"What does this button do?" Alice's wide purple eyes sparkled as she gazed down at the pearly white keys. An impatient thing by nature, she didn't wait for her uncle to answer the question, before pressing the glistening white key in front of her. A crisp G reverberated around the room, and Alice jumped at how clear the sound rang. Her tiny little finger let go of the note when she jumped, and they were once again in silence. Alice giggled, and snuggled up closer to Oswald. He could see her fingers wiggling about, likely imitating what she saw him do when he played. She looked up at him expectantly, her large eyes wide and excited, her mouth a beautiful, vibrant smile beaming up at him.
Oswald blinked. He thought about how he should word it, where he should start, should he answer her question, or go straight into the lesson he'd planned. He opened his mouth just a bit, almost ready to get some sort of sound out into the room, and was too late.
"Are all these buttons different?" Alice had already turned her attention back down to the black and white keys in front of her. She looked them over the same way she looked over sweets when she was taken to the candy store. She always appraised which one she wanted -since he only allowed one thing from the candy store at a time- looking over the selection and pointing at various ones that looked good to her. She found what she was looking for in a shiny black key close to him; Oswald could tell because her eyes sparkled when she looked at it. She reached over, and pushed down on the black key. The note rang out, and she jumped in excitement, but kept her finger pressed firmly this time. She held the note there for a while, before dramatically throwing her hand up, stopping the sound. She looked up at him again, her wide smile full of joy and excitement.
He was going to say something, he really was; tell her that she'd played a an F flat, tell her what that meant, tell her not to swing her legs so much, tell her something, anything, but as usual, she beat him to the punch line. By the time he'd started to form exactly what he'd wanted to say in his mind -word choice for small children was important, right?- Alice had already turned back down to look at the piano's keys. She settled one tiny hand on one key -three fingers all stacked on top of one another- and her other tiny hand on a different key. "This is how you make music, right?" Alice chirped, then pressed down with one hand, pulled up, and then pushed down with the other, alternating the two notes she used. Once she was doing it, she started waving her head back and forth every time she alternated the notes.
Oswald opened his mouth to answer her, before he closed it once more. Alice wasn't really listening anyway, so Oswald figured he'd just let her have her fun. As he listened, he noticed that the pace on the alternating notes was changing, getting faster. It made sense, Alice was an energetic, rambunctious child. Should she ever seriously take up music, Oswald wouldn't be surprised if she favored pieces with swift paces. Her tendency would be to rush, where as his natural pace was much, much slower. He wondered if that would be a kink they'd have to iron out at some point. Levi had always gotten unspeakably irritated when he was still giving Oswald lessons, because Levi was almost always perfectly in time, whereas Oswald tended to lag behind. He wondered if Alice's inclination to play fast would get in the way of them being able to play together later, but he quickly realized that he was thinking much too far ahead. Alice was still very young, and might not even show any interest in the piano after their little lesson. Just like she'd desperately wanted to learn how to ride horses a few months ago; he'd taken her to go riding, and she had adored it, but afterwards, had never shown any indicator that she might want to do it again. Perhaps the piano was just another one of her many passing fancies. Of course Oswald hoped that wouldn't be the case, but she was young and vibrant, and had a million things she still wanted to do. He couldn't hold it against her if piano was one of the many things she decided not to pursue. Besides, even if she did take up the piano, it was likely that Alice would mellow out at some point. Be more manageable, more willing to listen or pay attention. Lacie had -to some degree- so it stood to reason that eventually, Alice would too. It was far too premature of him to be concerned about how fast she was playing now.
While Oswald sat there musing and wondering about hypothetical scenarios, Alice had continued to alternate her notes. Eventually, she got so fast at alternating the keys, that she was just playing them at the same time. For her grand finale, she banged on the two notes three times together, and when she'd finished, she raised up her hands so fast that Oswald could just see her tumbling backwards off of the piano bench, and hitting her head. Her legs swung out too, and Oswald had to rush to catch her, because he certainly did not want her to take a spill. The bench was far too tall for her, he'd had to pick her up and place her on it the first time, but as if in revolt, she'd jumped back off, and climbed up on her own, Just to prove that she could do it, her little limbs flying everywhere as she did. Now, Oswald was wondering if he should just wait until her feet at least reached the bottom of the piano bench, but Alice was already onto the next thing. As always, she was five steps ahead of him. Oswald hadn't even let go of her yet -the image of her crashing down to the floor still fresh in his mind- but she wiggled out of his hold as fast as she could.
