Chapter 10: Courante

Only one hour, forty-three minutes and thirteen seconds to go.

This job sucks!

Richard took his watch off and flipped it face down onto the desk. Otherwise I'll just be staring at the fucking thing all night.

Strains of music drifted into the lobby from the practice rooms on the lower floor. Trumpet lines, repeating endlessly, were punctuated by bursts of percussion.

The bright fluorescent lights overhead hummed slightly. He wished he could dim them; they were making his eyes hurt.

Richard flipped through his sight singing book, trying to find something to prepare for the next class with Dr. Dobra. There were endless examples that the Doberman could pick from. I suppose that's the point. If we practiced them, it wouldn't be 'sight' singing.

He wished he had brought something better to do. It was either read The Elements of Style for his English class, or start sight singing in the lobby. Neither prospect was very appealing to him. He really wanted to be back in the dorm.

Bzzt. At last, something to do! Richard checked the monitor, and saw a girl with a violin case at the back door. Richard pressed the button to let her in, and watched her enter. Then the screen was still again. He hoped that she would walk down to his end of the hall, but it was unlikely. Usually people took the stairs by the back door to reach the practice rooms. Since Sandra and Emily had left, human contact had been limited to a few people using the front door, and one phone call. It was a wrong number.

Richard absently picked up his watch, and groaned when he looked at it. He threw it down onto the desk in disgust.

Only one hour, forty minutes and fifty-five seconds to go.

Richard had his head down on the desktop when someone spoke.

"Hello," came the voice.

Richard sat up, disoriented. Had he fallen asleep? He eyed his overturned watch greedily. Perhaps his shift was almost over. It had to be. He hadn't looked at the watch in a long time. Ten minutes, at least...

A man of perhaps forty stood in front of the desk, watching Richard with a grin. "Long night at the front desk, huh?"

"Um, yeah, I guess," Richard answered. His hand crept towards the watch.

"Do you have keys to the upstairs maintenance room?" the man asked.

"Um, I don't know," Richard said. Had Mort said anything about keys? And what time is it?

"Well, you do. They're in the drawer, there," he said, pointing.

Richard pulled open the drawer. A ring of a dozen keys hung from a hook. "I don't know if I'm allowed to give these to you," Richard said.

"Are you new here?" the man said, grinning knowingly.

"Yeah."

"I'm Dave Stanley," he said, extending his hand. "Audio recording."

"Richard." They shook hands.

"Well, if you don't feel comfortable passing over the keys, then you should give Mort a ring. Is he on call tonight?"

"Yeah, he is. What do you need the keys for?" Richard asked neutrally.

"We're doing a recording in the hall tonight, and I need the AC turned off. Maintenance was supposed to do it, but they haven't. I can't find Wilson or Steve, and we need to get going."

"What are you recording?"

"Some solo piano."

"That's what I play," Richard said.

"Do you know Maria Patrick, then?"

The name was familiar, but Richard couldn't place it. "Is she one of the teachers here?"

Dave nodded. "She's recording some solo works for a CD."

"Cool. Here," Richard said, offering the keys to Dave. Richard didn't think Dave was all that suspicious.

"Thanks. I'll bring them back in a moment," he said, smiling.

Richard nodded. As Dave went upstairs, Richard checked his watch.

Only six minutes and two seconds to go!

Dave returned in a few minutes and handed Richard the keys.

"Thanks again, you saved me some trouble," he said. "When are you done here?"

"Um, in a few minutes, hopefully," Richard said.

"Hey, well if you feel like it, come watch a little of the recording. We're just getting our sound checks now."

"I'd love to, but I don't want to be in the way," Richard said.

"You won't. We're in the control room upstairs, room 304N," Dave said. "Just knock and I'll let you in."

"All right," Richard said.

"See you later," Dave said.

After Dave left, Richard was antsy. One the one hand, it would be cool to see the recording. But the girls ... They were waiting.

Mort knocked on the front door, interrupting Richard's thoughts. Richard buzzed him in.

"How did it go?" Mort asked.

"Um, fine. Nothing major happened."

"Good. All right, you're free to go."

Richard shouldered his pack, and stood by the stairs for a moment. Finally he turned and went up. Just for a few minutes, he thought.

He knocked quietly on the control room door. A moment later, Dave opened it for him.

"Richard, come in. Leave your bag on the desk there, if you want."

Richard followed Dave into the control room after dropping his bag.

The room was dimly lit, and alive with sound. Coming from two rather large speakers was the feed from the concert hall. Every little noise from the hall could be heard, echoing reverberantly. A window looked out onto the stage from the back of the concert hall. A woman seated at the piano was talking with a man who stood down in the first row of seats. Richard felt an odd disconnect at seeing their bodies over a hundred feet away, and yet hearing their voices like they were right beside him.

"That's Maria, of course, and Jarrett, the producer for the CD," Dave said. "Ever been in a recording control room before?"

Richard shook his head as he looked at the equipment. "No. Pretty cool," he said.

Jarrett and Maria had finished their discussion, and Maria ran some warm up figures on the concert grand.

