Sparks from the Fire

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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My son, Dustin and his lady friend, Lauren, took me to see Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland for Easter last night and I had a bit of a resurrection.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.  I literally did not want to blink for fear of missing something.

Hats off to Mr. Burton and his fabulous international crew for making this picture.  It could be the perfect story told in 3D.  I fell right down the rabbit hole with that little girl and spent 2 delighted hours in Tim’s surrealistic dream.

The experience made me so grateful for my eyes, so grateful for this magical God-endowed gift called sight.  What a trip – to be able to see!  What a concept!  When you really think about it, it’s our most precious gift besides simply being.

To be born blind must be one of life’s saddest tragedies, but to go blind must be even worse because then you know what you’re missing.

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In the long run, what does it matter?  Christianity’s biggest split seems to me to be was he or wasn’t he.  Was Jesus God?  Just doesn’t make sense.  To me it seems like he was not.

Don’t mean to stir up a hornet’s nest here (or maybe I do), but I think a ton of people here got it wrong.

For my money, Jesus was the way-shower, the exemplar.  He was sent here to be an example for us on the subject of how to live our lives.  He was a human being just like us and that was the point.  He showed us our potential – what we could be if we knew what he knew and practiced what he practiced.

He taught us how to think, how to treat our fellow man, how to heal, how to live.

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Picture of Peter Link???

Yesterday I contemplated the bone head of a skeleton.  I thought to myself, “Is that what I look like inside?”  Pretty weird.  Then I thought of my pancreas.  I don’t think of my pancreas very often.  In fact, I don’t even know where it is.

It’s mine.  I’ve carried it around for over 5 decades and I don’t even know where it is.  I mean, I know where my shoes are and I’ve only had them for about 3 months now.  But my pancreas!  Come to think of it, I don’t even know why I have it!  I mean I guess I’m glad I do, but why?  What’s it for?

Worst of all (or maybe best of all) I don’t even care to learn about it.  So don’t write in and explain all you know about a pancreas.  Mine works fine.  How do I know?  I don’t.  I’m just going to assume.

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A family pastor once said at a funeral. “Ed is like a cracked walnut, the shell is here and the nut is gone.”

I’m back to work on my new CD, Going Home, reflections on crossing over and beyond.

It’s a little tricky sometimes writing music about death. It’s a subject that I’m presently fascinated with, but I’m not looking at it in the usual ways – tragic, sad, devastating and final.

Rather, I’m trying to see the experience from different angles – trying to make some practical sense of it all.

I’m also trying to make the CD an inspiring piece about an experience that we all will face some day and probably don’t consider enough in our lives. Yes, there’s clearly a deep sadness attached to the experience. We usually don’t want to leave and hopefully, there are folks around us who don’t want us to go.

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The Missus and I love the movies. In less busy times we would go twice a week.  Now we rely more on Netflix to serve our passion.  It’s a hobby for me – one of two – the movies and the Yankees.

I love a good adventure and will sit through most chick flicks and even get a little teary-eyed along with the Missus. We’ve also gotten into the documentaries of late because when it comes to the normal everyday movies, well, they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

I don’t know whether it’s me or the industry, but it just seems that there’s really less and less that I want to drag my weary bones to. So Netflix really has been a kind of savior for us. If I can’t find anything new that’s of interest, then I can always go and visit an old chestnut.

Occasionally I take a chance and stumble across something terrific. In the case of The Adventure of English, I did just that. To fortify my new tangential direction as writer/blogger, I decided that this was a title that might even teach me something.

Usually with the documentaries, when they come in multi- parts, I like to break them up a bit and pepper them with a good war story or even a chick flick, but in this case I forgot to check and ended up getting all 8 episodes in a row. I groaned at the thought of going back to English class 8 nights in a row.

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It used to be I would write a song and once it was finished – lyrics and music – then I would begin to look for someone to record it. Perhaps make a demo of it and put it out there. Wait months before someone might pick it up. Then wait again until they recorded it and the album came out. Even then, I might never get the feedback from it. After all, most people never check to see who wrote a song on an album.

In fact, I’ve often found that most people think the singer always writes the songs and they’re often shocked to hear that they often don’t.

As an example, Barry Manilow is a good, solid songwriter, but he did not write his hits. They were written by other guys. Among the hits, which he did not, write are “Mandy“, “Tryin’ to Get the Feeling Again“, “Weekend in New England“, “Looks Like We Made It“, “Can’t Smile Without You” and “Ready to Take a Chance Again“.  Even “I Write The Songs,” for example, was not written by Barry, but was written by Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys.

Barry did write “Copacabana.”

This is to take nothing away from Barry. He’s a great performer with a tremendous career. This is only to give a proper nod to the songwriters who often toil in obscurity.

Well, that said, now it’s a bit of a different world. It’s now the world of the Internet, of blogs and instant messaging and email and instant everything. It may be a lot more confusing, but it certainly is faster.

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I am inspired by my work. For the past year writing this blog, I have gotten up nearly every night and sat here and thought and wrote about what inspires people, what inspires me and just what Inspiration is. I’ve mentioned before that the root definition of the word “Inspiration” is ‘to inspire, to breathe life into”. I’ve learned during the course of this that this is oh so true.

The building and development of Watchfire Music over these past 3 years has been extremely time consuming, to say the least. We’ve all worked our tails off to bring this idea to fruition. For me, it’s been a hugely creative process and I’ve learned more these past 3 years about business than in the previous total years of my life.

But the process has short-changed me as a composer – especially in the last 6 months. I’ve looked down that hallway in my apartment here into my dark and lonely studio and wondered if I’d ever get back in there again. In the course of the last year, until last week, I had written just one song all year. That’s the first time that has happened in many decades.

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