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 includes news and updates about my music, as well as something that has inspired me creatively over the past month.

Dear friends,
I hope you are all safe, healthy and not too hot. This past month was a good one for me — I continued to work for the Kansas City Symphony from home, my parents came out to visit our family for the first time in eight months, and my daughter started second grade (homeschooling).

I also made good progress over the last month on Rainlight, my orchestral piece. I’ve finished the first draft, downbeat to double bar, and I’m about to start editing a printed-out score (one of my favorite parts of the process).

I promised an audio clip this month and I do have one for you. I picked two minutes from the middle of the piece, including the buildup to the big thunderclap and a bit of its aftermath. You can listen to it on my website here: https://www.ajharbison.com/wp-content/uploads/rainlightclip.mp3.
 
My idea for this section was that the short runs in the woodwinds are things whipping around in the wind. The low brass and strings gather the forces of the wind and the rain, and some tom toms and a big bass drum bring the thunder nearer and nearer, until the big moment where it all breaks loose.

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I have a confession (don’t tell anyone): I’ve never liked Little Women. I didn’t like the book, and I didn’t like the 1994 movie version. I’ve always felt that the story was too sappy, the characters too perfect and unrealistic, the plot too episodic. (We still have it on our bookshelf though because I’ve been told I can’t get rid of it.)

However, that all changed when my wife and I watched Greta Gerwig’s 2019 version last week. The characters felt much more realistic, the story was improved, and the cinematography of the movie was excellent.

This movie jumps back and forth between the past and the present of the characters, and the two time periods are filmed with different color palettes. So not only are the time periods differentiated visually — the way they’re differentiated also communicates something about what’s happening in the story.

The actors in this version are all excellent, and Gerwig’s adaptation brings out some of the more subversive elements that lie just beneath the surface of the original story.

It’s rare, but thrilling, to see an adapted work of art transcend its source material. I’m always inspired when a work of art takes something from another work and creates something innovative and unique from it.

What are some of your favorite adaptations — whether books to movies or something else — that rise above the original material to make something new and better? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Maybe I’ll share some of your responses in my letter next month.

Be well.

Peace,
AJ Harbison

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