Morning Melody (open)

[Bradley Reeves]

Bradley strolled into the music room, a grin already starting to stretch across his face. This was his sanctuary. He did his usual routine of checking that the janitor had done a respectable job cleaning up, (floor thoroughly swept, garbage emptied, surfaces dusted, and so on) before sitting down at the piano bench. Lifting the lid gently, he reached out his fingers to caress the ivory keys. “Did you miss me, my dear?” he asked the instrument softly.

With his eyes closed, his fingers began to dance nimbly across the keys coaxing a beautiful melody out of the piano. Perfection, he thought. Of all the languages that Bradley could speak and understand, he had never heard of one as beautiful as the sound of a grand piano being played with true skill. No words could express the emotions hidden inside its strings.

He always arrived early at the school not only to tidy up before his students arrived, but also to spend some time playing the piano or one of the other instruments. It was his favorite time of the day. Too bad it couldn’t last forever.

After five or so minutes of playing, Bradley heard the classroom door open behind him. Still playing the melody, he opened his eyes and sighed. “Yes?” he called out without turning towards the door. “Something I can help you with?” He hoped it was a fellow faculty member, preferable one he got along with, instead of a student arriving early. He hated for his morning alone time to be cut short, unless it was a pleasant surprise.

[Haley Shapiro]

Haley was excited. Extremely so and she couldn't hide it even if she tried.

It would be her first day getting lessons from an actual teacher.

It didn't matter that she didn't have her own guitar. She could just sit in the classroom and listen to him talk and she could take notes.

Music was one of her...three comforts in life and as long as some douche didn't ruin the class, Haley was actually happy to smile the whole day.

Arriving in the classroom, she could already hear a melody being played. Her smile grew and she opened the door to find a tall [everyone was tall when you were only four and a half feet] man sitting at the piano.

"Uh...this is the music...class right?" She asked, her eyes traveling across the room and had to bite her lip to stop an embarrassing squeal about to be present on her lips when she saw a row of guitars leaning against the wall.

She walked slowly towards it and picked one up and sat down in the corner. "D'you mind if I...play around a bit? Before everybody else comes in?" She asked, her eyes wide in anticipation. She threw in a smile she thought could melt hearts. Hopefully it wasn't her usual scary grin.

[OOC: I hope I'm not intruding. DHP is like...da bomb so I couldn't resist ]

[Bradley Reeves]

((It's an open thread. All are welcomed . And yeah, I love him too.))

Bradley sighed as he realized the voice was that of a young girls instead of a co-workers. Not that he minded children. He actually enjoyed the ones who were serious about their musical education and not just trying to become over-night rock stars. Still he had hoped for a few more peaceful moments alone with the piano.

He turned to watch the girl enter the room and grab a guitar. Stopping his playing for a moment, he walked over closer to where she was sitting. “Have you been playing the guitar long?” he asked, sitting in a chair closer to her. “Also, I recommend that my students wash and dry their hands thoroughly before playing any instrument in this room. It helps to keep them in proper working condition for longer.” Normally, he might have demanded that she hand over the guitar, or prove that she was already clean, but the child seemed so eager that Bradley let it slide for once. He was always pleased to see his students invested and enthusiastic about their learning. “What genre of music do you enjoy?” he asked, hoping that she would not answer something like “rap”.

[Haley Shapiro]

Haley looked up at the teacher with her lips parted slightly as he talked about washing hands. "Uh..." She looked down at her always too grimy hands before wiping them on her pants. She had to admit, she wasn't the cleanest adolescent ever. In her defense, she never had to care about that and nobody ever spoke to her about it. And she wasn't complaining.

She then realised she hadn't answered his original question. "Oh uh, not too long. I've always just messed around with one. Not a lot to do in an orphanage." She mumbled, looking around for a guitar pick. Finding one, she played out a tune she always heard on the radio. 'Stand By Me', she thought was the title. The singer kept repeating that line, so she assumed.

"Genre? What...what's that?" Haley stammered. English was a pain to keep track of. She stopped playing the guitar and looked up at the teacher. "Um, teacher person...you don't have to keep me company. You can play with your piano. I don't mind being here alone." She offered him a smile, suddenly shy. It was weird. Shy was probably the last adjective anyone could use for Haley.

[Bradley Reeves]

When Bradley noticed the girl wiping her hands on her pants, he had to take a deep breath to maintain his control. “Here, use this,” he said, pulling a moist towellete from the pack his kept in his jacket pocket. “And next time please remember to wash up before class.” This was always the worst part of his job. Children had a habit of being soiled and it sometimes took them a while to see the importance of keeping the instruments clean.

“Well I hope you’ll learn how to do more than ‘mess around’ in this class,” Bradley said. He felt pity for this poor girl growing up in an orphanage. Having always been the type of person who depended on his family, Bradley’s heart went out to children like her. Not that he was going to let her touch his piano with her muck-covered hands.

