Opus One

Chapter 16: Langsam

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Richard had a dull headache.  It was the last thing he needed today.  He was late to his meeting with Dave, having fallen asleep after turning off his alarm.  Five minutes ago, he was supposed to take his last training test.  If he passed, he would be ready to record student recitals on his own.

As he ran down the stairs, buttoning his shirt, he paused on the second floor landing.  I did say I’d come find them for breakfast, he thought.  He really didn’t have time, though, so he continued down the stairs.

Dave was just rounding the corner as he approached the recording control room.

“Hey, Richard,” he said cheerily.

“Morning, Dave.”

“I’m running a little late,” Dave said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Good, I don’t feel as bad, then!”

The pair went into the control room, and Richard was surprised to see someone in the concert hall at this hour.  It was one of the guys who worked in the recording service along with Richard.

“Jake is going help us out with your training by giving a pretend recital,” Dave explained.

“Cool.”

“All right.  Go ahead and do the setup, and then I’ll tell Jake to start his concert.”  Dave handed Richard two DAT tapes and a cassette, and then sat in the chair by the mixer and observed Richard.

Richard took a deep breath, and then began the procedure for setting up the recording.  He labeled and exercised the tapes, and then brought up the levels appropriate for a solo violin and the type of microphones that were hanging in the hall.  After laying down a reference tone, he set the DAT tapes and the cassette to record-ready. 

He made the appropriate level notations on the mock program, and then looked at Dave expectantly.  Dave nodded, sticking out his lower lip.

“Good job.  Let me tell Jake to start.”  Dave went out of the room, and then Richard heard him call to Jake from the back of the hall.  As Jake walked off the stage, Richard double checked everything again.  Since there wasn’t any indication of  when Jake would walk on, Richard started the tapes.  Better safe than sorry, he thought.

Dave returned just as Jake came out onto the stage.  Richard laughed as Jake made fake crowd noise and held his violin and bow out over his head triumphantly.  Dave rolled his eyes; Jake was a known clown in the recording service.

Everything went smoothly.  Jake played two items on the first half of his imaginary recital: piece one was Mary Had a Little Lamb, complete with double and triple-stop variations.  The second selection was a brief rendition of Purple Haze.  Richard could tell Dave was trying hard not to burst out laughing.

For his part, Richard stayed focused on the task.  He kept track of the timings, inserted track markers, and watched the levels.

After the Hendrix piece ended, Jake made some more crowd noise as he walked off stage for intermission.  Richard paused the tapes and now Dave did laugh.

“Heh, heh.  You never know what he will pull on you,” Dave said.  “Looks pretty good, Richard.  Remember, though, to notate some peaks.  It makes it easier to set levels if we need to make more cassettes for the performer later.”

“Oh, right, sorry. I forgot about that.”

“No big deal.”

Jake returned to the stage for the second half.  Richard started the tapes hurriedly as he approached the center.  He looked questioningly at Dave.

“Usually you’ll have the stage manager dimming the lights before the start, and after intermission.  That’s a good time to start the tapes,” Dave explained.

Richard nodded.

Jake started his final piece.  At first, Richard couldn’t place what the slow melody was.  Then he realized it was the beginning of the Sibelius Violin Concerto that the violinist had played the night before at the orchestra concert. 

Emotion flooded through Richard at the memory.  He cringed at how the evening had gone.  He felt badly about having been so dismissive of the girls, and had slept terribly as a result.  Several times he had gotten up out of bed and started for their room to talk with them, but then decided against it.  He wasn’t sure what he would say.

One thing was clear, though: he needed to get serious about his piano playing.  The more he had thought about his lesson, as he was sulking in the practice room the night before, the more he realized how disappointed Mrs. Tertychnaya had been in him.  Memories of Jenna telling about her friend’s dismissal from the school fueled his fears that Mrs. Tertychnaya was about to drop him as a student.  He wasn’t sure if that was what she was thinking, but he didn’t want to find out.  How would he face Sandra and Emily? 

How would he face his father?

He wouldn’t have to, if he could get back on track.  He would have an hour after the test was over to get some practicing in before class.  Or maybe I should find Emily and Sandra? he wondered.

