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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 26, 2013 20:21:45 GMT -8
Once again, Delilah was stuck doing reconnaissance in the middle of Barker territory. Though this time, the mechanic's boredom had gotten the better of her, and, as she wandered the streets in the shadows and alley-ways, found a slightly derelict old pub that caught her eye.
Knowing that some of these places were still running, she decided to check one out and see if she could find any information that she might not yet be aware of. The place was absolutely covered in broken glass and broken bottles of alcohol that had long since evaporated and dried up. But what caught her eye in the corner was a small stage, obviously for live shows.
And the lone guitar sitting in the corner beside the smashed up drum set and broken mic.
Curious, as she picked her way through the shattered glass and broken chairs like a deer picking through dead-fall, Delilah picked up the gaudy thing and looked it over with an air of amusement and desire.
"Fucking. Metal."
After a cursory glance around, she noticed an intact amplifier sitting on it's side and an idea wormed it's way into her brain. Before a second thought could stop her, she was already searching her tool belt and trying to locate the electrical panel of the place.
. . .
An hour and a half later, with power once again online and the amplifier working, Delilah stood on stage with the strap hanging across her shoulders, the guitar riding low on her hips. Blackened fingers had managed to find a makeshift pick in an old tab of bread, now held between her teeth as she tuned the strings and tested each of them carefully. Facing forward --and very sure she was alone-- she spat the pick out of her mouth and into her palm and grinned most devilishly.
"Alright. Let's see how much I remember."
She began to play, one of the better riff's in her repertoire. Her foot tapped on the pad of the base drum to keep her time and add depth to the solo as her fingers flew over the frets.
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 26, 2013 21:12:53 GMT -8
Ari clenched the brakes of his bike instinctively as he heard the sound calling him from down the street. Where normally he should and would have turned to go the other way at the first sign that he was not alone, the teen remained where he was, sitting upright on his bicycle, enraptured from afar. Eventually he mustered up the courage to pedal closer... to an old pub.
He leaned his bike silently against the wall of the building and crept closer to the door. Tentative to enter the place, he merely waited outside the door and listened to the music with eagerness welling up in his chest. Who the hell had the balls to just start playing, on Barker territory?
Curiosity got the better of him and he leaned toward the doorway, furtively glancing inside...
His brow raised... surprise? Relief? Delilah was certainly a familiar face, but not one he'd expect to see here. And not exactly one he would willingly approach, either... he ducked back out of the doorway and crouched down on the pavement with his back to the wall, choosing just to listen for awhile and hoping he had gone unnoticed. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 26, 2013 21:43:14 GMT -8
--which, of course, he had not.
But, Delilah was in the middle of her riff, and was quite content to let the slight shadow duck back out of sight for the moment. The earring on her ear told her who the wiry little shade was-- nice to see Ari outside of a dire situation.
The tune of her song shifted to another seemingly random riff at the end of the Billy Talent song before moving into something perhaps the young man might be familliar with; a little Nirvana.
Smells like Teen Spirit, to be exact.
A calling card, if there ever was one, albeit a little tongue in cheek.
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 26, 2013 21:51:15 GMT -8
The young man smiled faintly as he recognized the next song, and he relaxed a little more, crossing his legs and letting his hands tap light rhythms on his knee. Admittedly he spaced out a little bit, and when he came to again, he seemed to have forgotten whatever bad air--had there even been any?--had blown between them.
Ari rose to his feet and took a breath, dusting off his jeans, timidly making his way through the door with his hands in his pockets. He stepped carefully over to a table in the corner of the room and sat; not the furthest corner from her corner, but as he could be along the same wall of the building.
The young man casually crossed his arms as he watched her play and secretly the awe for talent tug at him... a little bit. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 26, 2013 22:22:40 GMT -8
She watched him enter and acknowledged him with a slight nod of her head, pleased. As the riff passed, she switched the compression on the amp with a flick of her foot and started picking away at Another song, which made excellent background music.
"Good afternoon, Ari. What brings you to this nick of the woods?"
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 26, 2013 22:26:21 GMT -8
The young man cleared his throat and shrugged, a little, glancing around the empty pub for a moment. He opened his mouth to speak but it occurred to him his voice wouldn't carry that far across the room, let alone over the sound of the guitar, and he didn't really feel like shouting. He stood up and moved a few tables closer and sat down again.
"i was riding around and i heard somebody playing. i didn't know you play," he answered, though promptly realizing it was kind of a dumb thing to say since he actually didn't know anything about her. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 26, 2013 22:32:42 GMT -8
Delilah chuckled, and tilted her head as she averted her eyes modestly. What, this? It's nothing...
"Not many people do, actually. Four in total, including yourself. Music is my escape, reminds me that I can do things with my hands that don't involve tearing people apart or making stuff TO tear people apart."
She studied him for a moment, easily transitioning into some Beethoven.
"Do you play?"
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 26, 2013 22:42:12 GMT -8
Ari's brow lifted slightly, somewhat at a loss for words... at her words. But he shook his head to answer, a little meekly... and a little hopefully, maybe. He had always been envious of those with musical talent, and if not a veterinarian, had aspired to be in a band someday. Every teenage boy's dream, of course. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 26, 2013 22:45:26 GMT -8
She caught the hopefullness in his eyes and stopped playing at once, smiling. Whipping the guitar off from around her neck with practiced ease, she held the instrument by the neck as she righted an over turned stool.
