About ten years ago I got this great idea to record some Christmas music and give the CDs to friends, family, and students for Christmas. The problem with that idea is that I thought of it during Thanksgiving weekend. I immediately concocted some simple arrangements and recorded them with the help of my friend John Campbell at his studio. I felt a little guilty because I hadn't done some elaborate arrangements but "it's the thought that counts." Right?
As I duplicated the CDs and packaged them at home I was quite surprised that I rather enjoyed listening to them. I typically do not like listening to myself. But these were straightforward and unadorned. Nothing fancy. And somehow that appealed to me. And apparently it appealed to the recipients as well. Several people told me that they put it on "continuous play" and listened to it for several hours on Christmas. Nearly everyone complained that it was too short.
Two years later I finally had the time to revisit the project and recorded many more carols and publicly released "Gentle Carols". That project was so well received that I arranged and recorded a bunch of hymns and released "Sunday at Peace" some years later. The business of music had changed a lot in the intervening years and so CD sales had dropped to practically nothing, but downloads were up and streaming services were becoming the primary way that people around the world listened to music. "Sunday at Peace" has generated about fifty or sixty dollars in revenue from Spotify. I know that's not much but when you consider that my royalty for a single listen can be as low as $.00001 it hits you that fifty bucks is a whole lot of listens. (You can listen for free on various streaming sites and YouTube at #RogerHumphrey)
Still in a world of big stadium concerts and blockbuster movies my little projects seemed doomed to fail. And yet they have found an audience. Even though they lack any razzle-dazzle. Honestly, at my age my razzle don't dazzle. But I have always thought that instrumental music needs to be either Classical or Jazz. Oh and I guess New Age too. But mine were just nice little tunes played simply and sincerely.
I continued to feel a little guilty until a few years ago when I met the painter Mary Lou Peters. Her watercolors are beautiful and very simple in style. But the more I looked at them (I now own several of her paintings) the more I realized how much talent it takes to create something that beautiful and optimistic. And do it while resisting the urge to "over paint" the canvas. Respecting the white space. I never tire of looking deeply at her work. (If you would like to experience it for yourself please visit www.maryloupeters.com.) Some gentle beauty to offset the continuous stream of ugly stuff that we seem to get daily.
More recently I've been reading haiku by a childhood friend Sande Backes Foster. A haiku is bounded by the rule that each poem must be exactly seventeen syllables. Five in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line. Although it only takes a moment to read one, a good one will stay with you all day. And she writes great haiku. Sande packs five lines of love into a three line poem. (You can visit www.facebook.com/SandeBackesFosterAuthor to read some for yourself.)
So I'll celebrate the simple in life. And create music that I hope will properly reflect the art of Mary Lou Peters and the poems of Sande Backes Foster. Beauty and love are never out of style.