I will never forget his act.  It was hilarious and he kept the audience howling with hysterical laughter for a full ten minutes.

Like I said, he was a chicken.  He was totally committed to being a chicken and, of course, he had to be.  His act was so ‘out there’ that he would have bombed horribly if he had not been so committed.  In it, he chicken-scratched, he rooster-strutted, he hen-squawked, he flapped his wings, he clucked, he gave us the best “cockadoodledoo” I’ve ever heard and he chickened about the stage in a total frenzy for the full ten minutes.  What’s more, he wore no chicken costume at all.  Just a man in his pants and shirt, but he impersonated a chicken before our very eyes.  (Or perhaps he imchickenated a person when he finished his act.)

About the only thing he did that was un-chicken-like was that he sweated.  Oh my god did he sweat.  This comic was workin’ the house and was chickening so deeply that he must have lost ten pounds in ten minutes.  The sweat flew off him like he was in the shower and any number of times flew right on me as I sat, fascinated and wet.  I’ve seen men do this in the last frantic minutes of an overtime basketball game, but never such a constant shower on stage – and I’ve never had, before or since, the ‘privilege’ of taking part in anything resembling that shower of activity.

I don’t remember ever laughing.  I remember thinking that he was really funny, and being aware of the audience roaring almost continuously, but laugh myself?  Not.  I was too fascinated with the caloric burn, the intense mad workout and the tsunami-like proportion of his effort as the sweat flew off him like feathers.

I remember thinking that I was glad that I had never chosen to be a comic.  For such a funny thing, it’s just hard work!  He was a big man, which made his particular chicken character even funnier, of course.  He was so committed that I wondered how long, when he finally got off stage, it would take him to transform back into a human being.  Perhaps they had a big bowl of chicken feed and water waiting for him back in his dressing room.

After the show, as I too was a cast member, I was hanging out back stage, and had to go see him and thank him for his wondrous performance.  He took one look at me and snarled, “Oh, you’re the guy sitting in the front row who never laughed!  Wha’ja think this was, Othello?

A comic to the end.

The stage is an amazing thing.  It gives permission – permission to the performer to be the center of attention in the room.  It contains within itself the power of focus.  It says all by itself even when empty, “Here I am.  Watch me.”

And yet, get too close and sometimes you can cross the line of demarcation from audience to performer unknowingly.  When that happens, life changes dramatically and suddenly you’re on the other side.  You’ve moved from a very safe place of being entertained, to a very dangerous place indeed – if you don’t know what you’re doing.  It’s a whole other world up there and very few except the elite really understand it and can exist comfortably therein or thereon.  I’ve learned to respect it deeply and also respect the great talent, experience and know-how it takes to fill that space with magic.

Many who perform never really get it and it defeats them eventually.  Few truly succeed.  It’s one of the wonders of life on Planet Earth – the stage.  I learned early in life what it takes to be a great performer.  I often stood in the wings and watched them, the great ones, and tried to figure out just how they did it.  The best one-word answer I can come up with is ‘commitment’.  The best are totally committed to that moment in time – to the doing of that moment fully in imaginary circumstances.  It ain’t easy.  And for those who can actually get the job done, I take off my hat – and watch from the wings.

My most recent experience standing in the wings has been the longest.  For the past seven years I have stood in the wings watching my wife, Julia Wade  (affectionately known here as ‘The Missus’) change the face of music in the Christian Science Church performing as Soloist every Sunday at its world headquarters in Boston.  When she was offered the job seven long years ago she was given the direction by the Board of Directors to lead the music of that church into the 21^st century.

We used to joke that she would take it from the 19^th century leapfrogging over the 20^th and into the 21^st the music was so behind the times.

It was not an easy job.  There were many against change of any sort.  In the beginning, even some of those closest to her position were against change and fought her in subtle and not so subtle ways.  But she persisted with the loving support of the Board of Directors and though she often came under fire for her 21^st century choices of style, sound, instrumentation, techniques of performance and especially choices of material, she was a strong world leader in the movement and won over, by example, most of those who were afraid to change in the beginning.  She also, again by example, showed Christian Science churches around the world musically what they could do and how they could do it in their own churches.

The first 3-4 years were especially tough on her.  Often there was great resistance and some turmoil, but through a very high sense of prayerful integrity she led the movement of change – sensitively and definitely.

