Sparks from the Fire

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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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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I’m writing you from inside the music.  I suppose I’ll come out sometime, but I don’t know when.  It’s pretty safe in here and I’ll have to admit, I rather like it and sometimes wonder if perhaps I just shouldn’t stay here the rest of my life.

I just spent the last 4 days immersed in the otherworld of notes and sound, strings and woodwinds, Logic and Kontakt, push and pull.  ‘Immersed’ is a shallow description of where I have existed for the last 96 hours.  ‘Lost’ is perhaps more accurate, but I can’t say I was ever lost, but rather ‘found’.

I came halfway out occasionally to grab a quick bite of something to eat or drink, check the Yankee game scores on espn.com, but even that would only be a quick half hour and the song would still be raging through my brain, the ideas still formulating, the desire to rush back into the studio and sketch the next 4 bars overwhelming.

I did sleep in spurts – far from my normal schedule – sometimes in mid afternoon, sometimes catching two hours at 8 and not knowing if it were PM or AM.  I didn’t read my email; I did not answer the phone except to talk to the Missus who was away for 4 days.  I did not go out.  I simply lived in the music.

Even as I write I feel myself slipping out of that world and back into the normal one.  I don’t like the feeling.  It’s really good in there.  There’s no pressure, no sense of time, no sense of place, no interruption of thought, only pure problem solving on the most creative plain.  It’s 96 hours poured into 4 minutes and 30 seconds of song.  It’s building a house from the bottom up.  It’s a kind of madness perhaps, but an exquisite madness.

Perhaps I should explain myself, but to do that would be to further stand outside the experience and I’m not sure I really want to do that yet.  But here goes.  I’m orchestrating and sometimes composing a new album for Julia Wade.  We’ve been really slow to start mainly because of her far too busy schedule and my own duties at Watchfire U.  The CD is long overdue.  She hasn’t done an album in a couple of years and that’s a sin.

How can a singer be too busy to do an album?  Ridiculous!  But I lived it.  I saw it happen and I’m partly responsible.  But cast the past aside; we’ve started – I think.  I know I have and she promises to be not far behind – still clearing out a world of responsibilities.

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Stephen Schwartz - Composer/Lyricist

Many years ago when I was in my mid 20s, I served as composer-in-residence at the New York Shakespeare Festival for around five years.  It was an unbelievable opportunity to learn on the job, get major experience writing for the theater and work with the best people in the business.

Most composers for the theater are happy if they can get a show on and out there in the public eye once every three to five years.  In my five years at the Festival I did music for over 40 productions.

In the course of doing all that work I had the opportunity to meet and work with the best talent in the world in the theater.  At the time, though I often wrote lyrics stumbling blindly along, I always collaborated with a lyricist when it came to anything important.  My abilities as a composer were far ahead of my lyric writing chops.

I remember one evening while there at NYSF running into Stephen Schwartz who was a contemporary.  Steven had written the music and lyrics for Godspell and Pippin and later for Wicked and a host of animated Disney films.  I was looking for a lyricist for a project at the NYSF and asked him if he might be interested in collaborating.

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I first met John Lennon when I was in college.  Actually, we didn’t exactly meet face to face – just heart to heart.

I was on my way to lunch one day when I heard I Wanna Hold Your Hand on the radio.  My life was changed that day forever.

What followed was the greatest musical upheaval of my life – greater than the advent of rock n’ roll, greater than the Kennedy assassination, greater than the Berlin Wall coming down, even greater than Haagen Daz.  The Beatles – a goofy name for four goofy guys who changed the world through music.  Once I heard that song the very first time, I was hooked forever.

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As I sit here this morning high up on the 38^th floor, I look out my window at New York City, 5:30 AM, just barely coming awake – the city that never sleeps.  From my perch here high up over the city I have a spectacular view all the way south from 42^nd street to the Statue of Liberty and beyond New York Harbor to Staten Island.  If you’re gonna live in NYC, live above it all if at all possible.

I’ve been fortunate.  I’ve watched the city grow and change from this perch for over 25 years.  I love NY.  It’s been a lifetime sittin’ on top of the world watchin’ 10 million people go by, but I’d leave now if I could.  40 years of concrete and glass can wear you out on certain levels and sometimes the Missus and I just want to take a walk in the woods.

But I can’t leave this wondrous city – at least not yet.  Most of it I’ve seen now and certainly experienced, but there’s one thing that still keeps me here. (more…)

Part 3 – As an artist:

Perhaps this sub-heading needs further explanation before we start.  On the Watchfire Music website an artist is someone or some group that makes records (CDs, songs).  In this case I’m using the larger meaning of the word.  In my case I am an artist with several hats.  Stick around while I try them on. (more…)

I’m in Los Angeles on Watchfire Music business, a wall-to-wall meeting blitz with my partner, Jim Birch and LA staff planning out the coming year.  While on the plane coming out I once again considered the possibility of death – something that I don’t do with much regularity, but have certainly done a lot more of lately.

No, I’m not about to die, I’m healthy and productive, but the CD project I’m producing and writing now has got me pretty focused on the inevitabilities of life on Planet Earth.  When I got on the plane, I had to chuckle at myself as I considered the danger of what I was about to do for a moment.  I was about to fly through the air – for 3000 miles and then come down at just the right place – smoothly.

The CD project is called Goin’ Home, A Gospel Cantata — Reflections on Crossing Over and Beyond.  It’s a joyous look at death and heaven through the eyes of a number of classic Gospel traditional songs and an equal number of originals.

As I sat on the plane as it taxied down the runway, I went through my usual protective prayers knowing with complete positivity that God was over, under around and throughout that airplane, my mind turned once again to my beloved project as I faced the same danger that millions of people face every day now.  The question, “Could this be it?” came to mind for one fleeting instant and then was drowned out in a rash of denials and better focused positive thought.

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