“The Music of Timothy Shean” is here for all those who missed it when it was first published in Dark Recesses Magazine in August 2009.
My own history of playing the piano is long in years but short on skill and practice. I played for two or three years when I was in middle school. Took it up again briefly when I was in college, and again in 2008. This time I was keen on figuring out various technical aspects of music that never seemed adequately explained to me.
I did manage to unravel a few mysteries, but many more questions constantly arose. In the midst of all this research I had the idea to write a story about a cursed scale. I have long been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Music of Erich Zann” and had in mind to write my own musical tale of horror set at Auxerre University.
I am rather fond of this story. It is the fifth one I have written with some connection to the strange town of Auxerre, Wisconsin. Two others can also be read online, “Crawlspace,” and “Old Growth.” Many of the details about Auxerre and the University trace their way back to my own experiences as an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
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