Chapter 19: Mazurka

Richard was in the middle of practicing sight-singing for his midterm exam when someone knocked on the door.

"Come in!"

Sandra pushed the door open and came in smiling. "I got our recital slot!" she said excitedly. "Oh, sorry, are you studying?" she asked, noticing the open book.

Richard folded it closed. "I guess. I'm done though."

"Are you ready?"

Richard shrugged. "It's sight singing. Who the hell knows? It depends on what he picks."

Sandra nodded. "You usually do all right in class."

"Yeah. Hopefully Dobra chooses something comparable to the ones in the book."

"Let's go get Emily and eat."

"And tell her about the recital date."

Richard followed Sandra down to her room. Emily was on the bed, listening to music with her eyes closed.

"Hey, are you — " Sandra said, but Emily stopped her with a raised finger.

The music went through a climactic few minutes, and then Emily sat up. "Mm, I just love that part," she said dreamily. "What's up?"

"Recital is set for April ninth," Sandra said.

"Cool," Emily said. "Are we eating dinner, tonight, or what?"

"Let me change," Sandra said. "It's getting cold outside."

"Good idea," Emily agreed.

The girls rummaged through clothes and pulled on long sleeve shirts and jeans. Flesh disappeared under fabric.

"I'm going to miss summer," Richard said absently as he watched them straighten out their apparel and hair. He still thought it was warm enough for shorts.

"You're such a pervert," Emily said.

"Oh, hardly," Richard retorted. "But there's something nice about, um, lighter clothing."

Emily rolled her eyes. "You see us nude all the time."

"That's different."

"So you don't like my jeans?" Sandra said, wiggling her bottom at him.

"Nah, he said these warmer clothes don't excite him at all," Emily said.

"It's not that — " Richard started protesting.

"Not turned on by the long sleeves," Emily added.

"It's going to be a long, unexciting winter, then," Sandra said conspiratorially to Emily.

"For him," Emily corrected, and then gave Sandra a delicious kiss. "I like your jeans."

"Hey!" Richard exclaimed, moving nearer to them.

With their lips still touching, the girls broke into smiles, and then giggles.

"You do look nice," Richard said sincerely.

Emily swatted his chest with the back of his hand. "Nice try."

"It's true!" Richard cried, but they had already changed the subject.

Their grins and sidelong glances, though, reassured Richard that they were just teasing him.

"Who's going to come?" Richard suddenly said.

Sandra frowned at him. "Huh?"

"We have no friends ... except each other, and we'll all be on stage. It could be rather empty in that big hall."

Emily laughed, but then Richard's statement sunk in for a moment.

"Hmm. We do know some other people," Sandra said at last. "I know a couple of other singers. And there's Jer and Jenna."

"Okay, so we can fill the front row at least," Richard teased.

"Well, I'm sure other people will come," Sandra said. "People just ... go to recitals."

"Have you been to any?" Richard asked.

Sandra made a face. "No, I guess you're right. But, Emily knows a bunch of people."

"We'll be fine," Emily said. "Besides, we have some time."

"We can make posters, instead of just posting the sample program," Sandra said. "Something cool that people will be like, 'Hey, I want to go watch that concert.' Colorful, so it stands out from the regular programs that people always post."

"Like a rock show?" Richard said, laughing.

"Ooh, we can call the concert: Threesome!" Emily exclaimed. "That will get people to show up."

"A bunch of guys, at least," Sandra said.

"Why do you say that?" Richard asked.

"That seems to be such a thing for them."

"And yet two-thirds of this threesome are girls," he whispered.

The girls tittered.

"I don't think we'll be calling it Threesome," Richard said pointedly.

"How about Ména —"

"Don't even go there," Richard interrupted. "My parents might actually come out for this."

"Really?" Sandra asked.

"Yeah, I told them about it a few days ago. They were like, 'Is this something we can come to?' and I said sure."

"I haven't told my folks yet. I didn't want to get their hopes up, until the date was approved," Sandra said. "But I bet they'd come too."

"Well, don't expect my dad to come," Emily said, slightly acerbically.

"Have you asked him?"

"No. But he's always so busy. There's just no way. He was too busy to ever eat dinner with me, and he's going to come all the way out here?"

"You should at least ask him," Sandra offered.

Emily shrugged. "I'll tell him about it."

"What are you all doing for Thanksgiving, anyway?" Sandra suddenly asked.

"Staying here, I guess," Richard said.

"Same," Emily said, still glumly. "We can all go out somewhere nice, or just do something in the room."

"My parents wanted me to come home," Sandra said.

"Oh," Emily said. "That's cool."

"What if you both came with me?" Sandra asked.

"Are they picking you up?"

"Yeah, Wednesday. It's sort of a day-long drive, but it would be fun."

Richard and Emily looked at each other.

"It's either stay here and eat at Crapler, or go with Sandra and have home-cooked food," Richard said, one eyebrow raised.

