#Shaina suggested John having a Realization of his privilege

[the-everqueen]

conservatory AU + having to help with some event/ music enrichment day at an elementary school :D

“I don’t understand,” Lafayette says from the backseat. “What is this ‘music enrichment’?”

Alex glances at John. “You wanna explain it or should I?”

“You’d be better.” John tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “I, uh — I went to a private school with a youth orchestra. We performed at Carnegie.”

“No shit?”

“Fifth grade field trip.”

“Like, Isaac Stern Auditorium, or —”

“Alexander,” Laf complains. “This is not explaining.”

“Right. So, public schools have these programs to expose kids to music because it’s good for their brain development, or gives them a creative outlet, or one of them might be a hidden Mozart and then their teacher can claim credit for discovering them. Or all of the above. Anyway. It’s usually once a week. Not all schools do it? Some of them cut arts programs — too expensive or they think it takes away from learning core subjects.” Alex shrugs. “My brother did music when he was — ten? eleven? but our school cut it by the time I got there.”

John shoots him a surprised look. He’s never mentioned a brother before — unless John missed something? But Alex sees his expression and presses his lips thin, hunkers down in his seat.

In the rearview mirror, Laf nods thoughtfully. “We have a similar thing in France.”

“I thought the French raised their kids on Claire de Lune.”

Alex perks up. “Did you know —”

“No, John!” Laf makes an agonized wail. “Why would you bring up Debussy around this one? He is not even the best example of a French composer.”

“Oh yeah?” Alex twists around to glare at him. “And who would you choose to represent the whole of French music?”

“Even you have to admit, Lully had a much more of an influence —”

“You’re just saying that as a tenor!”

“I cannot believe you would ignore historical fact —”

“Guys, shut up. We’re here.”

John pulls into guest parking at Pitcher Elementary School. They sign-in at the front office, where the receptionist directs them to Miss Jackie’s 5th grade classroom. Alex pushes open the door, John and Laf hanging behind, and two dozen pairs of eyes all zero in on them.

Miss Jackie smiles and waves at them. “Come on in. Class, these students are visiting from Kings Conservatory — they’re here to talk about their instruments and give us a demonstration. Can you welcome them?”

“Hello,” the kids speak in unison, eyeing the three of them with general disinterest, some idle curiosity. John glances around the classroom. Bright posters and past assignments color the walls; there’s a beat-up looking upright in the corner, which will hopefully survive Alex’s demonstration of Rachmaninov. Miss Jackie wipes away the math equations on the whiteboard so they can use it as needed, her braided ponytail swaying with her movements. “Feel free to start whenever you’d like.”

Right. Because they’re supposed to be the teachers here. John hasn’t spent much time with little kids, apart from his siblings, and he never had to make the saxophone interesting to Jemmy because Jemmy was more into designing water balloon catapults than music.

Alex clears his throat. “Well, my name is Alex, I’m a pianist at Kings. These are my friends, John — he plays tenor sax — and Laf — he’s a singer. We’re gonna try to avoid a lecture, so we’ll perform some pieces and do some activities and hopefully teach you guys something about music. Any questions?”

A hand goes up.

“Yeah?”

“How old are you?”

Alex cocks an eyebrow. “Old enough to do this.” And he slides onto the piano bench and launches into the Rachmaninov etude.

It’s a short piece, stupid fast, with jarring accents and sforzandos like jump scares. And Alex is a compelling performer, hunched over the keys, taut as piano wire while his fingers run light and quick through the notes. The kids watch, some slouched back in their seats, some leaning forward, all of them impressed. He finishes with a flick of his wrist and bounds back to his feet. “All right, then, show of hands — who didn’t like the piece? No critiques of the performer, please, just the piece.”

John and Laf create a pros and cons list on the whiteboard, while Alex walks the kids through the piece and makes them figure out what worked for them and what didn’t. Does their impression change when they close their eyes? What about if he changes the rhythm? What’s the mood? He picks volunteers and has them play “Twinkle Twinkle” sadly, quickly, while thinking of the color pink.

Laf takes over after that. Can the kids make a pink sound? He hums an A. How can they darken the tone? Lighten it? It turns into an exercise on breathing, and the kids sing a multi-colored chord that sounds like something from Scriabin.

Even as he helps his friends, John watches the kids. Most of them are participating, probably relieved that they aren’t doing fractions, but a handful look bored or disinterested, not bothering to sing or toss out answers. John tries to catch their eyes, encourage them to engage, but they ignore him, eyes on their desks or the wall, hands fiddling with their pencils.

And, fine, he’ll admit it: he’s a little annoyed. Mostly because his dad wouldn’t have let him act like that — one call from a teacher, and he’d be getting a stern lecture and an extra hour of practice a day on the clarinet. But also because he knows how much effort Alex and Laf put into this, and he wants it to matter.

