Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson. And this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the ways music makes our lives better. My guest today has said, “The heartbeat is the most basic, beautiful metronome. It is such a powerful, audible representation of life and of the human experience.” My guest today is music therapist Brian Schreck, and he has incorporated this beautiful metronome of the human heartbeat into his palliative care practice by creating innovative and individualized heartbeat, music recordings and projects. Brian is a board certified music therapist who has been professionally serving people with a wide range of medical illnesses for almost 20 years. Brian has music therapy degrees from Berklee College of Music and New York University. He has been a therapist in Manhattan, Cincinnati and Louisville. Welcome to Enhance Life with Music, Brian.
Brian Schreck: [00:00:59] Oh, it is great to be here, Mindy. Thanks for having me.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:00] My pleasure. We’re talking today about heartbeat music, music that incorporates the recording of an individual’s heartbeat. How do you describe this heartbeat music when you explain what you do and tell us also what inspired you to start creating music using heartbeats?
Brian Schreck: [00:01:18] Sure. So I like to think of this as a way for any of us to connect the internal world with the external world. So any of our patients that could be nonverbal, anyone that is sedated and intubated, this is a way that we can connect with their internal rhythm that is working very well in those moments to create something that could be very, very different depending on who the intended listener is.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:47] I hadn’t thought about that people being nonverbal because I know that you also work with people who are verbal. But when you think about infants or like you said, people who are sedated or in a coma or otherwise un verbal, then yeah, that’s a great point. That’s a part of them that is functioning fully and can be incorporated into this music.
Brian Schreck: [00:02:07] Yeah. So there’s years I was working in intensive care and we would create music with the entire family at the bedside. And I always believed that it was going, you know, into them and that they were experiencing it somehow, just even passively. But I really wanted something more hands on and tangible for the family to feel like the person that we are focusing on is at the center of this experience. And so to me, that was a way that we could connect with these people that had very challenging hospital experiences. But at the other way that people could be involved in this. It started in perinatal hospice, so a lot of the work was then going with women who were expecting a baby that was not expected to survive.
Brian Schreck: [00:02:57] So then we would document their ultrasounds as a record of their existence, but also as a way to connect with music as well. You know, thinking about lullabies and thinking about the work of Claire O’Callahan and elements and creating a space for people to feel whatever they’re feeling, but as a way to connect with their loved one, even if the time was very, very short.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:25] Sure. So you mentioned that this started in Perinatal Hospice. Was there a certain light bulb moment that got you thinking about making this music and set on this path, or was it just more of a gradual process?
Brian Schreck: [00:03:39] It was a bit of a gradual process. I’m going to rewind all the way back to going to New York University and getting to spend one year with Clive Robbins once a week. The amount of recording that they did as a part of their assessment, but also as a part of their way to review what happened and not miss anything and make sure that they were just being very thorough. It also created when you would hear him present, it brought him right back to those moments that we get to experience as a class for some of these people that he hadn’t worked with, you know, in decades. So to me, it’s a way to document. The other end of it is really getting to a place where we are paying attention to all the wonderful people that have brought us to these places in our. To describe me in my music therapy world. So it the heartbeat was kind of building in different funny ways throughout a lot of my upbringing at Berklee College of Music and afterwards at NYU. So even going a little bit further at my first practicum in 2000 was with Laurie Kubicek, and she introduced me to the Gil Rodriguez song Mi Cuerpo, and the song was called Mi Cuerpo Mi Cuerpo de Musica. And it’s. My body. My body makes music. So even in those first early days of my music therapy, the body itself as a symphony of life can be used to create music. And then we had to take a Native American hand drumming class. And one of the first rhythms we learned was the heartbeat. And it was a way to become in sync with one’s internal original rhythm. And then being introduced to Milford Graves, who’s fascinating approach to music, heartbeats and life, you know, have always inspired this work and his advice. So he has his own beautiful documentary. Check out Milford Graves.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:37] Yeah, I will definitely do that. Laurie Kubitschek, I recognize her name. I know other guests have mentioned her as being a real influence on their work.
