Fisher (tenth_life) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-10-08 11:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-29 |
Play the music, not the instrument.
Who: Billie-Jean Atkins & "Penny" Chase
Where: The Treble Clef
When: Early afternoon.
What: Old song, new friend--aren't you?
Gretel had always been wary of the power of music.
The arts in general were never her passion, not like they were with Marlow. Her husband pursued painting and theater (and sculpture and architecture, and fashion, and--) with a zeal bordering on obsession. Sometimes, he happily pounced right over that order. Gretel had seldom followed.
But music...
Music, in Gretel's opinion, was insidious. Unlike with paint or plays, there was no safe measured distance between the audience and the act. Music went inside you, it took over. It could hold one hostage as easily as it soothed. Notes, scales, and chords; harmony, major fall, and the minor lift; symphonies, Chinese operas, and jazz--how could it be easy to trust something that seemed determined to point out how deficient an ordinary life could be?
There was little to trust, in music.
Sometimes Gretel missed music almost as much the magic.
Well.
Almost.
Stepping into the store was a mistake. Gretel felt it, the moment the door closed neatly behind her: the hooked pull of regret, of dread. For a moment, her shoulders tried to hunch about her ears. Penny didn't play an instrument. Neither did her parents or her siblings, or any of their close relations. Her grandmother, she remembered vaguely, could supposedly puzzle out some dusty notes from a piano; she'd never actually heard the woman play.
Gretel herself had never been a "natural talent". Instead, she had been patient and determined, and bold in her attempts. Years had turned that mixture into something cool but textured. It'd made very good with some pieces and fantastic with others.
Carefully, Gretel picked up a bound score of sheet music. Her hand didn't tremble and her breathing didn't change, not even when she turned a page and saw--nothing.
Lines and squiggles. Notes that were entirely incomprehensible to the mind of a sixteen year old who'd never so much as breathed on a bow or an ivory key.
Gretel shut her eyes and counted to twenty.
She was at twelve when the melody started.
Klavierstücke, Gretel thought automatically. Für Elise. Not her favorite of Beethoven's jewels, but the intricacy of the second development was admirable--in the right hands. Gretel cocked her head, listening. The player was not quite...there. The playing shone but not with the polish of age or experience; there was a telltale echo in the flow, a breeziness speaking of talent still rising. Young, her ear decided, but a bloody good. Depression set aside in favor of curiosity, Gretel headed for the music.