Nayan propped his chin in his hand and replied amiably, “Either or.” He tilted his head slightly. “But you talked about the music before you talked about the stardom, which tells me that is what you cared about first and foremost. You should probably be a very proud.” Honest. That was the word he was looking for. Brodie had honest eyes; wide and blue. “And on that: I don’t think instrumentality and musicianship has very much to do with the tool you’re using so much as the mind behind the sound. Which is a roundabout way of saying, ‘Of course you’re a musician.’” He reached for his book again, flipping it open without really much intent on reading it so much as to have something to do with his hands. There was a vague pull of nostalgia in his finger tips, too long removed from any instrument of his own.
“It’s like bass guitar versus lead or rhythm. You look at the lead. They’re the flash and the bang.” He looked up from the pages to smile kindly. “But the base line which is where the heart of the song lies. You’re the central nervous system. Or a pulse. Without the pulse, it dies.” Nayan looked down at his reading again. “Juuust like you or me.”