Brian Schreck: [00:05:46] Agreed. And she’s incredible. And going back to Milford, he would say, Throw away your metronome and listen to your heart. And so, I mean, to me, there’s we’re listening to these rhythms, but we can also think of it as a way of really getting back down to what this work is, which is connecting with people and focusing on the symbol of love as well as something that never dies.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:10] Mm hm. Well, and just to sort of flush this out a little bit more for listeners, the music that you make, it utilizes someone’s heartbeat. And it could be multiple people. It could be the patient and family members, but for sure, a person’s heartbeat. And then you create a song that uses that heartbeat as the rhythm. And it’s part of the recording. It could be performed by you. It could be performed by the patient themselves. It could be performed by family members. And then you have this record of the special song that has so much meaning and has the person’s heartbeat as a part of the recording that loved ones have to enjoy and cherish forever. Is there anything else you want to add to that?
Brian Schreck: [00:06:57] Yeah, I think you nailed a lot of it and some of the other components could be using a sample of a heartbeat to create a new beat out of. So it doesn’t just have to be a looped heartbeat that is so metronomic. I feel like over the years I’ve gotten a lot more exploratory with figuring out different ways to not just include the family in every step of this process, which also means starting it as early as possible. So to me, this has been kind of broadcasted as an end of life intervention, but in my opinion, this can be worked on as early as we want to introduce it almost as a piece of music that is just starting with that person’s roots, which is their their internal heartbeat.
Mindy Peterson: [00:07:43] Tell us a little bit more about the process. How do you capture the heartbeat, transform those heartbeat sounds into the musical project? Just tell us a little bit about the process of creating these songs.
Brian Schreck: [00:07:54] So yeah, it’s as different as the people are that we’re serving. So to me, there should always be a reason of why we’re doing this, whether it’s just to use the time that you’re having. So for the last number of years, I’ve worked in cancer care with adults and they do have a lot of time on their hands. So I believe that any of the time that is shared could be used working on a project and that could be worked on a little bit of a piece at a time. I think a lot of music therapists get lost in the weeds in this work where they take a lot of the heavy lifting and in my opinion, this could be shared over time so that you’re not working on a gargantuan, challenging song that you’re trying to recreate outside of their presence. So to me, as much of this that can be done with them and experience with them to me, then it becomes their recording. It’s not about us. We’re not the star. So the performance aspects of it, it’s our job to make it sound as beautiful as possible aesthetically for me. But at the same time, we want to remind ourselves that this is music therapy and not music production, and that it is okay for it to be messy and it’s okay for it not to be finished.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:13] Sure. More important to really infuse meaning in the process and in the end result both.
Brian Schreck: [00:09:20] And that I think will also impact in a positive way their relationship they have with the recording. Meaning how often will they listen to it? And the paper that I wrote through the Journal of Palliative Medicine and that’s titled Amplified Cardiopulmonary Recordings, Music Therapy, Intervention and Adult Oncology Patients and Their Families. And it’s just a preliminary program evaluation. So I just wanted to find how many people are listening to these afterwards. And it really made me start to think of when did we introduce it? Was it done in the chaos of a very end of life experience? And that brings up all of. Those memories that were present in that day. And what I found is the earlier that I introduced this and began working with these families, hopefully the patient first to get as much as them. So to me, if they were talking, then they could share stories about why a certain song or a piece of music is so important to them. And that could be the introduction to the piece. And then the heartbeat can come in and it doesn’t have to be the entire time. So it’s really allowing the people with this family to become then the arrangers, the producers of it. I’m more of the executive producer to put it all together. But the more impact they have on making these decisions, the more personalized it is to them and their experience and the more memories that are attached to those experiences I have. It hasn’t been researched enough, but I have a feeling they have a much more positive interaction with these pieces of music versus something that they only listen to on an anniversary or they’ve only listened to once and it made them sob. You know, the point of this is not to make people feel like it’s ripping their hearts out. It’s really to give a voice to love. And the patient that was unable to speak at the time.
Mindy Peterson: [00:11:16] Mm Beautiful. So you really work with the family very closely and what their purpose is for creating this song. You work with them on a song selection or creating and composing a brand new song. The heartbeat is sort of added minimally or more, depending on what the goals are to the song. How do you capture the heartbeat? You have some kind of a stethoscope. Microphone? Yeah.
