Wow. It's been awhile! I'm so sorry guys, but it's just been really difficult for me to find time to write when school's always hogging all of it XD Because it's break, I was able to write this down which was inspired by my own personal experiences in guitar.
Now without further ado, I present to you… Honor Guitar (yeah I need to work on my titles)
Also, let me know if you guys want to see more! I haven't had a lot of motivation to write lately, and I'd like to challenge myself to finish writing a story at least once! It's frustrating how I always start but never finish, and I want to change that!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon and any of its characters. If I did, Ash would've won the Kalos Pokemon League :P
Honor Guitar
Great. Just wonderful. Absolutely amazing. All of these mindless thoughts weren't necessarily praise to any sort of particular thing but rather five words that acted as a coping mechanism for the mess of a situation that Serena Gabena has gotten herself into because she was sitting in the waiting room twenty minutes before her audition, filled with many guitarists feverishly fiddling their fingers across the fretboard on the guitar neck. And Serena mentally noted that when they feverishly fiddle, they feverishly fiddle pretty darn well.
Literally, Serena could look around the room, pinpoint her eyes on one random person, and be enthralled by his or her flying fingers as they played. This one girl with blue hair, for example, was effortlessly playing the solo part of the *Siciliana. She didn't even know why the girl was even playing the Siciliana in the first place. The audition pieces for everyone to get into Honor Guitar was to play a medley of several Christmas songs that were handed to each participant several weeks before audition day, and the Siciliana was most definitely not a Christmas song.
The bluenette, Serena assumed, must have a knack for showing off. Scratch that. She practically wanted to show off and crush everybody's small slivers of hope that they'll play just as well as her. Just look at her. Closing her eyes. Closing. She's not even looking at the fretboard and she was playing through the most difficult section of the piece.
Serena sighed, wishing that her ears weren't so perfectly functional to pick up the girl's playing in the background where every single one of her notes was being played and nuanced at just the right rhythm. She must've spent hours playing along to a metronome. Serena on the other hand… had never used a metronome until she had to do this. This meaning everything that has had happened and is happening right now.
What was she thinking, believing that she could actually make it into Honor Guitar? She was going to have to audition against people like this talented girl.
Sigh.
Maybe… she shouldn't have agreed to do this a couple of weeks ago…
-X-
One month earlier…
It was pretty clear that Serena was not in her best mood as she made her way to her seat in the front row of the guitar room. Dumping her pink backpack on top of her chair, not even caring that her ham and cheese sandwich was going to get squished before lunch next period, Serena heaved a heavy sigh as she unzipped her bag.
"Well aren't you having a great day today?"
Serena snorted, not bothering to turn around to see who owned the sarcastic voice. "Hey, Ash." She pulled out her guitar binder and placed it carelessly onto the edge of the music stand in front of her which caused the binder to fall off and spill music sheets all over the floor.
Eying the paper chaos, Ash chuckled softly. "And I can see that your day just got better."
Serena rolled her eyes. "Haha very funny now help me pick these up."
After the two gathered all of the papers into a pile, Ash straightened them onto a desk nearby and handed the neat bundle of sheets over to Serena. She accepted them, quickly muttering an involuntary 'thank you.' Though Serena felt frustrated, expressing gratitude was second nature as a result from her mother's constant reminders of being polite to people. As annoying as her mother's nagging could be, Serena was grateful for it. Especially since school's been making her more crankier than ever.
"No prob, Serena." Ash said. He slid his hands into the front pockets of his faded denim jeans. "I take it that Mr. Oak's killing you again?" Ash tried his best not to smirk as a loud, exasperated groan escaped from Serena's lips.
"Yep, and I shouldn't be surprised by now. He's been doing it since day one of junior year." Serena scrunched up her nose while recalling the first day of school when Mr. Oak did the unthinkable by giving them homework. "Yet, here I am still hoping the history gods would somehow switch over to my side, and I wouldn't have to receive any homework for a night. Is one night too much to ask for?"