Now, seven years later, music in this church is seen and heard in a whole different landscape.  She has been able to hold on to the greatness of the past while expanding the range of music so that all would be attracted to the teachings of the church on a musical level.

Along the way also I have witnessed many who did not appreciate a more modern music in the beginning learn to first accept it and then understand and love it in the end.  Not only was she able to make the changes required, but also she was also able to educate as well – education being the panacea for revolution.

And now her time is coming to an end.  At the end of April, 2012 she will complete her job as soloist and move on to a wider sphere of audience and peoples.  Focusing more on her recording career and international concert career, she will continue to be an inspirational communicator through music and I see her taking the experience of seven years of leadership and performance to an expanded world.

These past seven years I’ve had the great privilege of being the unofficial “man behind the curtain” in this endeavor.  As her principal composer and record producer I’ve been able to watch and consult from a bit of a distance and sometimes help her through the shallows and depths of the experience.  I’ve stood in the wings and watched, fascinated, as she encountered obstacle after obstacle and moved gracefully forward.

I’ve been grateful and relieved to be able to stay behind that curtain and not have to step out on that stage with her.  She’s always been the point man (woman) and taken the heat (and gotten the applause) and I’m fine with that.  I’ve learned that standing behind the curtain is where I belong in life.  I’m good there.  It’s a comfortable place for me and it’s where I’m at my best.

The next four months, as she moves towards her time of closure, I shall stay behind that curtain and continue to encourage, suggest and yes, take notes on how she might do it better.  In the meantime, I’m still fascinated in watching greatness evolve from this up close and personal position.

I get to continue to study talent and investigate and explore the amazing craft of performance from my dark protected corner of the stage, there in those wings in the safety of my thoughts and observances.

Many people aspire to the stage.  I learned early on in my career that it’s just not my place and I’m good with that.  I’m happy to watch and learn and I’ve been very fortunate to stand in those wings.

After all, I’ve had the best seat in the house.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Spiritual Scientist
• Wonderful
• Phoenix Rising
• Chanting/Enchanting
• My Body

For a little more than five years when I was in my late 20s and early 30s I was composer-in-residence at the NY Shakespeare Festival (The Public Theater) working with producer Joseph Papp in what was, at the time, the most creative theatrical hot spot in the country.  Joe Papp and his plays and musicals had an amazing run of success during the 70s that we haven’t seen the likes of from a theatrical producer since.

It was at The Public where I learned my craft having the opportunity to work on some 40 shows in those 5+ years working as composer for Joe.  Besides many other theaters in The Public complex, the NYSF also produced two Shakespeare plays per summer at the outdoor Delacorte Theater in Central Park.  I created incidental music for a number of these productions and I remember one particular production of Shakespeare’s Comedy Of Errors where I was backstage standing in the wings one night.

An older actor was on stage in a scene with one other actor one night when the older actor simply stopped in the middle of one line and kind of slumped over, still standing, into a frozen position.  The long pause brought us all to quick alert.  His fellow actor fed him his cue again to no response.  The stage manager in the wings downstage of me also fed him his lines in a stage whisper several times to no avail.  The audience began to buzz and we all quickly realized that there was something very wrong with the older actor.

Truth is, he had had a small stroke.

The stage manager, taking charge, simply walked out on stage calmly, and taking the arm of the older actor, led him slowly off stage.  Then the stage manager went back on stage and announced to the audience that we would take a short intermission and resume the play after 15 minutes.  The audience, still abuzz, did as they were told to do peacefully.

Backstage it was anything but peaceful.  Rather, it was a pretty wild scene as the older actor was addressed and cared for, an ambulance was called and his understudy was frantically preparing to go on in the older actor’s place.

The costume mistresses scurried about preparing the understudy’s costume changes, I got in his face discussing his musical cues and the stage manager ran through a litany of reminders for the young, inexperienced understudy.

As it was very early in the run, the understudies for each role had only had up to that point one two-hour rehearsal — far too little for a three and a half hour Shakespeare production, and we soon discovered that the understudy had not totally committed his lines to memory.

On top of that, the understudy was also one of the townspeople in the play so his role had to be covered by the swingman and that had to be organized as well – all in the announced 15 minutes.

