Sparks from the Fire

Alan Smallwood

In an earlier marriage my wife at the time chanted the Nichiren-Buddhist mantra “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo”.  She was going through a particularly rough stretch in her life and she would go off and chant in our guest bedroom every day for a couple of hours.  She would always emerge from these sessions a different person – calm, centered, and quietly joyful.

I supported this practice at first because I saw that it worked wonders for her and over the couple of years that she chanted, I grew to love the sound of her voice pealing through the house, its mellifluous vibrations casting its positive spell over both our lives and probably even helping our plants to grow and be happy as well.

I think it was the thing I missed about her most when we parted.

Several years afterwards I began to work with a young musician named Alan Smallwood who came into my life at just the perfect time and brought to me in musical terms exactly what I seemed to be missing in my life.

As a musician, I had no real formal training.  Most of what I knew came from playing in bands, singing in folk groups and conducting student choirs.  I did study drums for several years with a fine teacher as a kid, but that was about it.

So there were many holes in my understanding and knowledge of this amazing world of music and consequently there were many holes in my music.  Alan Smallwood, several years younger than I, filled these holes with his genius, his fascination with the then developing new technology of synthesis and became my musical director and arranger/orchestrator for many of the musical projects that I created. (more…)

Today marks the launch of Watchfire Music’s commitment to its new video campaign.  As mentioned in a previous post, “…we’re proud to announce, that WFM is going Video!  We’ve always dreamed of being the place to be for Inspirational Videos on the web.  We started it, but it got a bit postponed in the process.  Now the dream comes true!”

Check out our Home Page for the new player and our WFM Featured Video selection.  These specialized programs will be rotated and updated weekly and will feature some of the best we have to offer.  Soon you’ll also find the new player on the DSM Home Page as well.

And if you want to dig deeper, simply go to the Nav Bar and pull down the Video window and visit either The Best Of The Web or WFM Artists video libraries of our ever-growing collection of Inspirational music and video. (more…)

“It’s not easy being green”, so the song went.  It’s also not easy being a small start-up company with big ideas and dreams.  In the beginning Inspirational music seemed like such a great idea and, yes, it turned out to be true, but getting there was not always fun, quick, profitable and easy.

Many of our ideas were cast aside as too expensive, not timely, too small staff consuming, beyond our pay grade or simply not working.  But as we first survived, then broke even, then became a successful enterprise and finally moved from being a small start-up to just being a working company we found the balance between what we could do, what we should do and what we would do.

What we would do then evolved to what we are now and that, of course, is still evolving.  One of the grand ideas that we originally had was laid aside as too expensive, too understaffed and simply not the priority of the day.  But this was an idea the clearly needed to be a part of Watchfire Music, so we limped along with a “taster” for years.

This “taster” became an embarrassment to me because I want our site to be full of new stuff and up to date every week if not every day.

By now some of you long-time faithful have probably guessed that I’m talking about Video.  We’ve had a video player and some WFM artist videos on the Home Page and a Video Page where you can go watch a small collection of Inspirational videos, but the same stuff has been up there and available for several years now.

Now that’s gonna change – Big Time!  Next week, we’re proud to announce, that WFM is going Video!  We’ve always dreamed of being the place to be for Inspirational Videos on the web.  We started it, but it got a bit postponed in the process.  Now the dream comes true! (more…)

Barry Danielian - Trumpeter

Yesterday I had a blast.  Inspirational music took on new meaning as I recorded virtuoso trumpeter, Barry Danielian, here in NYC at Link Recording Studios.  I needed a 16 bar trumpet solo for the song, In That Great Gittin’ Up Mornin’ which is the climax song on my forthcoming CD, Goin’ Home – A Gospel Cantata – On Heaven and Beyond.

I had lost my precious musician phone book last year with all its numbers and so I called my friend, guitarist, Chieli Minucci and asked him for a recommendation of a great trumpet player who could play like the angel, Gabriel.  Chieli recommended Barry Danielian.  When Chieli speaks; I listen.  I hired Barry for the gig.

I wrote the first 4 bars of the trumpet solo for Barry to get him started and then gave him the direction to improvise the rest, to keep it Gospel, make it hot, iconic, hotter, joyful, timeless and apocalyptic.  Think, in the climax of the solo, Gabriel on acid trying to blow the roof off the moon.  I sent him home to listen to the track for a couple of days and he showed up yesterday afternoon ready to go at it, trumpet in hand.

We did 6 takes – each one discussed relating to shape, development and mood.  Barry was the perfect partner in crime.  He listened, but also brought his great ideas and mastery of his horn to the moment. (more…)

When I was a kid, my brother and I used to lie in bed at night and make up stupid lyrics to popular songs and giggle into the night.  One was:

My body lies over the ocean
My body lies over the sea
My body lies over the ocean
So bring back my body to me

I warned you that they were stupid.

Now today I’m writing lyrics on the same subject – hopefully with a little more content.  Here’s one drawn from a previous blog post on Sparks From The Fire.  The content, as explained in the post, has been capturing my imagination for months now and it finally all poured out in song form this past two weeks.

