My friend Chris Miller is an extraordinary musician and a wonderful guy. He directs several choirs, including the Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church choir in which I have the pleasure of singing. He is also a fine baritone, pianist, guitarist and trumpeter. In 2007, he asked me to write something “American-sounding” for trumpet and piano that he could play as an offertory.

What is more American-sounding than Richard Rodgers’ score for “Oklahoma!”? The show opens with the cowboy Curly singing, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” I decided to meet Chris’ request by paying homage to Richard Rodgers and to that song in particular.

My piece begins and ends with Curly doing his cowboy thing. I picture him strutting along, thumbs in his belt, cowboy hat tilted back on his head, whistling at the girls and smiling broadly. But Curly has a reverential side, too. Night falls and the music calms down. Gazing up in wonder and gratitude at the stars above the prairie, Curly is moved to pray a prayer of Thanksgiving. You’ll hear it. And when the prayer is concluded, you’ll hear Curly dust himself off and resume his strut and head into town, looking for fun.

In the score, I ask the trumpeter to wear a cowboy hat for the opening and final sections of the piece, but to remove it for the prayerful middle section.

Listen carefully and you’ll hear “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” peeking around the corners as the trumpet and piano weave fragments of the famous tune into the texture of the piece. The entire opening phrase of the song is only heard once, at the very end.

Even without being told in advance that a well-known tune was being quoted, I think you’d probably sense that there was something familiar about what you were hearing. But I think you would be unable to identify it until the very end. Then you’d say, “Ah-HAH! So THAT’s why I thought I recognized something!"

The piece has never been recorded in its original trumpet/piano version. In fact, hardly anyone has ever heard this music. Chris played it in church once or twice but through the miracle of technology, today’s email miraculously, serves it up for the first time to you and many other friends and fans.

What times we live in, when such miracles are possible for people of modest means, like me. When I think of this, I feel prompted, like Curly, to pray prayers of Thanksgiving. Thirty years ago, the only way I could have shared this music with you would have been to produce an LP and mail it to you. The cost would have been enormous and prohibitive. Now, it’s almost free and requires little more than the energy it takes to press a few keys on my computer.

You will hear clarinetist Laurel Bennett and collaborative pianist Carol Alexander playing “Curly Prays: Homage to Richard Rodgers,” by clicking on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Nov. 1, 2015

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Last week we were loudly informed that ...

“...our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but that [sic] were villains.”

In my six years as a teacher of French, Music Theory & History and The Art of Storytelling at a Cincinnati alternative school called “Leaves of Learning,” I thought I knew what I was doing.

I thought I was showing the “children” how to unlock and employ the lovely symmetry of French verbs, to understand exactly how a fugue unfolds, to recognize, appreciate and learn to utilize the ‘tug’ a well-told story can exert upon listeners.

I thought I was encouraging critical thinking when we translated quotations I’d written in French on the chalk board and then led a discussion, mostly in French, of what the quotations meant, whether or not they seemed true and wise, how we might apply what wisdom we found in them.

For example:

“Servir la patrie est une moitié du devoir, servir l’humanité est l’autre moitié.”
(translation: Serving the homeland is one half of [one’s] duty, serving humanity is the other half.)
-- Victor Hugo

I thought I was fostering listening skills in my Music Theory & History class when we considered Charles Ives’ use of deliberate ambiguity in his music, his eccentric knack of simultaneously paying homage to, yet parodying, Protestant hymns and the patriotic tunes of the Civil War.

I thought I was opening eyes and minds of wanna-be storytellers when we considered how a painting can tell a story by examining Edward Hick’s “The Peaceable Kingdom,” in which Native Americans and European settlers are peacefully trading goods in the background while in the foreground a lion, a wolf, a leopard and a bear lie down alongside lambs, a cow, a goat and little children. Why would Hicks, a Quaker preacher, paint such an image? Was he depicting our actual history or an idealization of it? Was he prophesying a better future? What questions does the painting raise for us in our own time? Does it depict our world today in any sense? What would we have to change before that painting could serve as an accurate metaphor for the world we know?

Those were some of the things I thought I was teaching. It turns out that in fact I was teaching my students “to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but ... villains.”

No worries. I won’t be teaching this Fall. I’m on sabbatical until there is a vaccine and it is safe for me to set foot inside the school building again. A septuagenarian with incipient heart disease, I take no chances.

“Oh, but you could teach on-line!” some say.

No. Been there, done that. When school reconvened ‘on-line’ after spring break, I taught ‘virtually’ for the last two months of the school year. It was dreadful. I never mastered the technology, though I tried. Worse, the human rituals of ‘facial mimicry,’ essential to teaching a language or the art of storytelling, are impossible in a Zoom meeting. Teaching Music Theory without access to a piano is inefficacious.

Be assured, my students had no inkling that I disliked teaching on-line. I concealed my frustrations, kept smiling, did my usual best to assure them that their ideas had value, to help them to feel good about themselves and about what they were achieving.

I even managed to elicit a few laughs, despite the constraints of teaching on-line.

