Sparks from the Fire

WFM Listening Room Opens in NYC
A Howling Success!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!

Pardon me if I howl a trifle, but occasionally things go even better than one dreams.  The Watchfire Music Listening Room debuted this past week to a sold out audience and by the end of the evening clearly became a dream defined.

Here is an idea whose time has truly come.  A place where one could come and spend an evening in intimate and elegant surroundings, Jenkins House Concerts just off of Central Park on the West Side of Manhattan, and do little else than simply listen to great “live” music in an un-mic’d setting.

Here was music at its natural best, parlor performed by two multi-talented ladies.  The audience was a wild mix of melting-pot New Yorkers – young and old, professionals and fans, black and white, and all went home full of good food and rich blessings – and only for a $15 ticket.  Such a deal! (more…)

I’m excited to announce the beta of a new series of house concerts for Inspirational music right here in little ol’ NYC.

We’re calling it the Watchfire Music Listening Room. WFM artist, Julia Wade, will do 3 nights in the next 3 months celebrating and developing her new CD at Jenkins House Concerts just off of Central Park West.

Thursday, August 19th @ 7:30
Thursday, September 16th @ 7:30
Thursday, October 7th @ 7:30

Opening for her will be singer/songwriters Rebecca Minor in August, Megan Neale in September, and WFM artist and composer, Margaret Dorn, in October.

The purpose of the Watchfire Music Listening Room house concerts is to allow WFM artists to develop their music in front of a live audience. (more…)

Here’s a guy I’ve worked with for several decades now. I play a decent acoustic guitar when my chops are together, but when I need a master guitarist, I call my friend Chieli (Key-eh-lee). If he’s not available, I change the session to when he is available.

He has a new and most exciting new CD that has just come out on Watchfire Music. If you want to get connected with some of the great music being written and played today, performed by all world-class musicians, download or purchase the CD, Without You, by Chieli Minucci and Special EFX now.

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As creative director of Watchfire Music I usually spend my time touting our own artists, but recently I downloaded two CDs of inspirational music that are out of the WFM box and now deep in my waking and sleeping consciousness.

Two of my absolute heroes are Peter Gabriel and Bobby McFerrin and their music has been coursing through my brain now for days.

Ten-time Grammy Award winner/vocal innovator Bobby McFerrin surprises us yet again with VOCAbuLarieS, his first new release in eight years. Like his #1 worldwide hit song Don’t Worry Be Happy and his multi-platinum duo album Hush with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, VOCAbuLarieS is based on Bobby’s experiments with multi-track recording and his ceaseless exploration of the potential of the human voice. (more…)

I thought many of you might share an interest in a back-and-forth I recently had with one of our inspirational music composers.  We’ve probably all experienced this perplexing problem at one time or another in our creative endeavors.  The following contains excerpts of our dialogue.

Composer: I have been seriously stalling about doing some more composing.  Fear of the blank page, I guess.  I know you know what that’s all about… I’m not prolific at the best of times, but I need to start and get those first bars done…

Yours Truly: The basis of all this is that you have the music in you. There’s no question in my mind that this is true.  If you can write (the songs I’ve heard of yours), you can go as far as your dreams.  You have a great skill and talent and could easily have a terrific audience for your music.  I think that “fear of the blank page” really means that you’re starting wrong.  It means that you’re trying to start on the wrong beat, so to speak.  I’ve seen it in so many composers and writers.  I experienced it myself years ago until I figured it out.

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Welcome to WFM Radio! Get the best inspirational music right on your desktop.

Absolutely Free!
Here you can choose from a number of 2 hour music programs featuring the best of our Watchfire Music artists.

Take it with you!
Not only can you listen to their full songs while you’re here visiting the WFM Radio site, but you can also take this radio with you as you surf the web and, in fact, play any of our programs all day – 24/7.

It’s so simple!

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A new song is born.  Out of the nowhere, yet out of the experience of life.  It comes forth out of a dream and is placed in consciousness by Being needing to sing.

It’s organized and shaped, scanned and massaged by human hands and matter pen and paper, but it is realized in a lifetime of mullings on the subject of God – poured forth through my gratitude for the magnitude of His being – my gratitude for this life.

Inspirational music – born from a spiritual place.

A new song is born.  Born of rise and fall, born of new/old sonorities and the trial and error of harmonic invention all to find a tone, a timbre of understanding and portrayal.  A ridiculously simple refrain, nearly too simple to chance, yet somehow right for the profundity of the moment.  Followed by a complex splattering of impossible notes in passage, the song begins to take shape struggling to reflect the magnitude of God’s great presence.

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In the last 2 weeks I’ve been to two house concerts here in NYC.  Perhaps I should call them “Apartment Concerts”, but I’m seeing a real trend here in people getting back to the idea of pure inspirational music listening.

I love this concept and I love this trend in music.  I’ve felt for far too long now that audiences are slowly losing the ability to simply sit and listen to music and enjoy it for what it is.  Instead, more and more hoopla seems to be needed to stimulate the listener.  I enjoyed the novelty of Pink this last year at the Grammys singing upside-down while hanging from a trapeze, but c’mon now really…

I fear that the real basic problem here lately has been that there is a diminishing quality of music to listen to and so artists have to add additional value to their live acts in order to hold their audiences who have grown to expect light shows, ridiculous costumes, gargantuan sets and fireworks to stay interested.

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