Sparks from the Fire

Here we talk about Inspirational music.  Tonight I’m going to talk around it.  Oh it’s in here somewhere, but we’re going beyond the box in our thinking – into the realm of creativity concerning all the arts – not just music.

Here’s a misconception: That the title of this post is antithetical, that the artist has to be completely free in his thinking – that creativity has to have no boundaries, necessitates a completely open field and that we, as artists, need to seek a life of exemption from structure, that we must have latitude, room to maneuver… independence.

I’m one who thinks it’s actually just the opposite.

I think real creativity is about specificity.  It’s the art of narrowing down the field, not widening it.  It requires great defining structure and severe laws that govern each step.  It requires limitation instead of unobstructed freedom.  It’s about discipline.  You have to know the box to think beyond the box.  If you’re going to live on the cutting edge, you’d better know that edge very well.  Otherwise you’ll fall off.

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For those yet unable to attend, we’ll try to bring the Watchfire Music Listening Room to you through the wondrous pictures taken this past concert by friend and follower, John Johnson, photographer extraordinaire – an evening of Inspirational music both inspiring to the ear and eye.

With its graceful arches and most expressive lighting, the two-story space was home this past Friday night to both Chieli Minucci, world-class guitarist and Jenny Burton, a chanteuse of heart-stopping abilities, and their devoted fans.

Located at Park Avenue and 63^rd Street, NYC, even the outside of this gorgeous building promises a rare experience of visual and aural delights.

As the concert begins, the first thing one notices is that they’re not barraged by waiters serving drinks or food, but instead sit in comfortable seats with excess legroom and not a bad seat in the intimate, but packed space.  The ever-changing atmospheric colors of the evening reflect the multifarious moods of the music as light and sound coordinate to present a concentrated music listening experience. (more…)

Albert Einstein

Down in the dumps?  Out of work?  Out of money?  Suffering?  Fighting the matter model?  What you need is to be inspired – inspired to change your thought.  Inspirational music can literally change your life.  An inspirational song can lift you up and rummage around in your mind for days reminding you of the truth even when the material picture around you looks bleak.

When things seem at their worst, they’re not really.  That’s the great thing about goodness.  It’s like light.  It’s always there waiting to be turned on.  You just have to throw the switch.

Buddha

One thing for sure:  Turn on the light and the darkness disappears.  Darkness is just the absence of light.  It’s not some thing; it’s no thing – it’s simply an absence.  You can’t turn on the darkness.  There’s no switch for that.

The same goes for goodness.  It’s just there ready to be goodness.  The turn-on switch is your thinking.  Just throw the switch and the goodness that sits waiting to be appreciated will be there instantly, just like light.  We just have to change our minds. Change our thinking.

“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” — Albert Einstein

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Julia Wade

Last night it was business as usual at the WFM Listening Room.  Both La Tanya Hall and Julia Wade and their Inspirational music ended our week on the perfect notes – notes that soared, notes that calmed and notes that enlivened the soul.

These Fridays are crazy busy for me.  I wake up in the morning on show day and immediately know I’m in for it.  It’s a day of go, go, go until I flop down in my chair at the end of the day.  I won’t bore you with the details, but rather assure you that that’s just what it is – a day of endless detail.  It never stops.

When I get home at night, it’s all I can do to just crawl off to bed.

I’ve been doing this all my life, but it doesn’t get any easier.  Thank God for a great staff and a most professional venue.

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Jenny Burton at the WFM Listening Room

I thought you all might be interested in a recent comment regarding Inspirational music and the frustrations of one of our readers with living too far away from the NYC hub of music.

“I love reading everything from you, Peter, but why can’t we ever hear this marvelous music online? I am nowhere near NYC and have no opportunity to hear any of it!” — Joan

Joan,
It’s the Age of Information — the age of instant communication — if we can ever get cell phones to really work. Though world distances are certainly shrinking, there still remains a problem for some of us mere mortals.

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Jenny Burton

Photographs by John Johnson

Last night’s WFM Listening Room Series II Opener, starring Margaret Dorn and headliner, Jenny Burton, was a howling success.  The new venue at 63^rd Street and Park Avenue, a magnificent, Greek-columned, magically lit, two-story space of grace was just the place for rich music listening.

One happy attendee was heard to exclaim. “Wow, after the week I’ve had at work, I get to come here and be inspired by all this music!”  Herein lies the raison d’etre.  Here is why we do it.

Our crowd was the biggest yet – a tribute to Ms Burton’s drawing power and magical talent.

An instant and lengthy standing ovation followed her performance with audience just a-buzz with what they had just seen and heard as the house lights came up.

Margaret Dorn

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Life Lesson for a Pole-Vaulter

Tonight I shall forego my usual thoughts on Inspirational music and concentrate instead on a great lesson learned decades ago by a young man out on his own in the world for the first time and struggling with life’s many temptations.  I shall kid you not and tell you right from the beginning of this tale that the young man in question was I.  The tale is true.

I was a sophomore in college and at spring break, when all my friends went off either skiing in Colorado or partying in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, I, of pole-vaulter fame, went off instead to get a jump on the track season and practice my skills at the University of Illinois.

I had gone to the University of Virginia my freshman year on a track and soccer scholarship where I had tutored under a great college pole-vault coach by the name of Lou Onesty (interestingly enough pronounced like the word “Honesty”).  As a pole-vaulter it had been a wise decision to learn under this man, for he had been the first true pole-vaulting coach I had ever worked under and I had added a full two feet to my best height that previous freshman year.

Trouble was, though I was thrilled with my progress as a pole-vaulter, I was otherwise pretty miserable at UVA and decided to transfer to a small college in Illinois named Principia College where many of my friends attended.

These were difficult times for pole-vaulters.  “Why”, you must ask?  Because literally three years before, at the end of my high-school experience, the pole-vault world had switched from Swedish steal poles to the new and much improved fiber-glass poles and the world records had shot up as never before.  Now, vaulters, instead of muscling up a stiff steel pole, had to learn how to be catapulted by a flexing fiber-glass pole through the air to greater heights than ever before.

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Here at Watchfire Music we like to define Inspirational music as a very wide umbrella incorporating not only sacred music of all denominations, but also any music that uplifts the mind, that enlivens the soul, that inspires.  So love songs are inspirational, motivational songs are inspirational and even issue songs can be inspirational.

To that end, I have been working on just such an issue song for the last month that has got me lying awake at night.  I can’t get the energies, the melodies, the rhythms and the words out of my brain long enough to go to sleep.  Now its haunting me with both its intent and its intensity.

For the last year now I had been mulling over an idea that intrigued me.  Now it seems to be blossoming full to greet us some time this spring.  I’ve lived with the title Silk Road for some time now.  I didn’t know why I thought it was a song, but I’ve since discovered it in full.

My research discovered that “The Silk Routes (collectively known as the “Silk Road”) were important paths for cultural, commercial and technological exchange between traders, merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from Ancient China, Ancient India, Ancient Tibet, Persian Empire and Mediterranean countries for almost 3,000 years.^[5] It gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade, which began during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE).”

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