Keep it short.

No one has time anymore.

So keep it short.

Not sure I can…

Just not my style.

Never took to writing music for commercials.

60 seconds?

30 seconds??

No time to stretch my wings.

Yeah, I’m probably a bit long winded.

But I love to tell a good story.

Weave a good yarn.

I tend to put the problem on the other guy’s shoulders – the reader, the listener – the world.  Not my fault if they can’t hang in there.  Can’t slow down enough to consider something a little deeper.  Things are just going faster.  It’s a throw-away society.  No time to stop and think, to pause and pray, to sit back and dream, to lie down and do nothing.  We’re all trying to get somewhere when really we’re already there – only we just don’t know it.  Baba Ram Dass said, “Be here now.”  Eckart Tolle wrote The Power Of Now.  A best-seller.  Who had time to read it?  It appears that many did, so where are they and what are they doing about it?  Can’t we slow down enough to just sit and read?  Just sit and listen?  Does music have to get relegated to the background?  Someone said to me the other day, “I listened to your album while making dinner the other evening…”  I was crushed.  I hoped they liked the tunes…  Now I’m supposed to break this paragraph up into several for my blog post so that people will be more inclined to read it.  Long paragraphs will scare you away.  Did you know that?  Are you afraid?

There.

Fear gone?

Feeling better.

Want to read on?

OK, perhaps tomorrow…

Even More Inspiration

• Tempo
• The Organized Artist
• The Atheist
• Send A Signal
• Chanting/Enchanting
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn

There’s probably no greater cause of war throughout history than religious differences.  The only thing that comes close to it is greed.  I choose to stay as far away from the human element of religion in my spiritual practice, which, of course, is rather impossible, but, for me, preferable.  We humans (and I count myself as one) have confused the study of God, consciousness, reality, our world, matter, thought, spirit and the universe by dividing into groups and along the way, shutting doors and windows to alternative thought in an effort to protect our own.

It strikes me that religions often are more limiting than creative.  They often force the thinker into a box and essentially say, “think this, study this, here is the only truth – shut the rest out.”

If there is anything that I’ve learned in my life’s study of spirituality, it’s that nobody has a corner on truth.  Truth is truth.  Everybody has access to it. Every religion I’ve ever studied captured and illuminated much truth for me.  The only thing that really ever got in my way was the differences in language or the various definitions of words that are tossed about.  Most religious differences I’ve found to be based on a confusion of semantics.

So I choose to call myself first a spiritual seeker rather than a religious person.  I hope this does not offend you as I approach the writing of this post with the objective of unifying thought as opposed to dividing it.

Wikipedia states, “A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge.  In a more restricted sense a scientist is an individual who uses a scientific method.  The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science…  Some perform research toward a more comprehensive understanding of nature, including physical, mathematical and social realms…  This is distinct from philosophers, those who use logic toward more comprehensive understanding of intangible aspects of reality that lack a direct connection to nature, focusing on the realm of thought itself.”

If we’re to accept these definitions put forth by Wikipedia, then I suppose I’m sort of a scientist/philosopher, a combination of both.  I do engage in a “systematic activity to acquire knowledge” and also I do “use logic toward more comprehensive understanding of intangible aspects of reality…, focusing on the realm of thought itself.”

All said and done, I prefer the word “scientist”.  I find spirit to be actually quite tangible the more I study it and matter to be less and less the reality.  So I call myself a spiritual scientist.

If I am pinned down to name a life religion I admit very freely to being a Christian Scientist.  For those who need a specific religious definition of the way I think, that explains it as well as I know how on the religious level.  I grew up a Christian Scientist, attended the Christian Science Sunday School and learned the principles of the religion.  In my late twenties and early thirties I decided to explore beyond and commenced a 20-year journey of examination of many of the world’s great religions.  This journey was primarily the result of some very serious and thoughtful research I participated in the first couple of years of that journey using the drug, LSD.

The controlled research that I and a few friends took part in certainly opened our minds to many things never before considered regarding life, consciousness, reality and matter and launched me into even further study of spirituality in areas that did not include drugs.  It became very clear to me that drugs were not the answer, but I will say that they did provide me a fascinating starting point for exploration and launched my bark into immediate waters of wonder and matter/mind-blowing thought.