No.  That kind of thinking got him into trouble in the first place.  Sandra would be in English, and he’d see Emily in analysis at ten, anyway.

He hoped they would understand.

“Richard?”

Richard snapped out of his thoughts, realizing Jake was waving to his invisible fans.  Richard hadn’t even noticed that the piece had finished.

“Sorry, I...”  He felt stupid.  It was better to be quiet than admit having drifted off, obvious though it was.

Richard guessed at the end time.  He made a slight grimace as he realized that he hadn’t notated any levels, either. 

Jake walked off stage, so Richard stopped the tapes and reset the mixer controls, and finally pulled and labeled the tapes.

“Great, man!  Way to go.  I think you are fully trained, now,” Dave said, nodding.

“Really?  Sorry I messed up the ending there,” Richard said apologetically.

Dave shrugged.  “Just stay alert in the future.  Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yeah, I was just thinking about my day,” Richard said, shrugging.

“Busy, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, remember, don’t take on too many recordings.  I don’t want Irina breathing down my neck!”

Richard chuckled.  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it manageable.  Has she said anything to you about me working here?”

Dave shrugged.  “I saw her yesterday afternoon, and she didn’t say anything.”

“When do you start recording her album?” Richard asked.

“In a month or so.  Hey, are you interested in doing technical assistance on it?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time.”

“Fair enough.  Let me know.  Maybe I’ll ask Irina,” Dave mused.  “Do you remember Jarrett?”

“Yeah, the producer?”

Dave nodded.  “He’ll be working on that one too.  He’d love to have you help, I’m sure.  He thought you were great during Maria’s session.  He still talks about that one mistake you caught!”

“Oh, it wasn’t a big deal,” Richard dismissed, feeling a little self-conscious.  “Just luck, really.”

Dave laughed.  “Well, I won’t let him forget about it!” he said.  “All right, I’m back to the office.  Just dump those tapes in the bulk box, will you?”

“Sure.  I’ll see you around.”

Dave waved and went out of the control room.

The lights in the concert hall went dark, and Richard sat heavily in the mixing chair.  The very faint hiss of the speakers was all he could hear, and that reminded him to power down the amplifiers. 

He was worried about facing Emily in class.  Are they mad at me?  They were so excited to see him last night, and he went and ruined it.  The crestfallen look on Sandra’s face when he rejected her offer of a massage was heartbreaking. 

Richard sighed.  There was suddenly too much to handle.  He needed to eat breakfast.  He needed to talk to the girls.  He needed to practice.  And there was only an hour before classes started.

Practice first.  That was his new motto.

Richard let out a groan of frustration.  He had been wrestling with this same passage for almost a half-hour now, and he felt as clumsy on it as he had a month ago.  The fingerings Mrs. Tertychnaya had suggested were just not working for him.  His headache pounded as he shot the music score an annoyed look.

Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this.  If he was going to have to start over and relearn everything he knew about playing the piano, he should just give up now.  He leaned his head against the wall, and tried to control his anger.

There was a knock on his practice room door.  Richard’s heart raced, as he wondered if it was Emily or Sandra.  He was almost relieved to see Jer peeking in through the rectangular window.

Richard opened the door.

“Dude, are you all right?” Jer asked.

“Yeah, just taking a break.”

“By pounding your head on the wall?” Jer raised a brow.

Richard shrugged, but didn’t answer. 

“Everything cool with your girls?  They came looking for you around eight-fifteen.  Fucking woke me up!  It’s cool, though.  They were surprised you weren’t there.”

“I forgot I had a meeting.  I’ll see them in a bit.”

Jer nodded.  “Everything cool?” he asked again.

“Yeah, everything’s cool.” Richard answered.

“All right, I’ll see you in class then.”

“Later.”

Richard glanced at his watch.  He had twenty minutes.  He had to get his shirt, which he had left in the control room.  It was always very hot in there, since the air conditioning was blocked to keep the room quiet.  Ms. Connelly’s room was always cold, though.

It was no use trying to practice right now, anyway.

As he was walking out of the control room, he happened to glance at the shelves of archived recordings that lined the walls of the anteroom.  Hundreds of DAT tapes arranged by date stood as a testament to the amount of concerts that were given each year at Wexford.  Soon, I’ll have recorded some of these tapes, Richard thought.  And after that, I’ll be playing on a few, too.  If I’m even around…

Lined up on the opposite wall were large boxes of reel-to-reel tapes, remnants from the era before the advent of digital recording. 

