Matthias Oreklein’s Blog

There is nothing more profound than the power of music; it is more universal than gravity, and one thousand times more unpredictable than nature herself.  Unfortunately, it also invokes emotions.  You see it is a dreadful thing to feel emotions.  Why is it so necessary to have emotions anyway?  Unfortunately, the human race that lived on the planet Earth, thought emotion is the most wonderful thing since sliced bread.

Unfortunately, these poor souls haven’t yet grasped the untidy consequences of fiddling with emotion, especially the musicians and artists.  Many believe that with out emotions the universe would run very smoothly indeed, but the others, the few who believe in feelings disagree.  They argue that it may run smoothly, but the whole idea is preposterously boring.

This story you are now reading is not about the argument about weather feeling is better than desensitization or not, or even about emotions in general, but arguably the most powerful of all, love.  Yes the article you are now open to is about one of the most cliché subjects imaginable and how two adolescent musicians find themselves caught in not only the string of each others instruments but the strings of affection.

Our story opens in the new room of Sebastian Rennington.  Little did he know that in his new home town, he would meet the violinist that would win his heart.  Bastian stood in the large, white, nearly empty room with nothing but himself, the small bed he slept in last night, and the back pack full of sheet music.  As he stood there he was grappling with a rather tedious emotion.  Ever since he was old enough to push a key, he had not gone an entire day without playing one of his pianos, and now the fifteen year old accomplished pianist stood in a pianoless mansion while his pianos were being shipped up from his father’s old house.

Sighing, Bastian left the nearly empty bleak room and met his brother, Alexander, by one of Xander’s expensive cars.  This one was a red mustang convertible with electric blue guitar frets on the sides.  Xander said while Bastian climbed into the passenger seat, “Dad should be up with your pianos in about a week.  That is if he can get away from his editor long enough.”

“Why can’t he just send them up?” asked Bastian cringing at the word piano.

“Your eclectic collection is too delicate for movers.  Either you are dad has to be there to supervise the movement of them.  I’m telling you, you should have chosen a more portable instrument to play other than pianos that weigh thousands of pounds.”

Xander drove onto the main road when Bastian remarked, with a slight smile, “And your electric guitars are less delicate than my pianos?”

Xander shook his head, turning into the school parking lot now.  “Well in a way yes: they aren’t as difficult to tune, and they are definitely lighter.  You know, you could have brought a keyboard if you were going to have piano withdrawal.”

“I didn’t think I was,” defended Bastian, “Also, Dad had them all pack with their nice foamy cushions before I could change my mind.  They are deep somewhere in the moving van.”

“Well maybe the music department will have a piano,” thought Xander as he pulled into a space close the front.  Bastian really hoped so.

They climbed out of the car, without opening the doors and headed off to the penitentiary called high school.

 

High school: a facility of supposedly necessary four year education that educates children fourteen to eighteen respectively.  Bastian and his brother were unfortunately between those ages and unfortunately the human country of the United States holds a law stating that all children must have an education of some kind.  Many believe that if no one felt anything, education would only last less than a year and the world would continue to run smoothly, unfortunately emotions cause such things as procrastination and laziness, which inevitably lead to a twelve year extension of schooling, four some it is even four years longer.  What a waste of time?

Bastian was never good at coping with the emotions of others, which made it very hard for him to make friends.  Even at his old school on the east coast, people only liked him because his father, Edward Rennington was a famous author and girls would use him to get close to his reasonably attractive older brother, there are prime examples of the emotions of lust ruining Sebastian’s life.

His father always told him that he should just be himself and friends would find him.  Unfortunately Sebastian was a fifteen year old tall, lanky human with incredibly long fingers and big hands and an incredible aptitude for math and science while also retaining the ability to bring a grown man to tears with his pianos.  Who would want to be friends with a weirdo like that?

Sebastian and Xander walked further apart than Bastian would have liked; in public Xander never acknowledged Bastian’s existence let alone that he was family.  Xander was currently speed walking to the front office to sign in while Bastian took his sweet time playing the air piano hearing the notes perfectly in his head.  He was aware of the odd looks the other students gave him.  Idaho was inhospitable at best.

Bastian crossed the short distance left to the front office and stepped up to the counter.  Xander had already come and gone.

“Sebastian Rennington,” he announced to the secretary in a monotone.

“You must be Alexander’s brother,” said the secretary more bouncy than Bastian thought was necessary.  “Here’s your schedule,” she handed him a piece of paper with eight classes listed, “and sign this form saying you got here on time.”  Sebastian signed the clipboard shoved in front of him, gave a week smile and left the office in search of his first class, band.