It was quickly decided that the understudy should carry the book – that is, hold the script from the play while acting his part on stage.  This, of course, would kill the reality of the play, but there seemed no other choice and we hoped that the audience would simply understand the predicament and put up with the solution.

The understudy was a cute, funny little unknown fellow with the unlikely name of Danny Devito.  Yes, that Danny Devito – pre-stardom and yet undiscovered.

No one knew that frantic night backstage that a star was about to be born.

The announcement that we were about to resume brought the audience back to their seats and the announcement that the role once performed by the older gentleman would now be played by Danny Devito brought the dreaded groan of disappointment from the audience.

And then this tiny little man, script in hand, nervously walked out on stage and resumed the scene where we had left off.  I watched nervously from the wings.

The role was never a particularly funny one as played by the older actor.  Danny read his first line nervously and somehow caught the humor of it and the audience tittered at this little fellow.  That titter seemed to give Danny courage to go on and by the end of the scene he magically held the audience in the palm of his hand and had them roaring in the aisles.

It was an amazing transformation and afterwards, talking to several people who were in the audience that night, I discovered that they did not even remember that he held the book throughout.  They just remembered Danny and how funny and charming and adorable he was.

In the bows afterwards, Danny got the grandest of standing ovations from the audience and also the entire cast.  It was as sweet a memory as I have in life to see this little guy triumph over such adversity the way he had.

The next day the NY papers were full of the incident and Danny finished the production that summer doing the role.

The actor’s nightmare puts the actor on-stage in a role where he does not know his lines and often does not even know the name of the play he or she is in.  All actors have this nightmare from time to time.  One always wakes gratefully from it in a sweat.

The composer’s nightmare is similar.  For me, I stand in the wings watching my own musical, but the songs are not mine, don’t really fit the play and are not performed well.  I can’t figure out what has gone wrong and finally I too wake gratefully in a sweat.

The opposite experiences are the joys of my life.  To stand in the wings and watch the magic of my own hit show night after night, to hear the laughter, to feel the confident throb of the music and hear the audience cheer in response, to feel my songs touch the hearts of hundreds or even thousands is, of course, pure pleasure.  It is a gratification that runs deep and that I’ll probably never get enough of.

Two particular shows provided that gratification night after night for literally hundreds and hundreds of performances.  The first was another NY Shakespeare Festival production done at The Public Theater of a rock opera that I wrote back in the 70s.  The Wedding Of Iphigenia was an assignment given to me by Joe Papp to help me learn my theater craft and work with a master.  The master was Euripedes, one of the greatest of the Greek playwrights, and the two classic works of his that I drew my opera from were Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Taurus.

We performed the show both at The Public Theater in NYC and The Old Vic (their experimental theater, The Young Vic) in London under the leadership of Sir Lawrence Olivier.  The opera simply worked form the beginning and melted the paint from the walls every time it was performed over the course of a couple of years.

When we first cast the show, I knew the show would have a Greek chorus of women to support the young maiden lead, Iphigenia.  In casting we had so many wondrous young women try out that we could not decide who should play Iphigenia so we hired them all with the stipulation that we would decide in the course of rehearsals and the others would be in the chorus.

At the end of each day, the director, producer Joe Papp, and I would discuss the choices.  Every day we changed our mind to a different girl.  Two weeks went by and they were all so good and so original that we were dumbfounded at our own inability to decide.  The girls were, of course, getting restless and impatient to have a decision and our inability to decide was beginning to create negative vibes in the company.

Finally Joe Papp had a most original and courageous idea.  They should all play Iphigenia.  At first we laughed at the idea, but then, as we discussed it thoroughly, we got first intrigued and then excited about the possibilities.

The idea worked like gangbusters.  It unified the women and brought an amazing style and power to the play and to the music.  It was so different from anything audiences had ever seen – the leading role of a Greek tragedy being played by 12 women at the same time — but we laid it out well and the music took you to powerful places of drama and passion.  It also helped that the music, rock music, was very new to the theater and so created an ambiance of “anything goes” in the theater.

I watched these ten women tear this opera up night after night as they ripped through every conceivable passion provided by Euripedes’ masterwork.  Trish Hawkins, Nell Carter, Margaret Dorn, Marta Heflin, Linda Lawley, Leata Galloway, Pamela Pentony, Marion Ramsey, Julianne Marshall, Andrea Marcovicci, Bonnie Guidry, Sharon Redd and even Patti LuPone all played this one little girl together and sang their way to standing ovations night after night.

