Thinking Celestial - A ”Follow The Prophet” Series Podcast · SLCC Institute of Religion

Ep 173 S7 Debra Blau ‘Tune Your Heart to Jesus Christ' Tracy Y. Browning

·29 min·1 clip

President Nelson says music can provide spiritual nourishment, healing power, and fair testimony of sacred truths.

1. Thinking Celestial’s episode centers on Tracy Y. Browning’s General Conference talk, 'Tune Your Heart to Jesus Christ, the Sacred Gift of Primary Music.' 2. Host and guest Deborah Blau discuss Browning’s talk because Blau sang in the Institute Choir for the Saturday afternoon session and heard the message later. 3. The episode asks what primary music does for doctrine, memory, testimony, and covenant living. 4. Blau says music has been 'one of my favorite things' and says it 'saved me from some really dark times in my life.' 5. The host describes the 'worldwide concert loft' of general conference and asks Blau what it felt like to sing there on camera. 6. Blau says performing in general conference was intimidating because 'everybody sees it' and a mistake would be broadcast to the world. 7. The host compares that experience with singing in a priesthood choir years earlier and says the big organ and the setting strengthened him in unexpected ways. 8. The conversation turns to an invitation for listeners to take an institute class, including a choir class taught by Alan Sackett at Salt Lake Community College Institute of Religion. 9. The host points listeners to myinstitute.churchofjesuschrist.org and says involvement is harder in the current culture, so institute gives people a way to show up. 10. Blau summarizes Browning’s backstory, including a late-night TV advertisement offering a free Book of Mormon that her mother saw. 11. The discussion notes that Browning lived in New Jersey with her father, visited her mother in New York, attended the Presbyterian Church, and was baptized within a year after meeting missionaries. 12. Blau says Browning was about 15 or 16 and did not grow up with the primary songs that many Latter-day Saints know from childhood. 13. The host quotes Dallin H. Oaks saying that 'the singing of hymns is one of the best ways to learn the doctrine of the restored gospel.' 14. Blau adds that music can help children learn difficult gospel ideas and says songs are easier to remember than plain explanation. 15. The conversation references Alzheimer’s research and childhood songs, then shifts to the host’s habit of stopping mid-song to see whether his children can finish the line. 16. Blau identifies 'A Child’s Prayer' as one of her earliest favorite songs and says songs can answer children's questions about whether God hears them. 17. Later, the host reads President Nelson’s passage about music continuing to influence people well beyond childhood and being able to 'facilitate worship.' 18. Blau connects that idea to her family, her mother playing piano in the home, and her mother helping her prepare a song for a World Christmas sacrament meeting after a stroke. 19. The tone is conversational and testimonial, with the host guiding scripture and conference quotes while Blau answers with personal memories and song references. 20. Listeners who value Latter-day Saint hymns, Primary songs, and testimony-building will get the most from it, while listeners seeking a short secular music analysis may skip it.

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