Piano lesson
Sev get up the first from the snakes' table. He didn't even say goodbye or directed one word to them, because he spent the meals projecting to Lauren and Lily. He did not go home, in the solfeo classroom there was everything to write. He went directly to the third floor and up the passage to the seventh, came to the portrait and Disillusioned himself.
Cecile took a while, finished dinner later and she did go home for material. When Sev saw her arriving, he appeared, she approached him and he conjured again the Disillusioner and the Muffliato. They embraced.
"Hi, Sev... how long! How are you?"
"Resisting the pull."
"Lily has told me that you are already twelve."
"We're fifteen, Cecile, counting you all. Yesterday I missed you."
"Yeah... What a pity. Let's see if everything finish soon and we can all be together."
"Well, in summer we can meet, whatever happens."
"It's true. How fed up I'm with Hogwarts, and we still have two years left. It's like a jail," she complained.
"I think the same."
"Well, we will have to resist. What a surprise, the Room of Requirement turned into a music classroom."
"You'll see, it's amazing," he said. "But let's enter and keep talking there, do you think?"
"Sure."
"Demand with your mind 'Solfeo and Piano Initiation Classroom' walking three times up and down along the corridor. Both together. Now we will run some risk."
"Well, only for the Gryffs, and they have stayed in the Common Room looming," Cecile said.
"Good. Let's go there."
They demanded, the door appeared and Sev opened it for her. "Enter, Miss Harb."
"You are a true gentleman... Wooow! A brand new Steinway grand piano!"
Wow... this one knows about pianos, Sev thought.
"I'm going to have my plate full!" she exclaimed.
Sev was laughing. The door closed behind him.
"Do you know how to play?" he asked her.
"Oh... I wanted to surprise you little by little, playing the mysterious, but I couldn't contain the emotion. It is the best piano that exists! What a good luck!"
"Well, do not excite too much, the Room is not multiple, it does not open if there is someone inside unless you demand the same, and it is not convenient to discover that we know it. The Red Magic Book may be in it."
"Of course, Sev. And besides, we have the OWLs and training, and I'm trying to become Animagus."
"Wow, you hadn't told us."
"Well, Lily has just asked me when we got home and I have already told her. I am taking classes with Professor McGonagall every Friday."
"How good…" Sev said. "Do you know if it's enough being of legal age to register, or do you have to wait to graduate?"
"No. It's enough being of legal age."
"Brilliant. We also want to become Animagi to accompany Remus. We both will come of age next January. When will you?"
"The twenty-third of September," Cecile answered.
"Oh... how good. Back from holidays."
"Of course, and I think that by then I will have achieved it."
"Brilliant, then you could teach us," he sugested.
"Of course."
"In addition, it is the autumn equinox. Your tree is the olive tree, did you know?"
"No. Because when you lent us the book we only looked at the part of the rituals," she replied.
"Sure. In the Forest there are not, but if we meet again I'll bring it, and so you can read it too, to see if the personal characteristics suit you."
"Brilliant. I will wait for everything to calm down to come to play on my own, but we could escape one night per week and I'll teach you. It would be enough for you to do it alone when you can. Booah..." Cecile said as was traveling the space, "there is even metronome, solfeo and piano methods and parchment notebooks with pentagrams to write music. It is perfect."
"Wow... you know everything, Cecile."
"Of course, my Mum is a piano teacher. I started playing at four years, I had seven years before coming to Hogwarts to learn well. And whenever I go home on holidays, I spend hours not to lose practice, but now... being able to play here…"
"Play something, please."
"Of course. Raise the lid," she asked.
Cecile sat down on the bench, while Sev coupled the lid on his support.
"Do you know something classic?" she asked him.
"A little. With Lily's Dad I was listening to three pianists who I liked a lot, but I don't remember their names. I should bring my notebook, but I was so eager that I have come directly from the Great Hall and did not count on you to play so much."
"Do you remember the style, the time?"
"I don't know," Sev replied.
"Let's see, I'm telling you in chronological order. Baroque, Classic, Romantic…"
"That is, Romanticism."