"Wishful thinking won't get you anywhere, unfortunately" Ash said with a sigh. "What did he assign this time?" He asked, knowing that he was going to be assigned the same thing when he sees Mr. Oak in eighth period.
"A debate."
"Aww man, that sucks," Ash said, giving Serena a sympathetic pat on the back. It's not that Ash hated debates—he loved them! Serena, on the other hand, wasn't too keen with debates or with anything done orally. "Is it at least on an interesting topic?"
Serena shrugged her shoulders. "I guess so since it's about whether or not the South deserved the right to secede from the Union."
"That's not too bad." Ash cracked a small smile as a way to encourage Serena.
Serena smiled back but it went away within a split second. "Yeah, on the surface. But then he told us that he wouldn't let us know what side we're on until the day of the debate."
"Which is…?"
"This Friday," Serena finished.
"Aw man… that really sucks. Don't you also have an essay to turn in on Friday?"
"Yep."
"And a Precalc test?"
"Yep."
Ash whistled. "Wow, you're gonna be really busy."
Serena took this comment as an appropriate excuse to scoff at him and rolled her eyes once more. "Thanks for reminding me, Captain Obvious."
"Hey, at least I'm not Ms. Whiner." By the time those words flew out of his mouth, Ash braced himself, preparing to experience a slap onto his arm. In no time, he felt a slight sting of pain.
"Oww," Ash groaned even though the sting wasn't that strong.
"That's what you get for messing with me," Serena said, trying her best to keep a serious face but Ash was able to see pass through her facade. They stared down at each other long enough for it to become a staring contest until Serena's eye began to twitch. Suddenly, both of them bursted out a good, hard laugh, totally unaware of the baffled looks that their classmates gave them.
Ash was aware that it was probably mean of him to push Serena's buttons but he knew that she needed it. First semester's been pretty rough on her and she barely had any time to breathe. In retrospect, Serena was like a dormant volcano—though she's able to suppress anything that's bothering her, only Arceus knows when she'll reach her boiling point and explode from all of the stress accumulated over time. That is, if she didn't let everything out of her chest. Sure, that meant that he was going to have to be Serena's punching bag, but he didn't mind.
"Okay you two, time to take your seats," a new male voice piped in. Serena and Ash looked up to meet the face of none other than their guitar teacher, Mr. Sycamore. "The bell's going to ring at any second." Right on cue, the bell rang.
"Way to go, Mr. Sycamore. You're psychic!" one of the students hollered from the back. Serena and Ash and the rest of the class chuckled at the comment with Mr. Sycamore not reacting any different.
"Well what can I say? It's a natural gift," Mr. Sycamore joked, resulting in only more giggles to fill the room. After a couple of seconds, the light laughter died down and Mr. Sycamore officially began class with a list of announcements that he always had written on the whiteboard.
"As you guys can see, first on the list is Honor Guitar." Mr. Sycamore made his way over to his desk and picked up a pile of yellow papers. "These are flyers that contain all the information. Please pass them down the row." When Serena obtained one herself, the words Honor Guitar printed in bold Times New Roman font caught her attention as a title should. Before she could read the rest, Mr. Sycamore finished passing the flyers and spoke again.
"Even though you guys can read it in your own time, I'll provide a quick summary to help peak your interest." The black-haired teacher cleared his throat and fixed his sleeve. "First off…"
Immediately, Serena tuned out Mr. Sycamore's voice; it was not out of boredom per se, but rather out of the fact that she already knew the premise of what Honor Guitar could offer.
Honor Guitar was an annual collaboration that took place near the end of first semester where students from all high schools and their guitar programs within the same school district are given the chance to audition in order to be a part of the Honor Guitar Ensemble. Only the top 60 make it into the ensemble. The group will meet up every other Wednesday for rehearsals leading up to the Christmas Gala performance in December. The performance would be held inside the theater of the Lumiose Center of the Performing Arts, located in—well—Lumiose City.
