Ella Fitzgerald said, ”The only thing better than singing is more singing!” Use song to find wellness in ourselves, each other, and our world. In each episode, Patricia introduces a song that she trusts to help her navigate life. These songs provide a great soundtrack to your day — whether it’s comfort, presence, delight, grief-tending, or simply easing the way. Periodic interviews with song creators add color and understanding. Songs have helped Patricia heal, adapt, and grow, and she hopes these selections will become companions for you as well. Visit the website, abreathofsong.com, to learn more and suggest a song!
Episodes
14 hours ago
14 hours ago
Song: Love Wears the Crown
Music by: Maggie Wheeler
Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start of teaching: 00:03:19
Start of reprise: 00:27:13
Notes: I'm visiting Carol Bardenstein and TatiAnah Thunberg, and Carol shares a song by Maggie Wheeler. "Love Wears the Crown" felt to Carol like the perfect song for a No Kings march, and as she teaches it to us, she talks a little about the ways she adapted it for singing in crowds without time to learn nuance... and TatiAnah and I learn it on the spot. I play with harmonies (some more successfully than others, natch!) -- and we reprise it with Carol's whole song circle, so if you're ready to join a crowd, it's time! I loved hearing about the ways these two songleaders are being led by love into interweaving their work and including folk in their circles. There's bounty here!
Songwriter Info:
Maggie Wheeler is best known in the U.S and internationally for her extensive work as an actress in film, television, and voice-over and most notably as the character of Janice on NBC’s hit series Friends. Maggie is a passionate singer, songwriter, choir director and workshop facilitator, teaching her vocal workshop Singing In The Stream for over 30 years. It is Maggie’s belief and experience that by singing together we build community, counteract loneliness, become inspired and energized and feel more deeply connected to others and to ourselves. Maggie is a prolific songwriter with a catalog of powerful and timely songs that have been sung by choirs and singing communities worldwide.
Her original music for choirs and communities is available on Bandcamp, Apple Music and other music platforms.
Carol Bardenstein is a beloved local song-catcher and song leader of numerous community song-circles and singing workshops/retreats, based in Ann Arbor, sharing her singing there, elsewhere in Southeast Michigan, and beyond! She also facilitates song circles for meaningful life-cycle events and milestones, as well as song healing for bedside, and hospice singing. More recently, she has become very involved in local iterations of the Singing Resistance movement bubbling up from the streets of Minneapolis, inspired to help facilitate the emerging synergy between community singing and singing resistance in rising to meet these times in heartful and empowering ways.
Carol discovered heart-centered singing with others as a deep and transformative spirit portal some 15 years ago, and she’s been singing her heart out and in with others, facilitating many different kinds of song circles ever since! Grief, joy and everything in between, and all that you are, are warmly invited into her song circles, for expression, connection and communion in heart and song.
Contact Carol for information about her offerings via email at cbardens@umich.edu.
TatiAnah Thunberg, LMSW (she/hers) is a somatic psychotherapist, singer, song catcher, expressive and improvisational artist, and a seasoned experiential facilitator with more than thirty years of experience guiding transformative group practice. Her work centers the voice as a path to belonging—an embodied, relational exploration of presence, creativity, and communal care.
She is the founder of Spirit Moves LLC and co-founder of the Vocal Wilds Collective, Supper & Sing Community Jam, Ensemble Night, the Vocal Lab, Creatrix Lab, and TAZ, all circles of artists dedicated to the art of embodied improvisation in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Sharing Info: The song is free to share but Maggie always welcomes financial and/or networking support if/when folks are so moved.
Links:
https://www.goldenbridgechoir.com
https://maggiewheeler.bandcamp.com/album/the-crow-calls
https://maggiewheeler.bandcamp.com/album/the-world-is-turning
https://music.apple.com/us/album/walk-with-me/1441718449
SongFest with Maggie Wheeler in 2026: https://www.eomega.org/workshops/songfest
Maggie says: "This song was inspired by a talk given by cultural historian Josh Kun. He spoke about a composition for 50 trumpets titled 'Walls Will Fall - The 49 Trumpets of Jericho' by Mazen Kerbaj.
The musicians gathered in a defunct water reservoir in Berlin.
Mazen says, 'According to the old testament, Jericho’s walls collapsed under the sound of seven trumpeters, blowing their horns for seven days while circling around the city. Far from the religious background of the story, it is the idea of music breaking walls and barriers that is central to this composition.'
The participating trumpet players came from from Australia, Austria, Cuba, Denmark, England, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Somalia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Turkey and the United States.
This story and this work deeply inspired me. I wrote LOVE WEARS THE CROWN to invoke the power of music, the power of voices gathered to dissolve barriers, and to dismantle the walls of hatred and injustice."
https://mazenkerbaj.bandcamp.com/album/walls-will-fall-the-49-trumpets-of-jericho
TatiAnah's websites:
Nuts & Bolts: 2:2, minor, unison with call and response section, optional harmonies
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