The Musket

Last semester, I took Survey of American Literature 1 in which we read the entire book Moby Dick. It was quite the challenge and to be honest I don't remember most of what I read.

At the end of the class we were assigned a creative project to take any part of Moby Dick and make it whatever we wanted. My professor said to take anything we were already talented at and make a project out of it.

My mind immediately jumped to percussion. I recruited my friend Jonah, who was also in the class, and together we created something unique. He took a monologue by Starbuck and performed it while I played an excerpt from a marimba solo in the background. We chose this moment because Starbuck is debating whether to kill Ahab or not. It is a great moment for internal conflict accented by dark music.

At first I thought it would be easy, but when Jonah and I tried to put the performance with the music, it just wasn't clicking. Finally I realized that I just had to make the music match what he was saying by memorizing the specific moments where he got emotional and increasing the emotional performance of my music. I'm proud of the work we put together.

We performed it together in a practice room for my professor and his wife and they both left crying. Needless to say, we both got an A.

Without further ado, "The Musket," by Jonah Abrell and Chandler Dean, adapted from the works of Herman Melville and Guillaume Le Picard.

"The Musket"