Song: Set It Right Again
​Music by: Ana Hernández

Notes: Ana Hernández has been in the music business for quite a while, finding ways to follow the sounds she loves, to express her activist wishes, to ease her anxiety, to remember wise words... and she writes powerful, moving community songs to do all these things! Her book, the Sacred Art of Chant, was a game changer for me when I discovered it in 2019 for the way it named how singing with repetition changed my body. It was a huge honor to be in conversation with her, and then play with harmonies as we sang together (no, I didn't get ALL of them "right"! 😊 But I was having a great time!!!) "Set It Right Again" is a song to take into protests, and Ana advises listening to the speeches to adjust the lyrics to fit... newsletter subscribers will see the flowers and the little black book that get described.

Songwriter Info: Ana Hernández is a composer, recording artist, retreat leader, and activist song leader creating and collecting tunes to build living and just communities through skillful action. A theomusicologist with NYS Poor People’s Campaign, Ana is also the author of The Sacred Art of Chant: Preparing to Practice (Skylight Paths/Turner Publishing).

Sharing Info: The song is free to share in public resistance actions and oral tradition groups. Please contact Ana for recording, streaming, or performing permission. 

Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start time of teaching: 00:03:34 and 00:06:39
Start time of reprise: 01:11:55

Links:
Ana's website: https://anahernandez.org
Ana's Patreon: www.patreon.com/anahernandez 
Listen on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/in/artist/ana-hernandez/214582777 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0NGPpe3jeQqHFeFArIqYEH 
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/anahermusic 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-p9kisJu1ISLW7w6Wy2lVA 
Poor People’s Campaign: https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/committee/new-york/ 
Sojourner Truth: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sojourner-truth 
Ghandi’s mantra Om Sri Rama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanama 
Aham Prema: you are divine love: https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/9462/aham-prema 
Raimon Panikkar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raimon_Panikkar 
Malka Heifitz Tussman:  https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/quotes/quotations/view/33350/spiritual-quotation
Marcia Falk The Book of Blessings: https://www.marciafalk.com/blessings.html 
Hold My Hope: https://www.musicthatmakescommunity.org/teach_me_to_be_love
Open My Heart: https://www.musicthatmakescommunity.org/open_my_heart
Louis Armstrong: https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/biography/ 
Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain: https://www.milesdavis.com/albums/sketches-of-spain/ 
Cantus Firmus in Monteverdi Magnificat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RajAq0Yd-s4 
St. Columba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columba 
Ranunculus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranunculus 
Alice Parker: “My belief is that a page of music conveys about five percent of the information needed to perform it.” https://giamusic.com/resource/the-anatomy-of-melody-book-g6765 
Augsburg Fortress Publishers: https://www.augsburgfortresspublishers.org/ 
Banquet of Love album: https://anahernandez.org/album/banquet-of-love/ 
Mame: Ethel Merman play: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mame_(musical) 
Sending You Light album: https://anahernandez.org/album/sending-you-light/ 
Melanie DeMore: https://www.abreathofsong.com/apps/search?q=melanie+demore 
Caravan of Empathy: https://ruralmigrantministry.org/save-new-yorks-rural-economy-a-journey-of-empathy-caravan/ 
Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Tenderland Suite: https://www.aaroncopland.com/works/appalachian-spring/
https://www.aaroncopland.com/works/the-tender-land/
Amina Alaoui from Morocco – Alcantara: https://open.spotify.com/album/1EDReLi3Q3luXIHcUgR0k7 

Nuts & Bolts: 4:4, blues minor, call and response

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

Song: May the Way Open Before You
Music by: Ana Hernández

Guest singers:​ Sadie Jones, AJ Banach, Cameron Brownell, Rebecca Csuy

Notes: Recording this was a complete treat, because I had four friends in the studio with me -- Rebecca Csuy, Cameron Brownell, AJ Banach, and Sadie Jones learned the song and loved it. AJ catches me when I make a note mistake in the harmony, which is fabulous -- friends who have your back! Next week, I have the privilege of talking with Ana and learning about her extensive background and why community singing matters to her... for now, please enjoy this, which she calls "a simple blessing," and her wish for everyone in the world.

Songwriter Info: Ana Hernández is a composer, recording artist, retreat leader, and activist song leader creating and collecting tunes to build living and just communities through skillful action. A theomusicologist with NYS Poor People’s Campaign, Ana is also the author of The Sacred Art of Chant: Preparing to Practice (Skylight Paths/Turner Publishing).

Sharing Info: The song is free to share in public resistance actions and oral tradition groups. Please contact Ana for recording, streaming, or performing permission. 

Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start time of teaching: 00:02:29
Start time of reprise: 00:13:05

Links:
Ana's website: https://anahernandez.org
Ana's Patreon: www.patreon.com/anahernandez 
Listen on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/in/artist/ana-hernandez/214582777 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0NGPpe3jeQqHFeFArIqYEH 
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/anahermusic 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-p9kisJu1ISLW7w6Wy2lVA 
Also look for HARC (with Ruth Cunningham): https://anahernandez.org/album/inside-chants/ 
The Miserable Offenders: https://anahernandez.org/album/keepin-the-baby-awake-music-for-advent-and-christmas/ 
Eternal Spirit (w/ Sr. Helena Marie, CHS): https://anahernandez.org/album/eternal-spirit/ 
Banquet of Love (w/ Ike Sturm and so many friends!): https://anahernandez.org/album/banquet-of-love/ 

Nuts & Bolts: 6:8, major, 2-part harmony

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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: Towo Kalona
Music by: Alix Thorpe

Notes: I did something a little different in the way I shared this -- I took time with the proto-Celtic, so you could be comfortable singing in a Bronze-Era language... and then there's the usual looped section, with a harmony above and below -- but then at the reprise, I sing just the melody with piano, and then just the piano so you can sing the melody yourself, and allow me to accompany you. I find this song of Alix Thorpe's beautifully addictive, and there's something about singing in a bone language that feels like healing perspective to me. After you are snagged by the melody and parts on the podcast, buy it from her on Bandcamp, where you can hear the full English lyrics! 

Songwriter Info: Alix is a mother, a birth doula and a shiatsu practitioner who lives in Devon in England. She found her voice and began writing songs only a few years ago. Song for Alix is a way of prayer and an expression of soul.  She has written several songs in proto-Celtic; a kind of "spirit language" and ancestral mother tongue made of the earliest traceable fragments of the Celtic languages, dating back around 4000 years. Dreaming with proto-Celtic has been a powerful vehicle for kindling connection with her ancestral roots. Alix's songs are particularly inspired by whales, the spirit of the rose, Buddhism and honouring sacred rites of passage.

Sharing Info: The song is free to share but Alix always welcomes financial and/or networking support if/when folks are so moved.

Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start time of teaching: 00:03:01
First full singing: 00:10:40
Start time of reprise: 00:20:16
Just piano: 00:21:20

Links:
Alix's Bandcamp: https://alixthorpe.bandcamp.com/track/towo-kalona 

Nuts & Bolts: 3:4, melody with 2 harmonies

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