I then spent a few years as a practicing Hindu and found that religion to be immaculate in its conception, rich in thought, radical in approach and full of truth.  Ultimately I found it difficult to practice it as a western capitalist trying to build a career in show business in NYC.  I don’t know whether that would be true for me today, but decades ago I then moved on to Buddhism.

For a couple of years I studied the Dhammapada, generally accepted to be the words of Buddha, and found these verses to be elegant truths that rarely differed from the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Studying Buddhism was a joy for me because it further substantiated my understanding of the basic truths of Christianity.  There were, of course, many unfamiliar words that in the beginning would scare me and actually put me off until I learned to simply explore the meaning of the word.  Always these strange words constructed in foreign languages revealed to me truths that I already believed and understood when translated into my own language.  Through these studies I learned not to be fearful of words that I did not use or even know and rather look at their strangeness as opportunities to shed new light on spirituality.

I finally came to understand that human language is insufficient to explain the world of spirituality.  It simply was not invented for that world.  And so looking at spirituality through the various lenses of language became a plus rather than a minus.

I studied Confucianism, Jainism, the Koran, Judaism, Taoism, and Bahá’í through those years of seeking and honestly found that basically, they all said pretty much the same thing, but used different words.

I then, while in my mid forties, began to have a number of serious physical problems for the first time in my life.  As I had never been to a doctor, taken medicine or set foot in a hospital, I decided to tackle these physical problems by healing them rather than using the medical route.

I visited a Christian Science Practitioner to elicit his help.  We commenced a three-month series of meetings – one a week – where we systematically did a “spring cleaning” on my thinking.  One visit we would discuss business ethics, the next, self-confidence, the next, sexuality, and so on.  Each week he would correct my thinking and adjust my consciousness of right and wrong.  He was merciless and I dove into this cleaning of my attic with him.  During the week I would practice what he taught.

After 3 months of these meetings I was a better man – mentally and physically.  We never discussed my physical problems at all – only my mental insufficiencies or confusions.  I cleaned these up and committed to a better way of thinking and practicing that thought – a better way of living.

In the course of those three months all of my physical problems cleared up and went away.  I was healed.  There was never any difficulty moving through this experience.  It was all completely positive and I enjoyed the challenge of cleaning up my mind and watching the physical ills disappear as a by-product of that mental purification.

I became a practicing Christian Scientist once again.  However, Christian Science was then the basis of my thinking, the central core, though not the circumference of my thinking.  Since then I have borrowed helpful corrections to thought from all the sources I studied over those years countless times.  Again, truth is truth and I had a myriad of ways to investigate it and look at it.

I have never found this mixing pot to be confusing to my practice and demonstration of truth.  My spiritual seeking continues to this day – probably more than ever as I grapple with life, and become more conscious of my own spirituality.  The more I learn; the more there is to learn.

In the last ten years I have chosen music as my central tool of exploration.  As a life work, music is probably what I’m best at.  I’ve spent a lifetime practicing, so why not use it as the means to explore the objective of utmost importance.  Exploring spirituality through music is really fascinating because music is such a universal language.  It is not limited by spellings and strange words, but is appreciated and loved by all mankind.

Music too is a fascinating science.  Again, the more I learn; the more there is to learn.  The two, music and spirituality, seem to go hand in hand for me.  One complements the other.  I am a more spiritual man when I’m creating my music and I’m definitely a better musician when I approach the creation of music spiritually.

I am also always at my best as a person when I am in the studio writing, arranging, orchestrating, etc.  There I am the happiest, the most fulfilled and the least stressful.  Trouble just seem to fall away when I walk into my studio and I find myself doing everything I can in life to get to work musically.  On days when the rest of life gets so hectic that I can’t do that work, I struggle.  On the days that I work, I am fulfilled.

