Rockhound Rediscovers the Sublime in Music-Making; Shares it through Recordings and Plans for Mentoring Musicians in the Making

Elmer Hartman (left) prepares for session at Killpop Studio, Payson, as percussionist T.J. Billmire (right) looks on.

by Denise Windley

Hid yourself away four million years.
No one knows you're there, kinda disappeared.
And you hid your true colors to this day.
That's funny, I feel the same way!
Like there nothing left to do, nothing left to say.
Tourmaline.. I think I know what you mean, Tourmaline.

-- Elmer Hartman, “Tourmaline”

With a moniker derived one part genre, another part pastime hunting precious gems, Salem artist Elmer Hartman has returned to his passion for creating music.  And he’s doing it at full speed.

Using melodies and lyrics that rouse thoughts and sleep, the prolific musician has spent weeks putting his music down on record. Music he hopes will evoke in others the same awe he experiences when he touches sounds sublime.  He plans also to bring out the music-maker in others through his teaching and mentorship.

Hartman has turned to downtown Payson’s new state-of-the-art recording studio, Killpop Studio.  With his guitar and gear bag in tow, he arrived a month ago to record the first of a series of original songs, a tune that emulates Hartman’s Rockhound soul. “Tourmaline,” as in the semi-precious stone, speaks of subjectivity of value.  “I think that tourmaline is more beautiful than diamonds,” Hartman remarked of the gem he discovered on a hunt, only to give it away.  It speaks of a connection to the sublime that surpasses possession. Original songs, “Losing Control” and “Yours Truly” followed, all of which are personal and autobiographical to the musician.

While his current recordings are elements of rock and roll, Hartman is a classically trained musician whose proficiency extends into a wide range of instruments: Piano, violin, guitar, drums, and vocal cords. He developed his talent through intense training and performance experiences that date back to his youth in the late-1980s and early 1990s, when he cut his teeth performing in the orchestra and drumline with an award-winning high school marching band.

Then, as was reported in The Payson Chronicle last week, he earned an Associates Degree in Music after attending Modesto Junior College in California on scholarship, and majored in Music Education at California State University, Sacramento, again on scholarship, tutoring and teaching his peers along the way.  He majored in Violin Performance at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, studying under Barbara Scowcroft, Assistant Concertmaster for the Utah Symphony, and he played for years in the Utah Philharmonia and the University of Utah Symphony.

Inspirations abound.  A lot of Hartman’s songs are discovered in his dreams, and he’s learned to sleep with a notepad closeby to record the melodies and lyrics upon waking.

It’s a musical trait that seems to have been passed down through the generations.

“My great-great grandfather, George Elmer Manwaring, was a musician,” said Hartman, relaying his mom Linda Boice’s account of her great-grandfather’s story.  “He was a violin player.  He would wake up in the middle of the night and he would have these songs in his head.  He would grab the fiddle without the bow and just pluck the strings to get the melody how it’s supposed to be and under candlelight, write it down.” Manwaring would piece together segments of songs written on scraps of paper in the morning, a method his great-great grandson uses to pen his music today.

Manwaring was a self-taught musician whose compositions have continued to be enjoyed long after his death in 1889 at age thirty-five.  When he was seventeen, he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his family and emigrated from England to the Utah Territory in 1871.  He sang bass with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and was a hymnwriter for the LDS Church.  Perhaps most famously, Manwaring wrote the original lyrics for the hymn, “Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning.”

Musical kinship runs on both sides of the family.  His dad’s father, Guy Leslie Hartman, M.D.,

was a self-determined talent, whose focus shifted to medical school and a need to work to fund his education during the economic hardships of the Great Depression.

“He was an accomplished pianist and he had the privilege of performing Mozart’s Sonata for violin and piano in G for my sister, Laura’s, RN graduation at SLCC,” said Hartman.  “Grandpa forgot the sheet music and, incredibly, played all three movements with me from memory.  Truly a remarkable mind!

“He funded my studies with Barbara Scowcroft,” noted his grateful grandson.

Hartman spent the summer of 1993 living at his grandparents’ home in Salt Lake City, taking two hour long lessons a week and practicing 8-10 hours daily all throughout that time.

He now plans to pass down the wealth he has inherited and fine-tuned through a mentoring project in the local community.  It’s music that has helped him get through life’s rough periods and he would like to pass the lifesaver onto youth.

“Music saved me,” he said.  “I don’t know what I would have done with my life had I not had this outlet.  I want kids to have that, whether they love it or are passionate about it. It could be something that is very helpful in someone’s life. I am a good teacher.”

Until then, the studio sessions continue in Payson with Killpop’s Eli Smith and T.J. Billmire, and cousin, Kris Hartman, as songs are made to fill an album. Here, Hartman has found his “happy place.” He’s spending nights performing with a professional artist and engineering crew who are helping him breathe sound and melody into the lyrics and notes he has pieced together into ballads.  Together, they discover and polish rare gems of sound, music to spark awe in artists and audiences alike.

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