Podcast Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to Takin a Walk, an excursion to converse, connect, and catch up at a cool location with some of the most interesting people you can find. Here’s Buzz Knight.
Buzz Knight:
We’re here at beautiful Hudson Valley, New York, in the town of Rhinebeck. And I’m so excited to be taking a walk with the awesome Peter Himmelman, Emmy and Grammy-nominated songwriter, author, artist, founder, and one of the coolest people I can’t wait to meet up with, to take a walk.
Buzz Knight:
Well, Peter, I am so excited to meet you and I’m so excited to be taking a walk with you.
Peter Himmelman:
It’s a good day for a walk. I wouldn’t say it’s frosty. I’d say it’s bracing. I’m trying to get these donkey’s attention. This mother and daughter donkey sat up. I don’t have a carrot with me, but sometimes she’ll come without a carrot. I’ll sing her a song.
Peter Himmelman:
Hey, donkey. What’s going on? Tan and brown donkey. Could be too early in the morning. That song wasn’t really… It didn’t seem to really excite her. We’ll move on.
Buzz Knight:
They didn’t have their coffee. The song was good.
Peter Himmelman:
No, they didn’t have their coffee.
Buzz Knight:
I think sometimes the coffee is the key, especially for the donkeys, right?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah, they need something. The thing about donkeys, is just like they say, just like the stereotype, they’re stubborn. You can’t really call them or boss them around. They’re also very intelligent. And they also need to have, if you buy a donkey, you need to buy two, because they get really lonesome.
Buzz Knight:
Well, Peter, I am so glad to meet you. And so excited that we’re taking a walk. Thank you so much for the time.
Peter Himmelman:
Well, it’s my pleasure. It’s a beautiful day. I was prepared for a downpour, sleet, hail. Reminds me, too, once I read one of these books that people read in the bathroom. It was called Wisdom for Men. And I’m like, “Well, you’re in the bathroom. You’ve got time. Well, what’s this all about?”
Peter Himmelman:
And it was not so great. But there was one thing that caught me. And it changed my entire life. Just one little thing. There’s no such thing as bad weather, only different types of weather. And all the weather is good. Sometimes you say, “Well, it’s a crappy day out.” No, it’s really not. Is a gray, silvery sky that much worse than a sunny sky? No. So, it’s made me open up to whatever the day brings, just a bit.
Buzz Knight:
So, how do you use taking a walk to help you in a creative process, or just how to start the day off?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. I walk a lot, aside from other physical activities. Walking is… Well, first of all, I think I have a tendency, like a lot of people these days, to be completely lost in my intellect. But there’s something about the visceral part of our being, the temporal part of our being, that gets into the pictures. It naturally should when you’re walking. And that actually influences the thoughts. It calms them down and makes things a little bit more clear. Think of things that you wouldn’t think of otherwise.
Peter Himmelman:
It’s almost like Jane’s Addiction, in the shower, thinking, I always liked that song. Everyone does it. That has to do with the idea of, at least the concept of why is it that people have thoughts in the shower? It’s not often. It’s not uncommon. But it’s not often that we’re nude and have this warm water falling on our bodies. It causes a differentiation in experience. And therefore, a differentiation in our thought process.
Buzz Knight:
I was thinking of two things, for me personally, that interfere with taking a walk. I don’t know if this resonates with you. One is, you’re off on that walk. And then, suddenly discover, “Oh, my God, I got this pebble in my shoes.”
Peter Himmelman:
I had a pebble in my shoe this morning. Well, you got lace-up shoes, so that’s different. I just got a boot. And I kicked it off.
Buzz Knight:
And then the other one, the dreaded, the sock that’s misbehaving.
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. Now, here’s my experience with the misbehaving sock, which I had this morning, as well. It usually lasts only about a minute-and-a-half. It calms down very quickly. Let’s see. We can walk over to the pond. And see, this is where, this morning, there is this semi-mythical creature, although it’s real, just gives the illusion of being mythical, called a blue heron, which alighted here on this pond. There it is.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, yeah.