By chance, his eye landed on one pair of rubber banded white reel-to-reel boxes.  He did a double take as he read the label:  “Faculty Recital: I. Tertychnaya, October 17, 1979.”

Richard pulled the boxes down and glanced at the front.  It merely repeated the information on the spine.  I wonder what she played?

He fingered the rubber band for a moment.  Glancing at his watch, he hurried back to the recording equipment and threaded the tape through the guides, clumsily feeding the leader onto the take-up reel. 

He had to laugh to himself.  Just a week ago he had asked Dave what the point was of having a giant reel-to-reel machine in the control room, if no recordings were ever done on it anymore.  Dave had explained that sometimes people wanted old tapes transferred to CD or cassette, and that was one service that was provided.  And indeed, at the next meeting with Dave, he had shown Richard how to operate the reel-to-reel unit as part of his training. 

“Just in case.”

Dave had also said that the big-money visitors to the conservatory liked seeing ‘a real recording studio.’  That was also the reason he kept a twenty-four channel mixer in the control room, even when most concerts were recorded with two or four microphones.  It helped with fundraising, even if just a little bit.

At the time Dave had shown him how to use the reel-to-reel, Richard remembered thinking he would surely never use the thing again.

He flipped on power to the amplifiers and brought up the playback return.  He fast-forwarded through the crowd noise, and then found the walk-on applause. 

Richard sat in front of the speakers and closed his eyes.  The hall got quiet...

...Irina adjusted her bench slightly, repositioning it a fraction of an inch closer to the piano.  She stayed motionless for a full five seconds.  The black velvet of her dress swayed gently as she rested her feet on the pedals. 

Am I  ready for this? she wondered.  She knew she wasn’t.  The stress of the move had taken a toll on her practice time of late.  She should have listened to herself.  Or even to her husband.  Harvey had suggested a milder program as well.

But Irina was out to make her mark on the conservatory.  Even though her reputation had preceded her arrival in the ranks of the piano faculty a few months earlier, she wanted her first faculty recital to be historic in its own right.

She wasn’t ready, no, but it would be enough for the audience, and even enough for the other piano faculty.  Only she knew how much better she could play.  Only she, and Harvey.

One last breath...  Then she raised her hands, and struck the first low register octave C’s with her left hand.  The rich harmonics of the piano filled the hall at once.  It seemed like the octave rang forever, but it was really only a split second before her right hand flew off along the difficult arpeggios of the first Etude.

Frustration set in as Irina fought to make her fingers sing the melody which constantly shifted registers, peeking between the filigree of the arpeggios.  Having small hands was not in her favor for this piece, but rarely was anything ever in her favor in life. 

As she hit the last notes a few minutes later, Irina made a vow to play this program again one day, when she was ready. 

There was a murmur and a smattering of applause from a few people, which quickly died down.  Irina didn’t even notice.  She was focused on the second etude. 

There was no respite in this program.  One down, eleven to go.  And that was only before intermission...

...From the opening notes of the recital to the last C major chord of the twelfth Etude, Richard had sat riveted to the chair, amazed at what he was hearing: his piano teacher playing some of the most challenging music ever written.  Live, and all at once!  It was breathtaking, emotional... and so musical.

The end leader of the reel slipped off the hub and the grey flanges began to spin wildly.  Richard pressed the stop button absently, his mind still sitting in a concert hall sixteen years ago. 

He glanced at the second reel-to-reel box, and then at his watch.  He had missed the beginning of class already.  Ms. Connelly, though nothing like Dr. Dobra in terms of strictness, was not fond of latecomers either. 

Richard threaded the first tape back onto its reel and rewound it as he weighed his options.  He really wanted to see if Mrs. Tertychnaya had played the next set of twelve Etudes on the second tape.  He was almost salivating at the idea.  Growing up, Pollini’s version of the pieces was one of his favorite recordings ever.  He had worn out three of those yellow labeled cassettes.  Of course, his father had introduced Richard to the recording.  It was not unexpected, given the Italian heritage of Pollini, that he should be one of Vittorio’s favorite musicians.  He since had turned into one of Richard’s musical heroes as well.