"The cafeteria's probably going to be closed," Sandra said. "But I'll let you use my water steamer, and you can have rice and tea."

Emily laughed. "Well, if you put it that way..."

"If your parents are cool with intruders, I'll come along," Richard said.

"You'd hardly be intruding," Sandra said, excitement in her voice. "They're very welcoming. We have a big farmhouse, and a big table. We host the meal for our extended family, so a few more people will be no problem."

"Cool. I'm game," Richard said.

"Me too," Emily said, her spirits brightening.

"I'll call my parents tomorrow and tell them all the good news then!"

"Can we go eat there now?" Richard asked, slowing as they approached the cafeteria.

"Just one more month of cafeteria food," Sandra said, pulling on his arm.

Richard made a gagging sound, but went into the dining hall anyway.

Richard paced the hallway nervously outside of Dr. Dobra's classroom. At least I'm not late, he thought.

The door opened, and one of Richard's classmates emerged, clutching a sheet of paper. She didn't look too happy. Dr. Dobra held the door with a long arm, and nodded for Richard to enter.

"Have a seat," he said, gesturing to a desk chair situated so that the piano keyboard was out of sight. "We'll start with dictation, and then we'll do the sight singing."

Richard obliged, and pulled out some blank staff paper and his pencil.

Dr. Dobra sat at the piano. "Some intervals, then. I'll play each twice, as we've done in class."

Richard listened closely to each note pairing, and then notated the intervals. He could feel Dobra's eyes on him as he wrote, peering through the triangle of the open piano lid.

The intervals were not hard for Richard, and he was reasonably sure he had gotten them correct. He could usually visualize playing them on the keyboard in his mind, and then it was just a matter of counting the distance.

"Very well, let us proceed. Melodic dictation. Please be sure to use correct rhythmic notation. As always, I will play it three times. The first time I'll play it normal speed, the second time..."

As Dr. Dobra gave his standard spiel, Richard's mind drifted momentarily. He wondered how Sandra had done on her exam. She had an earlier time slot, but he hadn't caught her in time to see how it had gone for her. As Jenna had promised early in the semester, Dr. Dobra seemed to be friendliest to Sandra, of all the people in the class. Richard was not too worried about her, but he had hoped for a tip on what Dobra was going to do.

Suddenly, Dr. Dobra was playing the melody. Richard snapped out of his thoughts, his heart racing. He had completely missed Dr. Dobra telling him what the first note was, and the key that the melody was played in. And now the first phrase had completely gone by. Richard panicked as he realized he had no idea what to write down.

Dr. Dobra finished the melody, and paused. Richard grew frantic. The melody was in a major key, but that was not much help. Without a reference note, he was lost.

Should I ask him for the starting note again?

Richard glanced at Dobra's beady eyes watching him, and then turned back to his paper, writing a few random notes down.

"Second time," Dr. Dobra announced, and he started the melody over, slowly this time.

Richard decided he would guess the key. As long as the melody is right, even if the key is wrong, I'll get some credit. Richard glanced at Dobra again. Hopefully get some credit.

The third pass allowed Richard to get most of the melody written, but not all. He cursed silently at himself for having drifted off.

As Richard made some last guesses, he knew they were wrong. That last interval was not that big! But it ended on the tonic... ? Ah fuck...

"Okay, if you don't have it by now," Dr. Dobra said, "you probably don't have it. So, let's move on."

Richard shot him a glare, but Dobra was looking at his paper.

"Harmonic dictation. Please write down the chords, using proper rhythm..."

This time he didn't drift off. Dr. Dobra played his stupid chords, and Richard wrote them down. Despite his anger at having messed up the melodic dictation, he managed to concentrate enough to figure out the progression.

Finally it was time for the sight-singing portion of the exam. This was the part Richard was least looking forward to. He didn't have much of a singing voice, and even though Dr. Dobra said that it wasn't about one's voice quality, Richard thought it sure helped to have a voice like Sandra's.

Dr. Dobra had Richard stand, and then he played a note on the piano.

"Please sing an ascending major triad, with the given note as the root."

Richard hummed the note to himself quietly for a moment, and then sang the three notes. It was a little shaky, but not too bad. Dr. Dobra made some notation in his ledger.

After singing a few more chords and intervals, Dr. Dobra moved to the board and wrote out a melody.

Bastard! We haven't done almost anything with accidentals yet! Richard thought, noticing the one flatted note.

After he finished writing the melody out, Dr. Dobra played the first note for Richard.

The first interval was awkward. What key is this in, anyway? The first few notes indicated a G minor chord, but the rest seemed to be in F. But then what about that E-flat?

Panic began to return, as Richard tried to sing the melody inside his head. He had trouble getting the melody to make sense. He was just stabbing at intervals.

"Whenever you're ready," Dr. Dobra said, watching him expectantly.