Still some things to be learned here… )

So I am a spiritual scientist/philosopher/musician.  Being a human being is far too often a struggle.  Here is where I need to improve and learn to manage life.  Here is where I’m still stuck – earthbound.  Both The Missus and I now discuss daily how we can approach these issues of humanity more gracefully and productively.  Here is where the problems lay.  Here is the next plateau of concentration.

In the meantime, however, I have my joy life, my world of peace, creativity and fulfillment to enter into and explore.  My gratitude abounds for this space in thought.  I am divinely fortunate.

I don’t know what I can accomplish during the rest of my time here on Planet Earth, but I do know that I am committed to this one endeavor only – scientific spiritual seeking through music.  Everything else pales in comparison.  Eating, sleeping, the laborious minutiae of everyday life all are just things to work through so that my true commitment can be practiced.  The human experience is a stepping-stone to the divine.  We’re trying to make those steps shorter every day.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• When Things Go Wrong
• God Is doG Spelled Backwards
• The Atheist
• Loving God
• Phoenix Rising

Fact of the matter is that it’s one of those few things in life that is black and white.  It’s either the truth or its not.  If it’s not, it’s not truth-full and so the part where it’s not the truth, is the lie.

A white lie is often told to protect someone’s feelings – like when your wife just spent $250 at the beauty parlor and had her hair cut and the goofball ruined it and she comes home proudly, but looking like somebody else, you say, “Hey honey, you look real cute.”

Fibs are harmless lies that really don’t matter like telling your neighbor that you didn’t come to their party because you weren’t feeling well when you really went out to a movie instead.  Fibs and white lies both fall under the same confusing category.  The term “white lie” is pretty laughable when you think about it.  Does the word “white’ make it OK?  Is the lie more pure because it’s white?  Is it cleaner?  Pretty confusing.

And then there’s exaggeration – a fault that I’ve been accused of probably too often.  I like to say when accused, “Well, I’m in show business.  Think of it as promotion – making the success or the adventure or the story just a tad more interesting or dramatic or even a bit more heroic.  But truthfully, I’ve learned to see that they’re all just a bunch of lies and that, essentially, if we slow down and think things out and live higher and more noble lives from moment to moment, we do not have to lie.  Lying is just really a bad habit.

And then there are the inveterate liars…  These are the people that have a disease – a dis-ease with the truth.  They lie so often that they lose consciousness of the truth and lose the ability to discern between the two.  Their lying becomes so habitual that they lose their connection with the reality of the truth and lie so often that they begin to believe their own lies  — in essence, they lie so much that they even lie to themselves about lying.  A vicious circle.

In my life I’ve suspected several and absolutely identified two.

One was a man who I worked with for many years.  He was a fine musician and we had a great partnership in music, a great musical simpatico between us and a terrific collaboration that always resulted in powerful production.  I loved him like a brother and we were joined at the hip.  But I began to watch him lie and not know what to do about it.

Confronting a liar is very difficult.  It’s easier to confront a thief or a murderer.  With a thief, you point out the stolen money in his hand and if you catch him red-handed, you’ve got the material proof.  With a murderer you’ve got the body or the gun or the fingerprints.  But with a liar, it’s all a bit nebulous, and usually a liar can and will back up his original lie with another ten to do anything he can do to wiggle out.

Even the experts say that confronting a liar is a near impossible thing.   It’s very hard to make it stick and ruins the relationship and destroys the moment.

With my male friend, his lies became so obvious to me after a while that I would be embarrassed by his effrontery – so much so that I could not even protest the most obvious of lies.  I would stand and listen to him unravel his whoppers and be so flabbergasted that he would actually think that I was dumb enough to believe him, that I could not say anything in retort.  To challenge him would be so difficult that I would just say nothing and walk away shaking my head.

Of course, the more he “got away with it”, the more he did it.  It grew to such proportions that it absolutely destroyed our relationship.  I lost my trust in his center.  I never knew when he was lying or truthful because he didn’t know either.  To him, it was all the truth and to me, they were all lies.

In the end, I stepped away from this friendship and never worked with him again.  I’m not sure he ever really understood.  I think he was very hurt by my pull-back, but I could have never confronted him with the enormity of my doubt and the absolute reality of what I knew to be true.  I’ve realized that I got trapped in his consciousness and, by not nailing him, actually took part in his avoidance of the truth.  In the end he made a liar out of me.

