How Green Becomes Wood

"No, it's fine, I just... I don't want to disappoint anyone, or make them feel like I wasted their time." Milo replied, following them inside. "Hi, Peter. It's good to see you and I hope you've, you know, had a good summer, and everything."
 
"Oh, yeah, it's been a blast!" Peter said cheerfully. "I heard you got saddled with summer school. Sorry, mate. I've been there It's about as boring as watching paint dry, isn't it?"
 
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Peter asked as Xander and Alec pulled out the stools for the three of them to sit on.

Alec turned his attention to testing the old piano to make sure it was still reasonably in tune. He did have a keyboard that he used for gigs, but since the sound room already had a piano in it, he had decided not to stress his keyboard by moving it too much. The old piano was more fun to play, anyway.
 
"Well that's good news," Peter said cheerfully. "So, since you're our guest here, kind of, what would you like to start off with, Milo?"

Xander took a seat halfway between Milo and Alec, who was still lightly plinking away on the piano.
 
"I don't know," Milo murmured, testing his strings to make sure it was in tune, "Whatever you guys like, I guess. You play a lot of rock music, right? That's what you did at the talent show, anyway, I guess we can start with something like that."
 
"We do a bit of a lot of things, but we can start there, sure," Peter agreed. "How about 'Learning to Fly?'"

"Old soft rock? Alright!" Alec agreed, and they got started with the song.
 
"The Tom Petty song?" Milo asked, "Yeah, I can play that." It was a pretty easy and somewhat repetitive song on bass, but although Milo was by no means carrying the song or showing off, the inclusion of the instrument did make the overall sound feel richer and more complex, and he handled himself well during it.

He held the instrument low down by his hips, because when his father was teaching him, it had been explained to him that even though you had better dexterity when you held it higher, if you were playing rock, you had to hold it low, and Milo followed that unquestioningly, unaware that it actually made him look kind of cool.
 
The wong went seamlessly, and all three of the other boys were impressed and pleased.

"You got some smooth grooves there, Milo!" Peter praised. "Very nice."
 
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"Thanks," Milo mumbled, looking down at his shoes, "It was pretty fun. That's not a really difficult song for bass, though, so..." He shrugged, "It's cool getting to have other instruments, though. My dad used to be in a band."
 
"Most soft rock songs aren't that hard for bass or drums," Peter chuckled. "Cool that your dad was in a band."

"What's a more difficult song for bass, then?" Alec asked curiously.
 
"Yeah, he's who taught me. He always said people were going to tell me that the bass is useless, but they just never learned to listen for subtlety." Milo told Peter, sitting down on one of the stools and looking down at his instrument, "The hardest thing to do on bass is make money with it, but I don't know how to quantify what the most difficult song is. I've been trying to get The Lesson by Victor Wooten down, that one's pretty tough, but I don't know if it's the hardest."
 
"If bass is anything like drumming, you'll never want for a place in a band," Peter told him with a grin. "Anyone who says that the bass is useless hasn't been in a band for more than five seconds. The problem is, like the drum, no one wants to play it because it's not 'cool.' But he's right that most bands don't really make money."

"I think it's awesome. I love the depth of the sound!" Alec exclaimed. "It's awesome. I don't know that song, but would you be willing to play a little for us?"
 
"Yeah, but everybody knows one famous drummer," Milo replied with a sly little grin, "You've got Animal. Him and Ringo are probably the most famous drummers of all time." He looked over at Alec, tapping on his strings, and more awkwardly warned, "I can only do the first 18 bars and I still tend to make mistakes on them. I've been working on it for most of the summer."

His warning out of the way, he moved to start playing, but then stopped, "I need you all to turn around though, I don't think I can do it if you're all looking at me." Then, once he was satisfied with feeling not too stared at, he played what he could of a fairly complex song for only about forty five seconds before withdrawing his hands and saying, "Okay, that's what I know."
 
"Milo, that's awesome!" Alec cried, spinning around. "Really, that's incredible!"

Peter turned around more slowly because he'd turned the seat with himself, and now he was trying to get it straight again. "That's really good. I can tell you're a little shaky, but if you keep going, it's going to be excellent! Just remember: The best musicians aren't the ones that make no mistakes. They're the ones that make mistakes sound awesome."
 
"Thank you," Milo said, slouching down again, "I try not to get too hard on myself for a missed note, but the song, especially in the middle, gets really complicated, so if you make too many mistakes, it's not even the song anymore... which is fine, unless you're trying to play that particular song. Riffing is really fun, but..." He trailed off, feeling he lost control of what he was attempting to express.
 
"Riffing's great fun, but only when you actually mean to be riffing, right?" Peter asked. "I get it. Sometimes I find that it's best to occasionally make yourself go all the way through the song, mistakes or no, just to try to get a feel for the song, and then to practice the hard bits out of order. I like to stagger the hardest bits with the easier bits just to give myself a bit of hope. It doesn't work for everyone, but maybe you could give that a shot if you're in a bit of a slump."

"I like to go in reverse order of the song when practicing hard sections, but sometimes I only play ones I know well just to make myself feel a bit better,"Alec put in.
 
"I'm not too down about it," Milo assured them, sitting with the elegant posture of a shrimp, looking over at Xander for either confirmation or assurance, he hadn't decided yet, "I just think, you know, if I break it down by section, I'll get it eventually. And that song is really complicated, you should, um, listen to the full thing. It's no Thunderstruck, right? Anyway, I've kinda been playing since I was a kid, because I was around my dad so much, and he liked to have me do pretty much everything with him. I'm not, you know, brand new at it all."
 
"That's pretty cool," Peter approved. "Alright, Xander, I think it's your pick now."

"Through the Fire and the Flames," Xander said mildly.

"NO!" Peter and Alec both protested, laughing. "Not that one!"

"Not even the slow version?" Xander sighed.

Peter shook his head. "I'm so not warmed up enough for that!"

"My fingers will fall off," Alec moaned.

"Fine, fine. How about Hand of Doom by Black Sabbath or Welcome Home by Coheed?" Xander suggested. "Hand of Doom has good bass and is more bluesy."
 
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