Four thirty-three

Chapter 11

December found Brett quite at ease with the violin. He'd been practicing quite a lot, had gone quickly through most of the repertoire Chen had given him, and he was finally starting to feel at home with the instrument. The teacher itself seemed to have lost a bit of his temper these past months, and, though not any closer to nice, at least he had toned down the roasting a bit.

Yes, things were going swiftly with the violin, finally.

Why was today's class going so wrong, then?

"I can't do it."

Brett fumbled with his glasses. It was his third attempt at playing this week's new piece, Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in A minor , first movement, and so far he hadn't made it past the first eight bars. He gave the sheet music in front of him a dirty look.

Eddy sighed.

"You've been only playing this piece for a week. It'll take some time for you to warm up to it."

"I can't do it! It's too hard!"

"Yes, you can do it. You just have to practice. Let's start from the beginning again."

Brett put his violin on his shoulder and started to play.

"Stop. Your bow is crooked, that's why you're not making a good sound on the A string. Try to keep it parallel to the bridge."

Brett tried again.

"No. Look at your bow, Yang. Does it look like it's parallel to the bridge?".

"I don't know," he answered sulkily.

Eddy rolled his eyes. "Well, spoiler alert, it is not. Try again. Wrist coming towards your nose when you get closer to the frog. And raise your elbow a bit when you go to the E string, you're keeping it too close to your body. It needs to be aligned with your hand."

Brett did as told.

"Keep the elbow up when you change strings. No, don't stop the bow. Elbow, Yang. Your elbow's too slow, that's why your string crossings are not clean. Stop focusing on your left hand, your left hand's perfectly fine, just keep the bow moving. Shorter bow there, Yang, stay in the middle. Careful, you're too close to the bridge now, yes, that's better. That's an upbow. Upbow, Yang. Elbow. No, your bow is not straight again, Yang, focus!"

Brett stopped playing abruptly and took a step back from the stand, huffing annoyedly. "This is fucking stupid." He muttered.

"Yang! Language!" The teacher raised an eyebrow, playfully. "There are minors present."

Brett looked around, but Lea was nowhere to be seen. She'd been moved to a different class a while ago. But then who was the minor...?

Then it hit him that the score in front of him was in A minor , and that Eddy was just trying to make a joke, and in other circumstances he might have found it slightly amusing, but certainly not today. He rolled his eyes.

"That was lame."

Eddy snickered. "Whatever. Again, from the top."

♪ ♪ ♪

After the lesson ended, Brett fumbled with his violin to put it back quickly into the case. The class had been a full hour of him struggling against the damn thing, and he was so glad it was finally over.

"Yang. Is everything alright? You looked quite out of it today."

He nodded. "Bad day, that's all."

Eddy hummed. "Yeah. We all get some of those now and then."

"Yeah, okay, Mr. Soloist, whatever you say."