This past January, in celebration of my 69th birthday, I sent gift copies of my new CD “Seasonal Breezes” to all of my friends and fans whose mailing addresses I have on file or whom I see at church or the school where I teach. About 400 in all.

Many responded with kindly compliments and expressions of thanks. Not a few have sent contributions to offset the costs and these continue to trickle in. Not necessary but appreciated. Thank you!

Depositing a check is easy. Fielding a compliment can be tricky. Just the other night I attended a chamber music concert where a couple of my pieces were played. Afterwards when I congratulated the musicians on their spirited performance, they brushed it off with apologies and expressions of frustration about the notes they had flubbed, the parts that didn’t go well, the intonation, what have you.

They meant no harm. They thought they were being truthful and modest. But it was ‘a downer’ to hear them piss and moan like that, after my having thanked them for playing so exuberantly.

What I wanted to hear, what I think they ought to have said, was simply, “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

i know where they are ‘coming from.’ I will admit that it’s different when the shoe is on the other foot.

For example, a few weeks ago one of you kindly sent me an email, saying:

"Every Sunday morning for the past few years, I have been opening my mail, looking forward to finding your message of good cheer and interesting anecdotes and music! Every week, this little bit of pleasure is sent my way, something I can rely on even in these dark times. Some weeks your message is the high point for me. I've enjoyed reading your treatise on immigrants (who among us does not descend from immigrants or refugees?), your appreciation of the Shenandoah Valley and so many other treasures of nature, conversing trees, travels to Taipei, fostering dogs, and always a little insight into your motivation for writing the selected piece of the day. I've enjoyed them all, and sometimes dip into my collection of your messages if I need a lift. I love that you so generously share your music.”

Well, gosh. I find myself struggling to remember my own advice and to respond with no apologies or expressions of disappointment, but only with a bare: “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it."

Responding to the free CDs I sent, one of you wrote, "I think you are a wonderful composer and an even better human being.”

Faced with the assertion that I’m a wonderful composer, I am tempted to say something like, “I ain’t nothin’ next to Beethoven; I’m a mealy worm next to Sibelius and a peanut next to Bach.” But that’s not what people want to hear in reply to their thanks. They deserve better. So, again, I say, “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

But … “an even better human being?”

No. I cannot let that assertion rest unchallenged because I know myself all too well.

Truthfully, when I read that assertion, it made me think, right away, of Wendell Berry’s honest little poem:

A warning to my readers

Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.

I cringe when I remember the damage I’ve done when “full of fits and furies,” hurting the feelings of people I deeply love.

Or just saying ’The Wrong Thing’ when someone is already hurting.

Or when I’ve tried to comfort people only to find that I’ve inadvertently turned it around so that they are comforting me. That’s the worst. I squirm when I think of those occasions.

My only ‘out’ is to remind myself that I honestly try to do the best I can.

My intention is always to work on behalf of nourishing environments. Gardens, kitchens, schools, the natural environment, yes, all those. Also, a piece of music or a well-told story can be an environment that nourishes those within earshot. I try to contribute something along those lines.

I try to be aware that I am leaving a “soul print” everywhere I go. I borrow that useful phrase from the theologian Kayla McClurg:

“We leave not only a carbon footprint as we journey on planet earth, but a soul print as well. Scattered around us everywhere we go is tangible evidence that we have been in this place. And as a result of our presence, this place is either more—or less—loving and hopeful and prone toward mercy."

I try to behave myself, not only for the sake of others but also to preserve my sense of well-being to the extent that I’m able.

"Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world." — GB Shaw

I revised and expanded Shaw's wise yet practical quip into a quatrain which I then set to music for mixed voices:

Keep yourself all bright and shiny,
Keep yourself all bright and clean,
For you yourself are a window
Through which this world is seen.

If I can remember that I am always, everywhere I go, a window through which others are seeing the world, then I will, hopefully, have at least enough presence of mind to smile and to elicit smiles even by saying nothing more than, “Hello, how are you? Tell me what’s going on in your life,” and then really listen.

That’s my intent but, grumpy and frustrated about something or other, I very often fall short of that.

It also helps to be reminded that grumpiness is inherently comical. If you can step out of yourself and observe how you are behaving when you are grumpy, you will laugh. Even the word, “grumpy,” sounds funny and calls to mind the lone scowler among the otherwise cheerful Seven Dwarves.

Let me share some music that strikes me as ‘mock grumpy’ or ‘grumpy in an upbeat, jazzy sort of a way’ — it’s the first movement of my little suite for clarinet and cello, “Glory Hallelujah."

To hear it expertly played by clarinetist Christopher Bade and cellist Josh Aerie on the new CD of my music, “Seasonal Breezes," click on the link above.

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

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

Note to friends and fans: Four weeks + two days ago I fell off a staircase and broke my ankle. Since then, I’ve been in a wheelchair with time on my hands which may explain why this email is longer than usual. Skim it or skip it, you won’t hurt my feelings! :-)

Hello —

Five of the seven deadly sins have single-syllable names. Easy to say, hear and grasp: pride, greed, lust, wrath, sloth.

