A Perfect Choice

“Eric Ewazen’s Sonata for Trumpet and Piano: I. Lento-Allegro Molto.”
Startled by my voice, Valerie looks at me confused.

“You seem enthusiastic about something. Is that the name of the piece we are gonna play?” She asks.

“Yep, it's what I believe is the best choice for us to perform a duet. I think once we practice enough, it will sound amazing.” Before she can interrupt me again, I interject, ``Alright, let’s start. I’ll grab my trumpet, you stay right there.”

As we began playing, it was extremely obvious we were completely off..

“Wow, we sound bad,” I say jokingly. “Maybe I should have let you listen to it first.” As I grab my phone, I hear Valerie start playing the intro. “Holy, that sounds beautiful. I guess it sounded bad because we weren't in time.. By the way, how did you learn to read sheet music?”

“I bought a piano beginner guide when I was younger. So I taught myself.” Valerie looks at me as if she was waiting for praise.

“Well I guess it's my turn to teach you how to play together.” I say, with a smirk on my face. “Well here’s how it is supposed to sound.” As I began playing the song off my phone, I look over at Valerie. She is entranced with the sound.

As the song winds down to the end, Valerie looks at me with shock. “Is this how we are supposed to sound? That’s gonna be impossible!”

Trying to calm her down, I reassure her, “Don’t worry! We are just starting out! Within a couple weeks of practice, we can sound like that.” Making sure that she understands, “Hey you know what else might help? Let’s each play our parts as a solo right now.”

Valerie looks at me as if she is too afraid to play, I grab my instrument and tell her confidently, “You know what? I’ll go first.” I gave my part a quick read over to make sure I was ready, but I noticed a real hard part to play. Knowing that I am going to mess up eventually, I count myself in and play. I am performing as well as could be expected, until I start stumbling towards the middle of the song, “Oh yucky!” I say. As I pull out a pencil and start writing on the areas I messed up on, Valerie asks me “Wait, what are you doing? Are you changing it around?”

“What? No. I’m just marking where I messed up. It tells me where I am supposed to be putting in extra practice to perform better.”

“Why are you doing it like that? Isn’t it better just to play the whole song, so you practice it all the same?” As Valerie begins questioning me, I pull out my band folder with all my sheet music for the upcoming concert.

“You see all these notes? We do this for Band. We try to focus on the tougher areas of the music to make those parts sound as smooth as possible. We also do this so that we can practice accompanying each other, which is what I think our biggest problem is so far.”

“How can we fix that?” she says while watching me make marks on the score.

“Well it's just something that comes from practicing together. Up ‘til now, you have never played with anyone else, so of course there’s gonna be some problems at first.” I say while marking little notes on the score.
“Alright, your turn, give it a shot!” As Valerie nervously glances at the piano keys, I urge her once more “Hey, it's not gonna be perfect your first time. That’s why we practice.” That seemed to give her the confidence to play and she did.

As she was playing I could tell that she was playing as it was written, it didn’t have any personality to it. “Why don’t you try putting some emotion in it?”

“I don’t know what that means or how to do it.” As she says this an idea popped into my head.

“Here, just sit and listen real fast. Let me play you this song for a second. Once as it is written, and once with my emotions in it. I won't tell you which is which, just tell me which sounds better.” I grab my book with all the songs we play for rallies, randomly flipping it open and begin to play. As I finish the first go around, Valerie claps normally as if she were unimpressed. Then I play it again.
This time as I finish, she looks at me with an amazing expression on her face.

“That’s the same song? That was leagues better! How do I put emotion into my playing?”

As I am bombarded with these questions, I try and figure out the best way to explain it, but half-assedly I tell her, “Find out what this song means to you, and I think your emotions will come out themselves.” As I wanna get her on track, I tell her to listen to the song again, but this time, only focus on the piano part. When we finish listening a second time, Valerie looks excited and ready play. She starts pressing the keys, and this time I can hear her emotions pour through, adding her own twists and flavor to the piece.

“See that! It sounded so much better. Thanks so much! I can’t wait to perform like this!” As she is giddy with excitement, I let her know that it's gonna be a little longer ‘til we start sounding good.

“Well it's not gonna sound good yet. Playing with emotion made you rush a little bit. Once we work on that I think we can start making it sound accompanying each other.” I take a breath, then anticipate her next question. “Rushing is common. It happens to everybody. Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out once we start playing with each other.”

“Alright, let's try it again. I think it will sound better.” As she said this, I looked at her and counted us in, and we played. This time, it sounded way better. Our excitement over the piece and our own flavors blending together was only amplified by us learning how to play off of each other.

Excited, Valerie looks at me and wants to do another playthrough. “Hey let's do this again, make it even better.”