But Mrs. Tertychnaya’s recording was so different.  There was an urgency, a passion to the playing that was quite different from the eloquent restraint of expression that the Italian pianist demonstrated.  Perhaps it was the fact that it was live, but Richard felt like he understood his teacher much more for having heard this old reel-to-reel tape.  None of her other commercial recordings, though superb in their own right, had connected with him so deeply like this one just had.

Richard made his decision.  The analysis of subdominant chords could wait.  

The second box could not.

Richard replaced the first reel in its box, and then threaded the second tape onto the machine.  Thank you, Dave, he thought silently.  As soon as he had the time, he was going to be making a cassette dub of this tape.

Richard was not disappointed; the first notes of the second half confirmed that she was going to play the complete cycle.

Richard took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he settled in for the next half-hour journey through his teacher’s musical heart.

Sandra was frowning when Emily came out of the classroom alone. 

“Where’s Richard?” she asked, concern etched on her face.

“I don’t know.  He didn’t show up for class.”

Sandra let out a breath.  “What?”

Emily shrugged and shook her head.  Just then, Jer walked by, on his way out of the classroom.

“Jer, have you seen Richard?” Sandra asked him, urgently.

“Yeah, he was practicing this morning right before class.  I thought he said he was coming, but...”  Jer shrugged.

“Okay, thanks,” Sandra said, as Jer went off.

“Let’s go find him and get some lunch,” Emily said.  “He’s probably down in a practice room still.”

“He’s mad at us,” Sandra said softly.

“Why do you say that?”

“He skipped breakfast; he didn’t come to class.  If he wasn’t mad at us, he would have at least let us know what he was doing.”

“I don’t know, Sandra.”

Sandra sighed and then the girls headed down to the practice rooms to look for the elusive Richard.

Awestruck, Richard’s hands shook slightly as he carefully replaced the tapes on the shelf.  The middle of the seventeenth Etude had made him choke up.  And the last notes of the twenty-fourth had made him remember why he played the piano.

As he hefted his pack, he checked his watch.  Class was out.  He needed to find the girls, and then get back to the practice room.

Richard knocked on their dorm room door, but there was no answer.  He went up to his room.  Jer was lying on his bed with headphones on, following an orchestral part.  Richard could hear the strains of an orchestra seeping out from the edge of the headphones.

“Jer!” Richard called out. 

Man, he listens loud!

Richard walked to the head of his bed and got Jer’s attention visually.

“Hey, what’s up dude?”

“Any calls?” Richard asked.

“Your dad called this morning,” Jer said.

“All right.  Nothing from Emily or Sandra?”

“I saw them after class.  Where were you at?”

“I got stuck in the recording room and lost track of time,” Richard said dismissively.  “Do you know where they went?”

“No, probably over to Crapler.”

Richard checked his watch.  “At eleven?”

“I don’t know.  I thought they said something about lunch.”

Richard groaned.  “If they call or stop by, tell them I went to eat.”

“Cool.  Hey, would you mind backing the CD up a minute or two?”

Richard obliged as Jer replaced his headphones, and then he headed towards the cafeteria.

Sandra was very worried.  A tour of the practice rooms had been fruitless, and no one had answered the knock on Richard’s door.

“And no message,” Emily said, eyeing the unblinking light on the answering machine.

“He’s mad at us,” Sandra repeated.

“Will you stop saying that?” Emily retorted, frustration touching her voice.

Sandra sat glumly on the edge of her bed. 

“Maybe he just needs some time,” Emily said, more calmly.  She stared out the window absently, fingering the edge of the desk.

There was a long period of silence, as each was lost in thought.  An almost idyllic first month at Wexford had suddenly become uncertain.

Emily moved to sit next to Sandra.  “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“It’s okay.  I’m a little on edge, too,” Sandra admitted.  “I think I need to be alone for a little while.”

Emily nodded.  “I’m going to try to practice a little.  If he shows up, come and find me.”

Emily grabbed her horn and gave Sandra a gentle stroke on the head before she quietly shut the door behind her.

Sandra laid back on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. 

Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding, she thought.  But why would he be out all morning, not calling, not going to class, not in his room?  Did I do something wrong last night?  

Sandra replayed the evening in her head, weighing the significance of each moment.  Nothing stood out as having been out of the ordinary.  In fact, Richard had seemed happy the whole evening, getting into the teasing with her dress. 

Unless he’s mad I made him go play the piano, she suddenly thought.  And then he had a bad practice!

Sandra spent a few somber moments pondering her role in Richard’s disappearance.  Maybe his lesson had been really bad?  But he’s such a good pianist, it’s hard to imagine him having a bad lesson. 

Richard had been spending a great deal of time with Emily and her, she knew.  It was their fault he had had a bad lesson.  All the long evenings hanging out...

Sandra stood up, feeling depressed.  Despite trying to stay positive, she couldn’t keep the miserable thoughts from consuming her.  She didn’t realize, until now, how much she needed Richard.

“Richard, please come back...” she whispered.

She tried, in vain to distract herself with some music.

Emily came back to the room after fifteen minutes.  Sandra looked up at her, hope in her eyes.

“I can’t practice like this.  We need to find him,” Emily said.

“Maybe he went to lunch.”

“Maybe.  Let’s go look.  I’ll leave him a note on our door.”

Emily scribbled something on a scrap of paper and taped it on the outside of their door, and then they left for the cafeteria.

Richard finished his meal as quickly as he could, not having found Sandra and Emily at the dining hall.  He was more nervous than he remembered having felt recently.  With each passing minute, he felt like he was slipping away from them.  Their disappointment from last night had surely turned to anger by now.

As he walked back from the cafeteria, he saw them up ahead. 

All three of them stopped in their tracks for a moment.  Emily put her hands out to her sides.  Richard walked up to them.

“Where have you been?!” Emily asked.

“Where have you been?” Richard replied.

“Us?” Sandra said.  “We were looking for you all morning.  You didn’t come to class, and you didn’t come find us for breakfast.”

“Or lunch, apparently,” Emily added.

“I’ve been really worried!” Sandra said. 

She seems quite upset, Richard thought.

“What’s going on?” Emily asked.

“I was looking for you too,” Richard began.

“Are you mad at us?” Sandra asked directly.  Emily put a hand on her arm.

“No, I’m not mad,” Richard said quietly.

“Then start talking!”

Richard took a deep breath, and then explained his late waking, the subsequent meeting with Dave, and the discovery of his teacher’s tapes in the control room.

“Then I couldn’t find you in your room or in the building, so I thought you went to eat lunch.  Now I was just on my way back to find you,” he finished.  Richard looked at the girls expectantly.

They stared at him for a moment considering his story.  Finally Sandra spoke.

“I thought you were mad at me, after I made you go practice  last night,” she said softly.

“No! No, not at all!  I just... had some things to think about, and then this morning was crazy.”

“Well, you scared me,” Sandra said.

“I’m sorry.  I’m really sorry,” Richard said earnestly.  “I guess from your perspective it must have been weird.  I’m okay, though.”

Neither of them spoke.

“Are you okay?” Richard asked.

Emily nodded, but Sandra stared at the floor unmoving.  A million thoughts went through Richard’s head.  The distance between them seemed to be miles, rather than feet.  He had really messed up by not leaving them a note, at least. 

Passersby glanced at the frozen scene before moving on.

A moment later, Sandra was in his arms. 

“I’m sorry,” Richard whispered into her hair.  He extended an arm to Emily and pulled her into the three-way hug.  

Relief flooded through Richard as the girls hugged him. 

“I’m sorry, too.  I was really worried,” Sandra said.  Letting out a deep breath, she gave Richard a kiss.  “Don’t do that again, please?”

“You mean kiss you?” Richard said tentatively.  Fortunately Emily laughed and broke the mood.

“Oh, you... silly man!” Sandra said, slapping his chest.

“Were you on your way to eat?” Richard asked them.

“We were on our way to look for you,” Emily said emphatically.  “But I guess we should eat.”

“Okay.  I’ll come hang,” Richard said.

“Going to have seconds?” she asked.

“No way!  I think I’ll just watch, thanks.”

They walked back to the cafeteria, which was more crowded now as noon approached.  Richard secured a table as Sandra and Emily got their lunch.