"Okay, now I tell you composers. Beethoven, Chopin…" Cecile said.
"That one, Chopin."
"True. Chopin is great, but difficult, huh?"
"Yeah…"
"In special his most famous works, which are Nocturns and Preludes," she continued. "I get to play some, but I don't know them by heart."
"Then the demand for the classroom will have to be changed so that these scores also appear."
"Of course, but we'll do it for the next one. I will think how to request it."
"Okay," he agreed.
"Chopin also has Studies designed to learn, and I do know some. They are short and easier. I'll play for you."
"Of course."
"I'm going there."
Cecile played three Chopin Studies, while Sev delighted and did not lose detail of how she moved her hands on the keys. I am embelceded, nothing to do with listening to it on records or the radio. "Wow, Cecile... how well you play…"
"Thanks, Sev, but this is nothing, it's easy. In a couple of years you'll catch it."
"Oh really?"
"Sure. It cost me more because I was little, you know, with little fingers, but you are going to have it very easy. You have piano hands, I had already noticed it a long time ago."
"Oh…"
"Thin and long fingers, and Lily says you are very skilled with your hands..." She smiled hussyly.
Sev lowered his head, closing his eyes ashamed.
"Excuse me, you're charming..." she said.
"You too."
"Do you want me to play something else?"
"Yeah…"
"Some other romantic?" Cecile asked.
"I remember that the other two that I liked were French."
"Ah ... then, Impressionists."
"Yes, yes."
"Let's see, Saint-Saens, Ravel, Debussy…" she suggested.
"That one."
"Debussy is difficult, I don't get so much. But I like him so much that I have tried to learn fragments. The one I like the most is the 'Arabesque No. 1', I think it is my favorite work."
"Also that of Lily's Dad and the one I liked the most of those I listened to," he said.
"Oh... I'll play the beginning."
Cecile played, Sev closed his eyes to listen to the drops falling. When she came to the change of theme she stopped.
"Wooow…"
She said, "I am very proud to have gotten this, because it cost me many hours, always playing the same, again and again, but I did not get tired of listening to it, so I put so much effort."
"Play it again, please."
"Of course."
"Taradararadara taradaradara tan tan tan," Sev was humming,
Taradararadara taradaradara tan tan tan
Taradará... tarara ta rá…
Ta taradará… tarara ta rá…
Tárada ta rá… taradará... dará... dará... dará tan tan tán…"
When the fragment ended, Cecile said amazed, "Buah... you already hum it, having heard it only once."
"Well, twice."
"Yes, but more than a week ago. What an ear you have, Sev, it's going to go very well for you. I'm going to play for you another Impressionist much easier. The 'Gnossiennes' of Satie."
"Yes... one of those he also played it to me," he said.
"There are six. I'll play the first, which is the one I like the most. Listen to this sound." She played two adjacent keys almost at the same time, with a very brief interval between them, several times. "Do you got it?"
"Yeah."
"That's called 'mordent', it's as if the first note took a piece of the next, do you understand?" Cecile asked.
"Yeah."
"Okay, because that first note is expendable. When we have the scores I will explain it better. If you refrain from playing them, you can master it in less than a year and then add them when you learn more. Listen, I'm going to play the first part without mordents and then add them, to listen to the difference."
"Brilliant."
She did it.
"Oh... but the mordents are what give it grace," Sev said.
"Of course, but the melody is precious, don't you think?"
"Yes, of course. And it was precisely the same that Lily's Dad played me. But listening to it directly from the piano has nothing to do."
"Of course not, live music," she said. "In the methods to learn there are also precious works even if they are not famous, and easy. You could dedicate the breaks after lunch, you have almost an hour, and progress is made more playing a little every day than for many hours in a row."
"Of course."
"It is like learning a language, the Muggles maths or the Arithmance, because you are building over what you already know. Music is a universal language. Lily has told me that you sing very well. Do you know any song?"
"Just one," he replied.
"Will you sing it for me?"
"It give me a little trouble, with how well you play."
"Come on, you have to let go," Cecile encouraged him. "Art should not be saved for oneself, it is an offering that you make to others. I don't consider that I play very well and I have offered myself. Dare."
