ew, gospel? but i LIKE the sinful music of The Beatles

[Wham Yubeesling]

It began as an arrangement. A part not part of the original song. Something appropriately jazzy, sure — something to let the kids know this wasn’t their grandma’s Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da — but it didn’t really feel indicative of what came after it. Didn’t really feel like Lennon was playing it like he wanted to smash McCartney’s head in.

But at least past that it felt like the original song. Mostly. Bass clef was different but that was the price Jeremy paid for having a piano arrangement not built for babies. For finding a piano book his teacher actually vibed with. God knew that was a price he was happy to pay. Like, okay, it wasn’t to the letter of the song — and Jeremy would’ve loved to play that bass ostinato during the verses — but it was still to the spirit, and compared to all the musicnotes.com shit out there that meant so much. He felt like he was playing something for the piano. Something that could fill the room. There weren’t any weird empty spaces where the vocals were supposed to be. There was still a pulse and a beat even if there weren’t any drums. Whoever made this made sure it’d sound good for the piano. That whoever performed it would want to perform it.

And perform it Jeremy did. Or, at least, he was getting ready to. A few months in advance. He was meant to perform two pieces for his music SAT, and now that it was approaching all his classes just ended up being “practice for your performance.” He had his first song down, he knew he wanted to do it, and he knew it was ready for when it eventually came time. The other… it was either this or Something. They were the first two he’d started to learn from this Jazz Beatles songbook, they were the two he was best at, and they were the two he could most easily iron out all the typos. All the times when his hands would hit the wrong notes. Practice made perfect, every random mistake dodged was one less excuse for his teacher to mark him down.

So he went through the song. Intro, first verse, bridge (he’d have to remind himself to do the repeats) (and also he’d have to remind himself to get some of these pages photocopied, there were so many awkward page turns), third verse, second chorus, fucking weird- breakdown- like suddenly there was a piano solo even though this was a solo piano song- like suddenly he was doing sixteenth triplets moving up and down the piano at the approximate speed of Too Fast. He made it one bar, two bars, three, fou-

“Aagh-”

Flubbed it. Messed up a note. The whole point was seeing if he could do this without making a mistake so he took his hands off the piano. Shook them out. Tried to ignore the ache creaking up his- his… whatever the two bones in his lower arm were called. He’d made it four out of five pages this attempt… could he go the whole way the next try? Would he even reach four pages next time? It was a matter of endurance, and it was clear he was already running out, and- and if he was going to practice a bunch the day of the performance would he even have enough left once it was his turn on the stage?

Man.

He leaned back on the piano stool. Rubbed his hands over his face. Couldn’t get his head out of piano space just yet — the piano was in the corner of the room, so Jeremy was facing the corner of the room — but he could at least take in a bit more of the world. The sound of the air conditioning. The indistinct voices in the rooms around him. Somebody practicing on the stage, a couple rooms to his left. The big piano. The piano he was gonna play from in… however many weeks. It’d maybe mean a bit more if he could practice on that but, well, somebody had beaten him to it, so corner piano it was. At least he could use this to figure out what he was going to play. Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da? Something?

Hey Jude, maybe?

He grunted. Leaned forward. Rubbed his face again. What was the point of divvying up so much time for this, anyway?

[Salic]

Music practice was almost always the most enjoyable part of the school day. Her favorite subject had been music for as long as she could remember. The pitfalls of math and science- the coldly rational and impersonal logic, the difficulty of understanding and practicing the concepts- were totally absent here. Serena was a humanities person for a reason. Science, math, econ- all the subjects with numbers, really- were always so overwhelmingly sterile. So passionless and dry. They were subjects whose practitioners worked in soulless offices or blindingly white laboratories where self-expression and deviation of thought were strictly prohibited. The humanities, particularly music, was the opposite. It was a class where she could drop the mask for a while. No need to pretend to be a studious Christian girl, no need to try and bridge the gap between two very different and conflicting friend groups, just a time where she could sing to her heart's content and do a damn fine job at it. She wished she possessed the confidence to pluck away at the bass while she was here, but Serena knew she wasn't ready for that yet. She didn't know if she'd ever be.

Not that it mattered right now, though. Serena was done for the day. She took a swig from her water bottle to parch her dry throat. Though singing came naturally to her, she still felt the need to work and practice as much as she could; she wouldn't maintain her status as one of the top choir singers if she didn't. The choir was always in need of a good high soprano, and a quiet sensation of pride thrummed in her chest at being able to fill that role.

Truth be told, she wasn't ready to drive home yet. Home was never a daily highlight; it was a nightmarish routine of masquerading and denial and self-repression until 10pm when everyone went to sleep and she could let the mask drop again. Delaying the inevitability of arriving at her house until as late as feasibly possible was something that Serena had been doing since she'd received her driver's license. When her practice was complete, she would instead flit around and talk to her friends and acquaintances for a while before trudging back to her aging Nissan Altima. As she meandered through the band hall, she caught sight of an unruly yet tamed crop of curly brown hair, and she couldn't help but smile. If she was going to talk with anyone in the band hall, Jeremy was always her preferred conversation partner. He was intelligent, creative, knowledgeable. She enjoyed talking about music with him. It was a sturdy foundation on which a rather solid casual friendship grew.

