The “Muse Room” is the room in my house where I make music and my wife makes visual art. Published the first Monday of the month, each issue of Letters from the Muse Room will include news and updates about my music, as well as something that has inspired me creatively over the past month.

Dear friends,
Today is April Fool’s Day, but no joke — I’ve got some music to share with you this month! One “pop” music song, and a “concert” music clip.

I’m the director of worship music at my family’s church in Shawnee, Kansas, and over the last few weeks during Lent we’ve been singing some new psalms. One of the psalm texts, Psalm 143, really struck me, and I composed a new tune for it. I tried to make it a simple melody that would be quick and easy for the congregation to learn, but also something beautiful that would fit the emotion of the words.

You can hear a guitar/vocal demo recording of it, and read the words, on my website here: https://www.ajharbison.com/music/pop/psalm-143.

I’ve mentioned in my last couple of emails that I’m working on composing a piece for speaking chorus, panicpanicpanic. The text is a poem called “Panic” written by my brother, Mark Harbison. I’ve written music to a couple of his poems before (see Light of the World and Fall Colors), but I’m particularly excited about this piece. The poem describes what it feels like to experience a panic attack, in very vivid language, and I’m trying to set the text in a vivid way as well — with only speaking and sound effects, no pitch. (Except at the very end, but more on that in a later email.) It’s pretty intense, but I think it will be really effective with a full chorus.

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Just a quick note on the inspiration front. Recently, driving home from a Kansas City Symphony concert, I saw this bumper sticker on a car in front of me:

There is so much brokenness and ugliness that we encounter on a daily basis — on the news, in our relationships, in our own hearts. Take some time this week to protest by making some time and space for beauty. It could be reading a good book, visiting a museum, listening to music, or making something yourself. Step back from the brokenness, take a deep breath, and experience something beautiful. Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote that “beauty will save the world,” and that can be true in little ways, as well as big ways.

Peace,
AJ Harbison

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