I got to watch it from the wings.  It was a time I shall never forget.  A number would start and I knew each night that it would scrape the moon and each night it did.  It was a great feeling.

Years later I had a very similar experience with The Jenny Burton Experience.  Jenny, and a choir of nine of the top studio singers in NYC, played to sold-out audiences every Thursday night at a NY club called “Don’t Tell Mama”.  The act won, in that time, every conceivable music award given and drew thousands of people – many of which came back time after time.

Here again I got to watch from the wings great performers sing my music in magical ways.  The choir, led by vocal arranger, Margaret Dorn, was a superb blend of R&B and Gospel voices and could raise the roof at the drop of a hat, but it was Jenny herself who grabbed us all by the socks each night and carried us.  She was a radiant performer at the height of her art, able to both touch the center of your heart with a ballad and dazzle your mind with an up song and set your feet a’dancin’.

And she was, on top of it all, funny.  She developed into a tremendous ad libber and could run with an improvised moment away from the written show and then get back and keep the audience in stitches.  She was the consummate performer and the group backed her up beautifully.

She also had the so important ability to recreate the performance every night.  One night during a terrible snowstorm they performed the show for the 6 people who trudged through the blizzard and showed up and the show was as good as it had ever been.  I was one of those six.  I sat that night in the audience at a table just to make the room look fuller.  At the end of the show I was also one of the six who stood up and cheered.  There were more people on stage that night than in the audience.

Standing in the wings for the hundreds of performances throughout those seven years is also one of the most cherished times of my life.  The opportunity to be so close to such talent and to actually be a part of it, even though I hid behind the curtain, brought me the joyous satisfactions of a lifetime.

Stay tuned for Part 4 – the last if this series – yet to come.

Even More Inspiration

• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• WFM Listening Room — Series II Opener
• By The Numbers?
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• My Body
• Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Julia Wade

Last night it was business as usual at the WFM Listening Room.  Both La Tanya Hall and Julia Wade and their Inspirational music ended our week on the perfect notes – notes that soared, notes that calmed and notes that enlivened the soul.

These Fridays are crazy busy for me.  I wake up in the morning on show day and immediately know I’m in for it.  It’s a day of go, go, go until I flop down in my chair at the end of the day.  I won’t bore you with the details, but rather assure you that that’s just what it is – a day of endless detail.  It never stops.

When I get home at night, it’s all I can do to just crawl off to bed.

I’ve been doing this all my life, but it doesn’t get any easier.  Thank God for a great staff and a most professional venue.

And then there’s the talent.  Each night we do this, I always have the same reaction.  The set-up of the room is done, the sound check’s done, the audience is in their seats, the show’s about to begin.  I’m still rushing around finishing the last minute details, I get up on stage and kick off the night, bring on the first act and then check the lights, the sound, make sure the latecomers are in and get them into the remaining seats.

Then I sit down myself and become an audience member.  Then I get to listen to the music.  Ah, the music.  This is why I do all this.  It all comes back to me…

And suddenly there’s La Tanya Hall, with Jay Bianchi on piano, a pianist I’ve admired for years tickling the ivories – and she’s singing Joni Mitchell’s A Case Of You, and the room swims with golden and blue lights and the music is fine and played beautifully with Pete McCann on guitar weaving his magic through the song.

And I watch La Tanya, a vocalist that I’ve admired for years as a total pro with a truly gifted voice, one of those voices that comes forth with great assurance, in perfect tune, and the years of experience that those 10,000 hours have given her – and she’s connected to the insides of the lyric and weaving her spell over a rapt audience.

Oh you’re in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I would still be on my feet

And Jay and Pete are two great NYC musicians bringing fresh chord changes to an old classic, and La Tanya’s beauty fills the room and oh Lord, but I love this song.  And it’s then all worth it.  The hassle, the details, the worry, the stress, the cancellations, the sweat…  Because the music is better than I had imagined.  I get to live in New York City and present in this gorgeous room on Park Avenue provided by Third Church of Christ, Scientist where the talent around me is just enormous – where the best in the world come to try their wares.

And I’m fortunate enough to be able to work with them and give them an elegant place to perform here on Park Avenue with a dedicated and fascinated audience of music lovers and a gorgeous sound system.

