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 Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 12:12 pm
Remi sat near the Koi pond, flicking his tail in the water and watching the fan-finned fish lazily while he waiting for his first call back. This chick, Elarinya, Alice had told him to check her out. Glancing down at the application, he raised an eyebrow. Piano, huh? And she wanted to learn a string instrument as well. Well, Remi could help her with that. And he didn't know much about the piano, but he knew it was pretty.
Pretty awesome, that was. He wanted to see some cat play it, and he flexed in anticipation. Maybe she'd even be up for a duet later.
All she had to do was get there. Remi adjusted his violin (he never went anywhere without it, especially if that crazyass Fred was around) and plucked at it, tuning it while he waited and flicking his tail. He had learned and experienced a lot on his sojourn around the world, but he was still terrible at waiting.
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Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:50 pm
As per usual, Ella was worrying over something, and she flexed the fingers of her right hand multiple times while walking the university grounds. School! An actual school! Never had she seen one up close before, having been hogged up inside with her owner most of her life, at most going out to inspect the fenced in backyard. Not even several months since abandonment, though, and already she had seen more than she ever had at home: her first meteor shower, her first performance stage, and now . . . Ah, crap, I can't get the jitters now!
Truth be told, maybe her worries would be lessened if it weren't for her right hand, recently scarred from an encounter with a vicious dog that had torn her collar up in the process. It had healed well, yes, but it left a vague stiffness that was distressing - especially for a pianist. Still, Elarinya clutched at her music bag with some determination as she headed towards the meeting point she was designated, wondering what sort of person this Remi was like. Strict like a teacher would be? Or casual?
Frankly, either way she felt nervous. Approaching the Koi pond, her ears tilted towards the muted sounds of instrumental plucking, and Ella hastened over to find its owner, a blonde young man who looked a bit impatient; immediately her hands grew sweaty with embarassment. "I didn't make you wait for too long, did I?" Ella asked, brushing back curly hair self-consciously. "I'm sorry if I did! I've ever been bad with directions."
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Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 3:26 pm
"Evenin!" Remi said, firing Ella a lazy salute. "I'm Remi, perhaps you've heard of me? Prodigy violinist and explorer? Cross between Indiana Jones, Bach, and Tintin? I'm going to pretend you said yes to that!"
Getting up, he flashed her a grin. "Enough about me though, this is your callback." He flopped back down near the Koi pond and waved away her excuses airily, adding "Hey, hey, hey! You're not late, okay? I'm pretty bad with directions too, totally took me three months longer than I expected to find my way bak to the University. Compared to that, you're practically early."
Resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, he looked up at her expectantly. "Okay, so now you've gotta show me what you can do, though. What're you gonna play?" He gestured at a piano that the cats had somehow managed to drag out for the rehearsal. "I'm all ears."
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Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 6:10 pm
Having been cooped up inside with nothing but either selected movies, music, ramblings of her senile owner, radio, or sleep to pass time (mingled with few visits outside to the ever exciting backyard!), Ella wasn't surprised to know that at least she got two of the three allusions down. "I've heard of Indy and his exploits, Mister Remi," she replied with a nod and small smile, "and I will assume you mean J.S. Bach the violinist and organist rather than his son J.H. Bach." Thank God, though, it seemed he was pretty laid-back about things, and she allowed herself to exhale what breath she had been holding in unconsciously; still, her hands remained a bit sweaty.
She approached the piano and set her music upon the side-top, adjusting the stool so that her hind was at the edge, dark-tipped tail twitching with some excitment at the sight of the piano like it had a life of its own. "I wasn't sure how many compositions you wanted, sir, so I brought three from different music eras. Ironically, one of them is of Bach's work, Invention #13, and the other two are Ravel's Menuet from his Sonatine and Beethoven's Piano Sonata #14, normally called the Moonlight Sonata."
Really, she felt like a smart-aleck, spewing out words like that like she was trying to prove her knowledge - . . . Well, she was, but Ella didn't want to seem too much like a stuck up Free Collar nosing her way into the University. "Er . . . Does it matter to you which I play?" Maybe Remi had other things to do beyond this and would want her to finish up quickly.
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 11:54 pm
"Two out of three ain't bad!" Remi said, cocking his head at her and grinning. "You look a little nervous though. Don't stress out about it, man, just play your best."
Listening to her selections, he chewed his lip thoughtfully and said, "Well, personally, I don't get to hear live piano music every day. Can you do all three for me?" He didn't have anywhere to be, and he was far more interested in getting a glimpse of another instrument than anything else he could have been doing anyway. Now that the pianist was actually here, Remi was looking forward to hearing her. "After all, if you've been practicing them all, we can't let that hard work go to waste, right?" he said amicably. "If there's one you prefer though, feel free." Waving his hand at her to begin, he settled down to listen.
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:57 pm
Don't stress about it, she repeated to herself, taking a deep breath as she thumbed through each book and dog-eared it on the composition, handing the three thin books to Remi to follow along. "They're, ah, memorized, sir. I'll start with the Invention first, then the Menuet, then finally the Moonlight Sonata." She stretched her fingers out, forcing her right hand to go as far as her left, the skin about the scars taut from the pressure. Ella winced a bit, hoping that they would not so easily reopen now - not on her audition date!
You should've come here to practice earlier instead of wandering the school grounds.
Why did you bother applying to a university anyway? "Homeschoolers" like you don't have anything to offer compared to the abandoned ones that actually did have something to contribute: actual skills like fighting and whatnot.
Various doubts seemed to choose now to plague her as she set her sweating fingers upon the ivories and played. |~| Invention No. 13! I can't seem to find one with dynamics, but the legato in this one actually didn't sound half bad to me. 8D; |~|
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:41 pm
"Awesome possum," said Remi, who was the kind of man who honestly said 'awesome possum' and meant it. "A sharp memory's good to have, that's how I learned most of my first violin pieces, by ear." It was hard to find cat sized sheet music.
He raised an eyebrow at her scarred hand. "Hey, you all right?"
But then she began to play and Remi nodded. It was good, but there was something in the way she was playing that was tense. Calling out to her, he said "Hey, relax! You're doing fine, don't worry so much!" He didn't think he seemed that frightening, but clearly something was getting at her. "Good. Play me the next one, best you can."
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Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 11:51 am
It took her a moment to answer, studying her fingers like a mother does her children after they've come back inside from a day outside in the mud. "Yes, sir . . . My apologies, I don't mean to be so stiff," Ella said, looking to him with an inner wince. It was like pointing it out made her all the more stiff! Like telling someone not to think of a rhinoceros, only they did the second you told them not to. Argh! Best I can it is, she thought to herself as she faced the piano once more, taking a deep breath and beginning the Menuet.
It was almost mechanical in the beginning with her left hand scrabbling to find the chords that even overstepped her right hand's boundaries. At length it turned smooth, but boy did Ella curse herself for locking up.
Once it was finished and the final chord was left to ring out, she lifted her foot off the pedal and turned towards Remi once more, her hands wringing themselves in her lap. "So, um . . . before I go onto the next piece, how long have you been playing the violin, sir?"
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