As she made her approach, a discordant plonk echoed from the piano he was playing at, followed by a few frustrated grunts. Serena hastened her steps, footfalls echoing throughout the room. Considering Jeremy was facing the corner, she advanced towards the wall before turning around to face him, hopefully not startling the guy with her sudden appearance.

"Hey Jeremy," she stated simply. "What's up?"

At this point she'd taken notice of the mildly annoyed expression that he donned. A twinge of concern attached itself to her voice.

"Everything alright with you?"

[Wham Yubeesling]

The voice jolted him. Made him aware that there was a world beyond him and the piano. He turned his head — just so the parts of him that didn’t already know could catch up — and fuck it was Serena. She was there, right past all the tables and chairs and indistinct posters on the wall. She’d just seen him muck up the song. It was almost tempting to say that it was so over but it would’ve implied that there was even any chance in the first place. Like this was the final straw and not, like, when he maybe went in a little too much relaying all the Dee/Wendell drama. Or maybe when he’d tried to get into her DMs over summer break. No. This time he was just getting in his head too much about fucking up on the piano. Why circle in on that when he could think about all the actual times he’d botched it instead?

Or, better yet, why actually think any of that stuff at all? It was Serena. She was here. He could already feel his mouth lift into its closest approximation of a smile. The… goosebumps, he was pretty sure they were, form on his arm. His brain injecting the happy chemicals into himself. He could forget about all the stupid shit for a while. That could all come in hindsight. In the shower. At 3 AM. Whenever.

“Oh, yeah, it’s fine,” he said. “Just…”

He looked at the piano for a bit before- before he realized that he was actually allowed to directly look at her. And maybe have it not indicate anything.

“Still gotta figure out what song I’m gonna do for our final,” he continued, giving a little bit of a snrk along with it.

[Salic]

Dang it! Serena's efforts to not startle Jeremy didn't work, and he was clearly shaken out of the piano world that he was formerly trapped in. Well, now he was aware that she was there, at least. She quickly and quietly repositioned herself, shifting a bit backwards and leaning against the wall while crossing her left leg over her right one.

"Oh, yeah, the finals, hehe," she said, the final snicker borne of stress rather than mirth. "I'm in the same boat as you. I've scrolled through the eligible song list a bunch of times and I still can't finalize." At that, Serena's lips pursed as she subconsciously chewed on the lower one, the machinations of her mouth ever so slightly visible without her knowledge.

The prospect of not knowing what song she was going to sing only a few weeks out from the final would be a terrifying one on paper, but unusually for her, it was one she felt like she could manage effectively. If there was one thing that her awful sophomore year had taught her, it was how to evenly distribute crushing burdens so that they didn't make her psyche collapse like a cheap lawn chair. Her emerging orientation and self-discovery, her burgeoning political beliefs, and the fact that she was in an environment which tolerated none of that were mountains she bore on her shoulders daily. Compared to that, not having a song ready for her finals was more akin to schlepping a pebble. Not to mention the fact that for Serena, singing was one of the few areas in which she was proud and confident of her ability and wasn't afraid to let others know. It didn't matter if she didn't have a song ready until the day before; one day of practice and she was sure that she'd have it on lock.

Jeremy, however, seemed much more worried about not yet having a song, which, well, was fair and valid. Serena had heard him play enough times to know that he was really good at it. However, there seemed to be a dramatic shift in demeanor from when he played casually to when he played for a class or competition. It became less of a fun passion project and more of a forced chore. She could see the signs here, too; the frustrated noises and peeved body language indicated that the forces in his brain that made playing the piano fun were being cannibalized by forced drudgery and toxic associations.

"Do you have, like, a list of songs that you're thinking about? I wouldn't mind helping you with that, if you, uh, didn't mind, hehe." She raised her hand to the back of her head, mussing up her hair a little bit out of subconscious bashfulness. It was just something she'd done for so long that she basically did it on reflex.

Maybe Jeremy just needed a friend to be around while he practiced to reignite the spark of passion so that he'd escape his own head. A simple aura of friendliness could do the trick, despite Serena not knowing a whole lot about the intricacies of pianism. She would hate to see him get angry over such a small flub.

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said. Maybe not exactly the most charismatic thing to say but honestly, like, even with the usual problems Jeremy was just so head empty. He’d never really understood what it meant to have your hair stand on end, but he kinda got the gist now: goosebumps forming a little bit on his lower arm, like static electricity yet gradual, subtle, painless. There were random words keysmashing inside his brain, enough to push near everything out, but he could still feel the undercurrent. The most important part: she was here, things were good. So long as he didn’t mess anything up. So long as he didn’t get too drunk on all his endorphins.

So it was maybe a good thing that the next course of action was rather simple. He looked back to the piano, for a second. Grabbed his book. Showed it Serena’s direction: Jazz Piano Solos Series Volume 28: The Beatles.

“Was thinking… one of two out of here. Either Something or Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da.”