He smiled as she started plucking out a simple tune. At least she wasn’t arriving in his class at square one. Although she still had a lot to learn. “Genre is a class or type of music of a particular technique or form. For example, I’m partial to jazz music myself.” He looked longingly at his piano after his next comment. Still, it would be hard for him to enjoy and concentrate on his own playing with her in the room. Besides class would start soon enough. “Please call me Mr. Reeves,” he said. “And class will begin shortly anyway, I’ll have to play later.” He rose and walked over to the chalkboard and started writing up some common music terms.

[Haley Shapiro]

Haley looked at the moist towelette like a foreign, dangerous object, going so far as to scoot away from it and holding the guitar up in between herself and the offensive cloth. She frowned slightly as his order before rolling her hazel eyes. Clearly the man had issues.

Her fingernails weren't that dirty anyway.

"Should I bring some of those around with me too?" She asked with a huge fake smile, her voice dripping with sarcasm. But she did pick at it gingerly with two fingers before wiping her hand. It felt a little sticky afterwards so she rubbed her hand on her jeans, looking around to see where she should throw the tiny towel. When the teacher wasn't looking, she pocketed it and held on to the guitar properly.

As she listened to him explain the word, she tried to think of what she actually liked and couldn't come up with an answer. "Uh...dunno." She shrugged. She'd never had the need or the occasion to define what she liked or didn't like. It didn't help that she didn't even know how to differentiate the types of music.

She didn't even know what partial meant.

"Uh..." she looked down at her guitar and started to play. It was the first song she ever tried playing on the guitar when she first heard it on the radio. She didn't know who to ask about it but she had committed it to memory from that first listen and she had practiced it over and over again until she got it right in her head.

"Um...I've also heard like other bunch of songs that I like that don't have the same tune type to it." She explained before playing another tune. "I dunno. Whatever." She shrugged and rested her chin on her palm. She looked up as the teacher wrote things that were more or less gibberish to her.

"Wow, words...fun." She said monotonously before futzing about with the strings on her guitar. "Hey Mr. Reeves teacher person," Haley called out. "Like, when are you gonna start teaching me how to play?"

[Bradley Reeves]

Bradley returned the girl’s frown as she held up the guitar between her and the towelette. “Guitars are musical instruments,” he said, firmly. “Not shields.” Although he noticed her sarcasm, he refused to acknowledge it. “I believe it would be helpful,” he said, tucking the pack of towlettes back into his pocket.

When she started playing “Enter the Sandman,” his frown deepened. Although he recognized the song, he wasn’t that impressed with her choice. With her next selection, he was a little more pleased.

“Music,” he said after her comment. “Is more than just listening to a song on the radio and trying immaturely to replicate it.” He watched her fiddle with the guitar strings, trying to hold himself back from plucking the instrument from her hands. “Just like any other subject, one has to understand the basics before they can hope to master the art.”

Returning to his chair near the girl, he grabbed another guitar. “For example,” he said. “You might find it easier to hold the neck like so. It will allow your fingers to have easier access to the strings without cramping your hand as easily.” He started tuning his guitar. When he was finished he strummed the strings. “You’re B string is a little flat. Hear how it should sound?” He plucked his B string a few times for good measure.

[Haley Shapiro]

Haley narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at the teacher, wondering what stick landed up his ass when he woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. But she kept quiet, even when he basically called her immature. She couldn't really outwardly say anything incriminating since this was probably the only class she wanted to voluntarily show up to for the next five years.

"Yeah..okay uhuh sure." She plucked at the guitar strings as Mr Stick-Up-His-Hooha wrote things down on the board in front. He was probably one of...very few people who actually used one as a pronoun. What was wrong with him, Haley didn't quite know but if he suddenly dropped to the floor from gagging on the stick, she wasn't sure if she would want to help.

But this was his class and she didn't want him to have any reason to pull her out. Chemistry, Math, English, she could give a flying rat's bowels if she got kicked out of those classes but not this one. She quietly followed his instructions and tuned her guitar until it sounded right. She rolled her eyes when he demonstrated how a note sounded like. Like she actually needed to know. She just wanted to fiddle with a guitar! "So how long have you been doing this anyhow?"

[Bradley Reeves]

It was a good thing that Bradley wasn't picking up on much of his student's displeasure of his teaching style. Not that he would have been offended, exactly. But Haley's musical experience would surely suffer. Already Bradley was concerned that her lack of hygiene and basic musical knowledge were going to create problems for her in the class.

Still, if a student was invested in learning, then Bradley would be pleased to teach them.

"Doing what, exactly?" Bradley asked. "If you mean teaching, then I started giving private lessons about 15 years ago. If you mean playing music, then that's quite a bit longer." He smiled, picturing his first attempts at the piano when he was a young boy. He had his sisters to thank for a lot of his interest in music. After all, it was them who had introduced him to Wham!. With a role model like George Michael, who wouldn't become a music teacher.