It was an extremely difficult situation and, to this day, I don’t know how I could have fixed it – and so I walked away from the entire mess and never went back.

The second habitual liar that I’ve encountered was a woman that I employed.  She was extremely bright and could have been hugely effective in her job, but she too was such an inveterate liar that she even believed her own BS.  At first she would lie about the things she had accomplished, the promises she had made and the hopes that she offered me.  When none of these came to any reality, she would always have ten more in the ready.  As the lies began to pile up, she couldn’t remember her own lies and would change her stories and when I would question her change of story she would get angry and lie her way out of the confusion.

Because not everything was a lie – there were actually occasional truths mixed in – it took a longer time to see and be able to identify the patterns, but within months, I had seen enough and heard enough.

No one wants a lie to be a lie.  Lies are told to right a wrong, not wrong a right.  Lies are told to make something OK or better or even wondrous.  And so we too want them to be true, but after a while, when we finally see and understand the patterns of lying and suspect, and then know that we’re being lied to, we simply stand demoralized and wait for the next lie to appear.  When it appears, we see it immediately.

With this lady (she was no lady), as much as I wanted her to be successful, as much as I needed her to be successful, ultimately she was hollow.  There was no real substance to her.  It was all false fabrication.  I kept wishing it weren’t, hoping that some of the promises made would come true, but ultimately she was simply ineffective because she was so distant from the truth.

Even when I would confront her with the hollowness of her words and the failures of her so-called efforts, she would weave such a tale of falsehood to get out of the trap that she had gotten herself into that there was nothing I could do except relieve her of her duties and ultimately her job.

The saddest thing about the whole mess was that she was so caught up in her lying that she absolutely believed herself.  That was what was so wondrous to me.  She would say things that we all knew were wild fabrications of the imagination and absolutely believe them.  She was so used to lying that she instantly bought her own lies lock, stock and barrel.

I know only one way of healing such a condition.  To pray about it.  Stepping away from the person , as I did in both cases, let’s be clear, was not a healing solution.  It rid me of the problem to a great extent, but it did not heal the error.  A habitual liar has a mighty problem to deal with and it’s tougher, in a way, than a cancer.  A cancer you can see, you can feel.  It becomes something you have to deal with.  It confronts you.

Lying, on the other hand, is something that when confronted, the habitual liar simply lies their way around and lies their way past.  Ultimately this is a problem for a power greater than I.

Perhaps if I were a sharper judge of character and could nip it in the bud in the beginning that would help.  But we don’t want to start new relationships that way – looking for the untruths.

Perhaps if I were more centered myself and closer on a more consistent level to the absolute truth moment to moment this would help.  Sounds like I got something here…

Identify more with the truth.  Live the truth more fully.  Attract the truth.  Raise the bar.  Set a higher standard of truth around you.  Purify the atmosphere.  Demand honesty both from within and without.

Dictionary definition of lying: To pretend with intent to deceive.

Pretty damning…

Physician, heal thyself.

NOTE: You have just read Peter Link’s 400th Blog Post.  Cause for some form of quiet celebration among readers… )

Even More Inspiration

• Spiritual Scientist
• Words Of Wisdom
• The Atheist
• The Changing Scene
• Send A Signal
• Through An Open Door

I’ve always been curious to meet an atheist.  Whenever someone announces themselves as one, I always try to take a moment (or often many more) and discus their atheism with them.  I like to first start with the obvious question, “Define God?”

I’ve had this opportunity 15-20 times in life and it’s always been the same experience.  Once they’ve explained their definition of God to me, I’ve always found myself saying back to them the same line: “Well then, I must be an atheist too because I don’t believe in that god either.”

Often the definition portrayed is archaic, anthropomorphic, and usually something taught them by confused parents or Sunday School teachers, but always ideas that I find equally hard to swallow.