“So what happened last night?” Emily asked Richard as they sat next to him.  “You seemed really down.”

“I was,” Richard said.  “I went to practice after the concert, and nothing was going right.  It was so frustrating.  I felt lost: like I had never played before.”

“Oh, I know how that feels.  I have days like that too,” Emily said.

“Really?” Richard asked.

“Well, yeah.  Sometimes I just can’t coax a single good note out of the horn.”

Richard nodded appreciatively.  “Well, I never really felt that way about playing the piano before.  I’ve always been confident in my playing.”

“What changed?” Sandra asked.

Richard shrugged.  “I had a bad lesson.  She was pretty critical of my playing.  I’ve never really had that before either.  My old teacher wasn’t a pushover, but he was pretty positive about things.  I think Mrs. T. gave me a clear message yesterday that I wasn’t working hard enough.”

“What do you think?” Emily asked.

Richard spread his hands before him.  “She’s probably right.”

“But you have been practicing a lot,” Sandra said.

“I guess.  She’s been showing me things in lessons, and I haven’t really worked on them enough.  I’ve been practicing other things.  I’m not even sure now what I thought I was practicing.  I kind of got off track.”

“Why?”

“I guess she wants me to change some things in my technique.  Play more from the body than the fingers.”

“When I got here, the first thing my teacher did was rework my breathing technique,” Sandra said.

“How’s the new technique working?” Richard asked.

“It’s great.  I came here to learn, and it’s already made a huge difference in how I sing.  Bridget is so much better than the teacher I had back home.  She’s amazing, really.”

Richard nodded.  “I guess I’ve been resisting it,” he admitted.  “I was always the top dog back home in my piano teacher’s studio.  He was a good teacher, but he didn’t teach me any of the things Mrs. T. is teaching me.  I guess that’s the difference between someone like him who teaches kids freelance, and someone like Mrs. T., who is one of the great pianists of the world.”

“You seem somewhat positive about it today,” Emily observed.  “Did you get some good practice in this morning?”

“Nah, it was shitty,” Richard said.  “But I found some old tapes of Mrs. T. playing the Chopin Etudes in concert.  That’s why I was late to class.”

“And?” Emily said.

“And they were incredible!  It was like opening this new view on piano playing.  Those are my favorite piano pieces, ever, and I’ve never heard them played like she did,” Richard said, still hearing the echoes of the concert in his head.

“That’s pretty cool.  Do they have any other tapes?” Sandra asked.

“Yeah, hundreds.  Thousands.  Every concert that’s been recorded is kept there.”

“Damn,” Emily said.

“I wonder if my teacher is there,” Sandra mused.

“I can look,” Richard said.

“You still haven’t shown us the recording room,” Emily reminded him.

“Yeah, I know,” Richard said sheepishly.  “Maybe we can go after lunch.”

“We have classes in half an hour,” Sandra said.

“True.  After dinner then, if there’s no recital tonight.  I’ll check the schedule.”

Sandra and Emily cleared their trays and the three of them walked back to the dorm.

“So...” Sandra began.  “Are we keeping you from practicing?”

“No, I have class now, also,” Richard said.

“I meant in general.”

“Oh.”

“We stay up late, and spend a lot of time together,” Sandra explained.

“I know,” Richard said.  He thought for a moment.  “But I think I can handle it.  I just need to get serious about learning from my teacher.  I might have to practice more at night sometimes, when things get crazy.”

“If we can help, please tell us,” Emily said earnestly.

“I know.  I am really sorry about last night.  You two mean so much to me.  It wasn’t fair to just leave you hanging like that.  I was having a difficult moment.”

“You don’t have to go through it alone,” Sandra said.

“I know.  But it’s still not easy to admit I’m having a tough time, even to you two.”

“It will work out,” Emily said, putting an arm around Richard and giving him a little squeeze.

“I know.  I just hope I haven’t messed things up with my teacher.”

“Just show her how you can really play.  Sandra and I have heard it.”

Richard sniggered briefly.  “When I’ve played for you, I messed up so much!”

“You mean the wine didn’t help?” Emily teased.

“Maybe it helped you not hear the mistakes!” Richard said.

The three of them laughed and entered the dorm.  Once in their room, Sandra shut the door.

