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A Breath of Song

A Breath of Song

By: Patricia Norton
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Summary
 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!Copyright 2022 All rights reserved. Hygiene & Healthy Living Music Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Spirituality
Episodes
  • 254. Lo Yisa Goy

    254. Lo Yisa Goy
    Nov 4 2026

    Song: Lo Yisa Goy

    Music by: Judith Silver

    Lyrics from: The Book of Isaiah, chapter 2, verse 4

    Notes: I love the way Judith Silver connects the ancient desire to end war with a modern joyful, playful sound in this song. We'll be singing in Hebrew, but no worries -- we take time with the words, and you can always "Du-du" it, if Hebrew isn't one of your home languages. Next week, there's a conversation with Judith, and we get to all kinds of questions around faith and song and how they might intertwine, what happens when your government is doing things you disagree with intensely (something I may feel strongly about right now!), and how to sustain tending and care... but before we get there, drop into this song's lift! Dancing welcome...

    Songwriter Info:

    Judith has always sung, always harmonised, always felt better with a song on the go. She’s been composing since the 1980s, sharing songs and facilitating singing with people of all kinds since the 90s. She adores learning and teaching songs from all over the world, as well as encouraging the revisiting of known, favourite and forgotten songs. It’s a special joy and honour to share her own songs and have these shared further.

    She specialises in Jewish music, composing her own settings for traditional texts and prayers and working within and outside the Jewish community to develop this strand of world music further. She’s passionate about interfaith dialogue and support, using song to facilitate these whenever and however she can. A number of her songs combine different languages and traditions and these interweavings are especially close to her heart.

    Judith established Companion Voices in early 2014, to bring singers to the bedside of people who are dying, inspired by Kate Munger’s Threshold Choirs in the US and her own experience of singing for a dear friend at the end of her life. The movement is growing, with 14 groups around the UK and many more in the pipeline.

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

    Song Learning Time Stamps:

    Start time of teaching: 00:03:37

    Start time of reprise: 00:18:46

    Links:

    www.judithsilver.com

    www.companionvoices.org

    www.facebook.com/JudithSilverMusician

    www.facebook.com/companionvoices

    On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4VbQjkoQBK1LvRYbNsmSNU?si=BycKev3FQSmIx55CBr7g_w

    On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@judithsilver/videos

    Available for purchase through website or emailing info@judithsilver.com:

    ‘Jewish Songs for Harmony Singing’ – book, CD and digital recordings

    ‘The Time of Singing is Come’ – a mix of Jewish and secular songs - book, CD and digital recordings

    Sheet music for individual songs, as well as separate learning recordings, are available on request

    Nuts & Bolts: 4:4, major, 4-layers

    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
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    21 mins
  • 249. Doesn't Mean

    249. Doesn't Mean
    Sep 23 2026

    Song: Doesn't Mean

    Music by: Ríomas

    Notes: What if there are other stories we can tell ourselves, other ways to protect ourselves? What if it doesn't mean what we think it means? The kind of flexibility that asks of us -- the openness to consider that the solution our mind is so neatly presenting might actually not be the most accurate or the most helpful? Wow. It's a game changer when we don't have to hold our stories or our past techniques so tightly -- and Ríomas has given us a song to ask these questions, to remind us that old ways of coping aren't always working so well in the here and now. Next episode, we get a sweet, intense conversation that touches in on navigating change, ancestors, rhythms, and more -- PLUS a new song Ríomas shares that's all about changing patterns...

    Songwriter Info: Ríomas (RiYo or Río for short, they/them), previously known as Shireen Amini, is a queer, trans masculine, Puerto Rican-Iranian artist and immigrant settler based in Portland, Oregon creating at the intersection of music, healing, and cultural change. Drawing upon pop and folk soul textures, gratefully and respectfully from Black and Afro-Latin lineages, they craft artful, participatory songs that invite realness and transformative energy. Bridging contemporary music mediums with ceremonial ways and resistance efforts, Ríomas creates soulful and joyful community singing experiences that reconnect people to their power and place. In spring 2026, they released their first community song album, Gather Your Resilience: Medicine for Liberation.

    Sharing Info: Yes -- The song is free to share in oral tradition contexts like song circles, but please contact me for permission and rates if interested in teaching this song as part of greater money-making ventures like multi-week choirs, workshops, classes, or performances or if interested in recording this song.