Can this be the most misunderstood word in the human language?  Quite possibly so.  I’m not here to rectify that.  I have had an evolving, ever-changing struggle with the concept of God for over a half a century now.  I’m not at all sure what God is, but I do have a feeling for what He, She or It is not.

A guy in the sky with a long white beard?  No.  A He or a She?  No.  A Father/ Mother?  Sort of…  An infinite and eternal concept?  Probably.  Love, Life, Truth, Being, Interconnection?  Yes.

I saw an amazing video presentation on my TED app last week by Alexander Tsiaras called “Conception to birth – visualized”.  It’s a talk showing human development from conception to birth and beyond.  Mr. Tsiaras is and associate professor at Yale and presents a beautiful and compelling talk and video on birth.  In it, he states that, as a scientist, before he explored this project, he was essentially an atheist, but that in the course of working on the project, he realized the absolute necessity of a higher power.

As I watched his wondrous video, I too saw the absolute of God.  The biological mechanism that produces each of us, the mathematical structure that forms the fetus from the two cells of egg and sperm, the absolutely miraculous evolution of egg into human person he explains is mystery, magic and divinity.  The intelligence behind this marvel called birth is so staggering that it can only be the result of some higher power.

Now I’m not sure where to put all this material result of matter molecules forming human beings, because essentially I see this human experience as an illusion – like a dream – and basically unreal in the first place, but here is a most compelling drama played out for thought.

Where does all this material existence come from in the first place?  Or is there a first place to begin with?  If it isn’t, then it didn’t come at all and isn’t really here.  Whoa…  Getting pretty deep here, Pete.  In so deep I’ll never get out.

But simply looking at this material existence – at the wonders of the human body, the infinity and scale of the cosmos, the organization of nature, the breakdown of matter into its relative nothingness, the wondrous, unexplainable and inconceivable concepts that we pass through daily and take so for granted, how can anyone with a thought past themselves not see that there is something out there, in there, everywhere that is not controlling the organization and ebb and flow of these staggering concepts.

Something is in control of all this even when things seem out of control in our own lives.  Something is still in control of the building and sustenance of life, of the evolution and organization of nature, of the revolving of our tiny planet around our small sun, (much less the creation and disposition of the many universes around us).

It is all so far beyond us, so far beyond the confines of our limited thinking and understanding – even our own brains that we carry around in our own heads are pitifully understood.  And yet it all goes on working.

I sat in an airplane last month and watched the cars below all stay in their places on their side of the road and not run into each other – thousands, millions of cars all staying in their lanes – millions of drivers avoiding instant death moment to moment driving home after work.  Something else was clearly in control.  Sometimes one of these millions breaks the rules and swerves out of control, but trillions of moments go by as the universe works and inside each of those cars sits a man or woman focused on something totally different than staying alive – their love affairs, their shopping lists, the music on the radio.  They all naturally stay in their lanes within the laws of organization and only rarely does the system break down.

From my perch in the plane, all those tiny headlights traveling at 70 miles an hour, all making it home to dinner spoke to me of God in control of His/Its universe.

And so I say to all of you self-proclaimed atheists out there, “Redefine your god concept.  If you don’t like the name, call it ‘dog’.  I don’t care, but open your thought to a higher power, a universal organization, a force of nature – something beyond yourself that is perchance in control.

We do not live in chaos no matter how chaotic our lives.  We live in the immaculate organization of matter molecules and constituent masses so perfectly organized around us that we take the whole thing for granted moment to moment.  To whom do we owe that?

Next time you take a breath.  Next time your eye blinks.  Next time your heart beats.  Next time you smile. And on and on and on…

Even More Inspiration

• Spiritual Scientist
• God Is doG Spelled Backwards
• Words Of Wisdom
• Loving God
• Thoughts On Thinking or Thinking Makes It So
• Straight ‘A’s

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

And it’s a good song.  I know it is, because it’s been running around in my mind for several weeks now.  I wake up singing it and wonder for a moment where it came from and then realize, “Oh yeah, that’s that song!”

The client keeps coming in when I’m finished with my latest iteration and she sits and listens and nods her head as I play it for her and then when it’s through we nod and agree that we’re not there yet.

