Sparks from the Fire

Note: The following is my response to a recent customer question.  Occasionally we print these to clarify to all what might be otherwise misunderstood.  The question from customer was, “Why can’t the sampled songs on your website be full songs instead of only part of the song?” The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Dear Bart,

Your letter came to me this morning from our customer service department.  I’ve asked that these kinds of responses come to me occasionally so that I could help handle them and help clarify confusions.

As CEO of Watchfire Music and one of its composers I would love that you could hear a full sample of my music on the site, but unfortunately we, as well as the rest of the industry, have learned that if we were to put the full sample on the site, then three generations of people would then steal such and never actually purchase it.

Unfortunately I have to eat.  I’m working on overcoming that limitation in life, but I just haven’t gotten there yet.  As it is, we live in a world where now much of what we create as musicians and composers is either free or stolen because of file sharing and hacking.

Your short note came across to all of us here as critical.  We pride ourselves in our giving.  We sell songs that take tens of thousands of dollars to create for 99 cents in a world where music is now even becoming “free” — thereby reducing our much loved occupations to the level of hobbies.

I guess you got me on my soap box here, but when I come across moments like this of such misunderstanding, it usually, these days, puts me right back on that box.

We do offer every possible tool we can think of to help you discover and understand our music.  Perhaps you might rethink this in terms of going to the movies.  Let’s say they were forced to let you see the movie for free and then, if you saw the whole thing and liked it, then, and only then, you would have to pay for it.

It’s a good analogy. (more…)

I’m going to ask each of you to do something personal, something that will cost you, something that you would do selflessly for us, but something that I can almost guarantee will enhance your life on one level or another.  Ready?  Here goes …

Click here and go purchase Julia Wade’s new CD, Silk Road.  If you like, go listen to the samples first, but please don’t stop there – that’s not really fair to either Julia or me.  The samples are meant to be teasers.  Be teased, then buy it.

It’s a CD that we are so very proud of and have worked our tails off completing for this Holiday season.  It is absolutely some of our best work as a team, and actually everything we do – Watchfire Music, Link Recording Studios, Classes that we teach, The Watchfire Music Listening Room productions (I could go on and on) – is centered around the release of new music in CD form.

It’s why we do all the rest, including our very successful WFM Digital Sheet Music division.  We live to produce recorded music.  I know you know that and just want to take this most special moment to re-enforce the purpose of our lives.

What’s the album about?  It’s about a journey that we’re on down an ancient/modern path/highway.

Where are we going?  Forward – into new and previously unexplored territory.

Will it be a totally new Julia?  Yes and no.  It’s an evolution.  It’s a widening of the highway.  It’s an exploration of new ideas while at the same time hammering the old into new shapes and sizes.

As you who read this blog regularly know, I tend to write long.  This time I’m going to keep it short so that you might take that time to go check out and support us in this precious endeavor.

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for following.  Thanks for listening.

We’re now in the final throes of recording and mixing Julia Wade’s new CD, Silk Road – Inspirational Journeys Across Planet Earth.  Some of the material of this new work was actually started nearly two years ago and then the project was tabled when we developed her Solos CD as a farewell gift to the Christian Science community when she finished her tenure as Soloist in Boston.

But we knew we had something really interesting going in Silk Road and we couldn’t wait to get beck to it.

The CD is due to hit the streets in early December and will be our major impetus throughout the holiday season.  She has just two more vocals to complete, all the orchestrations are completed and by the end of this next week I’ll be half way through the mixing.

It’s simply a most special project.  You’ll say, “Aren’t they all?” and I must answer, “Of course, but this one’s, for both of us, particularly transforming.”

Silk Road marks Julia’s arrival at the threshold of a new evolution in her music.  Her departure from her past carries forth her commitment to inspire through song not only on a sacred level, but also with an in depth look at the issues of our world at large and the individual human condition.

So it’s an album of songs that will continue to inspire her growing fan base with fresh new looks at spiritual reach through songs like Thinking Made It So and Julie Gold’s When He Walks With Me, but it also ventures into new territory dealing with the issues of our world today.

For the first time she now tries her hand at lyric writing and scores instantly with her own thoughts on What Peace Looks Like from the perspective of three children of the world from Uganda, the Sudan, and the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica.  The title song, Silk Road, promises a comparison of the ancient Silk Roads spanning China, Tibet and Europe with the modern day impact of the Internet.

