Sparks from the Fire

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…)

OK, I’ll admit it.  I hit the wall.  A life in Inspirational music is stimulating, intriguing, exciting and yes, even inspiring, and yet there is a point in any endeavor where you just can’t do it 24/7 anymore.  Instead of waking up with energy towards the day, you wake up with a groan and a longing to just go back to sleep.

For me, that’s always a sure sign of wall banging.  I’m definitely a workaholic.  9 hours out of 10 I love my work.  It’s what I’d rather do than anything — especially in the studio where creation is always fascinating and rewarding.  Even that 10^th hour of basic drudgery (which probably comes with any great job) I can normally handle.  Normally.

It’s no longer “normally”.  About two weeks ago I started sleeping less to get in extra hours in order to get more done.  I hadn’t had even a full day of time off for over a year.  I thought to myself, “Well, I love my work; I can do this and get away with it.  Besides, it all needs to get done and it’s on my plate, so I’d just better work those extra hours.

Well, I found out how far I could push myself – and how far I couldn’t.

I hit the wall.

I’ve since been thinking about this wall.  Nobody runs into a wall on purpose.  We hit walls occasionally while driving our cars, while turning corners and even walking.  We hit these walls not because we mean to; nobody does that.  It hurts!  We hit walls because we’re not really watching where we’re going, because we’re not really in the moment of now looking clearly at the future.  If we were, we’d see the wall and stop before we hit it.  Duh. (more…)

5:30 PM, Thursday.  New York City.  I sit at a window bar at Dean and Deluca’s in the NY Times building eating a Greek yogurt and a bag of chips trying to figure out this Inspirational music business and watching the people pour down the street past my perch as they madly scramble towards Port Authority bus terminal trying to get home at end of workday.

People watching.  I got it from my dad who used to take us to the St. Louis Cardinal ball games when I was a kid and then sit backwards in his chair and watch the crowd instead of the game.  Never much of a baseball fan, he found it more entertainment watching the people.  He used to say it was worth every dollar of the ticket.

Now I find that I got the bug as well.  I watch over the course of a half hour at least ten thousand people rush by my window tryin’ to make it to their train, their bus, their subway.  Not one of them sees me climb into their private lives for those few seconds as they pass by.  They’re all far too intent on one thing – goin’ home.

Strangely enough, very few are on their cell phones – ignoring the phenomena of our times.  It used to be that when you saw somebody walking down the street talking to themselves, you knew immediately that he/she was a wacko.  Your guard went up.  You stepped gingerly around them or got quickly out of their way.  No longer.  Now everyone’s a wacko talking a mile a minute into cyberspace. (more…)

NOTE: THE WFM LISTENING ROOM SERIES III CONCERTS HAVE BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL THE FALL OF 2011.  STAY TUNED AND WE’LL KEEP YOU POSTED AS TO THE COMING DATES.

Series III of the Watchfire Music Listening Room begins Sunday afternoon, July 17^th at 4:00 PM with Classical Crossover Sunday Afternoon – something a little different – something very special.  Inspirational music has never had it so good as to be presented most elegantly and professionally at 583 Park Avenue by a whole raft of world-class talent.

International artists such as Osceola Davis, Julia Wade, Gregory Emanuel Rahming and Marianne Moore will be joined by violinist, Alan Grubner and pianist, William Lewis, to present an afternoon of classic musical delights ranging from the works of Beethoven, to Ellington, to Billy Joel.  Don’t know how we can possibly fit such disparity into one afternoon?  Join us and experience for yourself!

The July 17^th Sunday Afternoon concert will be followed by three others this coming summer.  One is still in the assembling process, but others will feature WFMLR regulars Julia Wade, Chieli Minucci, Jenny Burton, Alan Grubner and newcomer to the WFM Listening Room experience, South American string quartet, Sweet Plantain, blending Jazz, Latin and Classic styles. (more…)

The findings of quantum physics are startling to us all.  Well, maybe not to all of us, but certainly to the way the world now perceives matter.  These findings impact the material world dramatically as well as corroborate the truths of the spiritual world that have been labeled as “miracles” for centuries.  These findings are the fodder for an inspirational song I have written these past few days that is being orchestrated now in my recording studio for WFM vocalist, Julia Wade’s new CD, Silk Road.

As American physicist, Barbara Brennan, states in her book ‘The Hands of Light‘: “Through experiments over the past few decades physicists have discovered matter to be completely mutable into other particles or energy and vice-versa and on a subatomic level, matter does not exist with certainty in definite places, but rather shows ‘tendencies’ to exist.  Quantum physics is beginning to realize that the Universe appears to be a dynamic web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns.  If the universe is indeed composed of such a web, there is logically no such thing as a part.  This implies we are not separated parts of a whole but rather we are the Whole.”

This is just the beginning of a whole series of articles, comments, theories and scientific findings on the non-existence of matter.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know what I think about all this.  Here’s just a bit more thought on the subject – not necessarily a scientific approach, but certainly a more poetic or lyrical approach to the subject. (more…)

The WFM Listening Room played to the largest crowd in its history last night as both Jimmy Roberts and Julia Wade spun their magic.  This continuous Inspirational music event is beginning to pay off great dividends to both audiences and producers – for audiences, a trusted destination in NYC where one can go see and hear great talent on a consistent basis and not have waiters in your face all night, not be forced to eat and drink and pay for watered down drinks and over-priced food that you don’t want — and all at a vastly less expensive price.

For the producers, Watchfire Music, the evening has already paid back its initial investment in superb sound system and other ancillaries and is moving rapidly towards a day when the shows will be webcast across the world.  A T1 line (the technology one needs for webcasting large content like music and video) has recently been installed in the venue and now we are just organizing the future towards the implementation of a permanent 3-camera shoot.

People have spoken to me about franchising the WFM Listening Room – the idea of having one in every large city in America, but my feeling is, “Why do this when through the webcast we can reach everyone in the world with a computer?”  I know, there’s nothing like live music and I’m a great appreciator of that fact, but the costs, at this point, of franchising are truly enormous.  Let’s let nature take its course and see how the webcasts, a much more economical approach, will work.

In the meantime, the webcasts are still a lot to get together and require still further investment into additional equipment and staffing.  We’re on our way, but not there yet.  The prognosis is good! (more…)

The selling of Inspirational recorded music is a rough road these days.  The selling of any recorded music is a rough road and it seems that Inspirational music is no different.  It also seems that there are far too many good reasons why – so many that the problem has become very difficult to solve.  Difficult for the entire industry.

Why?  Like I said, the problem is complex.  File sharing does not help.  The fact that many now find their music free and accessible on the Internet at any time and immediately also is huge.  Sometimes I think people are just too busy to listen these days and when they can, there are a myriad free ways to do so and access what they’re looking for.

So we’re all looking at alternate ways of doing business.  At Watchfire Music we are shifting more towards being a digital sheet music company and producer of ancillary music events.  Hence the WFM Listening Room and the WFM Learning Lab.

It’s a changing time and we’re having to change with it – whether we like it or not.

These changes have required wholesale changes within the company.  Focus, leadership, staffing, direction and the day-to-day implementation of just about everything we do has come under careful scrutiny as we fight to survive in a world of evolution. (more…)