Peter Himmelman:
That’s the other one.
Buzz Knight:
Look at that.
Peter Himmelman:
There were two of them.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, my God.
Peter Himmelman:
Yes. See what I’m saying?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Peter Himmelman:
It almost looks like a pterodactyl or something.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, yeah.
Peter Himmelman:
With softer feathers. Amazing.
Buzz Knight:
Spectacular.
Peter Himmelman:
And you wonder, how does it get aloft? And yeah, that’s it. I don’t know. Its pal took off about 15 minutes earlier.
Buzz Knight:
And when you see a sight such as that, doesn’t that set the day up?
Peter Himmelman:
It does. Especially that. I always think that it’s a good omen.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, wow.
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. We can make up what it is. We can just improvise, that something that feels very weighty and gray, actually can be very light, and can transcend all sorts of heavy problems, and things like that. It turns, and looks at you, and winks. Blesses the whole day.
Buzz Knight:
I love that.
Peter Himmelman:
I don’t know that it winked. But maybe it did.
Buzz Knight:
I’d say it did.
Peter Himmelman:
Maybe it did. Yeah, it did. Probably winked.
Buzz Knight:
I say it did, for sure. Wow.
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
So, do you have a particular time of the day for you, that you find your most creative time?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah, it’d probably be like this, in the morning. I like to get going pretty early. I have a set routine every day, get up, and I do some prayers every day in the morning. Takes me about 45 minutes. And maybe I’ll exercise a bit or walk. And then I get to work. I answer letters and emails, and write a bit, strum a guitar. It’s kind of like a fireman, the life of a musician or artist. It’s a lot of sitting around, [inaudible], waiting.
Peter Himmelman:
When the fire bell goes off, maybe that’s analogous to a gig. Or you have to deliver a song or write a song. Then you’re on it. But there’s a lot of… I wouldn’t say it’s just wasted time, but it’s time spent in thought. And in some ways, because people have such harried lives, they almost count on, well, what is a [inaudible] from an artist who has, in her life, time to reflect? This is her vocation. And they almost do that kind of work of reflecting for us.
Buzz Knight:
It’s a gift, right?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. It’s an expensive gift, too, because there are other opportunities, I suppose, for people with jobs that have more security or pay more. It’s not for everybody. It’s not for the faint of heart, I don’t think.
Buzz Knight:
When you got back after all the break from, I won’t even the word, but that thing-
Peter Himmelman:
I’m glad you didn’t.
Buzz Knight:
… that kicked us off the grid, when you came back to those first performances, I know you had one at City Winery, as an example. How did that feel? Can you describe that?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. There has just been a few of them. Right before I was going to do the gigs, as I’m practicing, I thought, “Well, man, this could almost be emotional.” I don’t know. I was just thinking that it might strike me as, not having seen a friend for 50 years or something.
Peter Himmelman:
But being on stage, it was more than that. It was joyous. And it didn’t have all sorts of emotional content. It was simply joyous. And maybe that’s what I like most about being on stage, is this guy, that the inner guy in me that comes out of his cage for an hour-and-a-half. Even now, he is out of his cage slightly, because… Don’t tell anybody, but I’m aware that it’s a performance of some sort. But he’s not quite out of the cage, like on stage. Got to be very transparent on these days.
Buzz Knight:
Yes. But the thing about music, and I’m not a musician, I just love music. But the thing about music that is so incredible, is its unifying spirit. Its ability to lift you up. Its ability to touch you. And I think during, certainly the difficult times, any difficult times, we all come back to music, don’t we?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. Well, we’ll walk this way. And I feel these boots are no longer waterproof. Soaking through my misbehaving sock. The thing about music, not to get too abstract, but it always has interested me. Well, why is music, as opposed to, say, architecture or art or dance, why is music so popular? Why did they make the IPOD? And why are Spotify, not for pictures of sculpture?
