A Little Night Music

The drummer.

That was her title. It was almost degrading, in a sense, since she could play so much more than a drum kit.

But that was who Julia was to her family when they talked about careers: the drummer.

Oh, yes, her brother and sister were in the medical field or in a large, successful company, and each of them earned at least twice of what she did.

But did they enjoy what they did? Were they in a group of a hundred-over people who, regardless of personal issues or grudges, came together as peers and took time and effort to contribute, to co-operate to create a unique and wonderful sound?

Maybe. But unlikely.

See, that was the blessing of being in an orchestra, doing what you love and making music with like-minded professionals.

And that's why Julia kept her mouth shut when she heard that title. If she were to start about her music, she would go on for days. She wanted to prove to her family that being a musician didn't mean that there were no other career choices for her.

So she practiced hard, day after day, until she was formally recognised for her talent and skills. But that recognision meant popularity amongst the other musicians. Tonight, she would face one of her greatest challenges thus far.

Tonight, they were having a party.

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"Hey, Julia!" The percussionist turned her head at the shout. A dark figure ran towards her and she had to step out of the way to avoid being cannoned into.

"Hannah?"

"Yeah," the principal clarinettist straightened up, falling into step with her. "On the way to Gloria's house by yourself, hmm?"

She looked away from the senior musician at the dimly-lit, empty road. "Yup. I can sort of listen back to the concerto I'm working on if I'm by myself, you know? Thanks for inviting me, by the way."

"Of course. All of us do it." Hannah patted her back. "Congrats on getting that solo. As for my invitation, I was just the fastest. You would have been invited either way. Oh, here we are!"

Before she could say anything, they turned around the corner and Julia had to screw her eyes up against the sudden bright lights.

Uphill behind a heavy metal gate lay a grand mansion of a house. There were beams of light flashing into the darkening sky and all the big windows were lit and Julia could see the faint outline of people behind them. There was a stone-contoured garden decorated with fairy lights, and as they were let in through the gates, Julia could hear faint sound of people talking and the music from Bizet's second act of Carmen blasting in the background. Cars dotted the driveway as the last guests made their way to join the party.

"They're waving to you, Hannah," Julia muttered, gesturing to the other musicians in the cars. "Don't you want go talk to them?"

"I can talk to them later," the clarinettist said breezily, grinning. "Right now, I want to make sure that you have fun. We only do this once a year, it's become a tradition for our orchestra. I want to show you around, let you see the games that we play only here. Ignore them. Come on!"

They walked through the parking lot and up the front steps. Bright yellow fairy lights decorated the doorway and Julia felt like she was hit in the face by the whirl of indistinguishable conversations.

"I'm not letting you hide tonight; you're going to party, have fun, and relax. Now, you already know who Gloria is, right? One of our main sponsors, yes. She's there, see? Come, come; let's introduce you."

Hannah marched straight up to their hostess, who stood by the doorway to greet her guests.

"Gloria!" She cried enthusiastically, giving her a hug. "You look like you're doing well. Yes, of course. Gloria, meet Julia- our newest addition to percussion."

The hostess smiled at Julia and hugged her. Behind the makeup, perfectly curled hair and glittering accessories, her eyes were kind as she held the younger girl at arm's length. "You're the marimba soloist, aren't you? I'm looking forward to your debut, my dear."

Julia had hardly managed to stammer out a word of thanks when Hannah took her by the arm and swept her away again. "Sorry I'm being so brisk, Julia. You're new here and I haven't been able to show anyone around for ages, you know? Paul called sick," she continued, naming the senior percussionist, "And as his friend, I'm going to look after you, show you how things work."

As Hannah guided her through the crowd of black and white, Julia said, "No one really told me why we had to dress so formally for a party."

"Ah, yes." Hannah picked absent-mindedly at her long skirt. "There are other sponsors tonight- you know, Gloria's other rich friends. They're nice enough but some of them still don't have an orchestra or prodigy to spend their money on. So," she dropped her voice, "If someone fresh-faced and talented like you made a good enough impression, I'm sure you'll become world-famous soon. And you're going the right way, accepting that solo for our next concert and all."

"Or I could win us over another sponsor for our orchestra," Julia suggested half-heartedly. "Wait, what's that?"

"Well, we do need better stands. Oh, they're having a 'showdown' as we like to call it."

In the middle of a circle of onlookers sat two musicians opposite each other, one holding a flute and the other an oboe. On the table between them there were pieces of paper with words on them stuck in a circle onto a raised, square surface. In the middle of the circle was a glass bottle on its side.

"This has been one of the oldest games we've had, but it's still fun." Hannah nodded as they joined the audience. "See, on the papers there are the different periods and styles of classical music: romantic, baroque, impressionistic et cetera. Then below that to make it more fun, the number of shots the player has to take before playing. Basically it's us musicians being, well, nerds while still having some fun, but it's mostly wind players who do it because the alcohol affects our breathing. Watch-- it's starting."

A woman whom Julia recognised as one of the horn players leaned down to spin the bottle. It slowed to a stop and the people sitting next to the flautist cheered as he took three shots.

"Throw some Bach!" Someone yelled, and was quickly hushed for the flautist to play.

Julia clapped with the others after he played a couple of phrases from a Bach flute sonata. The bottle was spun again and the oboist had to down two shots before playing an excerpt from a Mozart symphony. Despite having consumed alcohol, the two musicians kept going.

After slightly over ten minutes, it was the oboist's turn again and she played an oboe sonata with daring jumps and running notes until she reached the higher register and her sound split.