And then there are the songs of love … (more…)

Snoopy, the famous dog, of Peanuts renown and brilliant creation of Charles M. Schulz, was famous, among many reasons, in particular for his writer’s block.  Who hasn’t giggled understandingly at the quizzical look on Snoopy’s face wondering what to write after his famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night …” as he set out upon the writing of his novel perched upon his doghouse roof with his miniature typewriter?

We laugh because we so understand the moment.  It’s a moment that has happened to each of us as we set upon a creative task.  It is a problem of great renown for writers and creators the world over.  For most it’s very real and very much a mystery.  “Why, when I so want to create, does nothing come?  Where is the muse?  On vacation?  How do I get started?

Well, I’m here to tell ya’ that if you’ve suffered from this before, your problems are now over because writer’s block is simply not real.  It’s nothing more than a misunderstanding of the creative process.

A dear friend wrote me just the other day seeking help on just such a thing only he called it “writer’s cramp”.  No matter what you call it, cramp, block or just creative anxiety, it’s all the same big nothing.

Wikipedia states, “Writer’s block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some “blocked” writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. Throughout history writer’s block has been a documented problem.^[1] Professionals who have struggled with the affliction include author F. Scott Fitzgerald^[2] and pop culture cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.^[3]It can manifest as the affected writer viewing their work as inferior or unsuitable, when in fact it could be the opposite. “

Writer’s Block

Interesting that Charles M. Schulz is one of the famous sufferers.

Causes: Again from Wiki, “Writer’s block may have many or several causes. Some are essentially creative problems that originate within an author’s work itself. A writer may run out of inspiration. The writer may be greatly distracted and feel he or she may have something that needs to be done beforehand. A project may be fundamentally misconceived, or beyond the author’s experience or ability.”

I say, “Bah!” (more…)

This is a 3 part series reflecting on an experience I had as a much younger man as an actor playing a lead role on CBS television’s daily soap opera, As The World Turns.

A thousand or so years ago I graduated from college and came to NYC to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater not to be an actor, but to learn the craft of acting so that I could be a director in the theater – my ambition.

Upon graduation from a two-year course at the Neighborhood Playhouse I actually tried my wings as an actor for a couple of years with some success.  Acting, mind you, was not my primary ambition, but here I was in NYC with an acquired skill and, after all, I had to eat.

I spent the summer upon graduation having some remarkable luck doing television commercials – Dentyne, Tropicana, and, as memory serves me, even one for a small new computer company with the weird name of Apple.  I was not at all the best actor in my graduation class, but, looking back, I guess I was just the right look at the right time.

I also had the beginnings of a strong craft under my belt taught by one of the greatest acting teachers in the world, Sanford Meisner.

That summer, as luck would have it, I did 10 national network commercials!  My agent was thrilled.  I was hot!  In demand – and I’ll never really understand why.  But I was out there “doin’ my thing” as the saying went at the time even if “my thing” was :30 (second) and :60 spots of acting.  Nailing my lines down was never a problem in those situations.  After all, how much can you say in that short time span to begin with?  Usually it was just one or two lines.

In the Dentyne commercial it was, “She’s got the freshest mouth in town”, a slogan that became nationally iconic for a period of time, though that had nothing to do with the way that I said it, but more to do with the number of repetitions that the commercial got on television.

As the fall approached and I was already becoming bored with my :60 successes (though not with the royalty checks).  I began to look for larger roles.

Here the famous quote, “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it” applies.  My agent called me one day and booked me for an audition for the TV soap opera, As The World Turns. (more…)

In this extremely confusing era of free music where musicians are now finding it impossible to make a living, I often stop and wonder how it’s all going to shake out.  When I walk the streets of NYC nowadays I can always spot a musician.  They’re the ones with a red question mark hanging over their head.

I came across a very interesting set of analytics the other day regarding our business.  Here are a few salient excerpts:

From: Digital Music News

Selling More Than 100 Downloads a Year?

Then Consider Yourself Very Lucky…
Monday, June 18, 2012
by  Paul Resnikoff

Did you sell more than 100 downloads last year? How about more than 1? We spent the morning compiling some statistics related to paid downloads, specifically from 2011, and found some stunningly-lopsided figures…

First, consider these top-level stats, as shared by Nielsen Soundscan several months ago:

• The iTunes Store now has a catalog of 28 million songs.
• Roughly 8 million songs were downloaded just once in 2011, according to Nielsen.
• 94 percent of all songs were downloaded less than 100 times in 2011.

Also it’s a sad fact that of the last 13 million songs that iTunes has posted, only 3 million have sold one more more.  That means that 10 million songs have sat un-purchased.

Times have changed.  We no longer do this for the money.

Most of us never did.