To Serena, it sounded like a great opportunity because Lumiose was the "La La Land" of Kalos for anyone interested in making a career in the performing arts. But of course, getting into anything that has honor in the name was no easy task.
"…the pieces this year are quite challenging and definitely not something you can get away with just by sight-reading," Serena heard Mr. Sycamore say when she came back to reality. She slightly leaned back on her chair just enough to target her eyes onto Ash who sat in the far right of the second row.
"And yes I am talking about Ash in case you were all wondering." Serena and everyone laughed. There's no one better in Vaniville High School who could sight-read better than Ash. Some called him talented for it. Others called him lazy. Serena, however, called him both since his talent both inspired her to practice and crushed her hopes in getting better at the same time. If there was anyone who was capable of making it into Honor Guitar, it was Ash.
"To put this into perspective, allow me to play a recording of the audition pieces with the music sheets projected onto the screen for a visual reference." With that being said, he turned on the projector and played the music.
At first glance, the music sheet did look a little intimidating. The tempo was at one-hundred-sixty beats per minute with sixteenth notes sprinkled in between a bunch of eighth notes; and that only constituted for the first song! There were barely any quarter or half notes! At least the key was only in G though which gave Serena some form of comfort since it had only one sharp… but then again this was only for one song. There were about five songs in total. All of them were Christmas songs arranged as one big medley and each of them were in different keys and tempos.
Upon listening to the recording, Serena's initial thoughts were "pshhh no way" when she actually heard the sixteenth notes being played in the first song. No way was she going to be able to pull that off in time for auditions in four weeks (which she learned from reading the flyer during the thirty-second window provided by the time it took for Mr. Sycamore to get the recording set up). But then her right and left sides of her brain just haaaadddd to start arguing with each other as the recording kept running.
Right: "You know Honor Guitar might be a great opportunity for you to challenge yourself."
Left: "Are you kidding? You'll never make it in with the skills you have right now. You'll be destroyed."
Right: "But even if you do fail, it's good to experience failure."
Left: "And humiliate yourself? No. Way."
The recording finished, forcing Serena to end her internal battle with no resolve. Perhaps she needed to consult a second opinion on the matter. She decided to talk to Ash about it during lunch.
After the recording, Mr. Sycamore wrapped up the announcements with the usual stuff like the fees for taking the guitar course and for the upcoming field trip to Gloire City in April (both of which she had yet to pay for). Then, the class went about on its daily routine: get tuned up, warm-up with some scales, practice concert music, and practice their solos for future festivals. The only unordinary event that happened in amidst of all this was the fact that the guy to her left had dropped his pick into the his guitar's sound hole while Mr. Sycamore had the whole class going over the last measures of *"Awaken." Everything else was totally mundane up to the bell when it rang.
"Don't forget, I need to know if you guys want to audition by the end of this week!" Mr. Sycamore hollered at the class in which students were already making a beeline out of the door. Serena, on the other took her time, slipping her guitar binder into her bag. She didn't need to hurry. It was lunch. Plus, she wasn't very hungry.
"I'm guessing you wanted to talk to me about something," Ash said when Serena finally made it out of the door.
"How did you know?" Serena asked, fumbling with her backpack straps.
"You're slow when you leave this class, but not this slow. You only do that when something's on your mind."
"Fine, you caught me. I do want to talk about something." Serena surrendered. The two make it out of the hallway and into the cafeteria, which was considerably empty since students from the second floor were still on their way. They situated themselves at their usual spot: a small table in the back at the end on the left side. The place was fairly comfortable for them because it was far away from the entrance, meaning that they're able to hear each other talk without their conversations getting drowned amongst other people's gossip from neighboring tables. When Serena and Ash seated themselves, they took out their cold lunches (hot lunches were never for the two thanks to the mystery meat incident last year). Then, Serena cut right to the chase.
"I was thinking that I could maybe audition for—"
"—Honor Guitar? Yeah, you should. You'll definitely make it in for sure," Ash interjected with a firm tone. He unwrapped his burrito that he'd accidentally ordered as an extra when he was trying to get dinner from Taco Bell the previous night. Meanwhile, Serena, a little taken back by Ash's assertiveness raised an eyebrow.