"Do you know 'Wish You Were Here', by Pink Floyd?"
"Of course, I love it."
"Well, there I go."
Sev sang, while Cecile looked at him in ram.
"Wow, Sev... You're fantastic. How many times did you listen to it?"
"Once on the radio and three on an album."
"With how difficult it is to sing... You have everything, physical, manual skill, good ear, retentive, good taste, you sing fantastic, and you are many, eager. You will supply not to have learned as a child, be patient and wait for OWLs to pass. Next year you can dedicate more time to it."
Yes, when I will be a Commander of the Army and pupil of Dumbledore, Sev thought. I will do nothing until he gives me a Time-Turner.
"Well, do you want to listen to something more or do we start the lesson?" Cecile asked.
"I would spend the whole evening listening to you."
"Well, then we will end with something else, but now I want us to get to it, to give you work for the whole week. Do you want to start with a method and so you also learn to read music or do you want me to teach you my way? I learned first to play and later to read solfeo, I was very small."
"You are the teacher, Cecile. You decide," he said.
"I think that for the first day, better just play, you will enjoy more. Have you already tried something this afternoon?"
"Yeah."
"Well, play it. Sit by my side," she said.
Sev played the groups of three alternate notes he had discovered, including black.
"Chords! You alone!" Cecile was amazed. "Wow... you're going to learn very fast."
"What are chords?"
"What you just did, to play several notes at the same time. It constitutes harmony, the basis on which the theme is built. Booah... but this is very advanced to start. First you have to learn to play loose notes, to move your fingers on the keys. But even so, you can continue experimenting on your own, then you show me and I will correct your mistakes. For example, now you have played three keys with your three longer fingers. Of course, they are enough for you, but it is a very forced posture, your hands will hurt and it is not convenient for you to do so. Look." Cecile played a three white keys chord with her thumb, index and annular, and said, "You, do it."
Sev did it.
"Very well. Now, the following, with adjacent keys, play it with your thumb, middle and pinky. Like this." She played both of them, moving only her thumb. She did it three times. "Do you got it?"
"Yeah."
"Do it."
Sev did it three times too.
"Great. How lucky with those fingers. You have plenty," Cecile said.
"I find it hard to handle my pinky."
"Of course, the annular and the little finger are the most clumsy fingers, but you will get used to it if you practice it. Anyway, I already tell you that this is still very advanced, I have told you so that you do not get vitiated. We are going to start at the beginning, the C Major scale."
"Explain it to me," Sev asked.
"Of course, you don't know theory. Music is like maths, it is physics, it has a lot to do with the numbers. It is the most scientific art, and you like that, right?"
"Yeah. I love Arithmance and Astronomy."
"Great, then you will understand it right away," she began. "Look, the tones, the pitch of the notes, go from more grave," she played the lowest key of the keyboard, "to more sharp," she did the same with the most acute. "The different tones are due to the vibration of the air, which transmits the sound. Physics, a Muggle science, the one studied by Newton, that of Gravitation."
"Sure…"
"The grave notes vibrate less frequently and the acute higher. Maths, the language in which science is explained. Another day I'll explain the functioning of the piano inside, being grand it looks perfectly, if it was vertical we could not see it."
"You don't know how I regret not having assisted regularly at the Muggle school as a child," he said.
"Yeah, Sev. Don't worry, I will explain everything you need to understand it. The education they give us at Hogwarts is very limited."
"I should have taken Muggles studies in third year."
"Yes, it would have done well, although don't think it gives so much," Cecile said. "I have it, and two hours a week it's very little, with all the knowledge there are. I learn much more on my own on holidays, reading and for what my parents teach me. Come, don't be sad. If you feel like learning you will. I'll go on, okay?"
"Sure."
"The piano is the instrument that encompasses the most different tones, that is called range, and is divided into octaves. Every eight white keys is an octave, and it covers more than seven, eighty-eight keys in total, when most instruments barely reach three. And not only that, for how it is built, in theory you could play ten notes at the same time, one with each finger, although that is almost never done, while with the rest you can only play one or two, or at most six, with the guitar. The piano is the king of musical instruments, so it is the most difficult, but it is essential to compose music for several instruments or for orchestra. All the great composers were first pianists, because all or almost everything that the orchestra would play can be played at the same time. So very well chosen, the best musical instrument."
"Oh…"
"Notice now how the white and black keys are distributed. We start with this," she played a C, "then black, white," played the D, "and black and another white," played the E, "and now a white without black between," the F, "black, white," G, "black, white," A, "black, white," B, "and white without black between," the C, "and the scheme is repeated again."
"Yeah. I had already noticed that," Sev said.
"Okay, but surely not this," she played all the Cs of the piano, from the most grave to the most acute. "Have you noticed?"
"It's the same note, but more and more acute."
"Very well, you catch them on the flight. The physical explanation is that each note doubles the frequency of the vibration of the previous one," Cecile said.
"Oh…"
"Maths."
"Yeah…"
"Okay. Why blacks? Each octave is divided into twelve fragments, seven white and five black, which are at the same distance in vibration," she explained.
"Oh…"
"This is very advanced, huh? Are you understanding it?"
"I get an idea," he replied. "I should have brought my notebook to write everything down."
"Don't worry, I'll make you a summary for the next time we meet."
"Thanks, Cecile."
"Brilliant. Each fragment is called semitone, half tone."
"Okay."
"The western major scale has seven notes, white, and is divided into tone," she played the C and D, "tone," D and E, "semitone," E and F, "tone, "F and G, "tone," G and A, "tone," A and B, "and semitone," B and C. "Have you gotten it?"
"Two tones, a semitone, three tones and a semitone."
"That is. Do it, only with two fingers, to listen to it again and get used to how it sounds."
Sev repeated what Cecile did.
"Very well. You can repeat the same scheme based on any other note, they are the different tonalities," she explained.
"Sure! That's what blacks are for."
"Very good. Look the next easier, starting in G," she played a G, "tone," A, "tone," B, "semitone," C, "tone," D, "tone," E, "tone," F sharp, "the black, and the last semitone," G. "I'll play it whole to listen to it." She played it. "Now I'll play the two." She played the C and G scales. "Have you noticed that the same thing sounds, but the G scale more grave?"
"Yeah."
"Great, because that is the base, what a theory class. Now try both, only with a finger, to get used to the sequence."
He did it.
"Very well, you have it," Cecile said. "You already know what scales and tones are, in a quarter of an hour. Now you can look for the others on your own, but do it with a finger so as not to vitiate with bad positions."
"Okay."
"That way you are learning all the keys, not just white. And now we go for the true class. Look, we are going to play the same scale together, I more grave and you more acute. C major, only white keys. Thumb in the C," they played C, "index in the D, middle in the E. And now, change of finger, again thumb in the F, index in the G, middle in the A, annular in the B, and pinky in the C. Three plus five, eight notes, an octave. The only difficulty is to cross your thumb, but I see that it costs you anything. Let's go there." She did another twice with him and then let him repeat him alone. "Very well. Now you can go practice it by taking speed, and to make it descending, the same, try with me." They did it. "Very well, at the first time. In addition, you have a good posture, the wrist must be up to the keyboard, the long fingers lightly flexed to reach the black keys when it's time. Repeat the descending, you alone." He did it twice more. "Great. Do you dare with both hands? It is the same, like a mirror. Groups of two notes will sound, but they sound good."
"Okay."
"Try it only with your left hand first."
Sev did it. "Now it cost me more the change of thumb."
"Of course, the left is more clumsy. Then insist more on it, you have to master both. Do it a couple more times."
He did it.
"Better?" Cecile asked.
"Yeah."
"Controle the posture, now you have raised the wrist too much. Remember, at the height of the keys."
"Buf... many things at once," Sev complained.
"It's not to take vices, Sev, otherwise your hands will hurt."
"Of course."
"If you want we leave it for today," she said.
"No, I'm going to try the mirror."
"Okay, do it. Play the first C only with the thumb on your right and the others in mirror, going down with your left and up with your right, and then returning to the center reverse."
