Who: Katou and Izzy What: Katou gives Izzy drum lessons. When: Before the plot Where: Katou's place Warnings/Rating: Low/None Status: Complete when posted.
It seemed like it had been a while since Katou had had to put together a drum set. When Youji and he had been playing together, that had obviously mostly been Youji’s job, though Katou had done it a couple of times. It wasn’t too difficult of a chore though, despite the fact that he had realized he had connected the wrong thing a couple of times and had to start over, but it was made less of a pain in the ass with the beer he had in his hand.
Katou himself had never had formal lessons, and it had been something he had picked up just screwing around with Youji’s drum set, but he figured if he was going to be teaching someone how to play drums, he might as well at least know what everything was called, so he had done a bit of reading, and once he had finished putting everything together, he sat in the stool behind the kit. “Alrighty girlie, I guess this is the boring part of the lesson where I just tell you what shit is, I guess. So you got yourself these three symbols. This is the hi-hat,” he said, gesturing toward the stand that held two cymbals that seemed to be stacked on top of one another to the left of the drum set. “You usually use it with this hi-hat pedal thing,” he demonstrated by stepping on the pedal, allowing the hi-hats to make a bit of noise. “Though I guess you can hit it with the sticks too. Next to it is the crash cymbal, which is the loud one,” which he demonstrated, though he stopped the sound from ringing out by stilling the cymbal with his hand shortly after hitting it. “And then over here on the right is the ride cymbal. The ride and the hi-hats are usually used to like, keep time I guess, and the crash is used to… you know. Be loud.” Katou frowned to himself. Maybe teaching music wasn’t going to be his calling after all. “Anyway, down here you got the snare,” which was the smallest of the drums, sitting on the right, “The tom toms, the bass drum, and the floor tom,” he said, striking each as he mentioned them. “Think you got all that?”
Izzy had been looking forward to trying out the drums, she wasn’t a big music lover but she did have good rhythm so hopefully that would help her. She didn’t much mind if Katou wasn’t the best teacher, he was her friend and they’d definitely have fun.
“Okay, yeah I think so” she nodded, pointing to each bit and naming it. That seemed easy, the next part she had a feeling wouldn’t be. “So, now I just sit and hit them right?” she gave him a little smirk, she couldn’t be totally serious. Not with him, they were both far too cool for that.
Katou grinned. “Oh yeah, hit ‘em as hard as you want,” he said. “The harder the better.” Well, at least for the angry punk music Katou liked to play. “You just gotta know how to keep time. So I’ll show you this rhythm thing and you can give it a shot.”
First he hit the first tom-tom, and the snare, then the snare and the ride cymbal, switching back between them and hitting the bass drum with every beat. After he had repeated that a couple of times, he tossed the drum sticks at Izzy and stood up, giving room for Izzy to sit down at the drums.
Izzy followed the rhythm, committing the order to memory as she watched Katou hit the drums in order. “Okay, here we go” Izzy said as she sat shooting him a grin before starting the sequence he’d been showing her. She went wrong a couple of times but corrected herself and was soon replicating the series of hits confidently. “Yeah?” she said glancing over at him.
Katou let out a low, impressed whistle. "Yeah," he repeated after her. "It's a bit easier if you count time out loud, but shit man, you hardly even need a trick like that. Yer like, a natural or some shit." Katou was actually pretty impressed. "You wanna try something a bit more complicated?"
Izzy laughed, obviously her years of training and picking up things was handy in situations other than combat. She’d secretly been hoping that would be the case. “Sure, that sounds fun” she nodded, practically beaming as she realised he was impressed.
“Sweet,” Katou said. “Okay, so this is really the most important thing you gotta perfect in order to play the drums like a pro. You watching?” He waited a moment to make sure he had her full attention, before he twirled the drum sticks between his fingers. It had taken him a while to master it (it probably would have taken him less time if he had not been inebriated almost every time he had attempted it), but he had it down now. When he stopped twirling it, he immediately launched into playing the next rhythm, this time also utilizing the second tom-tom and the floor tom.
“I’m watching” she nodded, her eyes following his movements before laughing as he twirled the sticks then re-focusing on the rhythm. She had a feeling that one would take her longer to grasp. Taking the sticks she weighed them, they were a lot lighter than her knives but the principle was the same so it didn’t take her long to adjust. The rhythm however was harder, as she had guessed it would be. “Well, damn” she huffed.
“Counting out loud really does help a lot,” Katou said, making himself comfortable. Really, she wasn’t doing all that bad. She was definitely better at it than when he had first started fooling around with Youji’s drum kit. “And don’t be embarrassed to go real slow until you get the hang of the pattern. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.”
Izzy shot him a look, “Okay, but no laughing” she teased him before trying again, slower and with the counting until she felt comfortable enough to speed up. Okay, he was right that had definitely helped. As she finished she twirled the sticks and grinned, “This is fun” she declared, enjoying herself far more than she had thought she would.
Katou actually gave a bit of a clap when she was finished. “Mozart of drumming indeed,” he joked. “Drumming’s extra fun when you’re really pissed about something and wanna just beat the hell outta something.” He wasn’t going to go into something poetic like ‘turning your anger into something creative’ but that was there too. “And it hurts less than running your fist through a wall.”
“Or somebody’s hard head” she said with a grin, “But it is a lot of fun. I didn’t think it would be as good as this” she told him with a bright grin. “Thank you for letting me have a go, you’re a good teacher”
Katou felt himself blush lightly, and he looked at the ground awkwardly. "I dunno about good or nothing. You just learn quick. If I had to teach someone like me I bet we'd come to blows pretty quick." He took a swig from his beer, and then shrugged. "All I've really got is stuff I wrote for my band, but if you tell me some of your favourite artists, maybe I can find some easy stuff of theirs to teach you for next time."
Izzy smiled at his blush, it wasn’t particularly easy to make him blush so she felt rather proud. “We make a good team” she said with a smile, leaning over to swipe his beer and steal a swig before handing it back to him. “Alright, I can do that” she agreed, looking forward to it already.