In the original session, her pianist and writing partner came in and recorded the piano and she the scratch vocal.  They were kind of ornery with each other when usually they’re a happy team.  I stayed pretty quiet as he kind of ran roughshod over her as they worked and he laid down the piano part and she sang the scratch vocal.  It was not an inspired session.  At one point I remember exclaiming kind of in fun, “Boy, you two are like an old married couple.”  The session was more about their momentary troubles than the song itself and the song was basically a love song!

As he got more and more depressed and actually meaner to her, she became nervous and hurt, embarrassed and withdrew into an uncustomary quiet.  But we were getting the work done.  He’s a fine pianist and though he was not particularly inspired that day, his playing was solid and mistake free.

When the session was over I was relieved to move on in life.  I began, several days later to orchestrate the song using his piano track and her scratch vocal as a base and it all seemed to go downhill from there.

It has seemed that no matter what I tried with this good solid song, I could not seem to capture the spirit of the love relationship in the song.  I’m sure, by now, you’re all thinking, “Well, no wonder, Pete.  There was no love in the song’s performance.”  True, but there is a lot of love in the song’s writing.  The song comes with huge armloads of love generated by the lyric, melody and harmonies contained therein.

I woke up yet again this morning.  The song was on my mind.  I lay there in my half sleep as it drifted through my mind, free from its troubled past, centered in its character and intent and simply expressing its original concept of one loving another.  Then I got it!

The recording I was working with was too fast!  The tempo was simply going faster than it really wanted to go.   I knew this because the tempo in my head this morning was about 10 BPM (beats per minute) slower than the track I’ve been working with.

The intent was rushed on the recording because the performers were not centered, the pianist really wanted to finish and go home and the singer’s mind simply wasn’t focused on the love of the song, but rather the awkwardness of their present relationship.  At the time the song was new to me, so I was more focused on the technical – watching the meters, getting the piano recorded correctly and laying down the vocal with no distortion.  The rest of my mind was struggling with their troubles and my concentration was divided.  Besides, they wrote the song!  They ought to have a good feel for the right tempo.

But they didn’t.  That morning in the studio, they weren’t centered in love, they were both in a hurry to get through and out of each other’s presence and so the real “doing” of the moment produced a rushed, unfeeling track and confused vocal performance.

Art reflected life.

Going too fast.

How many times do we say that to ourselves?  “Slow down, Pete, you’re going too fast.”

It all got me to thinking…

I’ve been working on a life.  It hasn’t been working.  I’ve tried several different approaches – and nothing I’ve done has seemed to bring this life to its realization supporting the meaning, content and intent of the life.

And it’s a good life.  I know it is, because it’s been running around in my mind for many years now.  I wake up singing it every morning and wonder for a moment where it came from and then realize, “Oh yeah, that’s my life!” 

In the original concept, the life was laid out ahead of me in a pretty clear plan and the basic construct of this plan worked well, but as I’ve gotten more and more into it, it’s taken on a much bigger picture – probably bigger than I could handle.  And things have started to go south for me. 

So many projects, so much to do, so split in my daily activities and so often behind the ol’ eight ball.  It (the life) was exciting and the accomplishment was demonstrable, but the happiness was only found in the song writing, the music making.  The rest was far too pushed, far too rushed trying to get a massive list of things finished so I could keep up with the massive list accumulating every day, every hour, every minute.

I woke up yet again this morning.  The life was on my mind.  I lay there in my half sleep as it drifted through my mind, free from its troubled past, centered in its character and intent and simply expressing its original concept of one loving another.  Then I got it!

The life I was leading was too fast!  The tempo was simply going faster than I really wanted to go.

The intent was rushed in this life because the performer was not centered, the doer really wanted to just finish and go home and simply wasn’t focused on the love of the life, but rather the awkwardness of the rushing from one moment to the next.

I’m going to slow it down now and get back in the groove.  This life is a love song and that love has to be reflected and can only be reflected if first I am centered and in the moment, not in a hurry, not caught up in the madness of the scramble, but rather in the true rhythm of the moment. 

