50 Composing (1/2)

Chapter 50: Composing

Translator: winniethepooh, Kris_LiuEditor: Vermillion

Lucien kept playing. He could only press the keys one by one since the skills required in this symphony were far beyond his beginner level. Lott, Felicia and Herodotus felt there was a heavy hammer knocking on their heads. Their anxiety and anger were accumulating.

“Enough!” Herodotus and Lott cried out at the same time.

“What?” Lucien turned his head and looked at them innocently, “Mr. Victor asked us to practice. And I am practicing. Then what are you two doing here?”

“Lucien!” Gripping his fists, Herodotus’s face flushed with anger. However, he was too short and thin for a fight. Lucien had been practicing fighting for a while and was half a head taller than him. A few seconds later, Herodotus shook his fist in the air, “I don’t want to be punished by Mr. Victor for beating you up.” Then he turned around and burst out of the practice room.

“Sorry about the noise.” Lucien shrugged his shoulder but had no plan to stop. He grabbed his quill again and wrote more music notes down. The melody now only contained small pieces of the masterpiece but most of it were Lucien’s stupid creation.

“Are you serious, Lucien?” Lott was looking at the ceiling of the room, rubbing his forehead.

“You wanna have a look?” Lucien was about to shove his piece of paper into Lott’s hand but the latter directly rejected.

Lott looked at Felicia, “Let’s go. Staying here for one more second will drive me crazy.”

She nodded, “You’re right. I need some fresh air…”

Finally, as he wished, Lucien was left alone in the practice room. After locking the door, Lucien went back to work. He started adding more pieces from Symphony No. 5 into the melody, hoping that he could come up with a degraded version of Symphony No. 5 with lots of imperfection, and thus Victor could improve it to restore it to a real symphony masterpiece.

In order to show the progress, Lucien had to provide many drafts. Also, Lucien needed to practice lots of times to make sure his poor playing wouldn’t completely ruined the music, at least he had to show some of the value of the music in front of his teacher.

In the following several hours, the drafts of many versions piled up on the desk and the pile was growing taller and taller. Playing many parts of the music over and over again, Lucien was sweating all over.

…………

When the sky became darker, Lucien stretched himself a bit and then left the practice room with a thick stack of paper in his hand.

Lott, Felicia and Herodotus were sitting in the hall, watching Mr. Victor conducting the orchestra. When Lucien came in, they rolled their eyes simultaneously with antipathy. However, Lucien in turn gave them a big smile. Felicia shook her head with a long sigh.

Sitting in the soft audience seat, Lucien closed his eyes and continued thinking about his work. Half an hour later, the rehearsal finished. Victor and Rhine came down from the stage and walked in front of them. Mr. Victor now looked much better.

“How was the practice this afternoon, everyone? Any problems?” asked Victor.