Envy has two syllables, of course. Metaphorically, ‘envy’ has to be a two-syllable word insofar as committing envy requires an envy-er and an envy-ee. (It takes two to tango).

Hoggish gluttony appropriates for itself three syllables, wouldn’t you know? Glut-ton-y. A suitably ugly word.

When dark news bombards me I ponder an eighth deadly sin. It has no short ’n’ easy name and is difficult to describe.

It’s the sin of soiling someone else's view of the world.

I imagine a naive, young person, perhaps one of my students, who, hearing that a house in her neighborhood has been burglarized, concludes, “So that is what the world is like. There are thieves at large and they are active on my street.”

Though our girl lost no property to the thief, the news of the event permanently soiled the window through which she views reality. There is no recovering from such a loss.

It seems to me that the soiling of that girls’ soul-window qualifies as a deadly sin, an additional burden on the soul of the burglar, concomitant with the burglary, perhaps a sin more evil than burglary.

(Bad news just be broadcast. I would not censor news that was bad. To be sensibly cautious and to be effective in watching out for one another, we need to know about the deathly crashes, not only the safe landings. The truthful proclamation of bad news is an invaluable service, certainly no sin.)

Think how the spreading awareness of evil dispirits those who were heretofore in high spirits. Think of the students, aware of school shootings, who carry their fear to school. Think of the faithful, aware of shootings in places of worship, who carry their fear to church / temple / mosque. Consider any gathering of people at a market, a café, a subway, a concert. Along with their wallet, spectacles, car keys, watch and umbrella, they must also tote their fear.

Shame and damnation on those deadly sinners whose behavior has rendered normal the burden of carrying these fears wherever we go!

Evil are they who then cunningly play upon these justified fears, fanning them into hatred in the hope of acquiring fame, pecuniary gain or political power. It's another instance of this same deadly but nameless sin.

How I wish I could label it with a single, bold syllable, easy to say, hear and grasp. Then I could trumpet the word and say, “See! There it is! This is what I mean!”

If we can grasp it, unnamed as it is, we may be motivated to try to live our lives so as to offset its detrimental effects to the best of ability.

The seven deadly sins are counter-balanced by the seven virtues. Interestingly, none of the virtues have single-syllable names. Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. Each one is a mouthful. Why would that be? It is an accident of the language, but metaphorically suggestive nevertheless. The number of syllables in the names of the sins and virtues connote that sin is easy to construe while virtue is difficult.

Just as I cannot succinctly name this eighth deadly sin I have tried to describe, so I cannot succinctly name an eighth virtue to offset it.

Here’s this, instead:

There are those who say: “Life is difficult; I’ve got to watch out for myself.”

And there are those who say: “Life is difficult: we’ve got to watch out for each other.”

The latter group counterbalances the former just as my proposed eighth virtue offsets my proposed eighth deadly sin.

I try not to judge people who appear to watch out mostly for themselves. I do not know what their lives are like, what experiences prompt them to behave so selfishly. Perhaps, early on, they heard about a burglary in their neighborhood and that nudged them into the ‘gotta-watch-out-for-#1’ camp.

I avoid them. I strongly prefer to hang out with people who mostly watch out for each other (like my friends at church and school).

A billion saintly lives could not cleanse all the world's soiled soul-windows. Still, simply by trying to watch out for each other as best we can, we might offer a clean, bright window through which two or three among those around us may perceive the world more positively than they would had we not been present.

It doesn’t have to be personal. Any positive human activity, even when done anonymously and facelessly, can be performed in such a way as to offer that clean, bright window.

I love what Dr. Martin Luther King said:

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”

I am no Beethoven. Still, I can ask myself, “If music was written with the explicit intention of offering a bright, clean, musical window through which all within earshot might perceive the world more positively, what would that music sound like?”

In short, what would ‘compassionate’ music sound like? Fast? Slow? Major? Minor? What instruments would play such music?

Every now and then I’ve managed to write music that aspires to answer that question. One attempt is the third movement, marked “Religioso," from my suite for clarinet and cello titled, “Glory Hallelujah.”

To hear it played — so beautifully, with such feeling! -- by clarinetist Christopher Bade and cellist Josh Aerie, click on the link above.

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

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

I hope you’re having a happy Memorial Day weekend.

My four-movement suite “Glory Hallelujah” for Clarinet and Cello was commissioned in 2013 by Dr. Christopher Bade, a professor of clarinet and music history at Taylor University. The work is light-hearted, accessible and readily playable by musicians at an intermediate level of ability. The first, second and fourth movements are funny and jazzy, while the third movement is hymn-like and deeply felt.

Listeners must wait until the last movement to discover why the piece is titled “Glory Hallelujah.” It is because the famous refrain from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is unexpectedly quoted, one line at a time, forming the seams between variations on the movement’s ska-like theme.

After a brief introduction, the movement sets up two opposing musical ideas: the raucous ’ska’ tune and the prim, square refrain that we all know, beginning, “Glory, glory halleluja!”