Pulling himself out of his memories, he address his student again. "Since you're at a beginner level, if you would like, we can set up a few private sessions until you've mastered the basics. Would you like that?"

[Haley Shapiro]

Haley tilted her head as she tried to hold the guitar neck the way the teacher had asked her to and found that indeed, her hand didn't cramp up so easily. Much like her teacher was strolling down memory lane to the first time he discovered music, Haley did as well. Only hers included more yelling than anything. And stolen guitars.

The prospect of being alone just him and her sort of unnerved Haley, mostly because he wasn't proving to be anything other than a sad sack with issues and to Haley, that meant she wasn't going to enjoy herself. But still...if she wanted to pursue her musical endeavour, she seriously had to swallow her pride and agree to the private lessons.

"Uh...do I have to pay?" She asked, mindlessly plucking at the strings of the guitar in a familiar tune.

[Bradley Reeves]

Bradley was also a little unnerved about spending more time alone with this particular student. Not that he minded students, generally, but he feared that he would have to thoroughly clean the instruments and classroom after she left. Sometimes adhering to his personal level of cleanliness could be tiresome. But it was better to be physically tired after cleaning then lying awake all night worrying that there was a dusty counter somewhere in a 50 mile radius of him.

Still he was pleased that she showed interested in them. If only because he felt that she would benefit from some personal instruction.

"It's included in your tuition, like any other class you take here. So, we'll just need to get you all signed up," he said with a smile as he grabbed a clipboard off of his desk. Suddenly it occurred to him that he didn't even know this students name. He had memorized his student list before classes started, but unfortunately there weren't pictures along with the names. "If I could just get your name?" he asked, with his pen poised on the sign-up sheet.

[Haley Shapiro]

"Well hey. Then I'm cool with that." Haley grinned at the teacher, strumming her guitar happily to her own cranked up version of an old nursery rhyme.

When the man asked for her name, Haley provided it happily. "Haley Shapiro yo. You can call me Haley. It's spelled H-a-l-e-y." She proudly spelled it correctly. Haley figured, even if she couldn't read or write for the rest of her life, if she could spell her name then that was enough.That was the only important thing anyway.

"Some of the workers back at the orphanage used to call me Hales but...I didn't like it so you don't start tryin' that." She wagged her finger at him playfully, though there was some hint authority in it. Not that she expected him to respond to it.

"Sooo...not a lotta students like music, I'm guessing?"

[OOC: Shall we advertise this little gem on the RP request box? There should be more students now ^^]

[Bradley Reeves]

Although Bradley smiled, slightly, as Haley started to play a nursery song, he wasn't exactly a fan of her personal taste. Still, he was pleased to discover a fellow music-lover. He enjoyed when his students took a well-known song and tried to make it their own.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Haley," he said as he jotted down her name. Although he usually had a habit of calling his students Mr. and Miss, he understood someone having a particular name that they preferred to be called. He had been the same was as a young child when his teachers called him "Brad". Also, the "yo" she added to the end had him a little confused since he wasn't sure if it was part of her actual name.

He couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her as she mentioned growing up in an orphanage again. If it wasn't for her grimy hands, he would have wanted to hug her. Almost.

"Don't be concerned," he said with a smile. "You will always be 'Haley' in this classroom." He looked around the room as she asked about other students. Glancing at the clock, he also started to wonder if anyone else was going to show.

"It's not usually this empty. A lot of students have an interest in music, even if they don't have the desire to learn much about it. So it tends to be quite popular," he couldn't help but smiled, a little proud of that fact.

((OOC: Agreed, I'll stick something in the requests box.))

[Izzy James]

Was it the right time? Izzy wasn't certain. His phone had started beeping at him, which generally meant that there was somewhere he was supposed to be. He'd written down that it was music class time, and you'd think he'd remember one of his favorite classes. He did. Remember it, that is. Just not so much the whole actual time thing.

Which went a long way toward explaining why he suddenly burst into the room, his guitar thumping against his back. Panting, Izzy began looking around the room, his appearance almost wild. Girl. Teacher. Teacher who Izzy recognized as being the music teacher. Where was the clock? What a second... if class had already started, then there would be more people here. Right? Unless class was over...?

No, couldn't be.

"I'm early!" yelled Izzy, thrusting his arms into the air triumphantly. Some where, doubtless, a little ditty celebrating victory went off, as the young man stood there, far, far too glad. Realizing that he'd stood for several seconds in a position that looked quite idiotic, Izzy lowered his hands. He shifted, looking from teacher to fellow student.

"Uh, this is music class, right? And I'm early or something, right? I keep getting times and schedules and stuff confused," he said. He blinked. Did the girl look familiar? Nah, no, he couldn't have run into her before... right?

Stupid brain.