Brian Schreck: [00:11:47] So if anyone is interested, they can go to Amplified NPR.org. There’s an instructional video on How to make Your own, which would include a lavalier microphone put inside of a normal acoustic stethoscope. There is a brand that I really like called Thinklabs, and they make a digital stethoscope that can really do quite a few things that I think would be useful, even in quote unquote, typical music therapy. To me, it’s just another instrument that you could Bluetooth to an external speaker and hear out loud to make live music with. It could be something that is put into a microphone or an amplifier to get really loud with. And it can also be plugged right into your phone, iPad or MacBook or whatever device you’re using as a way to record people’s heartbeats. And I like this brand and model the most. It’s called The One because you can amplify it at the source. So the larger we get, you know, as we get older, the more space there is between the outside of your body and where your heart sits. So the movement of your flesh against it’s called the diaphragm, part of the stethoscope. That movement is what translates into that sound that we hear. So the more space there is, there’s a little bit less movement. Like if you put it on a baby, you know, you can almost look at a baby’s chest and see their heart beating. Sure. So it’s just something to think about, a practical thought that if you can amplify it from the source, it will go into your device louder and clearer.
Mindy Peterson: [00:13:24] Let’s talk a little bit about the meaning that these songs have provided to various patients and their loved ones. I’m sure that this can really be an important tool in helping families and patients cope with anticipatory grief, pre loss, post loss, bereavement, just going through this process. But talk to us a little bit about the meaning that you’ve seen this provide in supporting patients, their loved ones.
Brian Schreck: [00:13:53] Yeah. So I believe and again, going back to offering this as early as possible, the more time to make it their recording, the more useful it would be to them and to their loved ones. It’s more of a process based, and over time I feel like I have heard many different things of feelings, of peace, of happiness, of creating something that they were not ever expecting to do. So kind of an excitement of a brand new experience. You know, some people have never written a song before, so this could be a rhythmic container just to get going. On writing a song that is now something that could be celebrated and shared with their family and a way to create legacy if it’s put on their private YouTube, you know, it’s something that can be accessed really from anywhere in any device. I really do believe that the more people have worked on it, the more of a relationship they have on it, to listen to it, to feel whatever they need to feel other times. You know, just even going back to the research paper, there’s three different little quotes I want to just read to you. One participant stated, listening intensely for the first six months afterwards, not so much. Another person said, We have listened to it on her birthday and our anniversaries. My kids listen to it on their own. They know exactly where it is. Another participant stated, I listened to it on occasion. It makes me think about a great vacation we had and her belting out this song in a restaurant. And then another one stated, I listened to it all the time.
Brian Schreck: [00:15:35] I just love it. It does me good to listen to it. My friends tell me to stop and that I should move on. And I am. This helps me. So I think there’s there’s all sorts of ways that people interact and use, you know, if we’re focusing on the grief aspects of this work and improvement of quality of life, I do believe that the longer that a person worked on this, it gives them more time to think about leaving a legacy. And if they’re still talking, then we can record messages, stories, things like I love You and all of these things can then be cut and pasted through the family’s consultation as well to create something that is really remarkable and very individualized to this person. And some of these are played at funerals. Some of them are played at in the background of their photos that they make to give family members. I’ve had it played live in church to really celebrate someone’s existence. And to me, again, it goes back to that feeling of love never dies. And the more that we can talk about this and be unafraid to talk about any of this stuff with our people and our patients, I feel the more time they have to work through this before things get too late. So this can still be offered very close to the end of life. But I do really believe that it changes, meaning that I don’t know how often someone will want to revisit that memory of being in intensive care, like it’s already something kind of challenging that they have to work through.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:09] Well, and grief takes all shapes and forms and is so individualistic that it makes sense that how people utilize these songs would also really vary by person. But how? What a gift to have that song at your disposal to access when you want to and in whatever way, shape or form works best for you?
Brian Schreck: [00:17:32] Yes, and to me, it’s also meant to be worked upon over time. In my life’s job at Cincinnati, we did bereavement support as a part of our pediatric hospice so we could follow families up to two years post death and continue sometimes to work on these recordings with the patient’s voice, with their heartbeat, to create something new as well. So it can be something that can be built upon over time as a thread to continue working into bereavement.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:04] Well, and I read, I think on your website, you mentioned that when somebody has a loved one with a serious illness, they feel an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and the creation, just the process of creating these songs gives them something proactive, productive to focus on. It helps normalize the situation. It gives them a sense of control, a little bit of control just over the process. And you point out that that’s really the foundation of music therapy, using music to help and support patients and their loved ones addressing the different needs that they have and improving quality of life. So I thought that was a…
Brian Schreck: [00:18:42] Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:45] You mentioned, I think on NPR, one story about a patient who had leukemia. That just was such a powerful story. And I just wonder if you wouldn’t mind telling that it was about a patient named Nate. He had leukemia. He brought up the Heartbeat song. And and you asked if he wanted to make one, and his dad was not on board with us. You probably know what story I’m talking about.
