Duet by Lizzie Lawson

Author:Lizzie Lawson [Lawson, Lizzie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Midwestern Dreams Publishing
Published: 2020-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

After the new semester’s third day of classes, Monica played a few simple melodies while waiting for Lillian. She watched the door fly open, and her partner came through. Lillian set her things down and hugged her.

“Hey,” Monica said, returning the friendly embrace. She felt an odd tingling in her stomach and thought something she ate made her sick. The rest of her body felt okay, so she ignored the sensation for now so they could practice.

“Ready?”

Lillian sat on her bench and smiled. “Absolutely! Let’s get this show on the road!”

Monica turned around to face her piano as well. “Do you have a warmup routine that you like to do?”

“Just scales and chord progressions,” Lillian told her. “Nothing overly fancy.”

She slid over on the bench and turned to look at her. “Come, show me.”

Lillian moved over to her bench and taught her the routine. As promised, there wasn’t much to them. Starting at middle C, Lillian played a standard major scale going up one octave and back down in minor. Next came the chord progression I, IV, V, IV, and back to I before moving up a half step and repeating the process.

Lillian explained that she moves in half steps from C to F, moving down to A-flat, then back up to B-flat, where the chord progression turns into a common blues pattern. During that part, her right hand improvised some melody for two full progressions.

While Monica paid attention to what Lillian was doing, she got the same unfamiliar tingling as before. Her thoughts tried to wander, but she fought it off. Part of her wanted to step out of the room and clear her mind. The other part just wanted to stay put and not show anything was wrong.

When Lillian finished, Monica tried the first three scales and got comfortable with it. Lillian returned to her bench, and they ran the routine together from middle C, up to F, down to A-flat, then up to the blues section. Lillian told her to improvise while she did the progression, and Monica didn’t disappoint. They marched through the 24 bars, turning around and high-fiving each other when it was over.

“That was awesome!” Monica exclaimed. “Next time, it’ll be your turn to improvise.”

“We kicked butt on that,” Lillian said back. “Imagine what’ll happen when we get A going!”

Monica figured that was a pretty good segue into what they were there to do. “Speaking of A, let’s go through that one.”

She put her phone on the music stand and started her metronome app to set the tempo. It played its steady beat for four bars before she spoke up. “Should we slow it down for the first few run-throughs?”

“It’s fine,” Lillian answered. “I think I practiced it a little bit faster than this.”

“Okay. Let’s give it a try. All set?”

Lillian got herself ready and nodded. “Ready here!”

Monica waited for the metronome to cycle back to a downbeat before counting off. “Here we go. After two bars. One. Two. Three. Four. Two. Two. Let’s go.

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