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May 2005 My thanks to Lou Risdale of Aztec Music for organising this email interview with the extravagantly talented Linda Perhacs. My review of her amazing album, “Parallelograms” can be found on the review pages of the site. Thanks also to Linda for giving so generously of her time. Linda’s words are in red italics. Dearest Bernie: Thank you for your
patience on this long wait. And, thank you for your great web site! I wanted to set aside some special time to respond to one of your very good questions and I have taken special effort to answer your question # 2. Hi Linda, Thank you for taking the time to answer these, it’s greatly appreciated. 1) Your website alludes to your creative efforts being stunted as a child. What were your earliest influences and interactions with music, and what did they inspire in you? From as far back as I
can remember, I always saw light and colour in music and thought patterns. I
have seen patterns of music, dance, colour and “surround sound” (as we call
it today) or sound and light and colour in 3 dimensional, moving patterns. I
have always seen them as one- like Japanese paintings, all in balance, but
moving like a sound sculpture. I think it was difficult for my parents to
understand me and my early love and reverence I had for our natural universe.
Everything fascinated me! The world itself was singing to me and I was there
trying to get closer to nature! I always
enjoyed reading and some of the books that have helped me are “Brotherhood of
Angels and Men” by Annie Besant and Geoffrey Hodson, “One Day at Teton
Marsh” by Sally Carrighar, “Anatomy of Nature” by Andres Fenninger and
“Way of Divine Love” by Sister Josefa. 2) Even allowing for the wonderful kaleidoscopic freedom of the late sixties in LA, it’s still a long way from a dentist’s chair to the music on “Parallelograms”. I’d be fascinated to hear about the construction of a sound that you must have been able to hear in your head while handing drill bits and fillings to the dentist. In what way were you connecting with the musical scene at that time? What were your major influences? You are asking how composing music could possibly coincide inside the mind of a person while also working in dentistry. Yes the images are powerful, I understand. But let me see if I can help soften these normal human images a bit by answering you in a more complete way. I went to USC,
full scholarship and have a Batchelor of Science degree and was trained in their
dental school as a Dental Hygienist specializing in Periodontics. I am a dental
hygienist, so I work individually with one patient at a time. My work is at the
higher end of a specialty area and it does not involve fillings or assisting a
dentist. I have always worked for specialists in more advanced levels of care. My patients are from
all over the world. And they have brought the world to me- their lives and
stories have greatly enriched my own life and I appreciate them all very much! But your question is
a good one. Having a keen sensitivity to the energies around me, in working with
my patients, I had to learn to counter balance energies. Going off into nature
(remote and wild, preferably) helps a lot! But, on busy work days, this is
difficult. So I had to learn to use my inner spirit while working and to
maintain a meditative or prayerful state while working on patients. This brings
higher energies in and counters any negatives. I had to learn to emanate an
inner balance and peace to not only help the patients, but to also keep myself
clear inside. The central spirit of
the music from the ‘60’s, ‘70’s and even to the ‘80’s was an upward
energy consciousness and not a “gloom and doom” consciousness. We were
into “filling” with the higher vibrational energies and learning how to live
and express from that higher level. That option is still available to all of us
now. And the results indicate that natural balanced ways exist for us all. To
reach those higher vibrational levels where creativity is highest and the flow
of ideas endless, we are MORE creative in spirit when we aim up and allow this
great spirit of life to pour INTO us, and then gloom and doom cannot reside
inside. We are all in an inter- reacting sphere of energy and no matter what we
are expressing, it does affect others! My goal through my songs is to bring
someone more of life, not to take it away. Energies are all
around us. We can either be pushed around by them or we can learn to channel
through them in ways that are helpful to others and to ourselves. At first I was
confused by the complexities of all the energies, so to quiet my mind, I found a
nearby cathedral that was beautiful and quite. I went there often, once I
learned that the atmosphere was so high spiritually and that it literally
countered any build up inside me from the clinical hours. I learned that if I
leaned against the walls, a positive “hum” of good energy would flow through
me. Curious, I started
testing various areas of the cathedral and found the radiant cleansing energy
was highest the closer I moved towards the altar! Curious again, I
began to frequent different places and found that not all places of worship had
the same clarifying radiance of energy, and that the depth of sincere prayer and
meditations of all the people going there seemed to be the key. I also learned
quickly that different patients emanate different levels of energy, both
positive and negative and that I had to be prepared. So I became a student of
energy flow and have studied it very carefully over the years. And, I am always
doing ”inner work” with my mind and spirit. That is why, to me,
music and the healing sciences are one. I see no divisions---I see all as one
whole. I no longer go to work and them come out and do my music, I see them as
one continuum- one whole process. I express both all
day, everyday, from an inner centre and awareness that healing and music are one
expression combined. When I walk into a
room to touch a person to help them in healing, it is all an energy of giving
and working together to draw the best out of both of us towards a positive goal-
healing. I express music
similarly – it is a wholeness of expression aimed towards others in hopes that
it will help bring more “a-tune-ment” to those able to receive it. When we are in love
with the energy and light in the universe, we are in love with Love itself and
see this as a natural expression of oneness in all of life’s endeavours! This
light pervades everything! A leaf! A wondrous Mountain! An open sky ablaze with
colour! A human face! An ice flow with light pouring through it! This light is LOVE-
Gods endless creativity all in one fusion, and it is in all of us. How can we ever be
empty or bored? There is too much to explore and experience and express. Love is
almost a lost word in our contemporary, worldly sophistication and yet it is the
very fibre that holds all things together and gives balance and strength to all
life, and certainly brings us greater creativity and energy in all we do. 3) Could you please talk briefly about the recording process for “Parallelograms”? I became friends with
Leonard Rosenman, who at that time was a very well known film composer and his
wife through my clinical work as a Dental Hygienist. We all enjoyed each other
so much and one day, Leonard said, “Linda, I can’t believe that all you do
is your clinical work with patients” and I said, “Well, I travel a lot, out
into the wildest natural places and I have a very creative husband (then) and I
write little songs”. And he said, “Would you let us hear the songs because
we need inspiration. We have more assignments than we can take to do for movies
and TV scenes.” So I agreed to bring
him a little homemade tape. They called me the next morning (Saturday at 8 AM!)
