Anne Wright
April 16, 2005 8:51 PM
And the music geek enters the library... by Anne Wright
Anne slipped through the heavy wooden doors that separated the library from the rest of the school silently, a shiver of delight going down her spine. She loved libraries with a passion that surprised most people at first, and there was no other place on earth she would rather be than in a library at any given time. She had been on first-name terms with every librarian in her part of Charleston before she came to Sonora.The library was still and quiet and, to Anne, very like a piece of Paradise spared when the wonderful smells of old paper and a faint hint of dust came into the picture. If she hadn't loved Sonora Academy before, she did now. This was a place where she could escape from everything, even if only for a few minutes. Escape was what she needed right now, pleasantly exhausted after her day of classes and not-so-pleasantly weighed down with her worries.
She glanced around at the array of tables, wondering which one she should claim. She knew people could be very territorial about certain places in a library. She had known one girl who would beat up anyone who dared to sit in her corner of the public library back in Charleston, even if that person was twice the girl's size. She was a first year and she had arrived late in the day, meaning that she needed to work out which table was the least desirable by others and thus probably unclaimed. She finally settled on one almost hidden from view by the first row of shelves on the left, an odd-angled little corner most people wouldn't notice. That one would be hers.
Dropping her bag onto one of the three chairs around it, she went to look for a book, feeling as if she were floating through the heavy silence as she wandered through the rows. The sheer number of books startled her. She had been in large libraries before, but she had never seen a school library with so much variety.
After quite a bit of wandering and mental debating, she settled on a dusty five-hundred pager on music's historical uses, probably meant for seventh years doing advanced Muggle Studies but about to be read by Anne Wright. She was a musician of, she believed, modest talents and was fascinated by anything linked to her art-poetry, Musical Theory, anything. Back home, she and her best friend Geoffrey had often done duets when they got together, him playing his violin and her singing, her playing the piano and him singing, or them both singing while one or both played. Geoffrey was the only person she had ever met who could provide the perfect baritone harmony to her unusually high soprano. She cursed whatever fates that had made Geoff be born the twenty-third of September and therefore kept back an academic year.
Carrying her newest project back to the table, she sat down and began to read eagerly. The copyright date on the book was 1922, but that didn't matter. The facts that were there would probably still be relevant, due to the steady fall of music's importance to everday life, a decline she found as saddening as the lack of appreciation she usually found among other eleven-year-olds for the great works of literature. She didn't get to read about minstrels sending secret messages hidden in music very long, however, because another student walked up to her table. \n\n
16
Anne Wright
And the music geek enters the library...
59
Anne Wright
1
5
Robbie Bates
April 22, 2005 11:01 PM
Lost in the Library by Robbie Bates
Robbie had always found silence to be frustrating. So why was he here again? Ah yes, he had been exploring. He wanted to get to know Sonora, inside and out, so that he wouldn't get lost all the time. Well, it was more like he was looking for a secluded place to practice his guitar. He had a shy personality; he was a little uncomfortable with the chance that some stranger may walk in on him practicing. When he played his guitar, he preferred to be with a select group of friends if not alone.But he also decided that now that he was here, he might as well explore. He had never seen this many books before all in one place, there had to be something interesting in here. If wizards had so much to write about, it had to be worthwhile- it couldn’t just be filled with zillions of snore-fests, right? Nah, there had to be something interesting.
Whistling a tune, he picked a random row of bookcases to walk down. He still wasn’t searching for anything particular, just wandering. There were all sorts of books here, some fat, some thin. Some looked ancient, and yet there were still more that could have been brand new. Robbie had never been in his school library very often. Was the school library like this one?
No, his old school library couldn’t have been like this one. Otherwise, there would be cases of missing children weekly. Honestly, this place was humongous! Was it possible that it didn’t ever end?
After his long journey (okay, he admitted that it was only five minutes, maybe) he came upon a table, and a girl reading a book. Salvation, all hope was not lost after all! After that experience, he wasn’t too sure he wanted to go exploring through libraries again. At least, not without a map.
