{"id":1498,"date":"2009-09-29T20:10:54","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T04:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/?p=1498"},"modified":"2009-09-29T20:10:54","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T04:10:54","slug":"feel-good-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/?p=1498","title":{"rendered":"Feel Good Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Love is Spoken Here
\n\u2014Janice Kapp Perry, composer and lyricist<\/p>\n

Sometimes ideas for songs come at unusual times and in unusual places. \u201cLove Is Spoken Here\u201d definitely had an unusual beginning. My husband and I were attending a party in honor of an outgoing stake presidency, and during a lull in the activities I said to my husband, Doug, \u201cPlease help me come up with an interesting idea for a song. I want to enter the Ensign songwriting contest, and the deadline is just two days away.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we were leaving our host\u2019s home that evening, Doug pointed to a beautiful cross-stitched sampler above the kitchen sink. It read Love Is Spoken Here. \u201cThere\u2019s your title,\u201d he said. \u201cGo to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I loved the idea! The thought reminded me of the home I had grown up in, and I decided to write about two things that gave me a feeling of peace and security in that home: hearing my mother\u2019s prayers and feeling the power of my father\u2019s priesthood. I wrote one verse about each that could be sung at the same time over a common harmonic structure. This was my first experiment with countermelodies.<\/p>\n

The piece did well in the contest and was published in the Ensign. A few years later a Primary teacher from Texas wrote to say, \u201cWe\u2019ve enjoyed learning your song, \u2018Love Is Spoken Here,\u2019 and are writing to ask permission to make the phrase into a cross-stitch sampler.\u201d That seemed only right. The phrase had come full circle from a cross stitch sampler, to my song, to the Ensign, to a Primary in Texas, and back to a cross-stitch sampler.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had countless sweet experiences with this song; one that touched me deeply occurred during a presentation at a stake women\u2019s conference in Provo, Utah. I asked for a volunteer to sing one of the melodies while I sang the other.<\/p>\n

The hand of a teenage girl with Down syndrome immediately shot up, and I invited her to join me. If she can\u2019t do it, I thought, I\u2019ll just sing along with her. \u201cWhich part would you like to sing?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither,\u201d she replied with complete confidence and to the delight of the audience.<\/p>\n

I assigned her the first part, started the taped accompaniment, and stood in awe as Amy Monson performed one of the sweetest renditions of that song I will ever hear. When it was my turn, I could hardly sing through the lump in my throat and almost had to ask for her help. When we sang our parts together, she held up her end perfectly, gave me a hug, and returned to her seat. The audience couldn\u2019t restrain themselves from applauding her through their tears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love is Spoken Here \u2014Janice Kapp Perry, composer and lyricist Sometimes ideas for songs come at unusual times and in unusual places. \u201cLove Is Spoken Here\u201d definitely had an unusual beginning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unboundpotential.com\/sami\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}