Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Aasrel Izei (Chief Medical Officer) in Holosuite 1- Finding the Melody

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Executive Officer) in Holosuite 1- Finding the Melody

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Aasrel Izei (Chief Medical Officer) in Holosuite 1- Finding the Melody
Posted by… suppressed (19) by the Post Ghost! 👻
The issue of a setting for their lessons had been rolling around in her mind. She didn’t want to assume that what would be comfortable for herself would equally be comfortable for Aasrel.

So Shara compromised.

Her mind drifted to those late nights on Arkelis after she closed Tank’s. She would sit at the piano (the only one she had access to at the time) and play like no one was watching. Which had always been the case until that fateful night that Edward Calloway had wandered into the tavern with his freighter shipmates.

Shara looked around at the well-lit room, sunshine cascading in through the windows. It was a simple space with a pale hardwood floors and the piano sate a couple metres from athe bay window, facing a wall so the light cast onto her hands as she played, as well as any music she wanted to put up on the rack. The open door to the music studio led out into the verdant surroundings, trees casting shade, and the dense underbrush adding the smell of green, growing things. It wafted inside without any of the allergen issues some people experienced.

She sat at the upright piano and lifted the fallboard, exposing the keys. She the back of her fingers along them from the first key (A), up four and a half octaves to E, letting her hand flick off at the end. She then set about doing some warm-up arpeggios, starting with simple ones and working up to more advanced exercises. She did this all from memory.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Aasrel stepped in while she was still doing her warm up exercises. He stood in the door momentarily, looking a little nervous. Finally he stepped further into the room, stopping quite a ways from her and the piano. “Hey.”

~ Izei, CMO

“Hi,” she said, briefly glancing in his direction before she continued playing. The song changed into the melody of a simple children’s lullaby: Au Claire de Lune. She played it with her right hand only, her fingers stroking each key lightly.

“Come join me. I promise we’ll start slowly,” Shara said.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Aasrel stepped closer and stood just behind the bench. He wore a long sleeve shirt and long pants, soft cotton gloves covering his hands. It felt too warm to be dressed that way, but such was typical of the slightly odd doctor. “What are you playing?”

~ Izei, CMO

She gave him a soft smile. “It’s an old Earth lullaby called Claire de Lune. Like many songs on the piano, we can make it as simple or complex as we like. She shifted over more on the bench to make room for him. “Come on and sit, there’s not point in standing. You won’t learn anything that way.”

“What would you say your musical skills include already? And don’t discount anything. It might help me a lot.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

“Uhm… I was in a choir in school.” Aasrel said as he sat, a little awkwardly, on the bench next to her. “I learned some music theory, you know, reading notes and the like. But instruments…” He shrugged.

~ Izei, CMO

She shook her head and smiled. “Believe it or not, you already know a lot. Being able to read music will help a lot. Because while there are two lines of music, once you know how to read the notes on both, you have the ability to learn lots of different songs.”

She hit a white key in the middle of the piano that was part of a set of two white keys. “This is middle C. I’ll show you on some sheet music in a moment, but everything to the right is played by the right hand, and everything to the left is played on the left hand. The right hand plays the top line of music, which is written in treble clef, and left plays the bottom line, or bass clef notes. As you start we’ll just do the right hand for now until you’re ready to add in the left. Sound okay?” Shara said, looking at him to gauge whether that was too much or just enough info.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Aasrel seemed to be following along. She explained clearly and simply. He was staring at the keys, memorising which one was middle C. “Alright, got it.”

~ Izei, CMO

“So, I want to practice with sheet music right off the bat, since you know the notes and can follow along. What sort of style of music would you feel more inclined to try first?” Shara said.

~Shara Calloway, XO

“Uhm… I… Can you pick?” Aasrel asked. He laughed awkwardly, “I just… I guess I’m a bit indecisive.”

~ Izei, CMO

Shara nodded. “Let’s start with some simple tunes, some of them will be things like lullabies but they work well because the note progressions are simple.”

“Computer, produce Level 1 beginner sheet music for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, large stave.”

The music appeared on the stand. It had lines for both hands, but each note was a simple quarter note. “Okay, so this sing is a classic sort of Human lullaby. It goes like this…” Shara proceeded to sing the simple melody.

