Cantabile [on hold]

01. Prelude

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PRELUDE
a musical introduction

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SILENCE SAYS A lot. Sometimes silence can mean awe, amazement. A loss of words. Sometimes silence can mean uncomfortableness, a lack of things to say. Sometimes silence can mean anger, bitterness, something in the room that is unsaid.

My story isn't about silence, though. My story is about music and laughter and every beautiful sound in the world. In short, it's about everything except silence.

It starts with silence, though. It starts in a clammy music practice room, with a snooty music teacher, and a girl surrounded by silence wishing she were anywhere else doing anything else.

When Mrs Dallas was silent, it was something to fear.

I'd finished the piece as best I could, though truth be told my heart hadn't really been in it, and I waited for her to stop scribbling on her little pad and finally make eye contact with me. My fingers still hovered on the piano, and I wondered if she'd get mad at me if I started playing something else. It couldn't have been productive for me, just sitting there and doing nothing.

It took her three minutes to say something.

"Well," she said, "how did that go?"

"I – um, I messed up the ending."

"Yes. You did. Anything else?"

More silence. Because there was nothing to say.

"Melody," she sighed, as though my name were an effort to get out, "do you like playing the piano?" I had never heard someone manage to be so patronising in my life.

"Yes," I said flatly.

"And do you think that playing the notes correctly are the only thing that matters in music? Do you think when Chopin composed this piece, he simply threw a few notes together without thinking?"

What kind of question was she asking? "No, of course not. That's what tempo markings and stuff are for. To put feeling into the music."

"Oh!" Mrs Dallas put on a fake-surprised demeanour. "You do know? It's just, when you were just playing that, I could have sworn you detested every note you were playing."

Yeah? Well maybe I do! How about you leave me the fuck alone, how about you tell me what I did wrong instead of patronising me and insulting me? "Okay."

"So, I'll ask you again. Do you like playing the piano?"

"Yes." I couldn't help but let a bit of my anger show, but thankfully Mrs Dallas either didn't pick up on it or didn't care.

"Alright. Then how about you start again, except this time ... try and put just a little feeling into it, won't you?"

She wasn't even listening when I played it through again. I did try my hardest to put some feeling in it, tried to remember when I'd first played it and how much I'd loved it. It wasn't even that long ago that I'd rushed downstairs to learn to play them all, filled with inspiration. But now I dreaded every second I was playing them.