"Hello," said the messy-haired boy cheerfully, as if he hadn't just gotten lost in the library.\n\n
0
Robbie Bates
Lost in the Library
0
Robbie Bates
0
5
Anne Wright
April 23, 2005 9:41 AM
Better lost in the library than lost in space by Anne Wright
Anne was just at the point of getting pleasantly lost in her book when a shadow fell over it and a voice spoke. The other person was definitely speaking to her, causing her concentration on the page before her to shatter instantly. Her eyes swept up from the book to the boy in front of her, her normal overly intense gaze slightly muddled by the momentary confusion being pulled out of a book had given her.Once she registered what her companion had said, she gave him a quick smile. "Hello," she said. "Sorry if I seemed a little spaced out for a minute-you surprised me." She held out her hand. "Anne Wright, Aladren," she said. "Don't think we've met." Her cheerfully blunt manner could put some people off, but she had been the way she was for eleven years and saw no logical reason why she should try some fake transformation for Sonora. She had never let what other people thought bother her much. Still, she was talking to a guy, which, in her expirience, was usually much easier than talking to another girl. That was one thing about the Muggle world she hoped was exactly the same in the Wizarding World. \n\n
16
Anne Wright
Better lost in the library than lost in space
59
Anne Wright
0
5
Robbie Bates
April 23, 2005 1:21 PM
that's true by Robbie Bates
"Eh, we all space out sometimes, it's no big deal. Robbie Bates, Teppenpaw," he introduced himself and shook Anne's hand. He was reminded of how whenever he played guitar, it was as if nothing else was there. Just the guitar and him, and the music. Yes, he could definitely understand spacing out.Although, he wondered how anyone could get so caught up in a book. He had certainly never been a bookworm. The only thing Robbie truly enjoyed reading were musical notes just waiting to be played aloud. What book could do that to a person; make them forget about the whole world around them? The book in question had to be good. But what was it about?
"Whatcha reading?" he asked, voicing his question. It sounded like a kind of stupid question to ask, but hey, he had to know.\n\n
0
Robbie Bates
that's true
0
Robbie Bates
0
5
Anne Wright
April 23, 2005 10:50 PM
I will admit,though, that this library is huge by Anne Wright
"Pleased to meet you," Anne said automatically. The South had ingrained certain things into her, one of which was the idea that you were pleased to meet everyone you met, even if you hated the said person's guts. Still, she hadn't noticed much sectionalism among the small number of other students she had met yet, so maybe no one cared if she sounded like an extra from Gone With the Wind."It's about music's historical uses," she said in answer to his question. "I'm a music geek, and I'm going to be deprived of music for ten months, give or take a week or two, so I'm reading about it to make up for not being able to play and sing." She smiled a little self-consciously. "I was working on composing a little myself before I came here, but I couldn't bring any of my stuff with me except a few books of sheet music. I'm a pianist and a Soprano One. You play anything or sing at all?" If Robbie Bates answered wrong, he would probably find out more about music than he had ever wanted to know, but if he answered right, Anne might actually pull off a Sonoran conversation where the formalities weren't so thick they could be cut with a knife, and if the conversation did go south, well, she had lots of expirience at disappearing from conversations. \n\n
16
Anne Wright
I will admit,though, that this library is huge
59
Anne Wright
0
5
Robbie Bates
April 24, 2005 4:05 PM
true again by Robbie Bates
"Eh, we all space out," Robbie shrugged, "And I do play an instrument, guitar, actually. I brought an acoustic guitar with me to school. I started when I was eight years old."Robbie had to say that it was refreshing to meet another person into music. So far, many of his conversations had been very dry, kind of like "Hello my name is so-and-so and I am in blank year and blank house and I come from so-and-so and I am halfblood/pureblood/muggleborn/whatever. And although most of the people had been very nice, it was completely boring! Anything to do with music was always much more interesting than that.
"You compose music?" he asked, interested, "What style?" He figured that if she were a soprano one and a pianist, it was probably classical music, which he didn't like very much. But hey, you never know, she might write something that has nothing to do with classical music.\n\n
0
Robbie Bates
true again
0
Robbie Bates
0
5
Anne Wright
April 26, 2005 8:57 PM
*can't think of titles tonight* by Anne Wright
Anne listened interestedly as Robbie talked about how he started playing guitar at eight. "My friend Geoff is taking guitar lessons, or he was the last time I saw him," she said. "He usually sticks to his fiddle, though. I started working on the piano when I was about six. My mama played for the Methodist church, so I learned with John Wesley's hymns. I don't do much religious music anymore, though. Just church choir every now and then." The faint memory came up of being six years old and hearing a white-robed choir singing 'Amazing Grace', then was gone."My compositions aren't much to brag about," she admitted. "They don't really fit into any one style, and the music's only vocal-I haven't gotten to being able to write instrumental music yet. Most of it is the kind of stuff you find on movie soundtracks-it doesn't have a musical genre, it's just there." She paused. If he was another pureblood, he might not know what a movie was. Anne had discovered that not many of her kind had the benefit of growing up in a tolerant household. Still, if he didn't know, he's probably ask.