For instance, I led my advanced French class through a tour of our home, carrying my computer from room to room, showing them the furnishings, the paintings, the collections, explaining as I went, en français.

Then I went outside to show them our front porch, our picket fence, our landscaping, etc. Alas, without realizing it, I strayed too far from the wifi signal and went on speaking for five minutes without knowing that I had “left the meeting.”

At length, I noticed that when I asked questions, there were no responses. Embarrassed to find that I had been talking only to myself, I came back inside the house where the wifi kicked in again. When I rejoined the on-line meeting, one of my students, the class wise guy, said “At last! The Prodigal Professor has returned!”

I apologized for my inadvertent absence and then we translated his clever quip into French: “Enfin! Le professeur prodigueux est revenu!” Never let a teachable moment slip by!

I told them what had happened and then I added that it was really too bad because somehow or other I had digressed from the tour and started telling all of my favorite dirty jokes. I told them that I had wondered why no one was laughing until I realized that I had left the meeting by going beyond the range of my wifi signal. Too bad, I said, all those great dirty jokes and they hadn’t been able to hear any of them.

They screamed in mock dismay and begged me to tell them the jokes but I refused on the grounds that it just wouldn’t be the same the second time. No joke is ever as funny the second time you hear or tell it.

They knew I was teasing, which made it all the more funny.

“Oh come on, Monsieur Sauvage, please, please, please!” they begged. “Tell us one! Just one! Just one!”

Mais non. Je suis resté ferme. J’ai refusé.

That was fun.

But wait! Come to think of it, I was corrupting young people by alluding to sexuality, albeit obliquely and with humorous intent. Between that and teaching them to “hate our country,” I guess I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself.

Perhaps it’s just as well that I’m taking a sabbatical so that I can get my priorities straight.

In Music Theory & History, we listened to and considered a few of my own works. Although I am not one of the Great Masters I believe that students benefit from hearing music written by someone they actually know, someone living in our own time and place.

One of the pieces we listened to was my ironical homage/parody of the music of Richard Rodgers, a piece for clarinet and piano titled, “Curly Prays.”

What is more American than Richard Rodgers’ score for “Oklahoma!”? The musical opens with the cowboy Curly singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” I decided to pay homage to Richard Rodgers by teasing his spirit a little as regards that song in particular.

My piece begins and ends with Curly doing his cowboy thing. I picture him strutting along, thumbs in his belt, hat tilted back on his head, flirting with the girls and smiling broadly. But it turns out that Curly has a reverential side, too. Night falls and the music calms down. Gazing up in wonder and gratitude at the starry sky above the vast prairie, Curly kneels. He prays a prayer of Thanksgiving. When the prayer is concluded, Curly seems to spring to his feet, stretch, dust himself off and resume his strut, headin’ into town, lookin’ for fun.

Listen carefully and you’ll hear “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” peeking around the corners during the middle ‘prayer’ section as the clarinet and piano weave fragments of the famous tune into the texture of the music. The entire opening phrase of Rodger’s great song is heard at the very end of the piece.

If you didn’t know in advance that a tune was being quoted, you’d probably sense something familiar in what you were hearing, but find yourself unable to identify it until the very end.

Then you’d say, “Ah-HAH! So THAT’s why I thought I recognized it!"

But wait! “There you go again,” making fun of a great American composer and a cowboy character, teaching our children to to “hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but … villains.” Well, my Curly is not a villain, more a cocky galoot.

But evoking the sacred act of prayer in the middle of a parody?

Shame! Shame on me! I just can’t stay out of trouble!

You can hear clarinetist Laurel Bennett and pianist Carol Alexander playing “Curly Prays: Homage to Richard Rodgers,” by clicking on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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“Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” ...

Oh, what a beautiful song! I wish I had written it. Too late. Richard Rodgers beat me to it!

At least I can pay homage to the composer by teasing his spirit a little, simultaneously honoring him and poking fun.

My little tribute begins and ends with a musical image of Curly doing his cowboy thing, struttin’ along, thumbs in his belt, hat tilted back on his head, flirtin’ with the girls and smilin’ broadly. It’s all there, in the music.

But Curly can be reverent, too. Night falls and the music settles down. Gazing up in wonder at the starry sky, Curly removes his cowboy hat, kneels and mumbles a prayer of thanksgivin’. When the prayer is concluded, Curly springs to his feet, stretches his arms, dusts himself off and resumes his strut, headin’ into town, lookin’ for fun.

Listen carefully and you’ll hear the “Beautiful Mornin’” song peeking around the corners during the middle ‘prayer’ section of this piece as the clarinet and piano weave fragments of the famous tune into the texture of my original music. The entire opening phrase of Rodger’s great song is sounded finally, at the very end of the piece.

Hopefully, you’ll be left wondering: “Was this piece an homage or a parody? … or both at the same time?”

To hear clarinetist Laurel Bennett and pianist Carol Alexander playing “Curly Prays: Homage to Richard Rodgers,” click on the link above.

There's also a link to a PDF of the score.