The “Muse Room” is the room in my house where I make music and my wife makes visual art. Published the first Friday 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,
Welcome to fall! Sort of. Here in Kansas City it’s still hot and humid, but there have been a couple of days with glimmers of cooler weather. While I’m not a huge fan of the cold, as someone who walks to work every day I can’t wait for some temperatures in the 70s instead of the 80s and 90s.
In the last month I’ve started working on a new piece, a trio for violin, cello and piano. It’s based on two alternating ideas — one that’s rhythmic and percussive, alternating with one that’s a continuously running melody (think Charlie Parker jazz, or Baroque music). Each instrument will take a turn as the featured soloist with each of the ideas, for a total of six sections.
While I don’t have anything to share from it just yet, I’m excited about the piece and I look forward to sending you a clip next month!
—-
Something that inspired me in the past month is something I just started doing yesterday — does that count??
This week I’ve listened to pieces from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier a couple of times. The Well-Tempered Clavier is made up of two groups of preludes and fugues in every major and minor key — 24 preludes and fugues in Book I and 24 preludes and fugues in Book II. The collection has been called the pianist’s Old Testament (Beethoven’s piano sonatas being the New Testament).
Every morning I wake up early to compose before I get ready for work. Yesterday, something made me want to listen to a prelude and fugue before I started composing, so I listened to the first set, in C major.
If I had to choose one composer who I thought was the best, the most skillful of all time, it would probably be Bach. And that first WTC prelude and fugue are so clear and so beautiful that listening to them really cleared my head and inspired me, just before I started working. So I decided that each morning, before I start composing, I’ll listen to a prelude and fugue from the WTC.
If you’ve never listened to The Well-Tempered Clavier, I highly recommend it. There’s really no one else who writes like Bach.
Peace,
AJ Harbison