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Life is but a dream
Sweet harp lullabies for the wee ones. Celtic harp lullabies
for children of all ages. Classic familiar melodies done simple
and sweet. 55 min. 2007

Listen to a track from Life is But a Dream

01. Rock-a-bye baby
02. Row row row your boat
03. Are you sleeping
04. Brahm’s lullaby
05. This old man
06. Hush little baby
07. Twinkle twinkle little star
08. Ode to joy
09. Over the rainbow
10. You are my sunshine
11. Kumbaya
12. Edelweiss
13. All through the night
14. Aura Lee
15. Light of love
16. Ashgrove
17. Wonderful world
18. As ye lay sleeping

Life is but a dream came about in a most unusual way. A family member, who is an architect at a hospital in Denver, installed a sound system throughout the building. One of the goals was to play 10 seconds of Brahm’s lullaby throughout the hospital every time a baby was born. The architect asked me if I had a version of it. I searched and couldn’t find one that felt magical and gentle enough, so I just decided to record it myself. With just a simple Celtic harp and a glockenspiel (bells), I recorded a version and sent it over. The hospital played the lullaby whenever a baby was born and people were so charmed by it. They wanted to know what the music was, could it be played longer, and how to buy it.

Fast forward one year; two family members had their first babies. Again, I looked all around for a recording of baby lullabies as a gift and couldn’t find one that I found totally gentle, so I decided to record a dozen more lullabies and give it to them as a gift. They all had the same response as folks in the hospital. The songs are fairly short so it only added up to 30 minutes of music, which is not enough for a CD. Friends and family were adding this music to their baby photo slide shows, I was amazed on how cute that was.

Fast forward another year: I now play my harp every week between concerts at the pediatric units and neonatal intensive care as well as the nurses’ stations in the maternity ward of two Kaiser hospitals in Los Angeles; and Huntington Memorial. When I interacted with the children, they would sing along on the songs they know.

That inspired me to find all the lullabies and children’s melodies I could think of; and some tunes I loved as a little girl when I first started playing guitar. I wanted to record them all to give to patients and families that I met.

I dove into recording all the rest of the tunes. It was actually a challenge because these are the simplest arrangements I’ve ever recorded. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I had a mocking bird keep showing up at my studio window every night. So if you listen closely on some of the tracks, you will hear him singing. The songs are all so short, and since there is no singing on them, I added some of my own sections to compliment the magic melodies inherent in the tunes.

The CD was finished for the purpose of giving out to every baby born at Kaiser Hospital but then Kaiser wanted to include them in their baby welcome packets so they ordered about 300 a month for each of the three Kaiser hospitals I played at. That led to them being packaged in Jafra cosmetic gift bags, so they bought over 30,000 of them. That led to me helping my mom buy her home in Montana.

I hope it will continue to be useful in soothing little people, and big people too!