“So, dinner at six-thirty?” she said.

“Orchestra rehearsal is over early today for me.  They’re doing something without brass for the last half hour,” Emily said.  “What kind of music doesn’t have brass in it, anyway?”

“Oh, get over it, Emily!” Sandra said lightheartedly.

“Well, I’m going to practice after piano seminar, so let’s just meet at six-thirty so I can get two good hours in,” Richard said.

“Cool.  All right, I need to get to Art class,” Emily said, shouldering her pack.

Emily gave Richard a firm kiss, and a smile.  Then she looked at Sandra for a second.  Making sure she had Richard’s attention, she gave Sandra a kiss too.  She made it a little more suggestive than necessary.

Richard watched intently, eyes widening slightly.  His mouth moved but no words came out.

“Bye!” Emily said, as she gave Richard a wicked grin.

“Hey!” Sandra said.

Emily paused in the doorway.  “What?” she asked innocently.

“Now I have to explain that!”

“I know.  Have fun!”  Emily closed the door.

Richard turned to Sandra expectantly.

“Um...”

Richard knocked on Dave’s office between classes. 

“Come!”

He pushed the door open.  Having never been in there, Richard stopped in surprise.  Dave’s office was a mess.  Tapes were lying everywhere among the papers.  A few stacks of old cassette decks and a record player added to the chaotic landscape of his large L-shaped desk.

“Don’t mind the mess,” Dave said, grinning.

“Seems unlike you, Dave.”  Richard pointed to an unlabeled cassette.  “Is there anything on that tape?”

Dave grimaced.  “Maybe,” he said cautiously.

“You do know what they say about unlabeled tapes, don’t you?”

Dave guffawed.  “Caught!  Ah, well, the front end of the operation is neat, at least.” 

Richard nodded.  The operation Dave ran did go very smoothly.  Not only did the audio department record dozens of concerts a month, but they also maintained all the classroom stereo equipment, offered cassette and CD duplications, setup sound reinforcement for events, and provided any number of audio related services.  All of this was done by Dave and his small group of student workers.  That made the messy desk all the more surprising.

It was a wonder Dave was so laid back.  Or maybe that was the only way to survive in his circumstance.

“I was just giving you a hard time,” Richard said.

“No sweat.  One of these days I’ll find out what color my desk is again.  What’s up?”

“I had a question about the archive tapes in the control room.”

“What about them?”

“Are we allowed to listen to them?”

“Sure,” Dave said.

“Good.  I did pull one out this morning.  Of my teacher.  It was really cool to hear her play.”

“Great!”

“Um, can I make a copy of it?” Richard asked.  “I mean, if that’s not allowed...”

“Well, technically, you’re supposed to have permission from the artist.  But, I won’t say anything as long as you don’t.”

“Well, maybe I’ll ask Mrs. Tertychnaya if it’s all right.”

Dave nodded.  “Okay.  Whatever you want.  It’s not a big deal, though.  Official policy is not for everyone, you know.  Being in the audio department has some benefits.”

“Cool.  Also, would it be okay if I showed the control room to a couple of friends tonight?  I was just going to play them a few things on the big speakers.”

“Of course.”  Dave glanced at a schedule on the wall.  “There’s no recording tonight.  Unless someone needs to use the room for tape duplication, go for it.”

“Great, thanks!”

“What will you play them?” Dave asked.

“Um, I don’t know.  Just a few CDs.”

Dave swiveled around in his chair and fingered down the stack of CDs before pulling one out and offering it to Richard.  “Here, this one’s always fun,” Dave said.  “Go easy on the volume, though.  I’d suggest checking it out beforehand.”

 Richard glanced at the CD and grinned.

The evening couldn’t come soon enough for Richard, but he managed to focus on his practicing and get some work done.  He was ready to backtrack and spend some time learning the techniques Mrs. Tertychnaya had shown him.  It was not easy, given that he was so used to playing in a certain way.  Many of the movements and fingerings seemed awkward or superfluous.  And yet, at the end of two hours, he had made some progress.  He wasn’t sure it was an improvement over how he normally played, but it felt a little less foreign, at least.

One of the problems was that he still was having to think so much about the physical movements that he couldn’t focus on the music.  The new technique was a distraction.