"Really? How can you just say that?" Serena took a bite out of her ham and cheese sandwich.
"Because I'm totally an awful friend who believes that you're not capable of doing anything that you put your mind to," Ash replied with a matter-of-fact tone, biting off a large chunk off from the top of his burrito. Serena laughed at his remark.
"Thanks, Ash for totally not being a good friend," Serena played along, making Ash snort. "But seriously why would you think I can make it in? If there's anyone who's capable of making it into Honor Guitar it's yo—huh?" Ash mimed wiping his finger near the corner of his lips. Serena placed a finger near her lips and felt a bit of mayo.
"Napkin?" Ash was already handing one to her, which Serena took and proceeded to wipe off the condiments. "And to continue your thoughts, yes, I'm aware that I can make it in, but you can too. It's time that you stop belittling yourself and actually have a little more confidence."
Serena flashed a smile at him just before she finished wiping. She crumpled the napkin and got up to throw it in the trashcan next to their table. "Thanks," Serena said when she sat back down.
"For the napkin or for not being a good friend?" Ash asked, wiggling his eyebrows in amusement.
"Both," Serena said, earning a laugh from Ash.
"So, you're going to try it then?" Ash asked after his laughter died down.
"I… well… my—"
"And please don't say no because of your school work." Ash knew Serena all too well. Last year, she wanted to try out for the volleyball team but she decided against it because she was afraid that practice would interfere with her AP classes in music theory and world history. And the year before that, she wanted to be a part of Student Council but was worried that she wouldn't be ready for such a commitment since she'd have been a freshman at the time and was unsure of how capable she was of managing her time. Now that she's a junior, there's no excuses. She's great with time management. She knows how to handle AP classes.
"But what if I'm not able to handle it? With all the practice required of me if I ever do make it in?"
Ash heaved a big sigh. And there she goes with the panicking
He placed his hands on Serena's shoulders. "Hey, easy now, Serena. Look at me." Serena looked at Ash into his brown eyes. "You can do this. The only thing that's holding you back is fear."
With Ash's reassuring words combined with the fact that his hands were resting on her shoulders, Serena relaxed. She didn't know how he did it, but every single time she went off on panicking mode, he always managed to calm her done.
"Thanks, Ash. I guess I'll be doing the audition."
"Alright, that's the spirit!"
In amidst of Ash's cheering, Serena glanced back and forth at him and her shoulders. "Uh, Ash?"
"Yeah?"
"You can let go of me now," Serena said, trying her best to tone down the tomato shade creeping onto her face.
Ash, who had just realized how he held her shoulders for more than a minute, removed his hands. "Oh haha… sorry."
The air was suddenly awkward between them for a good minute or two, until Ash's stomach began to growl. "Ha… I guess all that talking made me hungry."
Serena rolled her eyes and picked up her sandwich. "When are you never hungry?"
Ash laughed and took a bite out of his burrito that was more cold than ever after sitting out for five minutes straight. "Never."
And the two laughed in which they once again, don't realize that students passed by their table with confused looks on their face.
Footnotes:
All terms are mentioned in the order throughout the chapter NOT in alphabetical order.
I tried my best to summarize the information as much as possible without copying word for word to avoid any plagiarism. If I do write something word for word it'll be in quotes. Unfortunately finding more information about classical guitar pieces is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I apologize if I defined/explained anything inaccurately! If I did, please let me know via PM.
Terms:
*Siciliana - A style of music in 6/8 or 12/8 that's typically included as a movement in long pieces of music. It's usually in minor to portray melancholic vibes like the "peasant dances of Sicily in pastoral scenes." The siciliana specifically being referred to in here is the Siciliana from the second movement of Guitar Concerto No. 1 in A major, Op. 30. composed by Mauro Giuliani.
*Awaken - A guitar piece designed for a guitar quartet composed by Mark Anthony Cruz.