"I'm from South Carolina, so I do some beach music, some country, a little classic and soft rock, sometimes. The classics-you know, Bach and that lot-had good music, but I don't do much of that because it hasn't got any words to sing. The only kinds of music I know about that I don't like are heavy metal and rap." Most people automatically assumed that someone like her would spend all her time reading 2000-pagers with tiny print and playing Beethoven in the local Civics Center, but Anne had never seen any reason why she couldn't do that and have other interests and a life. "What kinds of music do you like?"\n\n
16
Anne Wright
*can't think of titles tonight*
59
Anne Wright
0
5
Robbie Bates
April 28, 2005 10:00 PM
they're the hardest part of rp'ing by Robbie Bates
Robbie inwardly laughed. It would take a fairly long time to name every genre of music he liked. Most people didn't understand that there was a difference between indie and punk rock, and fewer people seemed to know what emo was. But mostly, everything he liked fell under rock, and he liked most rock music. So whenever he was asked this question, he almost always had a different answer, depending on what musical styles he felt at naming at the time."Rock, some alternative stuff, punk-pop, post grunge and emo and stuff I'm sure you never heard of before," he listed, and then he remembered what she had said about rap. For the most part, he didn't like it either, but then he thought about the collaboration of Jay-Z and Linkin Park. He thought that sounded pretty good, so he added, "Rap can be okay sometimes."
"I wonder what kind of music wizards have," thought Robbie aloud, "They must have their own groups or something, even people who've lived with magic all their life must listen to music, right?"\n\n
0
Robbie Bates
they're the hardest part of rp'ing
0
Robbie Bates
0
5
Anne Wright
May 03, 2005 9:19 PM
Ain't that the truth... by Anne Wright
Anne nodded as Robbie began listing some favorite musical genres. Didn't sound like what she normally listened to, but her theory was that anyone with an appreciation for music at all was in possession of both some intelligence and some interest.It sounded like he was talking to himself when he asked what kinds of music wizards listened to, but she did know a little about wizarding music-a very little. One of the few advantages she had yet to find of technically being a pureblood.
"Wizards have music," she said. "It's the one way the pureblood world ever tried to redeem itself, but some wizard music can be...interesting." She grinned, recalling what she had read on the subject. "The instruments aren't quite what we're used to. There's one famous classical piece, the never completed Wizarding Suite, that proudly displays an exploding tuba, I think it was. A large exploding wind instrument, anyway. It's been illegal to perform it for years, though-a roof got set on fire once when the tuba exploded." She laughed. She had heard part of the Wizarding Suite on her mother's old wizard phonograph once, and it had made her appreciate Bach and Beethoven for the first time. "As for non-classical stuff, Mama used to talk about how there was a wizard equivalent of Elvis back in the sixties. Can't remember his name, though."\n\n
16
Anne Wright
Ain't that the truth...
59
Anne Wright
0
5
Robbie Bates
May 04, 2005 3:26 PM
exploding tubas sound like fun by Robbie Bates
A suite with an exploding tuba? Robbie found himself starting to appreciate classical music. It was a pity they had banned it, Robbie would have like to see a tuba explode. It would be better than anything he had heard the school orchestra play. Although, most any orchestra was better than the one at school... but that wasn't the point."It's too bad they banned it then, it would have been funny to see a tuba explode. I made a violin explode once," exclaimed Robbie. He remembered his first display of magic fondly. He had grown frusterated when his mother made him practice violin when he was younger, and so after putting it down in its case, he accidentally blew it up. His mother was caught between anger and happiness, it was very funny to watch.\n\n
0
Robbie Bates
exploding tubas sound like fun
0
Robbie Bates
0
5
Anne Wright
May 06, 2005 10:31 PM
Might not be much fun to play, though... by Anne Wright
"It certainly added an extra dynamic to the performance," Anne said lightly,remembering her studies on the subject. "I saw a very old copy of the music, and the sound the tuba makes when it explodes is actually written into the music, if you'll believe it."Her eyebrows raised a little when Robbie threw in that he had once made a violin explode. She could just imagine Geoffrey's response to anyone claiming to have blown up an example of the instrument he all but worshipped. He had blown up at her once for touching his precious violin, never mind exploding it. "How did that happen?" she asked. "The only thing I was ever able to blow up was a hand mirror."
\n\n
16
Anne Wright
Might not be much fun to play, though...
59
Anne Wright
0
5
Robbie Bates
May 07, 2005 12:16 AM
definitely a spectator's intsrument by Robbie Bates
"Like magic, I guess," he shrugged, "My mom wanted me to practice it, I wanted to go out and play with my friends, and I hated the thing anyway. So just before I started to practice it I was all angry and it... blew up." It was a funny memory, because his mother had been stuck between happiness and anger. Watching it was truly comical.Robbie didn't understand about the sound being "written into the copy of music." He guessed he would have to ask Anne about that later on. Right now he didn't feel like learning, he would be getting enough of that when classes started and they got homework and such. That would be the only bad thing about Sonora, they would have to study and do homework, just like any regular old school. He hoped that it would be a little more interesting than lessons back at home, because otherwise he would be sorely disappointed. He didn't think it would be too much of a problem, though. As long as there was no science, he would be fine.\n\n
0
Robbie Bates
definitely a spectator's intsrument
0
Robbie Bates
0
5