[Class] Introductory Music with Professor Blue - SEE P.8

[DarkHeartedSorrows]

Nyyrikki squinted at his paper, tapping his flute against his chin softly. What would he write? There were so many ways to take it, and so many different things the teacher could expect...

Going with his gut feeling, he began scribbling on the paper in black ink, his messy scrawl going down as fast as he could think of things.

Quote:

Music to me is… seclusion. It’s a way to do what I want to do and not think about my parents or my duty. It’s a connection to who I think I am, no matter what the others around me think.

The more literal definition would probably be something like “the rhythmatic linking of sounds” or something equally boring, but if you think about it, it is just sounds. Music can be made with anything. A lot of time I’ve used just my hands and my desk, or a pencil and a book. But I’ve made music and I’ve enjoyed it, and I’d like the think some of the people around me enjoyed it too. Just like that, a whistle, or a bottle, can become and instrument as much as this… flute?

I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t have to be taught music to make music. No offense to your profession! But music can come from the untrained and the trained alike, and can be enjoyed equally, raw or polished.

And I still don’t have enough words up there, so I guess I’ll add that I started drumming because my parents hated it, but it started to be a good stress release. The power behind my drums is me, and I enjoy that.

Satisfied with his assignment, he dropped his pen, fingered his instrument proudly, and nodded to himself. He'd done good, despite it being a class assignment - ew - and how unsure he was of learning a new instrument.  

[Appeal]

Lucien was late. He was very, very late. How could he have forgotten he had a class and slept so late? The air spirit didn't know but he did know that Israfel would be in this class and that he didn't want to miss a chance that Israfel would sing. He still had his tambourine in his hands, jingling it excessively as he hurried to class. He could probably be heard all the way down the hall, so when he slowly pushed the door open the jingling did not cease. At least it seemed he hadn't damaged his instrument any.

So much for sneaking into the class when you were late huh? It took a moment but he finally managed to find out what was going on and all the while jingling with his tambourine he managed to get a piece of paper and begin to think about what music meant to him. He wasn't entirely sure what music meant to him. It was just something that was there, something fun, something all around him. His thoughts were wondering and soon he began to write:

Quote:

Music is the sound the wind makes if you listen hard enough, and the wind below you as you're falling. Music is the sound you make, and the smile you see, and the touch of a friend's hand. Music is in your heart, and music keeps you going when times get tough. Music is everything.

It was kind of short, but no one told him how long it had to be.

 

[Appeal]

Professor Blue scoffed at the several students who had come in late, eyes lingering on Israfel's caution and Lucien's overenthusiastic behaviour towards his tambourine but otherwise made no movement and seemed to have no plan to correct their behaviour at the moment. He remained quiet for the entire time he allowed them to do the task he'd assigned, waiting for the exactly second to time down until he stood up.

"That's enough," he called to his students as he began to collect the papers from them. It didn't take long, and the demon tried not to linger on any of the students with his thoughts as he did so. He couldn't help but pause with his thoughts as he collected and looked at Malodore's piece, giving a small hm sound before he continued on and picked up the remaining papers.

"Very good. Now then class," he directed, tucking the papers away under his belt. "I will be splitting you up into groups based on your assigned instrument and from there we will look further into understanding who to use them to create the desired effect: a pleasant noise."

"The first group will be: Aislin, Aksaja, Calder, Ilztmyr'ree, Jack, Jove, Roch, Ziyah; the second group will be: Alwine, Amrita, Arcadia, Elizabeth, Livius, Rosciel, Sepheran; the third group will be Arachne, Bartholomew, Cyrilla, Hadiyya, Joachim, Nyyrikki, Petro, Sin; the forth group will be: Alcyone, Christof, Israfel, Lucien, Malodore, Ys; and the last group will consist of Belladonna, Gabrian, Junko, Renaissance, Shara, Tahki, Unstabul and West."

He wasn't positive who from his last class had decided to show up, but he had included them in the group regardless.

"Music is made by following a musical scale, which consists of notes from C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Different instruments have different ways of identifying which notes can be played..." the professor said, continue to talk in detail about each different instrument lightly while he did. He explained the keys on the piano and how they lined up each note in repetition, the four violin strings that consisted of G, D, A, E and how holding on each string while you dragged the bow over produced the notes, and the same for the other instruments.

"I will give each group a five note scale and I want you each to try to hit them following the explanation I have given you," he demanded, beginning to write up five sets up in the view of each group.

Group 1 - C G A B A
Group 2 - A A A B G
Group 3 - C C F E B
Group 4 - C F E B C
Group 5 - G G F F A

"If you have any questions, just shout and I will give you some personal assistance with your instrument lesson."

