The morning arrived swiftly. After dropping Moira off to school, Jericho cleaned up the place a bit. Mike Heart, RuneHeart, was coming over for his first music lessons.
The expected door knocking sounded.
Jericho opened the door. "Come in. So, now that we are out of game, what do you want me to call you?"
The man walked inside. "Let's keep it simple. Call me Mike like old times. Today I'm here as your student."
Jericho gave a nod. "So do you have an idea of what instrument you would like to start learning first?"
Mike paused. "I don't know your instrument's names, but I could try and describe the sound for you." He pulled out his genius watch.
"Alright. What does this instrument sound like?"
Mike hit play on his watch. The sound of deep vibrations echoed in the mostly empty room.
Jericho smiled. "One second." He left the room and returned with two large string instruments that lacked any form of acoustic chamber. "The instrument you are thinking of is called an electric cello and there are a lot of ways to play it." He set the instruments down. He pulled out two chairs. "Sit." He said before leaving again. He returned with similar looking objects with a large acoustic chamber. "This is what an acoustic cello looks like. You can play them the same but the sound will be slightly different and the electric ones are lighter."
Mike gave a nod. "Wow, these look a lot simpler than I thought."
Jericho passed over one of the electric cellos and a bow and picked one up for himself. "I don't expect you to be able to do this for a while, but watch. I will demonstrate what can be done with this instrument. First, I want to point out that in your compositions, the cello is often used to create depth rather than the piece itself, like so." He started moving the bow across the strings with one hand and pressing the strings in specific spots with his other hand. Jericho showed a variety of tempos and undertones.
Mike frowned. "Like this?" He tried repeated Jericho's motions.
The cello squawked.
Jericho smiled. "Let's get your posture and hand positions right first. First, separate your legs and plant your feet firmly on the floor."
Mike did so.
"Alright, now the cello spike needs to go approximately right here." Jericho moved the cello centered in front of the other musician a short ways out in front of his feet. "Put it here on your left side. Your left hand will be what changes the notes."
Mike placed the electric cello over his shoulder and lifted the bow.
"Now to get your right hand's finger positioning right." Jericho said. "Hold the bow like this. Separate your fingers a bit and place your thumb here at the butt of the bow."
Mike copied the action.
Jericho gave a nod. "The bow is one of the hardest parts of playing the cello because that is where all the sound comes from when you are using it traditionally." Jericho sat down and propped up the cello once more. "What needs to be achieved is getting the bow to stay in the same area at a 90° angle in comparison to the strings while going in a dead strait linear motion, like so." Jericho demonstrated. "Now let me help you get a feel of the motion." Jericho put the electric cello down and walked over to the other musician.
Mike tried mimicking Jericho's posture.
The teacher pushed down on Mike's shoulder. "This part of you should feel heavy. Since gravity isn't helping you keep the bow on the string, you need to put your shoulder weight into the bow." Jericho pulled out Mike's elbow out. "Most of the movement comes from the elbow, while the wrist needs to stay flexible enough to stabilize the bow. Try running the bow across the strings now," he directed.
Mike slide the bow across the strings and with the exception of a few slip ups, he was able to produce a decent sound.
"Not bad. Now, if you want to make the notes staccato, you just have to use your finger here to stop the vibrations."
Mike started practicing his posture and movements. "This is a lot harder than it looks." He exclaimed.
Jericho gave a nod. "Indeed, it can be difficult."
The lesson continued for another half an hour as Mike started to become more familiar with the motions.
"Now that you have got the basic motions down to a sufficient degree, something to know is that the quality of sound changes the closer you are to the base of the finger board or the bridge." Jericho played closer to the finger board. A crisp breathy tone emerged. "When playing closer to the finger board you don't need as much pressure." He played closer to the bridge. A heavy loud tone resonated. "When you are closer to the bridge, you need a lot more weight but the sound projects a lot louder. But for now, practice playing in the middle."
Mike gave a nod.
"The notes on a cello are something you will have to learn to listen to and feel. As you can see, there are no indicators on the finger board nor are there any frets like on a guitar."