"Wow, that sounds really good!" Richard exclaimed.

Dave grinned.

The large speakers filled the room with piano notes, each one almost tactile. Dave sat himself at the mixing board and listened intently, occasionally looking at the tape machines on the rack to his right, during the louder moments.

"Good evening," someone said behind Richard. It was Jarrett. "You are?"

"This is Richard," Dave said. "He helped with the blowers, so I invited him to observe for a bit."

Jarrett nodded and extended his hand. "Jarrett."

"Nice to meet you."

"How does it sound?" Jarrett asked Dave.

"Pretty good. Take a listen. I need to make one more adjustment. Richard, come with me."

Richard followed Dave out of the control room, and they went down to the hall.

"Maria should know you are here, so she's not surprised."

"I actually have to get back to the dorm soon," Richard admitted, although the few minutes he had spent in the control room had been fascinating.

"What, homework on the first day?" Dave quipped.

"Nah, I need to, uh ... go to bed," he said. That was as close to the truth he would say. At least he hoped it was the truth.

Dave and Richard walked down the aisle silently as Maria played. Richard had not heard music in the Wexford concert hall yet. It was quite reverberant for its size.

Two microphones were on stands in front of the piano, and four other microphones were suspended from the high ceiling on long cables. Dave hopped up onto the stage, and Richard watched as he lowered the stand microphones an inch and pushed them slightly towards the piano. Richard wondered what the point of such a small change was, but he didn't dare ask.

Maria stopped playing, and stood to stretch.

"We can record a sound check now, and then you can come listen," Dave said to her.

"That sounds good," she said.

"Oh, and this is Richard. Is it all right if he observes for a little while?"

"No problem," Maria said, smiling at Richard.

On the way back up to the control room, Richard gave in to the question nagging in his head.

"So does a change like that make a big difference in the sound?" he asked.

Dave laughed. "A big difference? No. But a difference? Yes. It's pretty easy to make a good recording. Not as easy to make a great recording. A subtle recording."

Richard understood the principle, but still didn't believe moving the microphones two inches could make an audible difference.

Back in the control room, Jarrett had the score laid out on the desk facing the window that looked out over the hall. Dave sat in his chair, and talked to Maria via a microphone on the mixer during a break in her playing.

"Okay, we are good to go for the sound check, whenever you are ready."

"I'm ready," she said.

Dave started two tape machines, and then told her she could begin.

Richard didn't recognize the piece. It was modern, and rather atonal. Richard couldn't hear any difference in the sound due to the microphone change, but Dave seemed to be satisfied. Dave stood and offered his chair to Jarrett, who sat and listened intently for a few minutes. When he stood and nodded approvingly to Dave, Dave looked at Richard, gesturing to the chair.

Richard shrugged and sat. At first his attention was captivated by the numerous controls on the mixer, but then he turned his attention to the music. He closed his eyes, and it sounded like he had been teleported to the stage and was listening to the instrument from a few yards away.

Not wanting to overstay his welcome, he stood up and moved out of the way.

"What do you think?" Dave asked him.

"Sounds like I'm in the hall," Richard said.

Dave smiled and nodded. "Well, that's good, I suppose. How is the balance across the range?"

"Um..." Richard hadn't even listened for that. "I guess it's balanced."

"The bass may still be a little heavy," Dave mused.

"Let's see what Maria says," Jarrett chimed in. "She indicated that she would rather have the power down there, than not."

Maria finished the short movement, and Dave invited her to come up to the control room.

"Richard's a pianist," Dave said to Jarrett.

"Really? Wonderful!" Jarrett said. "Do you know this piece?" he asked.

"No," Richard admitted.

"Well, I would have been surprised if you did."

"What is it?" Richard asked.

"It's a piano sonata by Candace Kramer," Jarrett said.

"She's the composition teacher here," Dave added. "Maria is making the premiere recording."

"Cool."

"What do you think of the piece?" Jarrett asked.

"Um, I was paying attention more to the sound, sorry."

Jarrett nodded.

There was a knock, and Dave let Maria in. He offered her the hot seat, and she sat to listen to the replay of her sound check.

Richard paid more attention to the music this time, and found the piece interesting, if a bit abstract at times. One section was particularly beautiful, a feat which most modern atonal works rarely achieved, to Richard's ear at least.

Maria was pleased with the sound. When Dave suggested there was a bit too much bass, Maria disagreed, saying she could change her playing a little where it had sounded inappropriate.

Maria was ready to start. "It sounds great. That can be take one," she said.

"Ah, sadly it cannot," Dave said. He reached over and turned up the volume to the live sound from the hall, and Richard heard faint trumpets and snare drums. The sound from the practice rooms was bleeding into the hall.

"We still have to wait another twenty minutes until the building closes," Dave said. Richard looked at his watch, blinking in shock. Forty minutes have passed?

Maria chuckled. "Dave, you're just too good at what you do. You said sound check would take an hour at least."

Dave just shrugged.

"I guess I'll just have to play a little more," Maria said. She went back down to the hall, and Richard stood to go as well. Hopefully the girls wouldn't be mad at him for not coming to the room right away.