Stupid. Like these kids’ lives are gonna change because some guys from Kings visited their class for an hour? They don’t even care enough to pay attention.

It’s his turn. He hands Laf the stack of papers he brought with him to pass out to the kids while he gets his sax out of its case. Some eyes widen at the instrument.

He slides the strap around his neck and takes a second to adjust the mouthpiece. “Raise your hand if you know this tune.”

He plays a few bars of a blues standard. No hands, though a couple of them tilt their heads and squint, like maybe it’s familiar. Maybe their parents listen to jazz, or it was background music in a mall.

“No problem. What about this one?”

This time he plays a pop tune. Doesn’t matter which one, he heard it on the radio a couple weeks ago and he figures the kids will recognize it. Sure enough, almost all of the hands go up. Some even bob their heads, grinning.

“What if I told you those two songs are the same song?”

John plays the standard again, emphasizing the notes in the underlying progression, and does the same thing with the pop song. The kids catch on quick for the most part, nodding when they make the connection.     

“A lot of songs have the same basic skeleton, with different notes in between. You guys are gonna write your own songs — the papers Laf gave you have dots to mark the ‘skeleton’ we just heard. Your job is to connect the dots, making the melody go higher or lower as you want. Whatever you think sounds good. When you’re done, if you want, I can play some of them, or show you have to play it yourself. Alex, want to show them your example?”

Alex copies out the progression pattern on the whiteboard and fills in a melodic line, big enough for all the kids to see. John plays it back to him, tender and expansive, the way he always plays for Alexander.

“There’s no right or wrong answer. Feel free to write in directions for the performer. If you need help, just raise a hand and ask one of us.”

The exercise doesn’t take long. Some of the kids need a better explanation, and a couple take some prompting from Alex to get started, but within ten minutes John has a stack of about a dozen papers with a variety of squiggly, angular, and pointillistic lines on them. The kids wrote their names in the upper right corner — habit, John guesses, since he forgot to tell them. He calls out each name and even offers up Laf and Alex as performers in case the students don’t want to hear their piece played on sax. All of the pieces are different, and John finds something to compliment in each one.

He calls out the name on the last one and is surprised when Jerome raises his hand. The kid has been silent the entire class, jiggling his leg and staring sullenly at the ground. John glances back at his project — the jagged line looks like the pulse reading on a heart monitor.

Shit. John has the feeling he’s been handed something personal, even if he’s not quite sure what it means. There’s no directions, but he plays the impression he gets: angry, scared, frantic. Screams into the high note and lets it flatline out. When he looks up, Jerome is watching him with an expression of vicious satisfaction.

Apparently John did something right.

The lunch bell rings, and the kids file out toward the cafeteria, mumbling thanks as they go. Miss Jackie gives them a beatific smile. “Thank you for taking the time to share with them. And please, give Dr. Washington my regards.”

“No problem,” Alex says. “We’re glad to do it. And hey, there’s an orchestra concert coming up at Kings — if you think the kids would be interested, I could get the class free tickets.”

Of course Alex would advertise the orchestra concert; he was going to be performing the Saint-Saens that night. But Miss Jackie beams. “That’d be wonderful! E-mail me the date. And any other concerts, too, I’m sure some of the parents might want to attend.”

Laf elbows him, and John rolls his eyes. No, he doesn’t think a group of fifth graders would want to sit through three hours of Mozart. Laf pouts at him, though, so he shrugs. Maybe one of them would be into the costumes.

Miss Jackie turns to him. “Your activity really engaged the kids. Are you a composition major as well?”

“Uh, no. I improv? For jazz band.” He scratches the back of his head. Thinks of Jerome and his piece. “Though — if any of the kids are interested in lessons or writing their own stuff, I can volunteer, or talk to some of the teachers about resources.”

“Great! I’ll be sure to let them know.”

Back in the car, Alex and Laf get into an argument over Le nozze de Figaro. John interrupts before it really escalates. “Hey, Alex, how did you get into music? Since you said your school didn’t have a program for it.”

“Mom taught me when I was little. After she died, her sister gave me lessons, helped me prep for auditions.” He makes a vague hand gesture. “I made it work? I got lucky, but still had to figure out shit on my own.”

Laf hums. “You would make a good teacher.”

“Ha, professor is more like it.” Alex grins. “Just you wait, soon enough you’ll have to call me ‘Dr. Hamilton.’”

“You’re such a shithead,” John says.

“Yeah, yeah. Though that was pretty cool of you, offering to help those kids.” Alex gives him a fond look, which turns sly. “Though, since you’re going pro bono, wanna buy a starving college kid lunch?”

“I will pay, if John drives us there,” Laf says. “Perhaps, once you are fed, you will be able to see how wrong your opinions on opera are.”

John is pretty certain the whole of Pitcher Elementary School could hear Alex’s howl of outrage.