It’s then I get to sit back and deeply enjoy the product of my imagination.  The audience stands and cheers La Tanya Hall – and it’s all the way it should be.

Then in the second act Julia Wade has a moment, a song, that breaks through time and space.  She sings, from her first album, the title song, Upon The Mountain, and it’s pure magic.  New acts are tough and she’s singing a new act, but when she begins this old standard (for her), a song she’s sung hundreds of times, the newness of the act disappears as she settles in.

She takes us on a spiritual journey speaking to us first with the timeless words of Buddha underscored with the music of the Orient.  She begins to sing and she’s there – up on the mountain of her meditation – she invites us, no, she carries us up that mountain to the quietude of her meditation.  We travel with her, spellbound, riding on the conviction of her voice, the commitment of her words…

How do you get there?

How can you possibly break through?

You start by going to the secret place

The innermost point of control

The deepest recesses of your inner space

The still point of your soul

Where matter doesn’t matter

And mind is all in all

And truth pours forth like a fountain

Where darkness is not known

And light is all there is

And it’s simply you and God

Upon the mountain

As the song finishes, there is no applause.  People just sit, lost in the moment of their own spiritual discovery.  It is church at its best; it is the secret place.  The room is silent for a full 10 seconds and the people pull their thoughts back to the earth and the quietude of the room.  Finally the applause bursts forth.

I sit and once more sense le raison d’être, the reason for my existence.  It is to bring these moments to some reality.  It is to illuminate the room, to inspire a world in great need of inspiration.  I have some terrific help.  The talent up on that stage.

New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town…

The talent is here – walking the streets.  It’s all around us.  Trying to make it happen, trying to get the chance, the chance to inspire an audience.

Well, last night it happened.

It’ll happen again.

And again…

Join us.

Julia’s photographs by John Johnson

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• You Must Remember This!
• Love Is The Reason For Living
• God Is doG Spelled Backwards
• I Stood In The Wings… Part 4
• Wonderful

Unfortunately we humans have not been built with a USB port located just behind our left ears.  Instead we have to put up with a slower form of data transference called “teaching”.

As we gain knowledge and acquire skills, we owe it to the human race to pass that knowledge on to others.  “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.  ~Henry Brooks Adams

I’ve always loved to teach.  I’m deeply indebted to the great teachers in my own life – most of which were tough, sometimes scary and yet ultimately loving deep wells of vital information.  They passed that food of life on to me in a variety of ways and, thinking back on them, I realize now that each of them had that same central quality – they too loved to teach.

And so, we here at Watchfire Music recognize this necessity to communicate knowledge and have decided to create within the company a center for data transference – the Watchfire Music Learning Lab, a school of sorts, for students of all ages, where specialized professional music classes of a most interesting variety will be taught.

We will open this lab to beginners, intermediates and even have a series of master classes all taught by top professionals who have this same desire to pass on their acquired knowledge to others.

We’re excited about the diversity of subjects that will be presented starting in early March of 2011.

Again, we’re presenting here specialized classes – not the usual stuff like singing and acting, but courses that are possibly more specific and particularize skills to the individual.  We feel that here in New York City where there is such a huge talent base, such specialization is very much needed.

And so we will offer the following classes for Beginners and Intermediates:

Songwriting 101 & 201

Learn to write a hit song, a story song, song form, chord progressions, melody expression, songs for the theater,

Lyrics 101 & 201

Learn proper rhyming, scanning, song form, conceptualization, title search, color words, story telling, all the skills of the masters.

Logic Studio Pro 9.1.2

This is the world’s #1 software program for computer based music recording.

Midi Rhythm Section Arranging 101 & 201

This is often the most difficult skill to master for music arrangers and  orchestrators.

Vocal Performance 101 & 201

Not just ‘how to sing’, but rather, ‘how to act the song’ – Meisner Technique.

Music Recording Production 101 & 201

Essentially, ‘how to produce your own music in your own home studio’ – a skill more necessary than ever in this evolving world of home studio recordings.

Acoustic Guitar 101 & 201

Still the preferred method of learning to play both acoustic and electric guitar.

Studio Background singing 101 & 201

Learn number system of instant sight-reading, ear training, the art of blending, professional techniques that make this such a specialized skill.