Personal lessons out by the pool, anyone? Maybe another day, Professor Blue took music very seriously.

(( For this exercise, here are the number to letter values:

C = 1
D = 2
E = 3
F = 4
G = 5
A = 6
B = 7
C = 8

Make a post, roll 5 8-side dice and see if any of them match up. If you wish, they can try again however it isn't necessary. Please have your attempt in by July 18th, anything after that can not be guaranteed to make the cut-off date.

If your student wants help, please address Professor Blue in a bold, red colour. ))

 

[Grey Dragon]

The little puppy eyed his group members, and found himself inching away from the reapers and towards the familiar faces, Calder, Aislin, and Aksaja. Why did there always have to be reapers? And that reaper in particular? Jove gave Roch a good watching before looking down at his kazoo.

He was starting to grasp the idea of music, and how each different pitch was associated with a letter. It was like a word. A bunch of letters made up a word, or in the case of music, it made up a melody. Briefly Jove wondered if birds sang in the same notes as a piano or a violin, or if they had their own language and symbols.

He scrutinized the kazoo once more, and then raised it to his lips and blew into it. Nothing. Not a single sound.

Another deep breath, and no sound.

The pup frowned. Was the instrument broken? He thought he was playing it the right way, but he didn't understand yet that he had to actually hum into it, rather than simply pushing air through it. He put up his hand, hoping to catch Professor Blue's attention.  

[Roxy_roxanna2]

Sin had practiced but practice...apparently did not make perfect when one had no skill or natural inclination...or desire for the instrument at hand. She frowned as she heard the next musical exercise and sighed. Of course he would want them to have to play their notes. She glanced around at the group members she had been assigned with. Of them she really only knew Barth, but this particular activity didn't seem to require a lot of interaction. Her eyes flicked over to Rosc in another group before straying back onto the trumpet in her lap.

She slowly lifted the trumpet to her lips pausing for a moment to blow a little air in preparation. With a lick of her lips she moved to give an experimental blow and...the wrong note came out, a G instead of the required C. Sin quickly moved her fingers with her next blow and managed to burst out a C note as required, however she moved so quickly that she skipped the necessary F note and stroke the E note next.

Her breathing still wasn't even enough or timed well enough with the movement of her fingers and as she gave two more blows they came out as G and G. It seemed the F and B notes had completely evaded her when it came to the trumpet. She pulled the horn away and coughed a bit annoyed as she bit her lower lip to try and get some of the feeling back into it. She hated how blowing the dumb brassy horn made her lips go numb. With a frown she lowered the trumpet and waited hoping her group mates were more skilled then she.

Group 3 Required Notes - C C F E B
Sin's Actual Trumpet Notes - G C E G G
 

[Ice Queen]

Good thing? He was still with the guy he knew. Bad thing? Two jackin' ghosts and the teacher seemed to expect him to work with them. Roch's expression went dark. What was the point of putting them in groups when all they were doing was trying to find notes? And dammit all, if this was a guitar he wouldn't even have to stick around and screw around like this to try and find the notes!

As it was, he thought, glowering at the potato in his hand, he still wasn't sure why he'd joined this class in the first place. Okay, now that was just being bitchy, he thought to himself. Just find the jackdamn notes or ones you can pass off as them, and get it over with.

It wasn't as if they knew he knew music!

Group 1 - C G A B A
What he got: D C D A D

"What the jack," he muttered, pulling the potato from his lips and looking at it blankly for a long moment. "So that's D... C... and A... huh..." Now he had to remember which hole was which...  

[sleepZombie]

Aislin looked towards the Reaper boil she'd been teasing just earlier and gave a wicked smile. "Looks like we're paired together." She would have gone further to see how much she could bother him but figuring out how to play her musical instrument was a little more pressing and slightly more entertaining. This might not be so bad.

She looked over as Jove attempted to play his instrument, a weird little... thing. It had just two holes yet he was still unable to produce any sound from it. The ghostling stiffled a little giggle and turned to her Recorder, all merriment gone as she scowled down at the ivory white plastic. There were a set of holes, little ones for putting her fingers over.

She opened her mouth and put the instrument to her lips, covered the holes she thought would make the right first note. And blew as hard as she could.

Group 1 - C G A B A
What Aislin Got - F E C B C

The sounds that erupted from her instrument was the most shrill noise that the Recorder could famously produce. Out of all the horrible nails-on-chalkboard sounds that came out of it only one seemed to be correct.  