Brian Schreck: [00:19:13] I do.
Speaker3: [00:19:13] Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:15] It was such a powerful story. Do you mind just sharing that with listeners?
Brian Schreck: [00:19:19] It’s my favorite one.
Brian Schreck: [00:19:21] And to me, this shows how someone may choose not to listen to these recordings for a little while. To me, this is a perfect example of a family member that was not interested really in this at all. And then coming across it about a year later and not just to.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:42] Clarify, the patient, was he a teenager or young adult?
Brian Schreck: [00:19:45] He was a young adult. So yeah, he was in his early 20s.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:49] Okay. And his dad was like, no, I’m not interested in participating in this process. Like, I’m not I’m not ready for that.
Brian Schreck: [00:19:57] It really kind of brought up that. He is going to die. And we weren’t ready for that. And I understand that as well. And it’s not meant to to be a bulldozer. This is just to me, over the years, it’s worth offering these opportunities, whether they take them or not, even if it is a turnoff in some cases. But to me, it’s our jobs to not be afraid of some of these situations, but also through your own evidence of your clinical life and how you’ve seen this be helpful to people. To me, then it is worth having a conversation about. They can always say no, of course, but I always encourage them, even if they’re not ready to listen to it now, they might want to in the future, so it’s better to have it and never listen to it versus the other way around.
Mindy Peterson: [00:20:44] So in this situation, dad’s not interested. The patient is a 20 something young adult. He wants to do it. So he proceeds to create this song with you. And this is unbeknownst to his dad. I think his dad didn’t know that you were even doing this between the two of you, right?
Brian Schreck: [00:21:02] That he knew that we were making recordings. He didn’t know what they were of. And, you know, anything really specifically about what they were. For this instance, it was close to Father’s Day. I had him say happy Father’s Day for his mom. Birthdays are more important to her than Mother’s Day. So he did a happy birthday wish to her. Okay. And that was a way to introduce this piece of music that he was essentially having as a gift for them and a way for them to feel whatever they need to feel. But I can’t describe it as well as they did. And that’s why I think it’s so important to hear from the actual people that experience this firsthand. And that’s why we made the documentary and that’s why there’s pieces like this that really describe it better than I or really any music therapist could ever describe, because it’s coming from them. What strikes me about this father and being a father myself emotionally, we put up these things to make us be functional in the moment. And if you listen to this piece on All Things Considered, he had a lot of hospital times and there was a lot of in and outs and a lot of worry the entire time. So I wasn’t surprised that he was not interested in this. And coming from, you know, a masculine point of view, this is something that it might be a little touchy feely and I’m I just can’t even go there right now. Yeah. His mom described, on the other hand, laying with him in his hospital room very close to his death and had her ear on his chest and could hear his heart beating. So it reminds her of that moment, which is very bittersweet for her. So she loves it and describes that, but it’s also challenging.
Brian Schreck: [00:22:55] For him, he describes it, you know, finding this on Father’s Day of all days.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:00] So explain how he happens to stumble across it. Yes.
Brian Schreck: [00:23:03] So he’s cleaning his office. They had moved and he sees this is after…
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:08] His son passes away.
Brian Schreck: [00:23:09] Yeah. So about a year later, he came across these CDs that we had made and had given them basically at his visitation. So I think he had tucked them away, didn’t think too much of it, was cleaning his office, pop the CD in and the first thing.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:25] On Father’s Day on Father’s Day interject that Yeah.
Brian Schreck: [00:23:28] Yeah. And the first thing he hears is Happy Father’s Day, old man Love you. And it was. He was like, that was Nate. What is going on? And then here comes the Heartbeat song, which is a Rolling Stone song that he had chosen to accompany his heartbeat. And it’s just guitar. And that’s another thing I want to talk about as well, is that it can be very simple. These things, they don’t have to be a gratuitous symphony that takes a music therapist 17 hours on their own to recreate something like by Stevie Wonder. You know what I mean? No one is going to be Stevie Wonder. And again, it’s not about us. It’s about them. And if we can find a way to celebrate them while having them interact with these pieces of music, that’s all that really matters. So if it’s an instrumental, then they can be encouraged to hum along or sing along. And if it’s something that is less known, it’s something that we can have as much input by them on. Well, what is something that is similar that really helps you calm down? And what I love about this piece on NPR is that he he doesn’t even really know in the way that he says it. He goes it just kind of calms me down. I don’t really know how or why, but it just calms me down. And I mean, that’s that’s all I would ever wish for any of these recordings to have an impact like that a year later. Or as a way to feel connected with these people and to feel calm about it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:04] A sense of peace. Yeah. What a gift. Well, I’ll definitely include a link to that story because it is so powerful. I mean, I get goosebumps just hearing about it, but just thinking about this father stumbling upon this CD a year later after her son’s death, not even really realizing, recognizing what it is, popping it in to listen and hear his son’s voice, wishing him a happy Father’s Day. And then to hear this song and for him to not have really been on board with this project at the beginning. But once he discovered it a year later, it just became a huge sort of connection between him and his son and he really loved it and plays it regularly. So I’ll include that link in the show notes. But tell us, how can listeners learn more? How can they learn more about these projects? Is there a way for listeners to work with you if they’re outside the Louisville area where you are located?