Peter Himmelman:
And you could say, “Well, the technology supported music. That’s why we have it.” But, obviously, that’s not the case. The technology was made to fill a desire, the need for music. And the best answer that I stumbled upon, was that music, in that it has no physical form. It has no temporal shape. It’s invisible. Even the sound waves, which essentially, are what music is caused from, they’re not visible, nor do they contain music. They just stimulate the eardrum. There’s something about it on that level, that really connects to something of the spiritual.
Peter Himmelman:
And in some way, that is why every human being, in my mind, is hungry for transcending themselves. The moment, looking for something better, something more, some acknowledgement, all these things have to do with spirituality, at large. We fill ourselves up with all sorts of things, but they never do. They never sate. And things like love, and friendship, and communion, and walking, in the sense of, in nature, feeling the grandeur of things, that’s certainly akin to spirituality. Music, in that sense of it being formless, is exactly that.
Peter Himmelman:
And there’s different kinds of music, certainly. And there’s different qualities of music. So, not every music turns everyone on. But I wake up in the morning, when I start my workouts lately, in the last couple months, and I put on Claude Debussy. And it’s very dream-like. It’s a way to wake up. I might move into a little Lightnin’ Hopkins. And a little Nina Simone. I put on Tower of Power yesterday. The bass player kills me. Sometimes their lyrics seem a little hard, just a little trite. But, man, the groove is so good. And it changes me. It can hypnotize a person.
Buzz Knight:
And it motivated you to take on the Good Songs podcast with your son. Correct?
Peter Himmelman:
Well, actually, what motivated me to do that, is my son has just got a lot of good ideas. He said, “Hey, why don’t we do this father-son thing? And here’s how we’re going to do it,” and everything. I just stood there in front of the mic. So, that’s all on him, my son, Isaac.
Buzz Knight:
But it was out of, certainly, the mutual love of music?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. And just certain ways that he and I have connected, since he was a kid, over music. And the conversations we’ve had about it, both technical and this more abstract, philosophical idea that we’ve been talking about now.
Buzz Knight:
I watched your Impermanent Things TED Talks, which was spectacular. You just have such a command up there. And you told such an amazing story. I really thank you for that. Do you have any future ideas on how to maybe bring something similar forward, to inspire and excite people?
Peter Himmelman:
Well, since 2011, I created this, I guess, you could call it a company. It’s called Big Muse. And I like to just make things. So, I just started it. And I had a thought as to, because my kids were going to school, all into private colleges, one after the other. I’d been doing a lot of television and film scoring. And that was getting a little hard on my back, sitting in a lumbar support chair for 12 hours a day.
Peter Himmelman:
So, I just was thinking, I wonder, could my experience as a musician, having made many records, and toured around in a bus, or a van, or a car, whatever the budget allowed for, could these experiences have yielded insights that might be valuable to businesses?
Peter Himmelman:
And then I found a couple friends, or fans, that brought me into their company. And it’s grown. I’ve done so many different companies now from Boeing, to 3M, Gap, Coca-Cola. Traveled all around the world. And worked with the United States Army. And it’s hard to explain exactly what I do. People want their employees to be more, quote, “Creative.” And creativity is… That’s almost a word, like you wouldn’t say the word for the thing that we went through for two years.
Peter Himmelman:
And hopefully, it’s just two years. Even that word, “Creativity,” you have to use it. But it’s meaningless, in a sense. And to me, it’s a state of mind that is not bounded by fear, that every human being, not that you’re going to be a master, necessarily, at anything, but to one extent or another, if you can push aside your fear of judgment…
Peter Himmelman:
There’s the heron again. There it is. That guy’s got zero fear of judgment. He’s just flying. He’s doing it.
Buzz Knight:
Yep.
Peter Himmelman:
He knows it’s it.
Buzz Knight:
Yep.
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. He knows how to get over those wires, too.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, yeah. No effort.
Peter Himmelman:
No effort. But if you can push that fear of judgment aside, your native creativity will flourish in abundance. So, I do some sessions with music and things. And first, try to get myself into a mood, which that’s the nature of the game. The performer has to be there first and lead the way. And then get others to find some spark in themselves.