Both song and orchestration are now finished and will be presented in Julia Wade’s forthcoming CD, Silk Road, due to be released in early 2012.

Not her usual fare?  Perhaps, but watch for some fascinating new directions from this most special vocalist as she branches out and develops this new Classical/Crossover genre.

This song will be a guaranteed eye and ear opener.  Enjoy!

My Body
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

I am not my body
My body is not me
I mean to live beyond it
In some capacity

I believe I’ve lived before it
Though memory fails
I cannot ignore it
Everything else
Pales in comparison
This wondrous invention
Of flesh and bone technology
Only belongs to me

Ladies choir

Temporarily

(more…)

A number of you have asked whatever happened to my Inspirational music project called Goin’Home. 

 Goin’ Home
A Gospel Cantata
On Heaven and Beyond
Additional Music and Lyrics by
Peter Link

Yes, there is a light, and yes, there is a tunnel.  Turns out it’s an extremely expensive project that has been in the works for nearly two years now.  Time and money have, for too long, been the obstacle.  Now we’re poised to overcome both.

The plan is to get the CD out for Christmas of 2011.  But first we have to finish a song and a half, mix the album, master it, design it, manufacture it and promote it.

Originally, I raised about a 3^rd of the money for the project from two very dear friends and supporters, Watchfire Music put in the another third and then time and money simply ran out before the project came to completion.  There’s a missing third. (more…)

Here’s a song in demand before its time – if that were possible.  If there was ever a time in our nation’s history for a shot of inspiration, it’s now.  Leadership seems to be stuck in a very unfortunate place ruled by ego and greed.  No matter what your political affiliation or taste, you can’t be liking what’s going down out there in Washington, D.C.  It seems like we need some new ideas, some new inspiration perhaps – something beyond the human will.  Here’s where Inspirational music can definitely help.

Last week in her church service (which gets broadcast around the world on the Internet) the Missus performed a new song fresh off the presses.  It has received tremendous feedback, the kind of response that makes all the blood, sweat and tears of this industry totally worth all the effort.  I’ll have to admit that we were not prepared for this response.  Who knew that this national occurrence would come?

Julia Wade (The Missus) chose the song to fit the sermon of that particular Sunday over a month ago, but it turned out to be the right panacea for the moment.  The trouble is, it is a new song that she has been working on for her new forthcoming CD, Silk Road, due to be released this coming Christmas season.  We have no single completed; we have no sheet music to sell – yet.

So we’re going to rush this one out to you ahead of its time.  We’ll release it as a single and its sheet music in the next couple of weeks.  I guess it’s just a song that demanded its own time – not on my schedule or Julia’s, but on its own schedule.   Like a baby who comes early – once it’s born, you simply have to stop all else and deal with it no matter what.

Here are only a few of the comments that we’ve received:

“We had the great good fortune to hear you perform “Even Now” in the Mother Church last Sunday.  We were traveling and just happened to be there in Boston. We both wept, it was SO gorgeous… even my husband cried — who is a Methodist!

Is there a recording of that song available?  My husband is an accomplished guitarist and he loved the guitar music so much too. Of course your singing was a gift!

Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful singing with all of us.  We will never forget how special that was!” –Carolyn (more…)

Inspirational music is a new category.  5-6 years ago it basically did not exist.  When Watchfire Music first began we googled the words “inspirational music” and up came 4 pages of references.  At about 10 references per Google page that’s about 40 in total.

Today, I just googled the term and up came over 65,000,000 references.  That’s an incredible growth over this short time.  For the past year this blog, Sparks From The Fire, has stood at #1 or #2 on page one of Google just about every time I’ve googled it.  That’s about once a month.  Watchfire Music is nearly always found among the first 3 pages.

It’s taken a lot of work and dedication by a talented staff here at Watchfire Music to keep us up on the top of those rankings.  It’s also taken a lot of writing on my part to stay high on the charts, so to speak.  I must say, I’ve enjoyed it.  Writing this blog has given me a great time to think deeply about life and the meanings of inspiration almost daily.

I sometimes wonder if I’m not writing a new kind of autobiography – like a diary of a lifetime of thoughts and stories.  It certainly has been an autobiography of the last 4-5 years.  This particular post is actually the 350^th that I’ve written these past several years.

Some bloggers write short, terse 1 paragraph posts.  I read several a day and they’re very popular.  Mine are more often 3 pages.  I ask myself why.  I know that nobody has time to read any more and figure that one look at one of my long posts can be daunting to most people.  I try to write short, but I guess that’s just not me.

I could never be a commercial writer as a composer either.  Writing 30-60 second commercial songs was always an area that did not interest me.  I guess I just like to stretch out and try to go a little deeper.

Call it style; call it a reflection of my deranged mind.  Whatever…

At any rate, I’ve enjoyed the ride.  It’s been a chance to think things out and talk to all who might be interested and create a dialogue of thought on the topic of all things inspirational.

Thanks for listening.