How will these two “get together” ? It’s a rom-com featuring opposite ’types’ that are ‘made for each other.’ It’s just a matter of time before they realize what we know all along, that they’re in love.

The first three lines of the strait-laced Battle Hymn refrain are played quietly, correctly, fastidiously — that side of the equation just isn’t bending.

But finally, when the fourth line is heard -- “His truth is marching on” -- the Battle Hymn unbends and joins in the fun, blending with the ska tune … each tune, while still retaining its character, embraces the other.

The reconciliation of opposites is achieved!

When this happens, we love it. And not only in music. Remember Tracy and Hepburn in “Adam’s Rib” or Beatrice and Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing.”

It’s fun to see how the ska tune, for its part, is varied a little each time it returns, eventually discovering its potential as a canon. It’s as if the ska tune keeps reconfiguring until it can find a version of itself that will appeal to the Battle Hymn. When it finally happens, it’s both expected and unexpected. It’s a paradox and yet it works.

So far as I know, the design of this movement is original: a theme offered in four variants, with a phrase from an unrelated but well known tune serving as the seam between the variants. And then a reconciliation / finale-coda to consummate and celebrate their union.

The music is humorous ... or is it? Am I mocking the Battle Hymn? And on Memorial Day weekend, yet? Or is this a sprightly but sincere homage to a beloved patriotic anthem and its meaning in our culture? Yes? No? Both?

It's ambiguous and I love that.

See what you think.

To hear the 4th mov’t of “Glory Hallelujah” performed exuberantly by clarinetist Christopher Bade and cellist Josh Aerie, click on the link above.

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

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

We were in Chicago a few weeks ago, visiting our son.

We stopped by Performer’s Music, a famous sheet music store in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue.

The management displays, on the wall behind the counter, photos of famous and great music-makers.

A friend told me that my photo was there -- and by golly it is! That was a proud day for the undersigned, especially because a man likes to “look good” in front of his wife and son.

Please know that you also make me feel happy and grateful … by permitting me to send these email messages to you.

Earlier this year, one of you wrote:

"Every Sunday morning for the past few years, I have been opening my mail, looking forward to finding your message of good cheer and interesting anecdotes and music! Every week, this little bit of pleasure is sent my way, something I can rely on even in these dark times.

Some weeks your message is the high point for me. I've enjoyed reading your treatise on immigrants (who among us does not descend from immigrants or refugees?), your appreciation of the Shenandoah Valley and so many other treasures of nature, conversing trees, travels to Taipei, fostering dogs, and always a little insight into your motivation for writing the selected piece of the day. I've enjoyed them all, and sometimes dip into my collection of your messages if I need a lift. I love that you so generously share your music.”

Well, gosh. I blush. It’s almost too much.

Jo and I attended one of the Pete Seeger’s last concerts. When the audience welcomed him with a prolonged standing ovation, hee smiled and waved but kept saying, “Sit down! Y’umbarrass me.”

My intention is always to work on behalf of nourishing environments. I try to speak up for gardens, kitchens, schools, parks, concert halls, museums, sanctuaries, yes. These are physical environments that nourish us.

There are other kinds of nourishing environments: a piece of music or a well-told story can also be an “environment” that “nourishes” all who are within earshot. I try to contribute something along those lines.

Working on behalf of nourishing environments also encompasses good manners and an easy way with people. I try to be polite and easy-going, not only for the sake of others but also to preserve my my own well-being.

"Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you see the world." — GB Shaw

That is a great thought. WE are the window through which we see the world. Better keep that window clean.

When we realize, too late, how grumpy we’ve been, dirtying the window through which we see the world, it’s good to remember that grumpiness is inherently comical. Recall Groucho.

If we can step out of ourselves and observe how we are behaving when we are grumpy, we are likely to laugh. Laughter is restorative.

Every day I follow the manifold monkeyshines of the person who has been, like it or not, the most prominent American for a decade and counting.

Millions of my fellow Americans find him funny. Not me. Apparently I am one of those unfortunate persons who can find no delight in crass comments, hurtful insults and casual acts of cruelty. My loss, I guess. Boo hoo.

So far as I have seen, he never laughs at himself, at his own grumpiness.

If Shaw is right, and he is the window through which he sees the world, what must the world look like, to him? No wonder he responds the way he does.

But who can say? What do we know about such things? A Russian proverb comes to mind: “The heart of another is a dark forest.”

Let me share a piece of my music that mocks my own grumpiness by being “mock grumpy,” i.e., grumpy in an upbeat, jazzy way. It’s the first movement of my little suite for clarinet and cello, “Glory Hallelujah."

To hear it played with wry wit by my good friends clarinetist Christopher Bade and cellist Josh Aerie, click on the link above.
 
There's also a link to a PDF of the score.

I'd love to know what you think about this music; feel free to reply if you're inclined. But please don't feel that you are expected to reply. I'm just glad to share my work in this way.

As always, feel free to forward this message to friends who might enjoy it.

Anyone can be on my little list of recipients for these mpFrees (as I call these musical emails). To sign up, people can email me at rick@sowash.com, sending just one word: "Yes." I'll know what it means.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
September 14, 2025