Play!

XXIV

Good for Brett that he’d been nervously pacing around in front of a practice room the night before, otherwise he would have dropped dead right this instant. Yeah, getting a lesson from freaking Benjamin Goulding had sounded like great news first, but now, as he was about to go in there and expose his playing to a great violinist like the concertmaster of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, he felt like a huge tree trunk had decided to make itself comfortable on his chest, making breathing impossible.

“Okay Brett! You got this!”, he pep talked himself as quietly as possible, took several breaths despite the tree and closed his eyes. What could possibly happen? That Mr. Goulding was going to roast his playing, throw him out of the room for how hopeless it was?
Maybe…
He knocked three times, as fast as his heart was beating. 
“Come in.”
A deep, warm voice. Brett inhaled deeply and opened the door. 

A smile in a kind face, framed by dark brown hair, beamed at him. 
“Hi. You must be Brett.”
“Yeah”, he gulped, digging deep past the nervousness for his social skills. “It’s such an honor to meet you. Thank you, Mr. Goulding, for taking the time.”
“Oh please call me Ben. I hate it when people call me by my last name. I’m not that old, right?”
“Of course not, Ben. Thank you.”
“No worries.” He pointed at one of the two chairs placed in the middle of the room. “We’ll talk first. That okay for you?”
“Sure!” Brett put down his case and looked around subtly. An expensive looking violin was sitting on the white table in front of the window, next to it a bow. A typical practice room piano’s lid was open and a useless fan, very likely generating more heat than providing fresh air, was lazily turning its blades on top of the piano. 
“So!”, Ben exclaimed and sat down himself. “Korngold, huh. You like the piece?”
“It’s okay. I like the general vibe of it, but it’s challenging to play in certain passages.”
“Oh, I agree. That third movement is a sucky one.”
Brett grinned while he felt himself relaxing a bit. Sucky? He liked that guy. 
“I’ve played it several times in concert, but it was some time ago. Did you find any parts especially difficult? What would you like for us to work on today?”
“I kinda hit a roadblock when I got here”, Brett admitted, “I was fine at home, at least I think I was. But when I tried to play the fast bits here, I couldn’t.”
“What exactly didn’t work?”
Brett gave him a short summary of his misery over the past two days and how Eddy had helped him to resolve it. 
“I see”, Ben meant, “Eddy gave you some good advice.”
“He sure did”, Brett said with a shudder, images of himself failing on stage if Eddy hadn’t helped him popping up in his mind. 
“We’ll see how these sections go today and if you need more polishing there to give you more security. But first things first. I’d like to hear some of your Korngold to get a bigger picture.”

There it was again. His heart dancing the Rite of Spring in double speed before he had to play in front of someone. Brett tried to keep his hands steady when he opened his case and took out his instrument. 
“First movement?”
“Whatever you like”, Ben nodded encouragingly. 
Brett tightened his bow, tuned his violin longer than he liked and loosened his shoulders a bit. Another intake of oxygen and off he went. 

“Good! Thank you so much!”
Thank god he’d reached the end of the first movement without any major fuck-ups! Brett opened his eyes and saw Ben’s pleased expression. He decided to take it as a good sign for now. 
“Solid playthrough! Have you played this movement with the orchestra already?”
“Yeah. Yesterday.” Brett drew the back of his hand over his forehead in order to get rid of the pearls of sweat which had formed and bothered him during his playing. 
“Thought so! I can hear and see confidence in your playing. The kind you only get by performing.”
Really? He had felt quite alright while he’d played after the initial nervousness had subsided, but nowhere near as significant as Ben had just described. 
“There are some passages where you can vary a bit more. Give it a bit more colour. In the beginning for example…”

And like this, they dived into the piece, Ben pointing out what Brett could improve and Brett attempting to do so while very quickly adjusting to this setting. It wasn’t so different from his normal violin lessons, really, and he found himself scratching his imaginary head over the stupid panicking before. Ben was a great teacher. He provided Brett with new, little technical tips which he could implement almost immediately and painted vivid pictures and scenes like cowboys riding on horses during the third movement and thus helping Brett structure the piece more and highlight his musicality. Whenever Ben played some snippets, Brett had to pull out his most effective deadpan skills so his jaw wouldn’t drop open. He’d only heard him live a few times when he had been leading the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and had seen one recording of him of the finals of the Tchaikovsky Competition. Live however in the same room was a totally different story. It was like Ben’s violin held a power unbeknownst to Brett which was able to physically push the listener back and at the same time drew him in in the most enchanting way.

Way too fast, the sun had dropped quite a bit and their lesson came to an end. They were both drenched in sweat when Ben said, “It was a pleasure working with you, Brett.”
“Likewise! Thank you so, so much for all your help!”
“You’re very welcome! It’s always exciting to see new talent rise up and you definitely have some of that in you.”
“Really?”, Brett exclaimed incredulously. 
“Of course! You think it’s pure luck you got chosen?”
“Uh, to be honest, yeah. Kinda.”
“Give yourself a bit more credit”, Ben gave Brett one of his motivating smiles again, along with a small clap on Brett’s shoulder, “You have more potential than you think. And you do have a chance against Eddy Chen, you know that, right?”
Brett chuckled insecurely. Damn Ben for not only being a great violinist but also a skilled people reader! Courtesy of his role of being a concertmaster, Brett guessed.
“Not so sure”, Brett gave in, “That guy’s really talented. But if having this lesson is the only thing I get out of orchestra camp, I’ll be more than happy.”
“Don’t flatter me”, Ben laughed, “There wasn’t much I had to do. Keep it up, will you?”
“I'll try."