Mike frowned. "Jargon," he replied.
"Ah right, there are no special marking or bumps on it to help you know where to press like there are on other instruments." Jericho clarified.
"That makes things more complicated." Mike replied.
"It does. On the cello there is a semi-tone between each finger the exception being between the open string and the first finger." Jericho explained.
"You are speaking instrument speak again."
Jericho sighed silently. "This string here is known as the D string. When you don't have any fingers pressed on it, that string plays one of the D notes. When you put your finger on the string, the first one will change the string to play E. then every finger after that will go up a half step to F, then to F Sharp and so on."
"Oh, okay."
"I know it is something weird of me to ask a fellow musician, but can you read sheet music?"
The student furrowed his brows. "I know the note names, what they sound like and what various symbols on the music software mean. But I am unfamiliar with the term."
Jericho put down his cello once again and opened his piano bench. "This is some basic cello sheet music. Look it over and see if you can understand it."
Mike looked over it. "This looks mostly familiar. Let's see, this number is the beats per minute and the beats per measure. Based on their patterns the black notes with the lines look like they are one beat, the open circle with the line is two and the open circle with no line is four. I can take an educated guess and say that the A-G scales are represented by where they are placed. But I basically recognize all the other symbols." He looked up.
Jericho gave a nod. "Indeed. Back in the day, most music was centered around a middle C. Where the cello is considered a base instrument your notes follow this pattern." He handed over a piece of paper with the notes written on it. "If you were playing a different instrument you could have two of these line sets called stanzas or the treble one instead. When you get to the point where you are ready to learn more instruments, we can talk about those later." Jericho explained.
Mike gave a nod.
"When you get your own cello, you will need to know how to tune it." Jericho showed Mike how to do it.
"Alright, it looks like my hour is up for today."
"Yes, time does fly when dealing with music." Jericho casually said. "I'm sure you could find an electric cello at an antique store. That is where I found most of mine. Hold on to the sheet music and my spare electric cello until you can get your own. Borrowing one helps but doesn't feel the same as owning one. Trust me on that."
"Thanks Jericho."
"No problem, Mike. So when do you want to come back to keep learning?"
"How about next Tuesday? I want to get my basic skills down enough so they are more comfortable next time."
"It is good that you are not rushing it and wanting to firm up your basics. I'll see you next Tuesday."
"Oh, right, I wanted to check with you about something in game."
"Go ahead." Jericho replied blankly.
"Have you left Pren yet?"
Jericho shook his head. "I've heard the news. I'm in the middle of an important quest that can't be given up halfway. I will leave as soon as I can, though."
"Alright, I just wanted to make sure you were going to stay safe. I know how hard it is to raise skills and your music skills are quite high. It would be hard if they took a hit."
"Thanks, travel home safely." Jericho said as he led the man with the electric cello out the door.
Mike frowned. "I have been wondering, where are your parents? The house seemed emptier than before, have they moved somewhere?"
Jericho turned away. "They are dead. They died about six years ago. It was almost a year after we stopped being friends and you moved away."
Mike stood awkwardly. "I'm sorry man."
Jericho let out a sad laugh. "Don't be. It wasn't your fault they died. Besides, they would be happy right now. You and me just spent over an hour in each other's company and didn't get into an argument or fist fight. They would probably praise us and tell us how much we have matured."
Mike let out a light chuckle. "Yeah, your parents were the upbeat, world is a great place, kind of people unlike us. When I first saw you in game I thought you had become like them and wondered if I was a bad influence on you growing up. Then I saw you use your music to fight like that and I realized I misjudged you. You may have grown up and have had a change in your approach to life but you are still you despite your happy go lucky attitude in front of others. I'm glad."
Jericho laughed. "You were a bad influence on me. But I was also a bad influence on you. Thankfully it seems we have both become positive influences for each other instead. Now get going already. I have quests to finish. Or do you want to hang around until Moira returns from school?"
"Alright, I'm going. See you next Tuesday. Thanks for the lesson and letting me borrow your stuff. As soon as I get my own I will return it."
© J Eranoth