Peter Himmelman:
A lot of people in the corporate world, if I ask, “Who among you would consider yourself highly creative?” They often think of people that are creative, as people in the arts. And I do try to make a point, that people in the, quote, “Arts” are often in a very uncreative phase, too, where they’re repeating what they’ve done over and over. So, every human being can consider themselves, potentially, super creative.
Peter Himmelman:
And while there’s not a lot of hands raised in the beginning of the session, “I feel I’m highly creative,” at the end of the session, sometimes I’ll ask, “Has there been a change?” And most of the people are raising their hands. It was gratifying to me. And the sessions can be pretty funny and super emotional. And when we’re playing live and together, I come with a band. And it’s pretty exciting stuff.
Buzz Knight:
I think, now more than ever, it seems there’s a need for what Big Muse-
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
… offers. I think people are down these days in the workforce.
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. Look, the attrition rate is high. People are leaving their jobs. And I could totally understand why. They’re looking for something better, more meaningful. They’re looking at the clock and saying, “How much time do I have here? And do I want to be doing this?”
Peter Himmelman:
I think I was always doing, pretty much, exactly… Should we walk the road?
Buzz Knight:
Sure.
Peter Himmelman:
I thought I was always… We’ll walk on this side. Just for safety, in case giant trucks come around. Thought I was always doing, pretty much, what I wanted to do. And then, if it got a little stultifying, I moved on.
Buzz Knight:
I also think there must be something to the magic of collaboration around music, that leads to workforces understanding the collaborative process, as well. Is that right?
Peter Himmelman:
Yeah. It’s totally identical. Along my journey, because I never went to school, I never went to college, somebody offered me a fellowship to study at Kellogg School of Management at the university at Northwestern University. I was like, “I don’t know. It’s going to be weird. I don’t know the terms, ROI and all this business stuff.”
Peter Himmelman:
But it was really one of the highlights of the last decade, perhaps. And what I learned there, is that everything that they’re teaching, leadership, innovation, resilience, all that stuff, we learn in a van as kids, going around, touring around the Midwest. There’s nothing that they were, except for some economics courses and things like that. But most of it was what we already knew. And in a sense, that you could say, “Well, you didn’t really learn anything.” But the learning there, was more of a sense of confirmation, which is pretty important. This is stuff that you know, and that you had already been through, even though it has another name.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Sometimes labels are just thrown out there. And the true story really is leading life, right?
Peter Himmelman:
Right. The label can be misleading, mislabeling, confining, constricting.
Buzz Knight:
So, in closing, what are you looking forward to about 2022?
Peter Himmelman:
Well, I have a grandchild now, so that’s changed a lot. And one thing we learned over the past couple years is, not that any of us didn’t think family was important, but it’s certainly shined a light on how important it can be. So, spending time with family.
Peter Himmelman:
I have a second book that I’ve finished. I got a note from my editor today. She’s like, “I think we’re done. I think my work is done.” And I had started that book about creativity. And I wrote another book in 2017, called Let Me Out, wanted a follow-up. And the first notes that she had given me, this great editor, she said, “Look, I’ve been through Let Me Out. I’ve been through this book. It’s not about creativity. It’s about spirituality, which was part of the reason it was taking me so long to finish. You have to admit to what it is.”
Peter Himmelman:
So, that’s, I guess called, right now, Grow Gratitude, Reverence, Openness, and Will, the Four Essential Elements of Spiritual Courage. And it’s a lot about what I think about. And it’s a lot about what I talk about in my Big Muse sessions. And it’s a lot about what I write about in all my songs, through three decades.
Buzz Knight:
Boy, that sounds like, first of all, of finishing a book, something to be proud of.
Peter Himmelman:
Hey, yeah, they’re books. It’s not a record album, which you plan in a couple… to do that. This is a big bear.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. So, congratulations on that. And I’m sure 2022 is going to take you to many other different places as part of your journey, but I really am tremendously grateful for you welcoming me here and taking a walk.
Peter Himmelman:
My pleasure, Buzz.
Announcer:
Takin a Walk with Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
About The Author
Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.
After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.