He opened the door to see a room full of kids already, even though first period didn’t start for a half hour.  They were in the middle of playing a piece, and they seemed uninterrupted, so Bastian continued closing the door as lightly as possible.  It only took them a few minutes to finish the piece.  It was common marching band song; he’d played it many times before.

When the student conductor lowered her gloved hands, she and the teacher, Bastian glanced at his schedule, Mr. Baldwin, approached him.

“Can we help you?” asked the tall, skinny Mr. Baldwin.

“Yes, I signed up for band and I got it on my schedule—,” began Bastian.

“I was notified of you,” said Mr. Baldwin in a brisk voice, then in a softer voice, “You can be her during class for attendance purposes, and you are more than welcome to sit in on our early morning practice, but I’m afraid I can’t let you play until I or the drum major Elizabeth here has time to audition you.”

Bastian nodded, and replied, “There is no place I would rather be than were music is being played.”  

He walked over to an empty seat in the corner and pulled out his note book of sheet music while Elizabeth raised her hands and shouted, “Take it from the top.”

Time passed by and the bell for first period rang and no one moved.  They kept on playing through the bell.  After they finished that piece, Mr. Baldwin came over to Bastian and said over his shoulder, “That’s pretty interesting.”

“What is?” asked Bastian.  The band began playing a new piece as Mr. Baldwin pulled up another chair to sit by Bastian.

“The music you are writing down,” he replied.  “How long did it take you to do that?” he asked while reaching out for the book.

Bastian flipped to the beginning of the piece, about four full pages, front and back.  “I started a few days ago as My brother and I started on our move.  I’m only about halfway done.”  Mr. Baldwin remained silent as he flipped through the book, about three hundred pages of musical notation.

“Fascinating,” he whispered.  “What instrument do you play?”

“Piano,” replied Bastian, “for about twelve years now.”

Mr. Baldwin’s eyes widened.  “Is that he only instrument?”

“Yeah, I guess it’s not much for a marching band.”

“Come by during lunch,” replied Mr. Baldwin, “Everyone has different lunches so we can’t practice; instead any musician is welcome to play on our instruments then.  Our piano may be out of tune, but I think it will work.  Depending on how good you are, maybe I can fit you into a different music class.”  Bastian nodded and Mr. Baldwin stood up to go critique the band’s last piece.

 

Bastian returned to the band room the moment the lunch bell rang, not even going to get lunch, all he could think about during math was the fact that the school did have a piano.  As he walked through the door, he saw many of the band members he saw during class sitting on the risers eating lunch and chatting avidly.  Some people were playing instruments, one girl was playing a violin quietly, and one boy was banging on a drum set.  Another was playing the xylophone, and yet another was tapping out a bouncy song on a kettle drum.

Bastian’s eyes drifted across the room until his eyes beheld a relatively new tan upright on wheels sitting in a corner he couldn’t see earlier.  He almost ran to the instrument.  Sitting on the cold piano bench, he lifted the cover to reveal ebony and ivory keys with a matte finish.  Touch the keys with shivering fingers, he straitened into the correct posture and spread his large hands.

The boy on the kettle drum had stopped playing to watch and mostly everyone had stopped talking except for the drummer and violinist.

He began to play a flowing composition he had written.  It was his favorite.  The room fell silent with the first note.  The drummer stopped pounding, and the violinist stopped gliding.  Sebastian Rennington was flying.  With each crescendo he would sway with the music.  He kept his eyes closed to enjoy the music.  The sound of hammers on wires was sweeter than anything he’d heard in days, even if they were slightly out of tune.

By the time he finished his first piece, there were students from other classes in the room.  They all clapped, including Mr. Baldwin.  Without slowing down, Bastian reached for his composition book and opened it to his latest piece and started to play.  He had trained himself not to get distracted by others.

This other piece was radically different from the first.  Instead of inducing the same joyful emotion of the first, this second one expressed a sense of sadness, like moving away from your home, or having the leaves of autumn fall in their reds and oranges.  That’s what Autumn Link thought as she listened to Sebastian Rennington play his music.  She glanced at the violin in her lap and then back to Sebastian.  Her eyes began to water.  Sebastian continued to play, uninterrupted switching between songs effortlessly, improvising quite a bit.  Eventually the kettle drummer and xylophonist started to play with him, and the drummer started to tap out a beat to accompany the piano but not over power it.

Bastian slipped into a more joyful, upbeat song, near the end of lunch, and the stopped when Mr. Baldwin put his hand on Bastian’s shoulder.

“Sebastian,” he addressed as he sat on the piano bench with him.  “How would you feel if you were in as many music classes as possible?”

Bastian grinned ecstatically.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” chuckled Mr. Baldwin.