Then she reached out her right hand, with her thumb resting on Middle C. “This song uses each finger of the right hand. The notes of the first line are are C C and you do that with your thumb, but then you’re going to use you’re fifth finger to hit G twice, this this.” She tapped C with her thumb and then tapped the white key that fell under pinkie easily twice.

She shuffled father down the bench so Izei could sit in the centre more. “Okay, you try. Just do it a few times and get a feel but the pressure required to generate a solid tone form the keys.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

Aasrel moved over a little and set his fingers on the keys. His gloves glided over the keys, the surface feeling slick under the smooth, thin fabric. He tapped middle X twice, with the side of his thumb, then G with his pinkie, both fingers sliding on the keys some. He did it a few times.

~ Izei, CMO

“Good,” she said. Shara had the computer generate a graphite pencil and she leaned forward, writing numbers on the notes. An octave lower than where Aasrel was, she tapped out the first line of the song again. “Okay, so you know how to read these notes, but if you’re note familiar, it goes C C G G A A G F F E E D D C. See, we’re just coming down one note at a time, but at first you have to go to a, which means moving your pinkie from G to A. The numbers I wrote on the music represent your fingers, with 1 being your thumb. Make sense?”

“Why don’t you give the whole line a try?”

~Shara Calloway, XO

It was so slow it didn’t really sound like the song, but Aasrel tapped out each note with the keys. He had to keep looking from the keys to the music page as he went.

~ Izei, CMO

Shara nodded, ever patient. It was one of her strengths that had been such a asset in her covert ops career. “That’s great. It takes time to build up the muscle memory to move faster, so while it can be frustrating sometimes, just remember that it’s not different than a lot of medical skills. You get better and faster the more you practice.”

“Now, how are you feeling with your fingers. I’m curious if the gloves are interfering or not.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

Of course the gloves were interfering. They were thin fabric that slid easily across the smooth surface of the keys. He wouldn’t admit it, though, since he wasn’t comfortable removing them anyway. “No, they aren’t.” He had to pause in playing to answer her and then find his spot on the sheet music again before resuming. He could play three to four notes in a row if he was looking at the keys. After the repetition he knew which keys to hit in small groupings. “What’s next?”

~ Izei, CMO

She took him at his word, as if she saw signs of him struggling, she would simply adjust. “So the song is a lot of repetition, which is great for reinforcing what you’re learning,” Shara said. “This next line is a downward progression, repeated.”

She demonstrated the line that went GGFFEED GGFFEED as she sang, “Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky,” with each syllable punctuated by one note.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Aasrel copied what she did. He could make it sound okay, but his timing wasn’t great. That would come later. “Isn’t that an Earth children’s song?” He asked curiously.

~ Izei, CMO

She smiled and nodded. “Yes. Most children’s songs are simple in their structure, so they make a great place to learn the basics. Once you have those, we can try a variety of music. I’m also open to trying different genres and origins. Doesn’t have to be Earth music, though it’s what I know the most of. But I learned a variety of Bajoran and Vulcan tunes over the years, and others.”

Shara tapped out the tune a couple octaves down from him, playing slowly, but keeping the quarter notes even in their progression. It really did help that he knew how to read music. Even a basic level made things so much easier for them (and her).

~Shara Calloway, XO

“I should teach you some Betazoid music sometime, then,” Aasrel said, and then hesitated. “Well, maybe. Later on.” As she played, he tried to do it at the same time as her.

~ Izei, CMO

She nodded. “I’d like that,” Shara said as she watched his hands move and listened to the notes played. “Try not to rush them, but if you are feeling more confident with the progression, you can play the whole thing a touch faster, but remember the music timing. It’s still quarter notes, so they are all even in this set, except for these two half notes,” she said, pointing to the Ds.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

Hopefully she wouldn’t bring it up again. Aasrel had mentioned it without thinking, but then immediately become uncomfortable. It wasn’t her, it was his own issues with his identity. “Show me how to time the notes right, please.”

~ Izei, CMO

Shara smiled. “I’ll do you one better… Computer, generate an electronic metronome and place it on top of the piano.” A simple programmable metronome appeared. She picked it up and set it to the right beats per minute and set it atop the piano. A steady tick, tick, tick sounded.

“Now, each beat is represented by the tick and that is our quarter note. Use that to time the pressing of the key. Hold for two beats for the half note.”

~Shara Calloway, XO