The Sunday after this episode is released, September 29th, 2024, at 4 p.m. Eastern time, there will be an online gathering of folk who use song to help navigate life -- and we'll sing through this Ribbon of Songs with live-looping! To learn more, click here, or sign up right now to join us!

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​Lyrics ​& Links to the original episodes for the songs in this ribbon.
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Note: Angela Gabriel has made a melody change (which she can, right? Her song!) to We Were Made For These Times -- I made a new recording for this ribbon of songs, reflecting this update. If you click here, it will go to a teaching youtube video she created (which wonderfully includes the full lyrics...) https://youtu.be/kZfD7YbZJew?feature=shared

Join this community of people who love to use song to help navigate life? Absolutely:
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Help us keep going: reviews, comments, encouragement, plus contributions... we float on your support.
https://www.abreathofsong.com/gratitude-jar.html

Song: Good Friend
Music by: Jan Harmon

Notes: Both harbor and freedom, connection and release, seasons and timelessness. Jan Harmon's song, written in 1985, has generous space for harmonies, and impels us singers forward, as though we were the sail catching the wind. I love the feeling of holding and letting go as I sing this song -- it helps me grieve, helps rejoice, helps me open, helps me curl up... I wonder what you will experience as you sing it with me?

Songwriter Info: Jan Harmon (1940-1993) was a published poet, a writer of short stories and biographical non-fiction, as well as a prolific composer of choral music, topical songs, ballads, rounds, musicals, and instrumental pieces. She was born in Saginaw, Michigan and lived in many places from southern California to Maine.

Sharing Info: When sharing in a money-making venture, like a workshop, class, or performance, please contact Scott at Harmon Publishing for permission and rates: https://harmonpublishing.com/contact.php

Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start time of teaching: 00:02:47
Start time of reprise: 00:16:25

Links:
Song info on the Harmon Publishing website (including a sheet music PDF): https://www.harmonpublishing.com/jan/music/library/good-friend

Nuts & Bolts: 2:2, minor, round

Join this community of people who love to use song to help navigate life? Absolutely:
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Help us keep going: reviews, comments, encouragement, plus contributions... we float on your support.
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Song: (O Spirit) Guide Me to Those I Need
Music by: Aimée Ringle

Notes: If you've run across Aimée Ringle's work, you know her wicked musical skills, her exuberant, high-energy presence, her huge heart and desire to be of service... and you may not yet know how she grew into her voice, the questions she asks herself around how best to contribute to songcircles, her deep desire for village community, and questions about how to make that real in the here and now. We dig a little into one of the hard conversations in songcircles or any group situation where people bring varying skill levels -- how can people of varying skill levels feel welcome and find space and satisfaction as they are? We talk about what Aimée finds she needs to be able to let songs come through and more! Aimée shares the story of how O Spirit came through and we sing it both with guitar and in an up-close and personal way. It's a big episode because we let our conversation spread out, enjoying the end of summer and a sense of expansiveness. I hope you, too, find that pleasure of connection when you join us.

Songwriter Info: Aimée Ringle is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, song-leader, and storyteller. She has an invigorating teaching style that is enriched by her capable percussion and guitar skills. Aimée’s work as a song-leader and storyteller have woven her into an ever widening community of cultural shifters around the country in the realms of sustainable agriculture, alternative education, community living, healing, creativity, and spiritual exploration ~ all of which are reflected in the songs she carries. As a song-leader, Aimée’s work and example have become a valued part of several Ancestral skills gatherings including Winter Count, Spirit Weavers and Sharpening Stone.

Sharing Info: The song is free to share in oral tradition groups, but please contact Aimée for recording and/or performing permission. She says: "For now, the song is just the chorus, but I am paying attention to its evolution and leaving space for the possibility of verses, etc. But this will not be a group process and I'm not inviting unsolicited creative ideas in this process."

Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start time of teaching: 00:03:53
Start time of reprise: 01:34:28

Links:
Aimée's website: www.aimeeringlemusic.com 
Aimée's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AiméeRingle
Aimée's O Spirit video on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8wzISTpTsh
Aimée's Bandcamp: https://aimeeringle.bandcamp.com
Earth Practice: https://www.instagram.com/earthpracticemusic/
Tone Home by Elijah Ray: https://soundcloud.com/entheo/tone-home?in=l29rjc61w9os/sets/the-upload-1
I'm My Own Walkman by Bobby McFerrin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8DUi9RCTiQ
Samara Jade: https://www.instagram.com/samara_jade_music/
Three Wheels Turning: https://threewheelsturning.com/
"We are what we repeatedly do." Aristotle interpreted by Will Durant: https://blogs.umb.edu/quoteunquote/2012/05/08/its-a-much-more-effective-quotation-to-attribute-it-to-aristotle-rather-than-to-will-durant/
The Sharpening Stone: https://www.instagram.com/thesharpeningstone/
Laurence Cole: https://www.laurencecole.com/
Liz Rog: https://www.facebook.com/liz.rog1/
Shireen Amini: https://shireenamini.com/music
Song Village: https://www.songvillage.net/
Emergent Strategy and Holding Change by Adrienne Maree Brown: https://adriennemareebrown.net/book/emergent-strategy/, https://adriennemareebrown.net/book/holding-change-2/
Billie Eilish: https://www.instagram.com/billieeilish/
Ganavya: https://www.instagram.com/ganavya 

Nuts & Bolts: 4:4, Aeolian, unison chant

Join this community of people who love to use song to help navigate life? Absolutely:
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Help us keep going: reviews, comments, encouragement, plus contributions... we float on your support.
https://www.abreathofsong.com/gratitude-jar.html

Song: The Ambulance Song
Music by: Aimée Ringle
"Ooo Love" part by: Laurence Cole

Notes: We live on a busy road, not far from a fire station -- an ambulance is not an unusual sight -- and thanks to Aimée Ringle, I have the perfect song to wish the people involved well... and now you do, too! Next week, Aimée and I talk about the tender place music is able to open up, how someone with considerable musical skills and experience finds how they, too, can be included in community singing... how we are what we repeatedly do, and what that means for Aimée. She is generous, vulnerable, clear-sighted, and willing to name her own challenges. I hope you can join us... but before that, please enjoy adding this song to your personal repertoire!

Songwriter Info: Aimée Ringle is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, song-leader, and storyteller. She has an invigorating teaching style that is enriched by her capable percussion and guitar skills. Aimée’s work as a song-leader and storyteller have woven her into an ever widening community of cultural shifters around the country in the realms of sustainable agriculture, alternative education, community living, healing, creativity, and spiritual exploration ~ all of which are reflected in the songs she carries. As a song-leader, Aimée’s work and example have become a valued part of several Ancestral skills gatherings including Winter Count, Spirit Weavers and Sharpening Stone.

Sharing Info: Yes -- The song is free to share in oral tradition groups, but please contact Aimée for recording and/or performing permission.

Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start time of teaching: 00:04:12
Start time of reprise: 00:17:38

Links:
Aimée's website: www.aimeeringlemusic.com 
Aimée's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AiméeRingle
The Ambulance Song video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b6WxqtlIbo 
Aimée's Bandcamp: https://aimeeringle.bandcamp.com
Laurence Cole's website: https://www.laurencecole.com

Nuts & Bolts: 3:4, Aeolian, 4-part
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Join this community of people who love to use song to help navigate life? Absolutely:
https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/335811/81227018071442567/share
​
Help us keep going: reviews, comments, encouragement, plus contributions... we float on your support.
https://www.abreathofsong.com/gratitude-jar.html