I’m usually a morning person, but some days it’s just hard. A little music can usually turn the day around – Johann Sebastian Bach‘s Harpsichord Concerti always do the trick.

What’s the secret to this piece’s ‘get-up-and-go’ attitude? Constant 16th-note motion. Throughout the piece, there is nearly always a voice in the ensemble which has moving 16th-notes, which gives the piece a constant rhythmic drive. The negative effect of this has earned this style of baroque music the nickname ‘typewriter music.’

Henry Purcell is probably the best-known English composer of the baroque era. To this day, he is revered in England much like Bach is revered in Germany – as the father of their musical heritage. He is buried next to the organ in Westminster Abbey, where was organist.

“Hear My Prayer” is a somber setting of the first verse of Psalm 102. The lamentations of the psalmist are clearly heard in the chromaticism of the music.

We’ve all done this — you’re sitting at a desk; all of a sudden, you have a primal urge to make music. Maybe you tap your toes, maybe you drum on the desk, maybe you just swing your body to the music playing in your head. One of my schoolmates would play the “William Tell Overture” in class by tapping on his teeth. If you asked him how he could play the correct pitches just by moving his mouth, his answer was “I just know it.” We all have some of that in us.

Humans can find ways to make music out of anything. Anything! When you consider that, then Thierry De Mey‘s piece “Table Music” isn’t so strange. It might be considered avant-garde since it doesn’t use traditional concert instruments, but in terms of form, it’s pretty conservative – a combination of old and new that has made this piece a relative hit!

Be sure to watch the video, and not just listen to the audio.