Sparks from the Fire

Inspirational music is a new category.  5-6 years ago it basically did not exist.  When Watchfire Music first began we googled the words “inspirational music” and up came 4 pages of references.  At about 10 references per Google page that’s about 40 in total.

Today, I just googled the term and up came over 65,000,000 references.  That’s an incredible growth over this short time.  For the past year this blog, Sparks From The Fire, has stood at #1 or #2 on page one of Google just about every time I’ve googled it.  That’s about once a month.  Watchfire Music is nearly always found among the first 3 pages.

It’s taken a lot of work and dedication by a talented staff here at Watchfire Music to keep us up on the top of those rankings.  It’s also taken a lot of writing on my part to stay high on the charts, so to speak.  I must say, I’ve enjoyed it.  Writing this blog has given me a great time to think deeply about life and the meanings of inspiration almost daily.

I sometimes wonder if I’m not writing a new kind of autobiography – like a diary of a lifetime of thoughts and stories.  It certainly has been an autobiography of the last 4-5 years.  This particular post is actually the 350^th that I’ve written these past several years.

Some bloggers write short, terse 1 paragraph posts.  I read several a day and they’re very popular.  Mine are more often 3 pages.  I ask myself why.  I know that nobody has time to read any more and figure that one look at one of my long posts can be daunting to most people.  I try to write short, but I guess that’s just not me.

I could never be a commercial writer as a composer either.  Writing 30-60 second commercial songs was always an area that did not interest me.  I guess I just like to stretch out and try to go a little deeper.

Call it style; call it a reflection of my deranged mind.  Whatever…

At any rate, I’ve enjoyed the ride.  It’s been a chance to think things out and talk to all who might be interested and create a dialogue of thought on the topic of all things inspirational.

Thanks for listening.

“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.  So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.  Therefore is the name of it called Babel.” – Genesis 11

More and more I’m convinced these days that much of the world’s problems lie in language.  If we all spoke the same language, the world would be a better place.  As human beings we all want basically the same things – a full stomach, a roof over our head, love in our life, a chance to succeed and our freedoms of expression.  Most people who have these things are basically happy.  Happy people don’t make war.  There’s nothing to war about.

I’m trying to keep this simple without being simplistic.  But if this were true…

“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.” – Genesis 11

…I think we’d be having a much better time of it.  Consider politics.  How many wars have started throughout history because of a misunderstanding of what was said?  My uneducated guess would have to be somewhere around 90%.

“War is what happens when language fails” – Margaret Atwood

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When we first rolled out the WFM Learning Lab here at Watchfire Music, we thought it would be for New Yorkers only.  Oh, maybe some New Jerseyites who knew us through our Inspirational music site, but basically it would be limited to neighbors.

Well, it turns out that our neighborhood is the world.

One of the great things about NYC is the quality of teaching in the arts.  This is where they come to do it and so this is where the great teachers are as well.  “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” the song goes.  And that’s because, especially in the arts, this city sits atop the flagpole.  The talent here, especially in music, is wondrous and has been so for decades. (more…)

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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Sometimes it’s a little hard to get up and write about inspirational music when the world is facing such trouble.  The man-made stuff like war is bad enough, but it’s the so-called “natural disasters” that really spook us all.

It seems now that every year brings its earthquakes in Japan and Haiti, its hurricanes in New Orleans, its tsunamis in Sumatra and now Japan, its volcanic eruptions, tornados, and on and on.

“Why do these things happen?” we ask.  Why do seemingly innocent people have their lives pulled out from under them year after year?  When does it end?  Are we helpless and hopeless to stop this, to at least control this?

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OK, now you get to use your imagination.  Imagine those multi-colored triangle pennants flapping in the breeze surrounding the marquee “Watchfire Music Learning Lab – Grand Opening”.  Add some triumphant music played by a brass band and people flocking into the store excited to buy.  What are they buying?  Knowledge.

