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,
We are now fully into fall, and in Kansas City, we’ve seen lovely fall colors in the trees, and also had our first snowfall.
I have three items for you on the news and updates front!
News and update #1: I am very close to finishing up my orchestral piece, Rainlight — just working on cleaning up the score and extracting the parts. Here is a clip, as promised, featuring the last minute and a half of the piece. The horns play the primary theme one more time, then the rain fades to a drizzle and a mist and the strings fade to silence: https://www.ajharbison.com/wp-content/uploads/rainlightending.mp3.
News and update #2: My piece for women’s chorus and piano, Voices Rising United, was selected to be part of World National Indie Radio’s “Songs For Change” Radio Special! The special is airing on their website, wnir-radio.com, every afternoon in November at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time. And Voices Rising United kicks things off at the top of the show. Check it out!
News and update #3: I also said last month that I’d have an announcement related to my pop music. Ten years ago, in December 2010, I released my singer/songwriter album Songs From My Shelf.
I recorded, mixed and mastered it all myself, and I actually had some really nice audio equipment at the time. Trouble was… I didn’t know anything about audio, or recording, or mixing, or mastering, or how to use any of the equipment I had. So, while the songs were good, the production quality was… not so good.
During my time in grad school at the UMKC Conservatory, I took a bunch of audio engineering courses, and as a result, I now know a lot more than I did back in 2010. So, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Songs From My Shelf, I am remastering the full album!
While there are definitely limitations with the original tracks, the remastered songs are already sounding way better, and — for anyone who has listened to the album before and had to crank their volume all the way up — way louder.
I’ll be offering the remastered album for sale on my website, but if you purchased the album in the last 10 years, I’d like to give you a copy for free. Just reply to this email (or the December one) with a picture of yourself holding the CD, or a screenshot of the digital album on your phone or computer, and I’ll send you a link for a free download!
If you don’t own a copy of the album but you’d like to, I’ll keep you posted as to when it’s available on the website!
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I was inspired this past month by a pair of videos that a friend shared with me. The first one was created by Adam Neely, a self-described “bassist, YouTuber, general enjoyer of things.” He describes his YouTube channel as “exploring what music means and what it means to be a musician.” The video that I watched from him was “The 7 Levels of Jazz Harmony.”
It was an excellent introduction to the subject, with well-illustrated examples of each “level,” and I think even people without the musical background to understand what a Dbmaj7(9,#11) chord is will learn something that will help them understand jazz a little better.
The second video was entitled “Wintergatan — Marble Machine.”
I’m a little surprised I’ve never seen this before, since it was posted more than four years ago. But it’s a marvel of engineering and music!
I hope you enjoy these videos as I did. Be well.
Peace,
AJ Harbison
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