The WFM Learning Lab will also offer Master Classes in the following subjects:

Composition

Lyrics – The Art

Logic Studio Pro 9.1.2

Midi Orchestration

Act Development

Music Production

Most of these classes will be private classes – one on one with the teacher, but a few may evolve into group study though kept small and personal.

For more information on the WFM Learning Lab presented only in New York City, stay tuned or watch the Home page of watchfiremusic.com for further developments, pricing, contact info and schedules.

Even More Inspiration

• It’s A Small World And Gettin’ Smaller n’ Smaller
• WFM Learning Lab – Grand Opening!
• Even Now
• The Decline of Lyrical Craftsmanship – Part 1
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• Wonderful

This article has been reprinted from an article first appearing in the Principia Purpose, Peter’s High School and College Alumni Magazine in December of 2010.

Peter Link’s music career flowed naturally from his days at the College. After serving under Jack Eyerly as assistant choir director his sophomore year, Peter went on to be its main director until he graduated. “Jack believed in my ability, mentored me, and provided opportunities,” Peter recalls. “I really learned my craft from him!” Peter also directed a College production of Carousel. After seeing it, a parent told him, “If you directed this production, you can make it in New York.” With that encouragement, Peter packed for the Big Apple soon after graduation.

During the next two years, Peter studied acting under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. From there, he landed a lead role in the TV soap opera As the World Turns as well as a lead role in Hair on Broadway. “Doing Hair and the soap was an incredible two-year ride as an actor, but I soon found that my real interest was composing for the musical theatre,” Peter says. During Hair he wrote the hit musical Salvation. Out of that score came a gold record that sold two million copies. “This was a whirlwind start for a young guy!” Peter notes.

Next, after seeing one of Peter’s shows, Joseph Papp, producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival, offered him the position of composer in residence. Over the next five years, Peter wrote music for 40 Shakespeare Festival productions. He has also written music for 15 Broadway shows and was twice nominated for a Tony Award.

In the following decade, Peter teamed up with his wife at the time, Jenny Burton, to develop a gospel show called The Jenny Burton Experience, which sold out in New York City for seven years and toured nationally. Jenny and Peter also had a son during this time, and although they’re now divorced, they remain friends and collaborators.

“Show business is about reinventing yourself from time to time,” Peter notes. “During this period, I recognized a need to write inspirational music of deeper content.” He also met Julia Wade, an opera singer crossing over into more popular styles. Soon the two were married.

Along with their love of music, Peter and Julia have Principia in common. Though Julia only attended for a few years of Lower School, she says that time was “an important backdrop” to her life. In particular she recalls her fifth grade teacher, Mr. Sellers, and playing flute in the band.

Eventually, Julia majored in music at San Jose State University in California and began her singing career at Opera San Jose. Later, she settled in New York City, but she has performed widely, including the Rome Opera and Palermo Opera.

By the time Peter and Julia got together, the music industry was beginning to change dramatically due to the Internet, so they contacted a Principia friend, Jim Birch (US’63), to help them navigate the business side of this new industry. Eventually, Watchfire Music was created, which now represents a wide range of inspirational music artists (including Julia) and composers (including Peter).

Julia also shares inspirational music each week as The Mother Church soloist. Describing her solo selection process as that of a “hunter-gatherer,” she pores over each week’s Bible Lesson along with stacks of solos. To help others in the same situation, she helped develop a research tool called “Solo Thoughts” on Watchfire’s website. There, 12 to 20 suggested solos are matched with the Bible Lesson each week, and the sheet music can be downloaded immediately. “I wanted to create for other people what I needed myself,” Julia shares.

As busy as they both are, Julia and Peter still find time to make music together. Their latest CD, entitled Every Day, features Julia singing Peter’s songs. Available at Watchfire Music (www.watchfiremusic.com), Every Day is definitely inspirational. As Julia explains, “The title track brings forth the idea that every day, every moment, God is enabling us and loving us.”

To hear the report Julia Wade gave during the 2010 Annual Meeting, go to www.christianscience.com/church/the-mother-church/annual-meeting. Julia’s report begins 50 minutes and 20 seconds into the webcast.

~ Heather Shotwell

Reprinted with permission
from Principia Purpose.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Looking Back on 2010
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• Hitting The Wall
• Gettin’ It Done
• WFM Listening Room Series II – 3

Being photogenic is simply an acquired grace developed by experience in being in front of the camera, not some mysterious talent endowed to only a few by some higher power.  Actually, anyone can be photogenic who has the proper training as an actor.