As if the whole thing was some silly little joke between the two of them, Alice giggled again, her crystal laughter pitter pattering across the polished marble floors. "I'm a piano player now! Teach me a song!"
Oswald thought of all that he had intended to teach her, all the different avenues he could start with; about sheet music, notes, the fundamentals, proper hand movement and posture, pace, counting. All the various aspects of music, and how to dissect, and teach them. All the things that had kept him awake last night, as he'd sat there in his bed trying and trying to figure out how to present the large body of information that was 'music' to a 7 year old girl that decided she wanted to play the piano on a whim.
As he'd laid there the night before, he'd wondered how Levi had ever taught Lacie anything, couldn't remember when or where he'd started teaching for either of them. His first lesson was long gone from the recesses of Oswald's mind, so many years past that he honestly didn't remember a time when he hadn't known at least a little music. He had obviously absorbed those lessons, but recalling them now, many, many years later, seemed impossible. At that age, Lacie hadn't been able to sit still either. The curiosity, the overabundance of energy that Oswald seemed to lack, had redoubled in her. It made her lively, flighty, and intrinsically charming. Oswald had no idea how Levi had ever taught her a single thing about music, couldn't imagine how that had ever happened.
But as Oswald sat there, Alice looking up at him with her big eyes, not sure how he could start his task, it just came to him. He shook his head, dispelling all the orthodox ways of starting his little lesson, and decided that he had to be more flexible. He straightened out his back, reached over, and placed his hands on the keys. He then turned down to look at her. To Alice's credit, she straightened right up, prim and proper as a peacock, even raised her chin up. She mirrored him to a tee, her fingers placed evenly apart on the piano's keys. Once she was sure it was right, she looked over at him, with a mock example of his own expression on her face - she made her lips droop down, and her eyelashes flutter, which was both insulting and adorable in the same stroke.
He didn't smile back at her, but instead turned his head back towards the piano, and struck one, single key. She followed suit, holding that one key as long as he did, her eyes keen for any slight variation in movement. From there, he struck another key, this time using a different finger. Predictably, she tried to do the same, but quickly gave up, and used the more dominant finger to press the key instead. Patiently, Oswald shook his head no, and did the two notes again. Alice pursed her lips for a moment, looked at her fingers, and tried to mirror his.
It took her a little time. She kept wanting to use just one finger for both notes, and Oswald kept shaking his head, and redoing it. She pouted, but after a few times to practice, she did it just as he had. Once she'd done it right, she looked up at him with that radiant smile.
After that, she followed him to the letter. Sometimes it took her a little longer to convince her fingers to move in certain ways, but she did get the hang of it the more she practiced. Slowly, Oswald started her on a simple little melody, nothing fancy, but something that she could show off as her first song. She showed remarkable patience in trying to get it right, because her fingers kept fumbling, and not wanting to move the way she wanted them to. Oswald knew that was normal, and had expected a lot more irritation from her, but it didn't happen.
When they'd played through the melody a few times together, Oswald had her do it again, but this time, they counted while they played. Every time she pressed a note, Oswald had her count a number. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. She did it four more times, and then looked back up at him expectantly.
He tried to smile back at her, but she only giggled at him, and reached up to poke his cheek, so Oswald decided it wasn't a good idea. From there, they sped it up, like Oswald knew that Alice wanted to. At first, he set the pace, but gradually, he let her take the lead, both of them playing together. Predictably, she got progressively faster and faster. But the faster she got, the more mistakes she made, and the more frustrated she became. After about three times of messing up, Oswald stopped her fast pace, and counted slowly with her again. He could see that she wanted to go fast, wanted to keep up with the pace she'd already started, but she let him lead. She sat, waited, played, and watched him with apt interest in her eyes.
And Oswald thought, that maybe, Alice was the type of person who really just needed to see, and watch others to figure things out. Maybe he'd been worrying needlessly. As it stood, it looked like she'd be able to grab the basics simply by watching, and mimicking him. This could work out too, maybe she was just a 'show me' sort of learner, unlike him, who had to be taught how to do something. This could work, Oswald was sure of it.
Then, out of nowhere, she got irritated at how slow he was playing, and she banged her hands against the keys, puffed out her cheeks, and pouted. Oswald winced at the sharp, reverberating sound. Maybe he'd have to play some of those music theory tapes for her while she was sleeping. Kids absorbed that kind of stuff while they were asleep, right?