|
|
Post by colby jay heart on Mar 20, 2011 6:39:13 GMT -10
 how hard it is to find this time alonealready in his second year at bouscher, colby heart knew his way around pretty well, as well he ought to have, by this point in time. he walked slowly down the halls; perhaps ambling would have been a better term. he walked like he had no real destination in mind, even though he did. a very specific one, in fact, one that he was rather excited to get to. well, as excited as colby ever got about anything. his mind wandered slightly as he wound expertly through the throngs of students. most people were leaving for lunch, so he didn't expect the concert hall to be in use.
indeed, he was right. of course he was right. being the quiet brooding sort, he tended to think things through, and he had figured out when people were the most likely and least likely to be occupying the concert hall. and for that reason, it wasn't particularly surprising to him to find the concert hall completely abandoned. he paused, taking in the whole of the hall, just double checking and making sure that he truly was alone. colby was a bit of an odd one that way. he didn't like other people to hear him practice. once he had something down, that was fine, but in the counting things out, making mistakes and trying to figure out rhythms stage, he didn't like anybody around.
he quietly made his way up to the piano and settled himself at the bench. his fingers hovered over the keys for a moment before he started to play a rather complex version of Fur Elise from memory. it was almost always his warm up piece. it was one of his favorite classics of all time, even though it probably was painfully overplayed. he didn't care. when he heard it right, it was the kind of song he could listen to over and over and over again. he ran it through twice, adjusting to the way this piano sounded--it was louder than the one at home. much, much louder. probably due to the fact that it had to carry across a whole concert hall. still, it frustrated him to not be able to get things as soft as he would have liked. oh well. he shuffled some sheet music he'd set on the bench next to him and began to play.
the melody was soft and quiet, a low key piece, but with quick movements through the keys. that was colby's biggest thing. he liked movement. if a piece didn't move, he wouldn't even play it, unless, for some reason, he had to. pieces that didn't move along fast enough were just boring, especially if you were playing only the piano. it was different if you were filling it in with a vocalist or a string section or an entire band, but when it was just a solo, a piece absolutely had to move. this piece moved in dramatic ways, and colby was one of those people who could make it seem even more dramatic than it was written to be. he grimaced several times as he ran through the piece, just getting a feel for it, noting what were, for him, glaring mistakes, although anybody just listening wouldn't have even noticed. that was one of his gifts--even when he screwed it, you could rarely tell, it just sounded like part of the piece. colby, being the perfectionist he was, however, never saw it that way. it needed to be perfect, and so he started again at the beginning, taking it a little slower and giving himself time to find all the keys.
|
|
|
|
Post by evangeline maybell hopkins on Mar 20, 2011 18:00:57 GMT -10
 
When it came to students in the music program at Bouscher, there were usually two types with regard to practicing their music. There was the outgoing type, who could pick up their instruments in any area, public or private, and start up a jam session with other musicians in order to get some practice time in. And there were others that were more secretive or shy about their music skills, and chose to find places, either in their dorm or somewhere remote on campus, where they can practice undisturbed. Evangeline was more or less the 2nd type, she would admit, and while she usually had a far corner of the library where she practiced, that was also known as ‘the stacks’ and that area was currently being... ‘occupied’ by two hormonal teenagers, so she couldn’t practice there. And she knew that she could probably get into the school’s concert hall easily enough, so she took her acoustic guitar that her uncle Ben gave her and headed towards the concert hall.
Instead of entering the large room from the front doors, she came in through the backstage entrance, since she knew that it would be unlocked. One year at her old school in Kendrick, she had been a member of one club, and was the theatre tech club, so she knew about the basic features of a stage. She knew what lights were the stage lights and which were performance lights, and other things like that. She figured she’d head to the breaker box on stage left and turn on some of the stage lights, but when she came in, she could see that some of the lights were on, though the wings were still quite dark, and there was somebody seated at the grand piano on stage, playing along, and the music... well, it would be hard to find mediocre playing when you went to a school focused around the arts. Evangeline sat on the stairs leading to the dressing room on stage left, and she had a good view between the aprons to the boy, taller-looking and blonde, that was playing on the piano. She observed his playing, and could tell that he was only practicing with no kind of pressure otherwise certain muscles she’d be able to see from this distance would look a bit more tense.
Evangeline had always been observant, and it was a trait that was going to help her become a doctor one day. And with being with her uncle’s band for so long, she was beginning to understand certain things about music to watch for as well. He did make the occasional mistake, though they weren’t sufficient enough for a typical audience member to neither notice nor care. It might have bothered the musician a bit, but the errors really were few and far between. The song was quite the nice one as well, lengthy, but at the same time... it had a motion to it. Not just that of the notes and harmony, but it had an emotional moving quality to it. While she normally didn’t pay much attention to emotion regarding most things, when it comes to music, she’d found out pretty quick that it was definitely a requirement. That’s why it seemed like she became such a different person when she got up on stage compared to who she was when she wasn’t performing. When the song ended, she continued to watch the boy. She thought maybe he might be finishing up and would close up the piano and leave, but it didn’t seem like it. He began the song, only he was bringing it out a lot slower, probably trying to avoid any mistakes. Seeing as she wasn’t the person who hid in the corner very often, she stepped down the stairs, and pulled her guitar out of its case. Pulling the strap on, as she continued to stand in the darkness of the wings, she kept to the tempo the pianist had set, following along with the song using her acoustic guitar. He may not have been able to see her, but he would probably hear her guitar, She wasn’t meaning to hide, she even decided to directly speak to him.