Brian Schreck: [00:25:57] Yeah, I’m always happy to respond to emails and to talk to people about any sort of troubleshooting that they come along while they’re trying to facilitate this work. I really do think that it’s important for you, just like you would any other music therapy intervention or really anything that happens in a hospital is to feel very confident and comfortable with these tools before doing it with actual patients and their families. So I like to think of it as the same way you would wish a nurse to come in to place your IV. You don’t want them being nervous about any part of it. You don’t want them. You don’t want to feel like it’s the first time that they’re doing this on you. You want it to be calm and relaxed. You know exactly what’s happening. You know that you’re going to find a decent heartbeat and that it’s not going to be that big of a problem, because often, unfortunately, music therapists will get referrals that are very late in a person’s life. It could be on the day that they’re about to die and intensive care units and everything feels quite chaotic. So the ability to stay calm in some of those situations is also very important, I think, in creating a brand new memory with this starting point of a recording.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:10] Well, your website is amplified, npr.org, as you mentioned earlier. And tell us what the CPR stands for.
Brian Schreck: [00:27:17] Cardiopulmonary recordings.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:19] Yes, got it. I love the tagline Amplified connection, Amplified healing. Amplified love really like that. And then a couple little phrases that I that caught my attention on your website that I just want to mention that I loved. You use the creation of the song to, quote, preserve the humanity in the situation. And I love that because most, if not all of these situations just suck. You know, I mean, there’s no way around it. And yet this process can help preserve the humanity in that in that situation. And you also say something on your website about integrating hope into every day. And again, just what a encouraging thought when you’re in the midst of this tragic situation that feels hopeless to to feel like there’s a little bit of hope, some meaning, some purpose that you can be a part of that gives you a little bit of a sense of control again, and that can help sort of preserve a part of that loved one beyond their life itself, that you can have that connection. So love that. Well, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical, ending a coda by sharing a song or story about a moment that music enhanced your life. Is there a song or story that you can share with us today as we close?
Brian Schreck: [00:28:40] Yes, it’s a heartbeat song. It’s just the patient’s heartbeat as the basic rhythm, so it’s just a loop. And I played a small version of a song I’d never heard before. This family introduced it to me. It’s called Head to tOe, and it’s a song that they sing as a bedtime ritual. This patient is a younger man, so they have a young family with two small kids, and this was their bedtime ritual. So we wanted to use this as a way to be careful to not, you know, I never want to think of these songs as ruining the real version of the song, but they do their own lullaby version of the song at night. And I wanted to use that just as something that could, in very basic terms, have him continue to be a part of this bedtime ritual.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:38] And the name of the song is what.
Brian Schreck: [00:29:41] It’s called head to toe. And it’s really about loving you from your head to your toe. We were able to do quite a few legacy recordings with this young man before he passed. This can be challenging to find the right time with someone life. Can be very challenging, especially when you have stage four cancer. So there was some challenges in finding time to really get the right quiet place in the right state of mind to do some of these recordings that we talked about for some time. And there’s always resistance to doing any of these recordings. And I get it because it does bring up a lot of emotions and sometimes we’re just not ready to go there today. And I 100% understand that. Another reason why I think it’s important to do this as early as possible is when people are feeling well, they sound like themselves. So if I’m asking you to read, you know, a bedtime story that you love, that you do every night to your two small children, I want it to sound like you. Yeah. And it’s a lot easier, quite frankly, to do when they’re. When anyone is feeling good. Sure. It sounds just more natural and how you would want to remember them now. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be done when they are sick, but it does change. I feel like it changes some of the relationship that I would assume that they would have. And just thinking about your own self, would you want to listen to, for instance, one of your parents or your brother or sister tell you a story when they feel great or if they sound audibly sick?
