Month: November 2013

by

We Never Know Who Is Listening…

Image by Felix Neukirch from Pixabay

One of the truly magical aspects of a musical life on planet earth in the 21st century is how widely one can share one’s songs if one has access to the internet.

After Bobbi Carrey, Doug Hammer and I — with lots of help from Mike Callahan, Jonathan Wyner, and guest musicians — recorded our CD “If I Loved You,” we heard from family, friends AND folks whom we had never met.

One listener included our version of the David Friedman ballad “I’ll Be Here With You” (which you can hear by clicking on the right hand sidebar of this page) on a CD she sent to her fiance who was serving in the US military overseas.

Another fan — who had been given our CD by a friend — tracked us down and told us that she listened to our music each morning while she worked out. When her husband died, she asked us to sing at his memorial service.

Image by Ekaterina from Pixabay

And I recently learned — in a reply to my blog post about music and spontaneity — that a CD of my “Will Loves Steve” show (which features songs written by people named Stephen, Steven, Stevie or Steve) had traveled from Massachusetts to Argentina, where it helped lift the spirits of someone who was feeling very low.

Here’s a selection from that show — “Overjoyed by Stevie Wonder…

The pianist is Doug Hammer, and the horn player is Mike Callahan.

I am curious to see how my musical endeavors may continue to ripple around the planet thanks to the internet.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Ahh, music!

ps: Since I wrote this blog post almost 12 years ago, I have begun distributing music to various streaming platforms.

You can click here for a streaming link to my version of Overjoyed” in case you might like to add it to a playlist and/or “like” it on Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.

Thank you for reading, listening and maybe even leaving a comment!

by

Synchronized Heartbeats!

Image by Alexa from Pixabay

Earlier this year a fellow WordPress blogger directed me to new research from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

The study — named ‘Kroppens Partitur’ or ‘The Body’s Musical Score’ — monitored the pulses of fifteen choral singers as they made their way through three different exercises: humming, performing a hymn, and chanting a slow mantra.

The authors of the study reported:

“When you are singing, the heartbeat for the whole group is going up and down simultaneously…It gives you pretty much the same effect as yoga breathing. It helps you relax, and there are indications that it does provide a heart benefit.”

This synchronization is thought to be caused by the breathing patterns which the music inspires in the singers.

When they are singing the same melody, they tend to pause to breathe in the same place, and these breathing patterns then influence their heart rates.

Image by Jo Justino from Pixabay

I love learning about this research, because it corroborates what human beings have experienced for thousands of years — singing with other human beings is a special, healthy and often uplifting experience.

It also reminds me how important it is to include “sing-along” songs as part of a performance.

Who wouldn’t want an opportunity for a room full of people’s hearts to synchronize?

“Blue Moon” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart is a song which Bobbi Carrey and I included in our In Perfect Harmony show in hopes that people might sing (or hum or whistle) along with us.

I have included a version that we recorded with Doug Hammer on the piano at the very beginning of this blog post.

Image by Massiel from Pixabay

I have long been aware of how intimate singing with another person can be — whether in unison or in harmony — but I didn’t realize that Bobbi and I might actually be synchronizing our heartbeats when we perform together.

Yowza!

Ahh, blessed music…

And the human heart…

Deep breath in.

Deep breathe out.