[The Music Hall] Bladewyn's Pan Flute Lessons (Pirate please)

[Bladewyn]

Second Cycle of Immanis
Twentieth Candlemark in the Darkening of Srennia
Spring of Era II of the Celestine Mandate
Era XIV Post Fractum
Paradigm: Twelve New Constellations Discovered

It was well past dark when Bladewyn returned to the Music Hall. Moonlight softly illuminated the cobblestone path before her, and she walked along happily with her pan flute in tow. Carmelyana had found Bladewyn at La Couloir de Musique, where a woman named Jeanette had arranged for her to take lessons to play the pan flute that she had bought for herself at Amerith's Adventuring Supplies. Too excited to wait for Srennia, Bladewyn had done some experimental playing of her own, but her untrained lips could produce nothing more than sounds that sounded like birds being trodden on. But it was finally Srennia, three brightenings from when Jeanette had told Bladewyn to return.

As she approached the Music Hall, the sounds of excited chatter met her ears; it was that night's audience, dressed in their fanciest dancing outfits and bundled up in their finest furs to keep out the chill. Bladewyn could also hear the musicians within the hall warming up their instruments, and that sound seemed to excite the awaiting concertgoers even more.

It would have been dreadful to wait in the long line with all those nobles when she didn't even want to dance that night, but luckily Bladewyn knew another way into the music hall. Jeanette had informed Bladewyn of a side door on the west side of the building, so she went around the line and sure enough found the entrance in question.

The door was closed, and not wanting to be rude, Bladewyn left it that way and instead knocked upon it three times.

[Pirate]

The door was heavy, but nonetheless muffled sounds of music could be heard coming through it as Bladewyn knocked. Surprisingly, it opened up almost immediately to reveal a young boy of about ten or eleven eras. "Evening, mistress," he greeted her politely.

"You're here to see one of our musicians, right?" he asked. "They're inside, but they keep me here to answer the door because there's no way anybody would hear you knock in there. Please come inside; it's cold out this darkening!"

He led her down a hallway into a warm cloakroom, where he paused. "If I may ask, mistress, whom are you here to see this darkening?"

[Bladewyn]

"Oh! Serale," Bladewyn replied, surprised that the one who greeted her had been so young. She happily followed him through the hallway, marveling at the sights and sounds around her. The lush Couloir de Musique seemed ever more inviting when there was a performance forthcoming, and even the myriad instruments tuning at the same time sounded delightful to Bladewyn's ears.

In the room, she unfastened the clasp of her dark blue cloak, a bit ashamed at its raggedness alongside the exquisite furs of the nobles who were waiting to dance. She hung the cloak on a vacant peg as she said, "I believe his name is... Claude Dancours. My name is Bladewyn; I believe that Jeanette asked Claude to expect me."

[Pirate]

The boy shrugged. "Could be," he said. "They don't really tell me much, just expect me to meet people and get guests to the right place. Claude's room is over this way." Beckoning, the lad led Bladewyn over to a door and down another hallway, with doorways every so often on both sides. "This is the practice hallway," he said. "If Claude is expecting you, he'll be in his practice room. Here it is."

The young boy knocked three times on the door, then opened it. Inside was a fairly small chamber, large enough to seat perhaps six or seven people comfortably, or perhaps as many as ten if they were very good friends. Various paraphernalia was scattered along the back wall, including music stands, foot props and unused chairs, and at the front there was a large chalkboard with many white lines running across it.

On a chair near the middle of the room sat a human man, perhaps fifty eras of age. His hair was beginning to turn white at the temples, though there was certainly still a good deal of brown left in it, and his face was friendly. At the entrance of the boy, he looked up.

"This lady says she's supposed to be meeting you, Claude," the boy said.

"Thank you, lad," replied the musician in a smooth, deep voice that would, if employed properly, cause any woman to swoon. Turning his eyes -- a brilliant, piercing blue -- on his guest, Claude stood and bowed. "Bladewyn, I presume?" he said. "Welcome. I am pleased to meet you. My name, as I imagine you have already guessed, is Claude Dancours."

[Bladewyn]

When Bladewyn entered the room, her first impression was that it was a sort of mix between classroom and entertaining room. Claude Dancours, at first glance anyway, certainly seemed the sort of man to frequently make use of both.

"Thank you," she murmured to the boy as he left, meeting Claude's bright blue eyes with her own turquoise gaze. She offered a friendly smile. "Serale, Monsieur Dancours. I'd like to learn to play the pan flute, and Jeanette says that you can help me."

