Fall From Grace(48)

Shane tilted his head.  “That looks an awful lot like a 1964 Gibson ES0335 TDC,” he murmured.

“Yeah, an awful lot like it.  So, can I play?”

“You tell me, Grace.   Can you play?”

Lea giggled.  “Come on, Conner, get your camera phone out.  You are going to wanna record this.”  Conner dug through his pockets as I plugged my guitar into Alex’s amps.

“Give me a f*cking break.  Don’t let her embarrass herself like this.  Shane, tell her no!” Tucker yelled.  He was cut off from yelling more by one of Lea’s shoes flying across the room and smacking him in the head.

I pulled the old leather strap over my head and let the beautiful heaviness of my instrument hang from my shoulder.  The hardwood and course strings beneath my hands sent shivers through my body.  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.  Butterflies stirred in my insides; flapping their tiny, little wings from their long dormant slumber.

Slowly, I began playing the sweet low melody that Shane had played for me the first time in the studio, mimicking it perfectly.  The beginning dynamics of the sad melody were soft and desperate, and then I increased them to a faster level, pushing and tempting the longing emotion of the music.  I begin pounding out dark chords to create a sensory texture that stabbed straight into my spinal cord and bolted through every pore in my body.  A warm rush of blood twisted and spiraled across my cheeks and down my torso, causing the hairs on my neck to stand up along the way.

A rich, darker sound melted into my melody.  Shane had joined me, twisting our notes together in a passionate harmony.  The notes we bore were like the blood that flowed through our veins feeding our beating hearts.

Our rhythm continuously got faster, truly as a heartbeat in the throes of a passionate climax within the song. The dynamics of the music were increasingly getting louder until both our instruments met at the top with what seemed like an explosion of sound.  We  pushed each other to new musical heights, an idea played by Shane would be finished or embellished by me and vise-a-versa. Then the dynamics of the melodies changed again to a decrescendo, a softer level, returning from the climax and passion, to the sadness and longing, until the song slowly ended with a thick heavy silence.

When we ended the song, he was breathless.

“What else can you play?” he asked almost panting.

“Anything you want me to,” I replied.

A determined looked shadowed his features. “Hendrix,” he answered.

I grinned wide and blasted through Purple Haze from start to finish, embellishing on Hendrix’s infamous guitar solos and deliberate distortions.  My fingers hummed.

Shane stared with disbelief still flooding his darkening expression.  It clawed at me; my fingers flittered along the strings again.

Improvising, my goal being to make Shane’s jaw drop even further, I began a soft ballad, unfolding the notes at a slow measured pace.  My fingers bounced towards all genres of music, each note giving rhythm and birth to a funky piece of music that soared throughout the studio.  A bleak bluesy beginning dripped from each note, transforming into a jazzy composition and weaving into a web of classical eloquence.  My fingers moved faster, turning the melody into a sharp shrill rock solo and then into the heavy chords of thrash.  Slowly, I returned to the low murmurs of a hushed lonely melody, like a heartbeat unraveling its beautiful ethereal essence into the heavens until there was silence.

“That girl can play,” Ethan’s voice cut through the silence.

Alex chuckled, “Yeah, and I think I’m in love!”