“I can’t, actually. It's getting kinda late and I have to leave. I will definitely be here tomorrow, though.”

As we say our goodbyes, I meet up with Nik and we start to head home. I let him know about the talent show and my plan with Valerie. “Sounds like fun. Anything I can do to help?”

“Yea, if you are able to come and listen some days, that would be a big help. Kinda like an audience member.We can kinda hear one another but not the whole sound. ” While walking to his car we hear a loud yell, “Mark! Hey!”
Valerie had tracked me down. “Do you mind if I get your number? I want to practice at home and if I have any questions I want to ask you about it at home.”

Nik looks at me, smiles, and pats me on the shoulder as he gets into the car. “I’ll wait here, but don’t take too long.”

“Sure! Let me grab my phone real fast... Here you go.” As I hand her my phone, a warm feeling starts to build up inside me. “Alright, I’ll text you in a little bit, don’t want to keep Nik waiting.”

As I hop into the car, I wave to her and begin to text her. I send her a message with the link to the song we are playing. As I eagerly await her reply, I hear Nik snicker at me.

“What are you laughing at, huh?” laughing while I get myself buckled in.

“Hey man, I’m laughing at the fact that you got a girl’s number. You also handled it a lot better than I expected. I could've sworn you were gonna freak out. It seems like you really are growing. Now we gotta make fun of Troy.”

As we continue joking, I notice we are missing one of our friends. “Hey where’s Troy?” I ask, looking around.

“Today was the start of their season. They are playing out of town so that’s why we can’t go watch the game.”

“Oh ok, well let's go home, I gotta look at the sheet music and figure some parts out. I’m going to do everything I can to help Valerie win this thing.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was in my room late at night, doing some homework when I got a text from Valerie. ‘Hey! Can you explain what these mean? I’m unsure of them and kinda need a little help.’ Reading this, I pull up the sheet music for the piano part. “Oh, ‘Cresc.’ That means crescendo. Basically it wants you to start softer and then gradually play louder.’ Once I hit send I look back at my homework and wait for her response.
How could she not know that? She said she was self-taught, but surely there’s a limit on that. While I was wondering about this, more time had passed and I hadn’t received any texts.
Wondering how I’d start a new conversation, I sent her a picture of the math homework to see if she could help me out. Instantly I get a text back ‘OMG! I forgot to do the math homework. Do you think I can copy what you have now?’ Reading this I sent her a message with the picture and tell her to double check my answer. She thanks me and that was the last thing exchanged that night.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Math class began, I pull out my homework and turn it in. While walking to my seat, I am confronted by Valerie. “What the hell?”

In confusion, I ask, “What are you talking about? What did I do wrong?”

“You asked me for help on a question, but when I got to that problem you already did it. That’s not cool. I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out what you did wrong.”

Laughing, I looked at her and said “You took too long, so I figured it out myself.” As I head back to my seat, I look back and see her glare at me. I wonder if it was out of anger or embarrassment.

“Mark, I’m gonna visit you guys today, so you better be ready.” Nik says nonchalantly.
“Woah Nik, we aren’t ready. We just started practicing yesterday. You gotta give us at least a week.” I say nervously.

“Nah, I wanna see how you guys grow. See what y’all can actually do in two weeks.” This is probably the most interested Nik has been in any of my hobbies. “Honestly if you guys can form a new duet, and then win a talent show two days later, that would be amazing.”

Knowing I can’t change his mind, I agree and tell him to bring some pills for a potential headache. We get to work on today’s math lesson and actually finish it with some extra time.

“Alright, I’m gonna head outside for a bit. I’ll leave this here so you can check your answers.” As I am waiting outside, a random guy comes up to me and tells me, “Don’t think of going out with Valerie. She’s incredibly hot, and you’re like some band geek. Know your place.” As he walks away, I look down and realize what he was saying was true. She is one of the prettiest girls I have ever met, and I am some dude who wears a hoodie, better to not get my hopes up.
As class ends I tell Nik and Troy I had something to do and had to miss lunch. Instead of going to lunch with friends, I head to my little spot by the water and think about what that dude said to me. Trying not to let myself look bothered by something, I get up and head back to school to finish the day out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the last class of the day is done, I head to meet up with my friends and tell Nik I had to postpone the performance practice. I lie to him and say, “I got a call at lunch. My mom said she needed me to come home right away. “ As he agrees to postpone, he offers me a ride, but I decline and say I had a ride.
As I head out, I text Valerie that I had to go home for some emergency. I wasn’t even sure what I said to her at this point. She says ok, but she would still practice herself. After reading her response, I started walking home. Full of doubt, I wonder if I am even fit to be her duet partner. Eventually, I even go to bed with this thought still lingering.