Being photogenic is simply the ability to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances when all that attention is focused upon your being.  Most of us freeze up and don’t know how to act, become self-conscious, paste on a smile, and a raft of other uncomfortabilities.

People who are photogenic know how to be themselves in the moment when the world is watching.  They know how to live on as if the world has not turned to look and simply continue doing what they do with a true naturalness.  If you can do this, you can take a good picture.

The Missus, one Julia Wade, just had her new CD pictures taken by a top NY photographer and it was the best shoot she’s ever had.  Why?  I suppose it helps that she’s good lookin’ and is comfortable in her skin, but that’s not really the reason.  When I first met her, she was, in fact, not particularly photogenic.  She would do a shoot and would be hard put to find 4-5 great shots out of the batch.

This past week, she came home with 50-75 stunning photographs that turned our choosing experience from a “I hope we find a good shot” to “there are far too many great ones here to choose from”.

What made this change in her persona possible?  Simple, really.  She’s grown tremendously as an actress over the years.  She knows how to live truthfully in front of the camera.  Instead of “smiling pretty”, she knows how to live her joy, to make strong choices of character in the moments when the camera clicks away.  She knows how to fill her being with commitment to the moment and then maintain that life so that the camera catches real moments instead of pasted on smiles.

We’ve all been in front of the camera with the photographer who says, “Smile!” and then takes the next 20 seconds to push the button while the smile wilts upon our faces.  But the pro knows how to maintain the life and keep it up even while the photographer works on.

The old expression, “Say cheese” is actually the most fraudulent thing you can do.  Think about it.  “Say cheese” means to spread your lips east and west as you mouth the word “cheeeeeese”.  Good lord, you think later, “Why was my smile so phony?”  Because you were just spreading your lips, silly.  You had no real joy.  You were, in reality, saying, “This is what I look like when my lips are in the “cheeeese” position.”

So next time someone hauls out that camera and says, “Smile for the camera”, pay no attention.  Instead, conjure up the happiest moment you can think of in life and live fully inside it in the moment.  Then the photographer will take a picture of you being truly joyful and people will remark to you, “Oh Dorothy, you’re so lucky!  You’re photogenic!”

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The first, Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart, just totally blew me away.  In it, inspired by a love of African music and an interest in tracing the roots of the banjo, American banjo great, Bela Fleck, embarks on a musical journey through Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, and Mali, playing with the locals and discovering the beauty of the land and its people.

Besides the fact that the music performed in the video is simply fabulous, the movie gets to the heart of Africa through that music and its performers in the most precious of ways.

Béla Anton Leoš Fleck, is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s most innovative and technically proficient banjo players.  He is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Fleck was born in New York City, and is named after famous Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, Austrian composer Anton Webern, and Czech composer Leoš Janácek. He was drawn to the banjo when he first heard Earl Scruggs play the theme song for the television show Beverly Hillbillies. 

“Throw Down Your Heart” was directed by Sascha Paladino and was filmed during Fleck’s year off from touring with the Flecktones.

I laughed, I cried, I soared on the wings of this incredible music.  If in any way you’ve soured on people, here is a film to renew faith in mankind – in its innocence, its creativity, and its pure spirit.

I’ll watch it again tonight with the Missus.

The second film was the 6^th and final episode of Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. I’ve written an earlier post about this most inspirational series and again, this film series was life-changing for me.  I’m going to take a summer off in the next year so and just take a drive around the U.S. and visit the epitome of our homeland – our National Parks.

The last words of the movie nailed down the entire experience for me.  The words of John Muir, the “Father of the National Parks,” lifted me out of what final remnants of fatigue remained and simply inspired me with their beauty and restored my soul’s energies.

John Muir is my new hero.

Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States, his letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions.

His activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States.  One of the most well-known hiking trails in the U.S., the 211-mile John Muir Trail, was named in his honor. Other places named in his honor are Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, and Muir Glacier.

He was also a deeply spiritual thinker and inspirational writer.  I’m going to take these words and this grand idea and set them to music.  I went to bed with a song in my heart, having seen many of the better aspects of our dear world, having been inspired once again by its natural beauty, its incredible music and its great people.  I went to bed totally refreshed and woke eager to face the day.

