faderift | closed | jam session.

It's after the set up, some discussion around what they're gonna do, some settling, that Tony ditches the lute for the time being—not the whole time, he has been practicing, and serenading his girlfriend with Elvis Presley is not going to go wasted just because there is, as promised, a piano.

But he is drawn to it, inevitably, swinging a leg over the bench to sit as he opens it, surveys the keys. Nothing extremely unfamiliar. Maybe it's even tuned the same, unlike the terrible things he's done to his lute to make it go.

Now this is nostalgic. His plays his fingers out over the keys, testing out a few major chords which ring out in the notes he expects. Muscle memory makes its demands, and he strikes the first chords and flourishes of Piano Man, but stops short of going into the melody.

"Anyway, here's Wonderwall," he says, more to himself, before executing a lively run, low to high, and chuckling. Yay.

Ellie's got her dulcimer across her lap, tuning it up as Tony stakes out the piano, and can't even be mad that she has to pause in that to listen to the opening of Piano Man rocking herself back and forth.

Fuck, she'd spent a lot of time listening to a lot of people drunk-singing that one. It had been a Jackson favorite. Brings back good memories.

"Cop-out," she calls, gets to her feet, toting her instrument with her as she walks over.

"You're pretty damn good, actually."

"Thanks," Tony says, glancing up from where he's repositioning his hands. Picking out a few chords, searching for something from hazy memory. "Hated it when I was five. I think."

He does not remember hating it. He remembers it differently, now. Sometimes your piano-playing mom dies and it changes the tenor of certain memories. Now he holds onto them.

Far from maudlin, however, the unmistakable opening bars of "Don't Stop Believin'" ring round and loud through the auditorium, Tony tipping a sly look to her. This one has been proven to be universal. He will stop short of any goddamn singing, or just before it arrives at the potential, with a discordant off-key press of his palm.

"Any requests?"

"Five," Bastien echoes from his further distance away up on the stage, not too quiet but to no one in particular.

It has a note of good-natured jealousy. Nobles start that young, if their parents think it's important enough to make them sit still for it. Some of the bards—the ones who started younger than he did, the ones taken as infants and raised entirely for the purpose. He always felt a little like there was no catching up.

Anyway, Tony is good. He doesn't have to be familiar with the style of music to understand the confident competence behind the playing, however abbreviated the snatches of music are.

At a more actually-talking-to-you volume, he says, "Do you know anything your people dance to?"

The corner of his mouth hooks up. He could explain again about how he's a singular genius of his time, but he was also born rich, so, let's leave it there. Contemplatively, Tony plays out a simple waltz as he says, "Well, depends what we count as dancing. Like, line dancing, ballroom, dad's drunk on dance floor at the reception again," which inspires him, and he repositions his hands. "Well, let's start with the fundamentals."

Promptly, the theatre space is filled with those first assertive bars of "Old Time Rock and Roll", keys hit hard in between dramatic pauses before hitting the melody properly.

And yeah, he sings. He's decent at that too.

Not conventionally, not free and clear and melodic like any of the more dedicated musicians in the room, probably, rougher toned in a way that is purposeful. He doesn't ham it up full Seger style either—but there is, obviously, a good amount of ham, to the extent that it is fun to sing something familiar.

Ellie gets visibly excited every time Tony starts a familiar riff, which is most of them, shooting him dirty looks every time he leaves her high and dry.

It's to the point that she doesn't actually believe him when he starts up with Old Time Rock and Roll, but she grins as he starts to sing, jumping in on harmony with the guitar. A dulcimer isn't a bass, but she makes sure to hit the harder notes, giving them extra kick, and thumps her heel against the side of the stage.

Dance music is easy to follow, even if she hasn't practiced this one, she knows what to do.

Bastien finds Byerly's eyes while he pulls his shirt collar loose from his neck a few times to release the sudden (imaginary, playfully hyperbolic) heat. He plays! He sings! He's Bastien's type in several other ways.

The piano is steady enough to find the beat, even if the beat is not necessarily what a Thedosian dancer is always looking for. Ellie's thumping heel and dulcimer emphasis help.

Bastien does not choose a dance close to his heart, because he knows enough about rifters to know he's about to be ridiculous. His grin announces it. He chooses a dance he learned for Wysteria Poppell, as chance would have it, and taught to Ellis in secret so he could dance with her. It involves some semi-skipping steps, coordinated little kicks, and an occasional clap with elevated hands.

Sped up to match the song, it's—well.

It could be worse.

Edited (wording + an important detail) 2022-08-24 04:00 (UTC)

Byerly, meanwhile, is glaring daggers at Tony - because of that feigned oh-my-so-hot gesture from Bastien. Who knows if Tony actually saw that, or if he just suddenly finds his colleague looking thunderous in his direction. (It's funny either way.)

Mid-lyric, Tony locks eyes with Byerly, raises an eyebrow at the hostility emanating in his direction, looks behind a shoulder just in case, maybe, someone else walked in—

And is immediately distracted by Byerly's entrance to the dance floor, inasmuch as any available space becomes one if you want it enough. The rest of the line is lost in a cackle, delighted instead of mocking, but maintains his playing throughout. Heavy key strikes, loud and clanging and bold, but it suits the tempo and feel, maybe even to a Thedosian.

Important to note: Tony does not remember all verses of this song, dug up from his hindbrain as it is, so it's a truncated version that still features an instrumental flourish and a breakdown, relying on Ellie's dulcimer and heel-strikes and low left-hand notes in place of the drumline, before bringing it home with some flashy, end-to-end fills.

Ellie lets out a wolf-whistle at the dancing, redoubles her efforts to keep the beat in time with Bastien's dancing.

Though she remembers most of the song, she can tell there's gaps in both of their memories, so at some point she just starts improvising, keeping time and finding harmonies.

Out of nowhere, they go from trying to show them a song to just having fucking fun with something they partially made up, which is really what jamming is about.

closed | jam session.

the p iano.

har

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