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:17] Sure. 100%.
Brian Schreck: [00:31:18] Yeah, 100%. So anyway, we figured out a way to make it happen. But we talked about this for some time, and I just. I just knew we needed to get it done. We went in and we were able to knock out almost everything that we had talked about doing in about 20 minutes. And his best friend was there, which was so lovely that he was able to really be his hype man, to be his focuser, to help him just really get through these without feeling sorrow. And they’re very faithful crew. They’re very involved in their church. And this, this song, head to toe talks about, you know, all of these things, but also in the presence of God. So I really do feel like with music, there can be a nonverbal way to connect to whatever your faith is or connect to the next place or connect to this person, no matter where they are that you are together, and that that can still be a functional relationship. So yeah, his friend gave me permission to share a little bit about his recollection of that day and he goes, I was able to be there with Brian when he came to record some stuff. He recorded his heartbeat and then I helped him read a book. Before that, I got him awake enough to respond to the questions that Brian was asking. The questions were simple but complicated. He asked a few. And then, What do you want to say to each of your children, your wife, your extended family and friends? And each time he wasn’t talking to us, he was talking to God.
Brian Schreck: [00:32:55] He was praying. He wasn’t asked to pray. He just was he was asked to talk to the person meant to hear the recording. But it was coming from a place of talking to God. And to me, this is the beauty and the importance of this work that can be looked upon, you know, in the same reverence that we do to every patient that we serve that is coming to a place of you are so important that we are going to do whatever we can to take the best care of you, including making sure that we are taking care of some of these challenging things that are going to be helpful for your kids in the future. But he said that we weren’t even in the room. It was the sweetest, most intimate, beautiful and challenging experience I’ve ever had. And so that just shows what this legacy recording session can feel like to a participant who may not have been thinking that this is what we were going to do. And then his widow told me that this version of the song has become our favorite. And they even used it to make a precious memory kind of montage of the patient’s funeral. Let’s see one more quick thing about it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:34:06] And while you’re looking for that, I’ll just point out quick to that the widow, the family members, the friend expressly gave permission for us to play this. They did as the coda in our conversation today.
Brian Schreck: [00:34:19] Yes. And she says that the boys and I listened to the song at bedtime every single night. It’s the most precious piece of the patient of the person that we have to treasure on this side of heaven. And she just goes on to say that this ministry is amazing, and I’m I’m very open to all faiths. I’d like to think that I’m serving them in a way that is really just getting to the bottom of their humanity, because we all deserve a legacy. Just being here on Earth means that you are important enough to be celebrated and deserve. Legacy recording to me, she was just able to articulate was so open to this process. And then even though it was challenging to actually make it happen, we were able in a very small amount of time to create something that has been very important to them. And going back to the Heartbeat song, it’s about a minute version of it. So it’s another thing to think about. These don’t have to be terribly long if I’m making some of the musical decisions on my own. Like in this case, I just wanted a simple version that took the very basic parts of the chorus just so it’s so familiar and something that you could see humming as a lullaby in a way that was just simple and sweet. And I spent maybe 25 minutes on it. So hearing it, figuring out the chords, I basically do one once the heartbeat is edited, I do one track of harmony, just chords and that into a simple melody, and it’s meant for the listener to engage with it by either singing along with that melody or humming along, or just thinking the words that may be very important to them.
Mindy Peterson: [00:36:03] Yeah, love that. Well, and as you’re talking, I’m just thinking about comparing it to some other treasured token of a special event. A special person. Like, for example, I have a daughter who just got engaged recently. We’re planning a wedding. I’ve been married. My husband and I have been married for over 25 years. And do I look at my wedding pictures or my wedding video? Literally. No, I don’t. But it means so much to me to know that I have them. And when I want to pull them out and look at them, they’re there. And I can I can do that. And I have access to those. And I think about this song like that, too. It’s such a gift. And whether you’re listening to it regularly or you just have it when you need that special method of connecting to that person, you have it there at your disposal. So really love that concept. Me too. Anything else you want to say about this particular song before we play a little bit of head to toe?
Brian Schreck: [00:37:04] I chose it also because I like how much that they interact with it. They listen to it every single night and it’s become a part of their bedtime ritual where their dad is a part of. And it’s just again, it’s going back to that connection of love that never dies and is always present whenever you feel like connecting with it.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai