music and rust

“At least you made it sound like music,” I commented. My friend smiled. The French horn swelled like pus, and then receded, sucking back in every note as if it were a shy child. Only the piano accompanied the soprano onstage.

“The pianist's rhythm is wrong. That's not how I wrote it,” my friend said. He had arranged all the songs for this book and made them sound like they weren't disjointed Lego blocks. When he was commissioned to do this, all he had received were crudely transcribed melodies. He fixed the harmony, added accompaniment, and straightened up the rhythms. The final products sounded elegantly polished. There were parts for flute, piano, French horn, and a choir. He was not allowed to touch the words though, which grated against the glistening music. It was like having rust in your milk.

“Pretty didactic, no?” my friend murmured. His talent, apparently, goes beyond music, he can also make the most understated understatements. “I'm thinking of writing new lyrics for one of the melodies,” he added. He could probably present it to the 86-year-old composer/lyricist who, after having met him for the first time that afternoon (they had only communicated through email prior to that event), said that she would have more work for him. She has more songs that need to be arranged. She needs all the help she could get, no doubt about that.

After the event, the audience flowed out of the small auditorium toward the lobby where cocktails were served. I spotted some high profile personages in the academe and literature. The old composer/lyricist was herself a distinguished person when she was younger.

At the lobby, high-heeled matrons swarmed around us. Introductions were made and congratulations were thrown in. My friend meekly smiled as professors and school officials commended him for a job well done, vainly suppressing their astonishment at how young he is. “Are you still a student?” one of them asked. “No, ma'am,” my friend simply said. The lobby sagged with the weight of excited chitchat. Waiters scurried in and out, serving drinks and some finger foods. My friend was dragged back into the auditorium to be introduced to the composer/lyricist. The choir and the musicians beamed with every flattering phrase they received. Some stray camera flashbulbs punctuated the crowd like sequins of a fully-beaded ball gown. Guests started queuing by the buffet table as manufactured laughter ricocheted against the ceiling. I took some food and melted into the wall.