and said, “How soon can you get here? These are beautiful!” I walked into their
home and entered an incredible sphere of musical imagination; speakers playing
sounds I had never even heard before! It was wonderful! I explained the
song “Parallelograms” to him and how I envisioned it. I drew it in picture
form saying it needed to be a moving sound- sculpture. He got a very
serious look on his face and said on the basis of that alone he would see to it
that an album of my music was recorded and he would produce it. That is how it happened. And the album was created from the beginning without hype or promotion. It was done with love and inspiration by people who were happy just to create music. 4) Were there live shows to support “Parallelograms” at the time of release? How did such a wonderfully original and creative piece of work slip through the cracks? MCA did
absolutely nothing to promote “Parallelograms” either before or after it’s
release. I was never considering doing any “live” shows although I had a
chance to do so. I think that I felt it best to not “give up my day job”
under the circumstances! The final run on vinyl was so poor I really didn’t
think that anyone would enjoy it. I heard nothing of reviews, good or bad, or
had any feed back for that matter of any kind after the release. I thought it
merely faded away on it’s own. 5) I guess the obvious question is what happened between the release of the album, and your legendary reappearance with the master tapes tucked under your arm? Until
five years ago, it was unknown to me that this album was still selling all over
the world. When Michael Piper (The Wild Places) finally found me after an
exhausting search on his part, and had shown me his remastering of
“Parallelograms” on CD, and told me about how popular the album was after
all these years, THEN showed me E mails from people all over the globe, I was
stunned! The tapes I had were not the masters, but were good enough for another
reissue of the CD with additional tracks that have never been heard before. 6) Given the timeless nature of the music on “Parallelograms” and the interest its release is generating around the world, are there plans to a) tour to promote the CD and b) produce a follow up? If there is a tour,
then it would be to promote the new music that I am currently working on and
what I am calling “Parallelograms- 2005”. I cannot tell you just how
flattered I am in knowing that “Parallelograms” has so much interest world
wide and I cannot tell you just how grateful I am that “Parallelograms” has
such a wide and appreciative audience! All these years I
have known that we did not yet have the necessary equipment or the technology
musically to do “Parallelograms” to it’s full extent. This spring, 2005,
Ron Shore (www.musiccomposer.com) of
LA helped me to realize this dream by using today’s equipment to re- do this
title song. (If you go to that web site, there is a demo version that can be
listened to). It is amazing!!! And,
it is finally what I saw interiorly years ago when I created this piece. I do
hope to release this cut very soon. Ron is a genius and this new “Parallelograms 2005” using today’s equipment and surround sound has sounds that are really both wild and wonderful! And, they are exactly the sounds I originally envisioned years before this equipment was available. The middle part of
“Parallelograms 2005” really goes out into the universe and you go with it
as the sound creates circles and semi circles and parallel sounds all around
you- it is kind of a journey in the ethereal and the beautiful; sometimes a bit
eerie, yes, but it has harmony and a soft ethereal quality that leads you out
with a cadence of rhythmic guitars and voicings. It was always meant to be a
composition of multi- dimensional sound, colour and forms and light. (Earphones
are a MUST!) Soon, I hope to complete a Visual Journey to go with it via DVD--- 7) Do you think that if you were just creating “Parallelograms” now, you’d have the opportunity to record it, or has the industry become so controlled that pieces of such genuine originality would simply get buried? Bernie, somehow I
have the feeling that “Parallelograms” simply did get buried 35 years ago.
Unless recording company contracts have changed drastically over the past three
decades, the artist has no rights to anything they produce under that label
after they sign the contract. I have no idea what went on behind the closed
doors of the corporate, but I am forever grateful to Leonard Rosenman for taking
a risk with me in producing “Parallelograms”. He must have been able to see
potential in my work, otherwise I don’t think I would have ever had the
opportunity to work with the wonderful and talented people I had in that
recording studio! Thank you again for your time, and thank you for such a wonderful, entrancing and inspiring piece of music. Whatever led you to bring the master tapes into the world, I for one, am very grateful. Warmest regards from Australia, Bernie Howitt Thank you for your
interest and wonderful web- site! Much Love, Linda |