This staggering turn of events has made all of us stop and reconsider our dwindling options on how to eat.

I, for one, have always been most fortunate.  I’m an eclectic writer, I work in multi-mediums like theater, TV, films, recorded music, sheet music and live music, I own my own studio, I run my own record company and I have a great raft of fine musicians and vocalists to work with.  Call it a one-man band. (more…)

Here’s an article posted on CNN just the other day.  When I read it, my heart sank.  The article goes on and on with the same message – how wonderful it is now that music is free and how happy everyone is about it.  Oh that food were free like music!

I was shocked when I read the article that there was not a word in it about what this completely absurd turn of events has done to the poor musicians, vocalists, arrangers, producers, songwriters, recording studios, engineers, manufacturers, publicists, designers, (I could go on and on, but you get the point) out there who have to eat!

I guess I’m happy for Camille Kim, but shouldn’t CNN be a bit more responsible in their reporting to tell the whole story?  This is not a story, CNN, with a happy ending.

CNN) — For Camille Kim, music is life.

On a typical day, the Emory University student spends hours on her laptop, scouring the Internet for the latest music. She uses a site that aggregates music recommendations from blogs to discover new artists and songs, streams them online and then shares her finds with her friends through a Facebook group.

But she rarely buys songs or albums.

“If I really love an artist and I want to support them, I will buy their music,” said Kim, 21. “You can find [music] on the radio and TV, but those songs are chosen for you. The Internet allows you to find your own music. It’s more personal.”

Young listeners like Kim represent a looming sea change for the music industry, which has been in upheaval since the Napster era of the late 1990s. Five years ago, music consumers had to choose between buying a CD or downloading the album. Nowadays, thanks to the rise of music-streaming services like Pandora and Spotify, that choice is becoming whether to download music or just stream it online. (more…)

American Songwriter Magazine’s music critic and blogger, Paul Zollo, has just thrilled us all with his comprehensive and beautifully written rave review of our CD, Goin’ Home – On Heaven and Beyond. 

It appears in American Songwriter Magazine and is most easily found at their website.  You can go here: http://www.americansongwriter.com/category/blogz/paul-zollo-blogz/
to read it, or read it below printed in its entirety.

Having such a powerful review as this will certainly give us tremendous impetus going forward.  It’s long, but incredibly fulfilling.

I just thought that each of you would like to catch up and hear the good news.

REVIEW: Goin Home

AmericanSongwriter.com
BlueRailroad.com

•May 11, 2012

 Goin’ Home
On Heaven And Beyond
Peter Link

By PAUL ZOLLO

It’s a rare and timeless moment, a moment of grace, a drive-off-the-road-and-stop-the-car kind of moment. A time to turn off the engine and listen. It’s not something people do a lot of anymore; even when people listen to music nowadays, usually it’s while doing many other things. But music like this – and sung by singers like this – well, it’s worth taking a moment. This is something inspirational, something brave and new. It’s called Goin‘ Home. 

It sounds wrong, somehow, to characterize this as a celebration of death, but that is what it is: a celebration of the natural grace of death in our lives. It’s about rising above the fear all humans share regarding this final transition. It’s a cycle of songs about the enduring spirit of man, the spirit that lives on beyond our bodies do, the eternal spirit that exists beyond the easy grasp of words, but lives always in music.

The brainchild of Tony Award-nominated songwriter-producer-singer Peter Link, Goin’ Home is a phenomenal celebration of life really, more than death itself – but within this cycle there exists an elegant and inspirational acceptance of death, and ways by which we can realize a true acceptance of death. It’s an album which crystallizes the idea that death is not the end, but a birth into the beyond. Bravely creating a whole song cycle on a subject that few, with the exception of Lou Reed and Jacques Brel, have approached so fully, Peter Link has created a remarkable exploration of human finality, reflecting musically the full gamut of emotion experienced by those approaching death and those caring for and ultimately losing loved ones. There are sad songs here and  joyful ones, and it’s in that span of emotion that the genuine experience of death comes alive. This is not an easy road to walk, but Link’s songs and spirit go a long way in making you feel less lonely walking it.

Because as well all know, no matter how progressively spiritual one’s ideas about death might be, when the time comes – either for a loved one or for yourself – it’s frightening. It’s more frightening than anything, an encounter with the unknown in the most extreme way humans experience. This collection of songs is directed at those at death’s door, forced to integrate lifelong beliefs with an acceptance of the inexorable reality of this transition, and also directed at those forced to confront one of life’s toughest challenges: helping loved ones make a peaceful, fearless transition. (more…)