I woke to a new morning of creation.

“One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made – that this is still the morning of creation.  This grand show is eternal.  It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising.  Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” – John Muir

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

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They weren’t always the easiest experiences in life, but were certainly the most rewarding.  Some of these include the obvious and some are a bit surprising now that I think on it.

The obvious ones were my schoolteachers – Jack Eyerly who took me under his wing in high school and college and believed in me as a musical entity.  As a hugely successful track coach, he also taught me how to run with proper and efficient form – something that I’m still conscious of every time I move from a walk to a trot in life.

A woman named Irma Erickson who taught me the joys of creative writing also was tough as nails and demanded the best.  A genius teacher named Sanford Meisner taught me what it meant to be an artist and how to dig down into my own being and understand how I tick as a creative person.  I use his teachings every day.

A famous playwright named Neil Simon taught me the elements of comedy and the power of 3 in drama.  A gentle man named John Morris was my first teacher in the art of orchestration back in the days when I didn’t know which side of the note to put the stem on.

Another gentle giant named Jeremy Harris taught me the art of recording engineering as I sat next to him for 22 years as he recorded and mixed my music.  A woman named Jenny Burton taught me about committing fully to the moment in performance and how that commitment was everything in the creation of any artistic endeavor.

A director named AJ Antoon taught me about the importance of every tiny detail in my artistic work.  I’ll always remember the day that he stopped the dress rehearsal in the library scene and ran up on stage and rearranged 3 of the hundreds of books behind the actors on the library shelves because the red one was upstaging the scene.  At the time everyone thought he was crazy, but he was right.

My parents, Lyman and Dolly, simply taught me how to live and be a good person and the huge importance of that effort in my life.  My brother, Jim, taught me how to grow up by his own example.  By beating me up regularly when we were kids, he taught me how to be tough and how to fight back when necessary.

A coach named Art Schultz taught me how to tackle so hard that I would never get hurt when I misunderstood the whole concept.  Today because of that football lesson I’m still great at tackling just about anything that comes my way.

My wife, Julia, taught me how to love people.  She’s really good at it and that’s why God put us together at a time when I was starting to give up on people.  Now I still learn from her every day.

My son, Dustin, taught me how to be a father – probably the hardest lessons of my life.  I’m still learning from him and it’s still often harder than I wish it would be, but I’m still learning.

A man I never met named Jesus taught me the potential of humankind and yes, my own potential.  I’ve still got a lot to learn from him.  And a whole raft of people from Lao-Tzu to Eckhart Tolle to Mary Baker Eddy to Buddha to Baba Ram Das taught me who I really am beyond the mortal seeming form.

Last night I watched The Freedom Writers movie.  Hilary Swank stars in this story about a teacher in a racially divided school who gives her students what they’ve always needed – a voice. Swank plays Erin Gruwell the real-life teacher at Long Beach’s Wilson High who inspired her students to overcome the gangs that divided them and the education system that forgot them.  Based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary Hilary is supported by a wondrous cast of first-time actors who drew from their actual experiences on the street.

The movie just bowled me over once again and I spent 2 hours mopping up my cheeks as she taught these great kids lesson after lesson.  I went to bed eternally grateful for all my life teachers.  Listed above are only a few.

Listed below are some of my favorite movies about teachers and teaching.  I couldn’t rank them because they are all full of important life lessons just as I couldn’t rank my own personal favorite teachers.

Mr. Holland’s Opus

Goodbye Mr. Chips

October Sky

Stand and Deliver

Dangerous Minds

To Sir With Love

The Blackboard Jungle

Freedom Writers

Music of the Heart

Lean on Me

Remember The Titans

Dead Poets Society

The Miracle Worker

The Great Debaters

And now, it seems, in life more and more I get to be the teacher and someone else the student.  It’s become a passion – to pass on the ideas and examples of all my great exemplars.  In this endeavor I try to be lovingly hard as nails and demand much.  Patience is perhaps not my forte, but I’m learning even that – from my students.

As a Sunday School teacher for 25 years I’ve always said that I learn more than the students just by the simple act of teaching.  Perhaps that’s why some of my great teachers were impelled to teach me.  They too needed to continue to grow and to learn through the simple act of imparting what they understood about life.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

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