Richard sighed, and began the melody. "Re, Si, Sol, Si..."

He didn't need to see Dr. Dobra's slight frown to know he was a bit lost on the melody. Anger welled up within Richard as he finished with an unconvincing note. He usually did so much better in class...

"Okay," Dr. Dobra said, as he again notated in his grade book. "If you'll wait a moment, I'll grade this for you now." He took up the paper with the intervals and dictations, and went through it. After a minute, he handed it to Richard.

"Here you go. Would you send Ethan in? If he's waiting, that is..."

"Yeah, sure," Richard said absently. His heart sank as he saw his exam score circled at the top. As he headed for the door, he glanced down the page. His melodic dictation had gotten no credit.

"Dr. Dobra?" he said, turning back to the piano.

"Yes?"

"Um ... On the melodic dictation, there's no partial credit or anything?"

"Part credit would apply, if part of the melody was correct."

"Oh. I thought I had the first half right, at least" Richard said, pointing to the phrase on his paper as he approached the piano bench.

Dr. Dobra frowned, not even looking at the exam Richard held out for him. "You started on a completely different note than what I said."

"But relatively, wasn't it right?" Richard pressed.

"Relatively?"

"Yeah, I mean, in this other key."

"Other key? I told you the key and starting note. You wrote something completely different."

"But..."

"Richard, I'm sorry, but what you wrote has minimal relation to what I played on the piano. I recommend you work harder on your ear training. Perhaps you can have Sandra help you."

"I usually don't have any problem," Richard said defensively, and pointed to the sight-singing example on the board. "That wasn't typical for what we did in class."

"And that," Dobra said, gesturing dismissively to Richard's still outstretched paper, "is not the work of someone who usually doesn't have any problem. I think you need to take this class more seriously. You still have three and a half more semesters, and they will not get any easier."

Richard stood stone still for a moment. "Okay, thanks," he said tersely, and then turned to leave.

"Richard," Dr. Dobra called out.

"Yeah."

"You may not think the exam to be fair, but I assure you, it is in line with what we did the first half of the semester."

Richard had been ready to let it go, but Dr. Dobra had reopened the conversation. He strode back to the piano, shaking his head at him, and letting the anger seep into his voice a little. "The examples in class almost never had accidentals, and they were more ... tonal than this one."

"This is not tonal?" Dr. Dobra said, playing the melody on the piano. He added a sparse chordal accompaniment, and Richard winced as the melody suddenly made sense to him.

Richard shrugged. "I guess it just threw me off," he said, less belligerently now. "You have to admit it wasn't standard."

Dr. Dobra shrugged. "Practice more, and less will throw you off. I'm running late, so..."

"I wish I had the time to practice more," Richard said, brushing aside Dr. Dobra's dismissal, "but I already spend a number of hours a week doing all this sight singing, and chord analysis, and ear training. I don't even know why we have to learn some of this stuff. How exactly does the sight-singing help me, as a pianist? Theory is not my major, you know," Richard added.

Thank god it's not...

"Music theory is everyone's major," Dr. Dobra said simply. He went to the board and began to erase the melody written there.

"What?"

"Everyone who comes through this school takes at least two years of theory. If they are smart, they take three or four." Dr. Dobra rounded on Richard. "If it really is pointless, why would we make everyone take it?"

"Well, I didn't say pointless," Richard said.

Dr. Dobra chuckled almost good-naturedly, and that surprised Richard a little. He sat at the piano again.

"You're not the first to think that, Richard," he said. "I've heard it before. But I'll tell you, there will come a day when you see just how useful theory is. Depending on how seriously you take this class, and subsequent classes, when that time comes you will either be grateful that you learned 'this stuff, ' or you'll be kicking yourself for not having learned it."

Richard took a deep breath, and held out his paper once more. "Well, I guess I don't feel that this score is really where I'm at."

Dr. Dobra considered something for a moment, looking Richard in the eye. "Well, you have half a semester to prove that to me."

When Richard returned to his room, the phone was ringing. Jer was reading on his bed, making no movement towards the phone.

"You don't answer anymore?" Richard asked him as the machine engaged.

"Nah. It's probably your dad."

Jer pointed with arched brow as the Italian voice filled the room through the small speaker.

"Hello, Riccardo, it's your father. Listen, I just spoke to Aunt Maria, and she is going to come visit next month. Your mother and I were talking, and we thought you could come back for Thanksgiving, if you have the time. Maria really would love to see you and hear you play the piano, since she has never heard you play. I don't have any jobs set for that week, so I can come pick you up. Maybe the school is closed? I don't know. Call me, please! Ciao."

Richard sighed heavily.

"Did he say something about coming home for Thanksgiving?" Jer asked.

"Yeah," Richard replied.

"Oh, calls it!" Jer exclaimed, stretching a fist to the air. "I think I'm starting to learn Italian!"