He's Got the Itty Bitty Baby in his hands....

Today I played for another group (also with intellectual disabilities) One of the women there loves the song, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and we sing everyones' name in the room. She has a little doll that is her "baby" and she laughs and kisses it after each verse. It always makes me smile just thinking of it later.  Another woman there likes to make up our own songs. One time we were thinking about how the only holiday that doesn't have a song about it is Labor Day. So we made up our own song about it that pretty much said, "Labor Day" over and over an interspersed were food items for a barbecue.

Now Christmas is upon us, so we are busy with holiday songs. Here's a picture of one of their painted windows with Santa saying hello next to it.

"Playing with Fluffy, I'm gonna let it shine..."

Today I sang with one of my favorite groups. They are young adults with intellectual disabilities. We had such fun singing together. I'd say the highlight was a marathon version of, "This Little Light of Mine" that we must have sang for about 15 minutes.  Each of us took turns naming places and things to shine.  Then we got around to naming our pets. Great names like, "Crash", "Spirit", "Fluffy" "Abilene", "Blue" (I don't mind :) , "Little Dog" . Where would we be without our pets?

I can't post photos of the people I sing with but here's a picture of the lovely wreath on the front door of the house.

Lullabies for the babies

Today I played in the newborn ICU. Lullabies and simple melodies to help them sleep.  Such a privilege to play for these small humans.

Hello out there

Well hello out there. I often have amazing and interesting experiences in my music work with people. So I thought I'd document some of them for others to enjoy.  Tonight I am a bit sleepy, so I am just saying hello.

Oh I would like to tell you about my CD "Choose the Sky". It took me 5 years to complete it! Lots of reasons for it but one of them is that I am profoundly deaf and I had to put my CD project on hold in Jan. of 2009 to undergo cochlear implant surgery. That was followed by months of aural rehab to regain my musical perception and speech recognition. More on all of that another time though...

In the meantime I  am really excited and proud of my CD. Here is the link to where you can listen to song  clips on CD Baby.com:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/blueoconnell2

I really like how the artwork turned out (by Browning Porter) and so I am going to show you the cover art work here:

Tomorrow is Monday, my day to work at the hospital. I'll let you know if anything interesting happens...