“That’s why you need to break it down, and take it slow,” Emily said as they walked back to the dorm from dinner.

“I am taking it slow,” Richard said.

“Well, hammer at it then.  It has to be second nature.  If I had to consciously think about every breath and embouchure change I have to make for each note on the horn, I’d never play anything.”

“I guess,” Richard said.  “It’s just so frustrating!  I mean, a few weeks ago, when I played for you that night in the practice room, it was so cool.  I just saw this whole new way of playing.  And I was doing it!  It was so natural.  Now that seems miles away.  I feel like I’m getting further from that, not closer.”

Emily laughed.  “You know, I said that exact thing to my teacher a year ago.  I was playing this piece for her, and all of the sudden, I just felt it, you know?  I was on.  I was doing things which I had never done before, and it was like I was watching myself do it.”

“Yeah, that’s it!” Richard agreed.

“And she knew what happened,” Emily continued.  “She then showed me what I had done.  And even though I had just done it, I’m still working on those things now.  I’m still not able to play that piece like that one time.”

“Why is that, though?” Sandra asked.  “Sometimes we can sing, or play so well, and the next day, or even next week, we can’t do it half as well.”

Richard shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Ups and downs.”

“I asked my teacher that, after the techniques she showed me weren’t working easily,” Emily said.  “And she said that as you learn more about your instrument, it’s like hiking in the mountains.  Sometimes you make a breakthrough and come to an overlook, where you can see this awesome mountain top on the other side of the valley.  And you can enjoy the view of the mountain top while you are there, but to really get to that peak, you need to go through the valley.  And sometimes you lose sight of the goal along the way...”  Emily stared at Richard and Sandra for a moment.  “She was fond of analogies,” she explained.  “Maybe too fond.”

“So I’m deep in the valley?” Richard bemoaned.

“Maybe.  Better than being stuck at the overlook forever, though,” Sandra said.  “I’m there too, so it’s not so bad, huh?”

Richard gave her a little grin.  “I’ll admit I felt a little better towards the end of practice,” he said.  “Well, time for the control room tour.  This way.”

“Wait, let’s go back to the room,” Emily said.

“Why?”

“I want to show you something.  No, Richard, it’s not that,” she said in response to his hopeful look.

“One can dream,” he said.

“You don’t have to dream, silly.  But I want to see the control room before we do anything like that.”

Back in the room, Emily dug through her bag, and pulled out a music score.  “I found this for us.  It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but maybe we can do it.”

Sandra took the score from Emily.  “Britten?”

“It’ll take a little arrangement, but maybe it will work,” Emily said.  “If you want to, that is.  I thought this way we could still spend time together while playing music.”

It was a Serenade for tenor, horn and strings.

“I know you’re not a tenor,” Emily said to Sandra, “But maybe you can sing it in a different octave?  And the strings are written in piano score.  I don’t know, it’s probably a stupid idea.  If you...”

Sandra dropped the score to the bed, and then gave Emily a big hug. 

“It’s an awesome idea!  How did you find this?”

“I asked my teacher if he knew of any pieces with that instrumentation.  It was a long, shot, but this was the closest thing he could think of off the top of his head.”

“That’s really cool, Em,” Richard said, nodding appreciatively.

“I’m not trying to add to our workload, but maybe instead of playing Uno, we can fool around with this.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Richard agreed.

“Let’s go try it now!” Sandra said.

“How about after Richard’s tour?” Emily reminded her.

“Oh, right, of course!”  Sandra was giddy with excitement.  She gave Emily and Richard each a kiss, and then hopped around like a little girl on her birthday.

“I’ve never heard this piece,” Emily said.  “I hope it’s cool.”

“I love Britten.  Peter Grimes is one of my favorite operas,” Sandra said.

“It will be fun, no matter what.  Come on, we have a long night ahead if we are going to sight read some of this,” Richard urged, waving the score at them.

Emily grabbed her horn, and then looked happily at Sandra and Richard.  “I’m ready.”

Richard smiled as he followed the girls out of the building. 

Things felt right again.  In addition, he had a new sense of direction, and best of all, he had his two friends steadfastly with him for the journey.

Forward to Chapter 17

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