The WFM Learning Lab is now the real deal.  Staffed by top teachers and professionals, here is a specialized music school of most interesting classes developed to further the intricacies of modern music making.  Want to learn how to better your midi rhythm section arranging in your home studio?  Here’s the place to improve your skills.  Want to fine-tune your auditioning skills as a performer?  Here’s the place to get over that hump and start to nail down those jobs.

Most of these classes will be private classes – one on one with the teacher, but a few may evolve into group study though kept small and personal.

Pricing will be kept affordable. Private classes (one on one) will be held at $50 per hour.

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Here at Watchfire Music we like to say that a love song is an Inspirational song.  The category of Inspirational music is just that wide an umbrella.  What’s not inspirational about love?  It’s probably the most inspirational concept in the minds of mankind.

So it would be only natural for me to post the lyric of one of many love songs written over a lifetime.  But instead, I’ll post a new song, a song I’ve been working on for some time now and just finished over the weekend.

As a result of a very powerful healing I’ve just had, I decided in my life work that I needed to focus on loving people a lot more.  In purifying my thought, as I’ve had to do, it became quite evident to me that I simply needed to love more.  Now it’s easy to love The Missus more, but where I needed to focus was on the average Joe or Jane – let’s call it the people of the world – those known and unknown by me.

So I’ve been reading and studying this word “love’ and all its ramifications.

I came across an article written by a Christian Science lecturer, one Grace Bemis Curtis, C.S.B. of Pittsburgh, PA.  In it, she talks in depth about the power of love.  The article became the flyleaf of a workbook that I’ve been carrying around the house from room to room lately as I snatched a few moments to read and study between otherwise activities.

The article definitely inspired the following song that I finished yesterday and presented to The Missus today as a Valentine present.  This wasn’t one of those songs that made her swoon or tingle, but it did touch her heart and she will be singing it in good time.  It’s about the stirring of the human mind to a change of base, to a higher state of thinking.  For me it’s about getting a firmer grasp on my own spiritual sense.

Here’s the lyric:

Love Is The Reason For Living

Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

We dwell in the arena
Of immense conflicting forces
Our lives are swayed by counsel
From a million diff’rent sources
As we near each troubled crossroad
With a rising tide of fear
And wonder what becomes of us
When the tidal waves appear

We cannot help but turn to God
To summon His defense
To stir instead the floodtides of love
His sustenance
His deliverance

And so we strip away the falsehood
From the truth of who we are
And commit our lives
To innocence once again

Love is the answer
Love is every answer
Love is God forgiving
Love is the reason for living
Yes love is the reason
For living

We long to stand the summit
In the pinnacles of spirit
Where death no longer finds us
No and we no longer fear it
And the light of life surrounds us
With its infinite embrace
And love pervades our consciousness
And evokes its change of base

Love is the answer
Love is every answer
Love is God life-giving
Love is the reason for living
Yes love is the reason
For living

Wouldn’t it be great if, before we pass on to wherever we go next, we could transfer our knowledge base from our brain hard drive to someone younger’s brain hard drive?  That way the things we discover and the skills we acquire in this life would not be lost upon passing.  Wouldn’t the human race evolve much faster if this were possible?

Unfortunately we humans have not been built with a USB port located just behind our left ears.  Instead we have to put up with a slower form of data transference called “teaching”.

As we gain knowledge and acquire skills, we owe it to the human race to pass that knowledge on to others.  “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.  ~Henry Brooks Adams

I’ve always loved to teach.  I’m deeply indebted to the great teachers in my own life – most of which were tough, sometimes scary and yet ultimately loving deep wells of vital information.  They passed that food of life on to me in a variety of ways and, thinking back on them, I realize now that each of them had that same central quality – they too loved to teach.

And so, we here at Watchfire Music recognize this necessity to communicate knowledge and have decided to create within the company a center for data transference – the Watchfire Music Learning Lab, a school of sorts, for students of all ages, where specialized professional music classes of a most interesting variety will be taught.

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