[Huni Pi]

Group 3 - C C F E B
Tro played - C, B, B, F, E

Petro seemed relieved that he knew some of the students he was grouped with, Arachne in particular as he had the same instrument as the spiderkin. He figured he could probably follow her lead, despite his intense manner of observing Blue as their professor demonstrated the proper way to play the scales on each instrument. Taking the cue from Sin to start playing, the horse boil brought the saxophone to his lips, awkwardly trying to replicate the position that Blue's took during the demonstration. While he'd gotten most of the notes right, it wasn't in the correct order.

"Eesh, when'd I get a tin ear?" he cringed.  

[Pepzilla]

Bul watched as Blue collected the small stack of papers and frowned to himself. There were a ton of people missing from this class which was distracting and embarrassing to him. Was music THAT bad for them? He could only wonder as he gazed to what few members of his group had shown up and sat at his drums waiting to see what they'd do. Playing percussion entailed playing the notes as different pieces of the drumset and he hadn't even come close to memorizing those yet.

"s**t..." he grumbled to himself as he read from the note list Blue etched. (or said, Im only assuming! D cool

He had a ways to go. Practice! He knew better than to not listen to his own advice. Again he picked up the sticks, ready to play some more. Earning Blue's favor was almost a goal for him now especially as the class diminished and failed the demons' expectations.

Group 5 G G F F A
Notes hit E F C F B  

[Appeal]

Grey Dragon

Professor Blue was half sitting, half leaning against the closet as he listened to the students attempt their first notes. On average, they were only getting one out of the five notes correct, which wasn't bad for this first attempt at all. There was a small smile on his face as he watched those who did show up play. Only two things could make this more perfect and both happened to be in the gym at the moment.

Hm. The professor's eyes shot over the hand of a ghost pup, Jove, which seemed to be trying to get his attention. He waited a moment, and then carefully pushed off of the wall and bound over to him, hair quite literally trailing behind him as he did so.

"How can I help you?"

 

[Grey Dragon]

Appeal

Jove's ears flopped back as the professor approached, and he gave a tiny whine. The look on his face clearly read "I don't understand" as he glanced up. The pup demonstrated, lifting the kazoo to his lips again and blowing through it, once again producing not a single sound.

His expression became clearer, something that could have been "Is it broken?" or "is this a dog whistle that even dogs can't hear?" now that it was obvious the lack of sound was bothering him. Other members of his group were able to play their instruments just fine, what was wrong with his?  

[Appeal]

Grey Dragon

The professor watched as the student went from expressing not understanding to proceeding to show him. He watched carefully to see how the student was attempting to play the instrument and after a moment he understood what was likely the problem. He waited for the student to finish and then shook his head.

"It's not broken," he said, "and it is not a dog whistle that not even dogs can hear. It is just the instrument isn't as straightforward as it seems. The kazoo can be tricky if you don't understand. It works on the principal of vibrations from the voice. You want to blow into this end," he said as he pointed to the proper end, "but you don't want to blow too much. You want to keep your lips closer together and push air through them and then into the instrument. Imagine as if you are humming. If you are having difficulty understanding that, then try drawing out the word 'who' as you blow into it."

He waited a moment for the student to take it in before he said, "Try that."

 

[Manda]

Uh huh, okaaay so now they were actually supposed to try and play these things? Uuuhm, right. Aksaja still had no idea how to DO that. Eyeing the tiny instrument in his hands, the lightning dragon eventually figured out what end he was probably supposed to blow into and gave it a few experimental puffs of air.

Then he put his fingers on some of the holes (Jack, it was too tiny for him to do this very well!) and tried to play some notes. He'd actually been paying attention to the explanation, but . . .

Ugh. This thing was REALLY shrill, and loud. He hadn't expected such a lot of noise from such a little thing. Plus, he was pretty sure he didn't play the notes right. A couple of them sounded kind of like one of the notes he was supposed to be playing, but they were in the wrong order, and just. Ugh.

"I can't do this," he muttered.

(( Group 1 notes: C G A B A
What he played: B C G D C ))  

[Sayuri_Nitta]

'Well this should be interesting.' she murmured, glancing from Sin, to Petro as those were the only ones she knew beyond a passing acquaintance. She winced a little as they both had a go playing their assigned notes, grinning at Petro's words.

'I bet I won't be any better.' she said offhandedly, and picked up the dented saxophone, pulling the cloth away and revealing how it looked after the unfortunate incident, and holding it, attempted to play the notes.

She shook her head as the last discordant note faded away.
'That was just..awful.'

(( Group 3 - C C F E B
Arachne: C A A C D ))