I’m going to find a new tempo.

Life reflecting art.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Chanting/Enchanting
• Valentine Thoughts
• The Decline of Lyrical Craftsmanship – Part 1
• Attention Span
• Spiritual Scientist

Back then, LPs were large enough – approximately 12”x12” – so that the cardboard cover they came in could have all kinds of information about the music and the artist.  I remember to this day literally paragraphs of my Ellington At Newport (Jazz Festival) that I played and read until the grooves wore out.

Back then they even gave a Grammy for “Best Liner Notes” each year.

Then the medium began to shrink – first to the size of a CD and now to nothing more than a digital download of the cover and the names of the songs if you’re lucky.  Lost along the way were other pictures besides the cover, lyrics and especially my beloved liner notes.

Several years back when I started producing CDs regularly I tried to keep the time-honored traditions by releasing CDs with 8 to 24 page booklet inserts.  Inspirational music depends a lot on its lyrical content and I always felt it necessary to include those lyrics and especially give credit to all the musicians, singers, designers, etc. who worked to complete the project.  But the cost of the booklet became prohibitive.

Today a 4 panel booklet CD will cost $1.14 per unit from the manufacturer if I buy at least 1000.  Take that booklet to 18-24 pages and the cost soars to over $3.00 per unit.  There go the profits.

So Watchfire Music and a few other artists turned to the Digi-Book.  What is a Digi-Book?  “A Digi-Book is an electronic version of an album’s liner notes and vital information.  This downloadable digital booklet contains photos, lyrics, and notes written by the artists and producers of the album as well as all sorts of information pertinent to the experience.”

Better yet, go look for yourself!  WFM’s latest is a gorgeous journey of nearly 40 full screen pages of pictures, lyrics, quotes, artist insights and credit material with bios that is visually stunning and completely informative regarding the experience of making the CD and other vital information.

Designed by WFM’s leading designer, Sara Gray, who also did Julia Wade’s Every Day gem of a booklet, this digital package looks fabulous on your computer screen and can actually be printed as well.  If you print, we suggest using Glossy Photo Paper for a beautiful treasured keepsake of the album experience.

But you don’t have to print it to enjoy it.  Backlit from your computer screen, it’s a colorful experience that is sure to delight anyone who is into the music on the album.

Best of all, it’s FREE!  You can download it and send it to a friend in just a click or two.

We even created a new section of the site just for Digi-Books!  Just go to the far right of the Nav Bar and click on Digi-Books.

I’m not going to write much more about it because that would be redundant to the experience, so take a moment or two right now to follow this link and experience it for yourself.

Oh yes, while you’re at it, Buy The Goin’ Home CD!  The whole package is worth far more than the price of admission.  That’s a promise.

We did a soft release last Thanksgiving Day and already, in one week, Goin’ Home is our best selling CD of the year.  I can’t tell you how excited we all are here at WFM at the promise that this CD and Digi-Book holds for the coming months.  We thank so many of you, literally hundreds of people who have already been so supportive of this project.

The package is finished. It’s available now.  We promised it for Christmas and delivered.  It’s a wondrous Christmas gift idea and with WFM’s Send To A Friend capability, it’s the easiest of shopping ventures – all from your easy chair in front of your computer.  Give the gift of music and a perspicacious look at the road to eternal life.

Don’t forget the Digi-Book!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• WFM Listening Room — Series II Opener
• The Changing Scene
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• My Body

Over the last week it’s come to our attention that we’ve been hacked into and others have been sending out posts — both unsolicited and unauthorized — from this blog, Sparks From The Fire.

We’re working hard now to clean this up and clear it up with our blog administrator and hope to be back to normal in the next couple of days.

Bottom line is that you may have and may yet receive blog posts if you have our RSS feed or see a post on the site that we did not write and have not yet spotted and taken down.

We’re deeply sorry for this inconvenience and this sad attempt by others to communicate.

We shall overcome!

Peter Link

Even More Inspiration

• Attention Span
• Spiritual Scientist
• How To Handle A Liar
• The Atheist
• I Stood In The Wings… Part 4
• Tempo