Bleeding Hearts

One of my favorite perennials is the Bleeding Heart.

Their flowers are like origami.

How does Mother Nature manage to create such an extraordinary variety of shapes and colors out of a such a limited selection of amino acids (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine) in plant — as well as our own — DNA?

And how do the plant cells unfold in such complicated and exquisite patterns?

Today’s Throwback Thursday heads back to a November 9, 2013 blog post about how people who sing with other people — especially in choirs when they are encouraged to breath together during certain sections of the music — can end up aligning their heart beats.

You can click here to read more about this fascinating topic if you are curious.

It is another reminder that singing — and singing with other human beings — can be a very healthy and uplifting thing to do.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

I am most familiar with the pink + white varieties of bleeding heart, but occasionally I have seen a completely white variant in a neighbor’s garden.

It is very elegant — but I miss the pink/red part of the blossoms…

Thank you to the talented and generous photographers at Pixabay.

Thank you to Mother Nature, who keeps doing her thing regardless or in spite of the mess we humans are making in our own lives.

And thank YOU for reading yet another one of my blog posts!

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

You are always welcome to visit my musical web site — willsings.com.

And you can find me singing on various streaming platforms by searching for “Will McMillan featuring Doug Hammer.”

Another Valentine’s Day is here.

I like the idea of a day to celebrate and honor love.

This blog post features two songs written by Steve Sweeting — a jazz pianist, songwriter, teacher, and composer who currently lives in New York City.

“I Carry Your Heart” is a song he wrote while living in Shanghai, when he was commissioned by Chinese choral conductor Jie Yi to write a song — based on an American poem — for a festival in Ningbo.

Steve chose an early poem by ee cummings.

A few years later he and I recorded a non-choral version at Doug Hammer’s studio on the north shore of Boston.

I love the images in ee cummings’ poem, and I love the way that Steve set them to music.

And I love Steve.

He and I have been friends since he lived — with a Yamaha grand piano — in a studio apartment above an ice cream store in Brighton, MA.

He and his wife and two children have lived all around planet earth, but we have remained in contact.

Right now he is working on an original musical with lyricist/librettist Geoffrey Goldberg called Piece of Mind.

It is about an 80-year-old former USO dancer named Robert whose mind is failing him.

If you live in the NYC area, Steve and Geoffrey are having two staged readings — on Monday, March 5th at 6pm and on Tuesday, March 6th at 2:00 pm — at the Davenport Theatre (354 W. 45th Street @ 9th Avenue).