”That’s a nice song by the way... You been in here practicing it for a long time?” [/b] [/center] [/size][/font] |
|
|
|
Post by colby jay heart on Mar 27, 2011 5:59:42 GMT -10
how hard it is to find this time alone he was thoroughly enjoying this song. it was a pretty piece, open to interpretation and emotion, and he liekd songs like that. maybe because he wasn't really an emotional person, not one to let people see what he was thinking and feeling, it was nice to be able to let it out once in a while in his music. it was fun to give people a glimpse inside that they wouldn't really understand anyway, that didn't leave him vulnerable or too far open, but there was almost no risk involved. maybe that was why he loved music so much.
he was well aware when a guitar joined in in the background. he had never tried guitar, but he enjoyed the way it sounded. he didn't let it distract him from his playing until the song was over. he had never really done a true duet before, and he found that it actually sounded pretty good. he liked the effect that it added to the song. it just made it more...interesting, more fun to listen to. not that he would know for sure--it's always hard to tell exactly what a song sounds like when you're the one playing it.
he turned around on the bench to see who it was that had joined him, but theg irl beat him to the punch. ”That’s a nice song by the way... You been in here practicing it for a long time?” he paused for a moment. "um, not really. this is the first time i've run through it. but i've been listening to it for forever" he responded. "that sounded nice by the way" he added, nodding toward her guitar. "how long have you been playing?"
colby wasn't usually a particularly talkative person, but he didn't mind talking music with other musicians, people of like mind and talent and passion. there was something relaxing about it. he wouldn't touch 'normal" people, people who didn't play music, with a ten foot pole, though. he was that anti-social. well. not really. but she was a girl, too. he tended to be a lot more forthcoming with women than with men. girls brought out the protectiveness in colby that nothing else really did. girls though, particularly blonds like this one, who reminded him of his baby sister, tended to get more out of him than guys, or even other girls did. maybe that was why he was at least slightly more talkative with her than he might have been with someone else.
count; lazzyyy clothes; click tag; openn!! notes; this sucks. sorry. hehe |
|
|
|
Post by evangeline maybell hopkins on Mar 31, 2011 7:13:02 GMT -10
Even though Evangeline relished any opportunity that she got to perform, when it came to practicing new songs, she preferred doing so in private. And when one lived with a roommate, there was no guarantee that she’d have any kind of privacy back at her dorm. Not to mention, recently she’d been asked by her uncle to try and write something of a ballad, something with a slow tempo that was remotely love related so that they could put it on some kind of demo to give to a friend of the bassist Mark, who was a music producer. Honestly, she had no personal experience to draw on, and was afraid of finishing the song and there not being any kind of meaning attached to it. Every song that she and everyone else from The Pretty Reckless had worked on together always had some sort of meaning attached, even for the more up-beat, crowd-pleasing numbers. That was the main reason why she’d liked the song this guy was playing on the piano so much. There was meaning to this music, and that was what invited her to originally play along.
She would openly admit, when the blonde sitting at the piano answered her question by saying, "um, not really. this is the first time i've run through it. but i've been listening to it for forever”
[/b][/color], she was a little disappointed to hear that he hadn’t composed the earlier piece himself. But that was still okay. He wasn’t just copying music and pasting it on the keys of the piano; he was dedicated enough to his practice. And it wasn’t until after he asked her, "that sounded nice by the way. how long have you been playing?"[/b][/color] that she stepped out of the darkness of the backstage, and slowly made her way towards the guy at the grand piano, still holding onto her guitar. ”Not very long, actually. I’m in the beginners’ string instrument class. My uncle’s been teaching me how to play the last couple of months, and he’s pretty much amazing. I’m more into singing.”[/b] She was able to get a better look at this guy now. He was good looking, but seemed either shy or distant, perhaps both. She herself gave off quite the cold personality to those around her. She didn’t smile, she spoke in a monotone, and is she wasn’t pleased, you’d know it. Her sarcasm was always cutting when she decided to use it as a weapon, which was often. That didn’t mean she was rude, though; Evangeline had gotten into the habit of good manners and a polite lifestyle ever since she was quite young. So she decided to go into using a few of her manners. Holding the neck of the guitar with one hand, once she reached the guy, she extended her hand towards him. ”Evangeline Hopkins.”[/b] she told him, introducing herself, hoping that he’d do the same. [/center] [/size][/font] |
|