“Though I would like to keep my computer, science, and math classes,” added Bastian, “Oh and you can call my Bastian.”

“Okay,” chuckled Mr. Baldwin, “You can keep those, but I’ll get your schedule changed by tomorrow to include you in the orchestra and jazz band.  You can stay in marching band, I think I have an idea.”

“That would be great!” shouted Bastian.  Mr. Baldwin laughed and walked away.  Standing behind him was the violinist.

“Hello,” she said in a soft voice, “I’m Autumn Link, and you are?”

“Sebastian Rennington,” he replied while playing a small jingle on the keys.  They both chuckled.  Autumn noticed his sparklingly white teeth and pure laugh, and the way his black hair flowed when his head moved.  Bastian noticed her coiled copper hair bounce like springs and her bright blue eyes.  Emotion causes distracting observations like that.

Autumn then recognized his name.  “Are you the son of Edward—,”

“—Rennington?” finished Bastian, “That’s my father all right.”  Normally he hated having people know him because of his father, but from her it didn’t seem that bad.

“I love his books.  They are so good.  When is the next— sorry,” she cut herself off, “You must hate it when people talk about him that way.”

Bastian nodded.

“That was very good playing, brilliant actually!” she complimented.  Normally positive feed back like that didn’t affect him that much, but from her it made him blush.  He finally noticed the violin she was holding in one hand and the bow in the other.

“Thank you,” Bastian stuttered, then regained some composure, “Do you play?  I wasn’t really paying attention when I came in.  I was too eager to play.  I haven’t played in three days.”

“Actually,” she replied, “I do play, but I don’t want to.  I mention to my mother at a young age that I wanted to play the violin and she put me into lessons and wouldn’t let me quit.  It’s a beautiful instrument, don’t get me wrong,” she was sitting next to him now, her hair smelled of like apples, “I just want to play the electric guitar.”  The words stirred something in Bastian.

“My brother could teach you,” replied Bastian, “He could even lend you a guitar, he has so many.  Of course I’m not one to talk, I have twelve pianos.”

Her jaw dropped.  “What?! Twelve!”

Bastian blushed, “Yes, every one is unique.  I have one that is an upright curved into a circle, a grand curved into an inverted circle that I sit in the middle of to play, and then there is my favorite one.”

“Which one is that?” she asked, genuinely interested.  “A triple decked glossy black grand with blue flames.  The lower deck is regular piano strings, the middle deck is made of flat metal bells, and the top deck is an electric piano.  Each deck plays the same amount of notes and has a wider range of octaves than a standard piano.  It’s the most fun to play.”

Autumn was intrigued, “That’s amazing!  Can I come over and see it some time?”

“Well, all of my pianos are back at my old house.  My dad’s going to bring them over when he can get away from his editor.”

“Wait,” she demanded, while putting her violin away, “Your dad is going to live here?”

“Yes that is usually what happens when a family moves.”

“I wasn’t sure if your dad was on a book tour or something,” she defended.  Just then the bell rang and she stood up from the bench and headed out the door.  Sebastian’s eyes followed her out, and then he glanced back at the piano, reluctant to leave it.  He played a quick parting ballad and jumped up and ran out of the room for advanced computer programming class.

 

At the end of the day, he came back to the band room to play more on the piano, but as he crossed the room to the instrument, he saw autumn preparing her violin.  He immediately walked away from the piano, nothing had caused such a strong emotion in him to do that, and so tightens one of Autumns strings.

“Play me something?” asked Bastian as he approached.  She shrugged and immediately lapsed into a rendition of the bumble bee.  It was less classical and more something else.  Sebastian couldn’t put his finger on it.  It was more her own.  Halfway through the song she slowed down into a different song and it only took a few bars to realize it was Bastian’s most recent piece.  Her bow scratched, embarrassed.  “I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, no,” chuckled Bastian impressed at her playing by ear, “It was really good, keep playing.”  He strode to the piano and started playing a simpler version of it.  She joined him happily, adding her own flare to it.  She was a very colorful violinist.  Just like in a dance, Sebastian led her through everything, crescendo after crescendo, and set the tone for each section.  When they  got to the end of the finished version, she was looking over his shoulder at the sheet music, they just kept playing, in complete harmony changing the mood from sad to a more something more like relief and then to celebration.

They ended with a forte of complex notes and a loud bang.  They didn’t realize how long they played and there were only two sets of clapping, one from Mr. Baldwin and one from Xander.  They didn’t notice though, they were both breathing deeply from the effort of playing, they were staring into each other’s eyes understanding sweeping over them.  Humans have an annoying ability of loving one another and making it work.  It looked like these two weren’t any different.

Matthias Oreklein’s Blog by Matthias Oreklein is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.