"Well, then, I'll teach you, if you like. Bring that stool with you and come up here. The amp chord won't let me stretch farther than the stage."
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 26, 2013 22:51:27 GMT -8
Ari stood up with a faint smile and dragged the stool over to the stage at her command. After a moment quietly wrestling with the thing to get it up onto the platform, he ascended after it and carefully moved it closer to her. He sat with his hands gripping the sides of the stool, slightly nervous, but more than slightly excited behind the calmly straight face he wore.
"i've never, uhm... i'm probably not very good, heh." he timidly chuckled. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 26, 2013 23:08:09 GMT -8
Brushing a few errant strands of ebony hair out of her eyes, Delilah lifted the stool and moved it closer to Ari, just behind him and to the left. On her stool, her legs were spread in an unladylike manner, appearing to straddle him from behind. She leaned forward and lifted the gaudy guitar up and over his head, placing it in his lap and hands.
"No one is a master at first. When I started, I was far more inclined to smash the thing than I was to actually sit down and play. Besides, you have these nice, long musician's fingers. Your body is built for it; you just don't know it yet."
Painfully oblivious to the fact that she was essentially talking directly into the young man's ear as she adjusted the instrument in his lap and hands.
"Okay, we'll start out with the basics; what song would you like to learn?"
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 26, 2013 23:19:08 GMT -8
Anxious goosebumps tickled Ari's arms as the woman somewhat unexpectedly moved closer and lifted the guitar over his head. He held the slightly heavy thing as carefully as possible, though a little clumsily; he didn't really know where to put his hands, or his elbow... and the instrument dwarfed him. And oh my god she was looming right behind him. Her voice was surprisingly close and his upper body tensed, as he stared shyly wide-eyed at the guitar.
"uh--uhm... do you know anything by the Cure," he mumbled, unsure. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 26, 2013 23:38:41 GMT -8
"Hmm..." she said thoughtfully, scanning her memory banks as she leaned around his other side and pushed his elbow just off the lip of the guitar and slipped the bread tab between his fingers. "I know 'Accuracy' and 'Fire in Cairo'. I've heard some of their other songs...I could probably figure out the chords if I think about it for a while.
"Okay, the trickiest thing about guitar is getting your left and right hands to work together and separately at the same time. This comes with practice; so will calluses; your fingers will be raw for a few days, but you have to keep playing and pressing them into the strings. It's the only way they'll get stronger. See?"
She flashed her black stained hand, rife with thick calluses and scars, particularly one large on on the inside of her wrist, the edge of which appeared to be the the black tips of a bird's wing.
Leaning closer, so part of her chest was just brushing against his back, she gingerly took his small, wraith-like hand in her rough labourer's grip and pressed his fingers onto the strings with her own.
"First, I'll start you off with the basic chords. This one here is called 'F' for the note it makes. Press hard or the strings will vibrate against the frets and you'll wind up with that annoying twang.
"Strum."
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 27, 2013 0:05:16 GMT -8
The young man listened intently, determined to learn despite how utterly awkward he felt with her sitting behind him. For the sake of concentrating he shyly ignored how close she was, especially when she leaned in, instead focusing on her hands. They were powerful, not what he'd expected for some reason. His seemed timid and soft and fragile compared to hers; it was a strange feeling of weakness, but her firm grasp felt knowing and safe. He almost envied those tenacious callouses on her hands. Those were earned.
Biting down pensively on his lower lip as she began to direct him into using the instrument, Ari's eyes flashed between her hands and his, trying to match the position and pressure of her fingers. The strings were quite resilient against his characteristically gentle touch. His other hand with the makeshift pick grazed lightly over the strings, producing the exact twangy sound she was describing, which didn't sound right at all. Determined, he pressed harder until he could feel the bones in his fingertips, and strummed again. Better. Ow. Satisfying. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 27, 2013 0:29:17 GMT -8
She nodded her head beside his, smiling. "Good. Now the next chord..."
This would continue for a good hour as she walked him up and down the neck several times, showing him how to change between what she called "cowboy chords" for their general use and popularity in most songs. The next set was the dreaded bar chord.
"I'll only show you these briefly, both because they're pretty easy to find but really hard to play if you have no idea what you're doing. Now, sometimes if you can, you can wrap your thumb around the back of the neck to hold the low 'E' string here. Sometimes. Most of the time, you should play a bar chord like this:"
She took his index finger and placed it across the neck somewhere along the middle and splayed his middle finger two fret's down on the remaining strings. She cast him an almost apologetic sideways glance out of the corner of her eye, with a wry twist of her mouth. She knew it would be painful, and they were hard to get to know at the beginning; you essentially had to press your whole finger into the board to get the right resonance.
"This is a bar chord. You can play these pretty much all over the neck; as a rhythm guitarist, they're your bread and butter because you can play in the same key as the lead guitar without all the fancy fingering and compliments the tone of the bass and drums. Most rock songs have these in them.
"Give it a try. Don't worry if you can't do it right away; I don't want to overload you."
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