    Song Learning Time Stamps:

    Start time of teaching: 00:03:20

    Start time of reprise: 00:18:24

    Links:

    Album on Bandcamp: https://riomas.bandcamp.com/album/gather-your-resilience-medicine-for-liberation Patreon: https://patreon.com/riomas Instagram: @riomasmusic Linktree: https://linktr.ee/riomas

    Nuts & Bolts: 4:4, minor, 3 layer with extra 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
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    21 mins
  • 252. Turn

    252. Turn
    Oct 14 2026
    Song: Turn, from The Book of Rounds Lyrics by: Julie Flanders Music by: Emil Adler Notes: You can find different arrangements of this round, but here it is in its beautiful simplicity as a song you can carry on walks and in the middle of the night...learn it slowly with me, letting it sink in, and then let it sing inside you as it has for me over the past decade, connecting, settling, assuring me that I'm already home in some fundamental way. Then maybe go sing along with the Vancouver Youth Choir! Songs that help us navigate life, feel connected, remember into what can be beautiful with humans... Songwriter Info: American Prize-winning Composer Emil Adler, Poet/Lyricist/Conceptor Julie Flanders and Vocalist/Producer Marina Belica of October Project offer a new repertoire of choral music with a message. Known to millions for the poetry and aural beauty of their recordings, The Book of Rounds: 21 Songs of Grace, conceived of and written by Flanders & Adler, has become a choral viral sensation. Written to promote feelings of well-being, each of the 21 songs of The Book of Rounds is a fugue of positive messages set into musical rounds that strengthen and expand those messages with each repetition. A post of the round “Turn”performed by the Vancouver Youth Choir, the largest youth choir in Canada, to the one million followers of Daily Choirs online, resulted in an outpouring of interest from choirs across the globe. It has since been sung by thousands of singers and achieved significant acclaim. The songs have moved beyond classrooms and concert halls to spiritual and healing communities including music therapy, hospice (The Threshold Choir), Alzheimer and dementia patients (Canada’s nationwide Voices in Motion organization) as well as in refugee camps around the world. Setting up a space of calm within the chaos, where children can have access to art, books and music, aid workers have shared The Book of Rounds at such refugee camps as Lesvos, Greece, the Sinjar district of Northern Iraq and at a camp for Ukrainian refugees in Moldova, where, in spite of the language differences, the beauty and comforting embrace of the rounds helps soothe displaced and traumatized children. Recipient of the 2020 ACDA Genesis Prize, with Venezuelan-born composer, Carlos Cordero, Flanders’ earlier choral work, Holding Our Breath, was debuted in 2021 by Conspirare (Craig Hella Johnson) and has since been performed worldwide, including at the Kennedy Center (Eugene Rogers & EXIGENCE) and Carnegie Hall, also winning awards for young choirs across the world. A #1 best-selling poet on Amazon, Flanders has authored four collections of poetry and originated the international October Project Annual Poetry Contest, now in its 9th year, attracting thousands of entries in conjunction with National “April is Poetry Month.” With messages of hope, comfort, belonging and healing that resonate today with more urgency than ever before, Julie Flanders, Emil Adler and Marina Belica of October Project are on a mission to bring harmony to these dissonant times. Says Ryan Heller, Conductor and Artistic Director of Chorus Austin, who premiered the work with close to 200 performers, “October Project has captured something that the world needs right now with The Book of Rounds. Each of the 21 rounds combines to form a composite whole that resonates with what it means to be human.” Sharing Info: The song is free to share in oral tradition groups, but for recording and/or performing in a workshop, class, or performance, please visit https://www.octoberprojectmusic.com/the-book-of-rounds/sheet-music/the-book-of-rounds-sheet-music for permission and rates. Song Learning Time Stamps: Start time of teaching: 00:03:26 Start time of reprise: 00:17:37 Links: Contact email: octoberprojectmusic@gmail.com Website for October Project: www.octoberprojectmusic.com Website for The Book of Rounds: https://www.octoberprojectmusic.com/the-book-of-rounds/the-book-of-rounds-summary Youtube: @OctoberProjectMusic Facebook: @October Project Instagram: @octoberproject Spotify: @October Project Vancouver Youth Choir version of Turn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMwc9wkgItk&t=3s Nuts & Bolts: 2:4, major, round 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
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    19 mins
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