David Harper

A Sailor's Journey David Harper

"A Sailor's Journey," a book about my grandfather, depicts a Navy sailor through the many years of his life. Without spoiling much about his life, he found the love of his life, rode a boat during WWII, and, somewhere along the line, built a waterslide and got in trouble with the insurance company. The music stylings by the composer, David Harper, describes all this musically through the form of 'fugue, ' a 16th century form of counterpoint. The fugues are not so typical as well. Harper strove to not sound like Bach; had he sounded like Bach, he may have failed. Some examples of harmony are modulations to the N6, Neopolitan 6th. While the rules of melody writing were followed strongly, there is much freedom in harmony. Most songs have been edited also by Emily Jones, a wonderful engraver and transcriber. Included in the book are around fifteen fugues.