[Pirate]

Claude grinned mischeivously, a twinkle in his blue eyes. "Welcome once more, Bladewyn," he said as the boy who had greeted her left the room and quietly closed the door behind him. "Wait, though, just a moment. You met Jeanette and lived to tell the tale? Truly, I am impressed." He lowered his voice to a falsely conspiratorial sort of stage whisper. "Jeanette is rather infamous around here. It's said that she can burn the ears off a deaf man at a hundred paces when she gets to swearing."

"But," he said briskly, returning to a normal volume, "that is neither here nor there, is it? The pan flute is an instrument I can certainly teach you. I am rather fond of it myself, actually, as it was the first instrument I learned to play."

"The pan flute is a wonderful instrument: simple to make, if you have to, relatively easy to learn, interesting and rewarding to play. Simple to play, yet with as broad a range as you would care to create, and yet the sound can be so beautiful it haunts the dreams."

"A noble choice of instrument, in other words, young Bladewyn," he concluded with a smile. "Very well, let us begin. First things first, of course. I am sure that you have been unable to resist playing around with such a lovely new toy, so while I locate my own pan flute, why don't you show me what you've managed so far, if anything? Have you yet gotten a sound to come out of the instrument?"

Claude began rummaging on one of the shelves, talking over his shoulder to Bladewyn. "Please don't be alarmed if you have not, or even if you've not yet tried. You're here so I can teach you how to play, not because you know. I am just trying to get a feel for where to start."

"Aha, here they are!" he exclaimed, seizing a large pan flute from the shelf and returning to his chair, where he sat down and looked at Bladewyn expectantly to see what she would do.

[Bladewyn]

Bladewyn remembered the commotion that had accompanied Jeanette on their first meeting. But her encounter with the woman had turned out to be more than pleasant in the end, so she just smiled politely.

"Er, well..." she mumbled, taking the pan flute out from her courier bag. She had experimented a little, it was true, but it wasn't anything she would have liked to show off. Nevertheless...

She closed her eyes, put the flute to her lips, and gave a small blow. While the beautiful carved shape of the wooden pipe yearned for the note to be pure, Bladewyn's hesitation made it waver and die out. So she tried again, giving this time a more commanding blow, and producing a note that was a bit more like one that she might actually hear in a song.

Bladewyn's pan flute was one of those in which the pipes were arranged in a straight line, not a curved one, so she moved her hands and head slightly to blow upon a different pipe. This one played a higher note, as did the one to the right of it. Working through the instinct that had been passed down by the musicians who raised her, Bladewyn was able to play a small sort of melody based on the notes she found by moving the pipe.

When she was done, she opened her eyes and was startled to see Claude sitting there before her. "It's not much, but..." she said apologetically, drifting off and waiting for his reaction.

[Pirate]

"But," said Claude with a large smile, "It is something. Which, though you may believe it or not as you wish, is a good deal more than many are able to produce the first time I see them. It looks as if you have the technique mostly down, but in my experience you may not really even be aware of what it is you are doing to produce the sound. Please stop me if I am duplicating information of which you are already aware."

"You see, the pan pipes produce sound from the passage of air over the top or the pipe. I can't tell you exactly why or how, but the shorter a pipe is, the higher the note it will produce. Simple, no? The secret to producing sound is to blow air across the top of the pipe at just the right angle. Speed is also a factor -- you can produce sound by blowing too slow, although it can be harder, and if you blow too forcefully as well, for that matter. However, if air passes over the pipe too forcefully the sound can change or even stop completely."

"Unfortunately, just like trying to teach someone to whistle, it is very hard to teach the proper angle simply by telling you. You may, as you have undoubtedly discovered, have to experiment on your own. Personally, I find it easiest if I wet my lower lip, then place the top of the pipe somewhere between a third and halfway up my lip starting at the bottom. Blow softly, and with luck sound is produced! You may have to adjust the angle at which you are holding the flute, of course, but I am sure you can begin to consistently produce sound with a little bit of practice and experimentation."

[Bladewyn]

Bladewyn smiled modestly and lowered her flute to listen to Claude. What he was saying made sense, and Bladewyn liked the way that he explained theory and method in one; many teachers only taught one or the other, but Claude seemed to have a good understanding of just the right balance between both.