"Okay." He did it.
"Very well! Have you noticed what it sounds well?"
"Yeah."
"When we see more theory you will understand it," Cecile said. "Come, do it a few times. Control your posture."
He did it. He was wrong in changing the thumb. "Oh…"
"No problem. When you are wrong, start again from the beginning. Come, as slow as you need."
Sev did it several more times, until he got three in a row without making mistakes.
"Bravo! You already cover two octaves," she ecouraged him.
"I feel very clumsy."
"Not at all, it is the first time you sit at a piano. When you acquire a little more skill use the metronome."
"Is the metronome that device that oscillates?" he asked.
"Yeah. Have you tried it?"
"Yeah."
"What a stupid question. I'll explain it anyway." She did it, and also showed him another mechanism that was behind and served to roam it.
"You can set it very slow and play a note in each beat," Cecile explained. "Putting this to the top you silence the bell, you don't need it until you read music. When you have more practice, you are going to speed it, and if the blow in each note bother you, you can continue to put it slow and play two notes in each beat. I will tell you another day the theory of rhythm, with the help of scores. It's still nine, the clock is not heard here."
"No, it is a fully isolated space from outside. The door is not even seen while we are inside."
"Brilliant. Do you want to me also teach you the fingering of the G scale, with the black key?"
"Okay."
She showed it.
"It's the same," Sev said.
"Yes, but with the black key."
"Sure."
"Try it you alone, going up and down," she asked. He did it three times. "Now the left." He did it once. "The posture, Sev."
He tried until he get it three times with the right posture. Cecile helped him holding his wrist so he wouldn't raise it.
"That is. Now both."
It cost him. He forgot the black key.
"Booaaah... it's a lot," Sev complained.
"Yeah, but now you know how it is, so you already have material to practice. Nine twenty. I will show you three chords with the left so you can accompany the scale with your right and do not get bored."
"Oh... great…"
"So you learn to coordinate both hands, they work separately," Cecile said.
"Yeah. I have already noticed when you have played."
"I should not do it yet, but I prefer it, because otherwise, you will try it alone and you can viciate with the position of the left hand."
She taught him C Major, F Major and G Major chords, and how to change from one to another.
"A very typical sequence, of many modern songs, is C, C, F, G and C again. Try it."
Sev tried a lot of times until it came out.
"Have you memorized it?" she asked.
"Yes, I have. What costs me are the changes."
"Well, you already have a song material. Play that sequence with the left hand and look for melodies with the right. But for the moment only with one finger, so as not to vitiate fingering. Well, I think I have given you material for two weeks. Do we go or do I play something short?"
"Play, please," he asked.
"We can, it's twenty to ten. I will play a very famous piece by Beethoven, another romantic, 'Moonlight'."
"Ah... Debussy also has one called like that and is beautiful."
"True."
"And Beethoven sounds to me," Sev said.
"Of course, he's very famous. Did you know that he was deaf and still composed?"
"Buah... what a pity, poor man…"
"Yes, he had a very difficult life," Cecile said. "But for that very reason, his works are exceptional. He is one of the greats. The golden trio, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. I go there."
She played it. "What do you think? Did you like it?"
"Yeah. Not as much as the others, but it's nice," he answered.
"It is quite easy to be so famous. It is not virtuosity, it's more important the feeling you put in it."
"Of course."
"Well, did you like the lesson?" she asked.
"A lot. Thank you very much, Cecile."
"You know, you are my first student. If I weren't a witch, I would have dedicated me to music."
"You must do so and go away from the damn Hogwarts," Sev said.
"Yeah... but we have to decide when are eleven years old, when we still have no idea what we really want, just as happened to you. Give me a hug, handsome."
They embraced. How I love her, he thought.
"We are in touch," Cecile said goodbye. "And I already take care of thinking about the new demand for the Room, to serve both of us. If you come one day at rest after lunch, we may meet by chance. Or if you want let me know and I'll come, okay?"
"Brilliant."
"Go you first, that I am closer to home, don't get caught by Mrs. Norris."