"Her reed probably broke," Hannah commented as they clapped for both musicians, who shook hands. "Unfortunate; but you can see other people go at it again later. The only thing about partying with musicians is that we try not to smoke- because smoke is the enemy of us wind players and Gloria doesn't like people smoking in her house- or play games that could, you know, damage our fingers. So no cigarettes or wild party games at these parties."

"No, no. Of course." Julia accepted two drinks from a waiter, passed one to Hannah, and sipped quietly as they walked. "Anything else?"

"Of course. You know, it being Christmas and all, Gloria does like us to play a little bit for her so her living room space will be cleared out in about an hour's time so we can play a little-"

A slow melody reached Julia's ears, played with so much depth and raw emotion that she stopped. In the room stood a middle-aged man playing the violin with a small audience of orchestra musicians and other people she didn't recognise, who were probably Gloria's personal friends.

It was Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending- one of her favourite violin pieces. She stood there, captivated. Who was this? Not a musician from the orchestra, she was sure.

The main motif repeated itself for the ending, quiet but powerful. There was pin-drop silence after the last high, sustained B-natural before the room erupted into applause. The violinist bowed and handed the violin to someone in the audience, whom Julia recognised as their concertmaster.

"Oh! Okay, let's go talk to him." Hannah put her hand on her shoulder and brought her over to where the man was talking to one of the trombonists.

"Hannah, you can't just-"

"Hi, Jordan? I'm Hannah. This is Julia." The clarinettist promptly shook his hand and Julia managed to shrug apologetically at the trombonist before shaking Jordan's hand. "She plays the marimba but I'm sure she can manage all the other percussion instruments as well. It's her first time here. This is Jordan," Hannah told Julia, saying everything without pausing for breath. "He's been so kind to come to our past few concerts. Talent-spotting, maybe? Well, he's one of Gloria's friends and a damn nifty dresser. Alright, I'll leave the two of you to it. I'll see you later."

Jordan looked at Hannah's retreating form in amusement. "Your friend is subtle."

"Inappropriately so," Julia agreed, shifting awkwardly.

"Marimba, huh?" Jordan asked after a moment as they slowly walked out of the room. Julia took another sip of her drink, nodding. Another waiter hovered nearby and she replaced her empty glass with a full one.

"Yeah. I've played for twelve years now."

Jordan seemed to know where the right places were to make a small sound of agreement or prompt Julia to keep talking. As they walked, Jordan asked her about what being in the orchestra was like, and how working with a new conductor and new section members was. With a ready listener and the topic of her passion, Julia spoke much more than she had for the whole of the party, until they found themselves at Gloria's pool. That area was empty and quiet; all the guests must have gone into the house.

"Have you always wanted to play the marimba?" Jordan asked. Julia shook her head, hoping off the diving board and back onto the stone ground.

"Somehow when I first learned about all the instruments of the orchestra, I wanted to play the horn." She giggled, "But back then I didn't know the learning curve to get from, I don't know... sounding like a wet fart to what most professionals play like."

They sat down on two sun loungers and laid back to look at the dark sky. A few tiny dots of white sparkled in the night and Julia could hear faint noise from the party.

"But you found that you had talent playing the marimba? Something clicked in that moment, like when you understand a formula- that special eureka moment that not many people get without effort." Jordan passed her her drink that she had set down on a small table next to the sun lounger.

Julia shrugged. "I don't know. I started playing back in school, when I looked too thin and weak for sports and wasn't gracefully enough for dance. In the wind orchestra they made us try out the instruments, but I guess I just didn't have the right lip structure for any of them so I got put into percussion. I just took to it, I guess." She laughed, swirling her drink and taking another sip. "For my next birthday after that, I convinced my parents to buy me a standard-sized marimba, and I was practicing for, like, three hours a day. The time I spent with my marimba and with my music- which was constantly running through my head- kept growing after that, so here I am."

"Due to debut with your new orchestra within the next six months," Jordan chuckled, adjusting his cushion. "You're playing Emmanuel Sejuan- sorry, I can't pronounce his name."

"Sejourne, yeah. French. His concerto for marimba and string orchestra. Some parts of it are almost a workout, honestly; four mallets and all, you know." Julia swirled her drink, watching the blue water in the swimming pool and the yellow lights get distorted through the glass. "I'll have to keep practicing, I guess."

"Yeah," Jordan agreed. "Practicing is our way of honing our craft and so many non-musicians don't understand all the blood, sweat, and tears that go into it, literally." He laughed quietly. "It's strange, don't you think, how so many people say 'you're so lucky to get to do what you like and get paid for it'? I mean, we got into the music industry because we practiced and all."

"Mhm." Julia made a sound of agreement. "I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks like that. I suppose everyone at this party thinks like that. But my parents don't," she sighed. "Unfortunately."

"Well, you'll prove them wrong when you make your debut." Jordan hummed, head resting comfortably on his cushion.

"I guess so," Julia exhaled, staring up at the sky. "Sorry if this isn't up to the usual standards of having a conversation with a musician."

"Not at all. You're telling the story of how you invented yourself. You see, many want to, but not many can. It's a real joy hearing about it." Jordan sat up to look at her with a small smile.

"Thanks for being so easy to talk to."

"Now you're shortchanging yourself. Thanks for being so easy to listen to."

Well, perhaps talking to people wasn't as difficult as she thought.

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All of them eventually gathered in Gloria's living room to listening to a well-arranged mashup of Paganini and Jingle Bells performed by a string quartet. Julia tapped her feet in time, slightly drowsy and surprisingly happy. She had managed to watch another showdown of Hannah playing her clarinet against the flautist, and played a short informal game of 'Guess the Piece' in Gloria's private bar.

Maybe parties with musicians weren't that bad.