Taking a cue from his pause in speech, she took the opportunity to practice the method he had explained. She briefly wet her lower lip, then raised the flute so that one of the middle pipes was halfway to her mouth. Her first blow was too soft, so she strengthened it. It was no surprise that this method produced a purer and clearer note than her first experimental attempts, and she moved from pipe to pipe, experimenting with the speed and force of her blows. Occasionally she would look back up at Claude for further instruction.

[Pirate]

Claude smiled as the sounds Bladewyn produced steadily became more and more reliable and pure. "Good!" he exclaimed after a few minutes. "I think you're getting the hang of it. Now, I have another thing for you to try, and then a question."

"The question first. I want you to think about it for a little while, though, so don't answer me until you've finished the exercise I am about to set you. What, exactly or in general, are you looking for from this lesson? The pan flute is one of the easiest instruments to learn, and a basic working knowledge seems hardly worth the price you paid for the lesson. I can teach you a few songs, of course, if you wish. Or perhaps give you some ideas so you can tinker around with inventing your own melodies, as do the shepherds who first invented the instrument, however many patterns and centuries ago it was. But it really is up to you. What are you looking for?"

"Now, as I said, don't answer quite yet. First, I want you to try something else. The pan flute is unique among instruments in that it can play ascending or descending notes in rapid succession, but it is more or less impossible to form a chord. Try playing several notes one right after the other, all in one breath, by simply moving the pipes against your lips, like this." Demonstrating, Claude moved from one end of his pan flute nearly to the other, then whimsically blew a single note on the highest pipe.

[Bladewyn]

Bladewyn thought about it... and she thought she had her answer... well, she supposed she'd tell him when he finally asked for it. And with every new step he taught her, Bladewyn was more and more sure of her decision to buy and learn to play her beautiful flute.

She attempted to play all twenty of the slender pipes in one breath, resulting in a very breathy sort of scale from the lowest to the highest note. She tried once more, this time giving a stronger breath so that each note sounded as clear as she could make it... but she moved too slow, so she ran out of breath halfway across the pipe. So on her final attempt, Bladewyn employed the same breath, but moved the pipes quickly beneath her lips so that she ended on the highest pipe before she'd run out of breath.

She looked up at Claude and smiled. "How was that?"

[Pirate]

Claude did not laugh at Bladewyn's attempts. Not quite. But the amusement was shining brightly in his eyes when she looked up.

"That was quite good," he said, "but, as I noticed you noticing, it is often difficult to play so many of the pipes with one breath, much less to do it and have them all sound good. Not to worry, though: with practice, your lungs will be able to hold more air and you will learn to control your breathing and exhalations better, such that eventually you will not need to try so hard to hit them all. That said, unless that scale is particularly pleasing to you, you may well wish to only use four or five pipes with each breath. It all depends, of course, upon the melody you wish to play."

"But I apologize. I should not tease you, even so lightly as I am." The musician gave Bladewyn a quick wink and a sort of silly, seated bow. "Now. Have you determined your answer as far as what you hope to learn?"

[Bladewyn]

Bladewyn blushed when she saw the laughter in his eyes, but she hoped that it was as kind and well-meaning as the rest of his behavior had led her to believe. She listened carefully to his criticisms; she hoped to be able to play well enough someday so that her music would only evoke laughter of joy.

She returned his wink and bow with a smile of her own and replied, "I'd love to learn enough to be able to play songs to keep me amused when I'm alone. I do a lot of traveling, you see, and when I'm home I spend much of my time alone. I wanted to learn to play to make some use of my time, as well as to have a source of amusement when I'm traveling. It's a humble goal," she admitted, laughing a little, "but one that I'd like to accomplish nonetheless."

[Pirate]

"I see," Claude said thoughtfully. "Well, in all honesty, that's more a matter of simple practice and experience than anything else. But I can certainly try to teach you a few songs, if you like, or if you've any songs you'd like to learn, I can teach you those."

"Truly, the biggest help that I can be is to help you get to know your pan flute better. Once you have developed a sense of what it can do, what notes the pipes play, where different sounds are made on the pipe, I think the rest will be much easier."

"Or did you mean songs of your own imagining? That would be a different sort of endeavor. Either way, though, I'd like to teach you a few melodies of my own to help get you started, if that is all right with you. But truly, you're the one paying. These lessons are about what you want."

[Bladewyn]

Bladewyn thought for a bit, then said, "I think what I'm most interested in for now is, like you said, getting to know the instrument better... When I'm more comfortable with it, I'll be ready to either learn more songs or write my own, or both.

"Could you teach me a few simple tunes? Ones that will help me learn the notes and sounds?"