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Post by Melanie Christine Lyckander on Jun 11, 2010 0:17:41 GMT -5
Chris came into the room quietly, not sure whether her parents would condone her being in here so early. But the practice rooms at the back were what she needed-- she slipped into one of these, pulling a chair in with her to prop the door open (she was a bit claustrophobic). The walls, floor, and ceiling had been carpeted over the summer-- that was all the protection against echoes she needed. She set her laptop on the chair, and plugged in her microphone. She stooped to pull up the recording program, set the specs to what she needed, and took a breath.
"Check check."
The lines on the screen colored and twitched in response to her voice. She adjusted the bass of it a bit and checked again. Satisfied, she pressed record and started her warmups.*
She always recorded these-- they made for useful soundbites later. She had built up quite a collection since she had started beatboxing in the eighth grade. *( This. This is what she does.)
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Post by Valdemar Yogo on Jun 11, 2010 0:59:19 GMT -5
Vald had gotten up early that morning to scope out the music room, since Chris' father had generously agreed to let them borrow it every once in a while for practice. They still had to round up members, of course--they still needed a bare minimum of a guitarist and a lead singer--but he could begin setting up a space for practice, and figure out what sound equipment that needed to buy and what they could borrow.
He noticed the open door to the practice room, and the unmistakable sound of beatboxing. Vald leaned against the door frame, watching the girl as she ran through her warmups.
"You're up early," he commented, as she finished the set.
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Post by Melanie Christine Lyckander on Jun 11, 2010 1:11:09 GMT -5
Chris had pressed the end record button just before Vald had spoken-- which was a good thing, because she jumped a bit and fumbled the mic. She caught it at the level of her hips-- the metal ring on it clacked against her belt buckle.
"Oh, hi there!" She set the mic gingerly atop her laptop keyboard. "Yeah, I couldn't sleep in if I tried." She raked her hair back from her face and was quiet for a second. "You, uh... how much of that did you hear?"
She'd never let people listen to her beatboxing-- even her father, who borrowed files from her music archives often, had been told that she'd found the tracks on the internet.
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Post by Valdemar Yogo on Jun 11, 2010 1:23:01 GMT -5
"Most of it," he replied, stepping into the room. Vald leaned against the wall and slid into the floor, crossing his legs. "That was really good. How long have you been doing that?"
Vald knew that Chris could mix and edit sounds on the computer, but he had no idea that she could do anything like that. That was the sort of thing that made people famous on YouTube.
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Post by Melanie Christine Lyckander on Jun 11, 2010 1:30:44 GMT -5
"Thanks."
"Oh..." Chris did some quick math in her head. December of eighth grade, to December of freshman year, to August... "A little over a year and a half." She grinned. "I could teach you, if you wanted to learn. No one here knows I do it."
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Post by Valdemar Yogo on Jun 11, 2010 2:10:15 GMT -5
Vald smirked, raising one eyebrow at her. "Can't imagine I'd be a very good beatboxer," he said. "I should probably stick to the drums."
He shook his head slightly. "You, though... Seriously, that was impressive. I'm sure we could work your beatboxing into the band, if you wanted to." He grinned. "You don't have any other hidden talents, do you? Secretly a violin prodigy, a card shark, you have a Batcave hidden under the school..."
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Post by Melanie Christine Lyckander on Jun 11, 2010 2:39:49 GMT -5
Chris's grin turned catlike. Beatboxing in a band? The idea was intriguing, but...
"I'd like that," she said, bobbing her head to confirm her approval. It was very much an oh, yes please! expression, though she kept her voice at a reasonable level.
"I can... imitate a violin," she teased. "And no one's supposed to know about the Batcave, so keep it between us." She winked and pressed her pinkie to her lips in a shh gesture.
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Post by Valdemar Yogo on Jun 11, 2010 3:12:55 GMT -5
Vald chuckled, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he laughed. "Alright, we'll work the beatboxing in somewhere." If she was that excited about it, maybe he could even work in a solo for her. She was definitely good enough for one, and her enthusiasm was rather cute.
"Do you think you could help me make some fliers to advertise auditions?" he asked, smiling sheepishly. "I want something eye-catchy, but I'm useless with anything visual."
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Post by Melanie Christine Lyckander on Jun 11, 2010 3:24:37 GMT -5
Chris's mouth quirked to one side, eyebrows up. That sheepish smile was something she'd never seen before-- not from Vald, at least. He was always so confident around other people. Or maybe that was because she had always seen him with decent-sized groups.
Positively charmed regardless, Chris fell quiet for a moment and tapped her chin in thought. Then she brightened, and tapped her fist into the open palm of her other hand.
"You saw how the vocal grids worked-- the other day, when I showed you and Jack the program I made. What if we recorded something and and took a screenshot of the layers, then superimposed the information over it?" It looked cool in her head-- she didn't know how it would translate to paper, though. "Just an idea-- I'm no art student."
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Post by Valdemar Yogo on Jun 11, 2010 4:00:00 GMT -5
"That sounds really cool," he replied, giving her a slight grin. "How long do you think it would take to whip something like that up? I want to be able to do the auditions as soon as we can. If we're good, we might be able to convince Headmaster Gilespi into letting us play the fall dance, instead of having Vero DJ from her laptop again." Vald jerked his head toward the door, as if he were expecting the ex-headmistress to pop in the room when mentioned.
"If I have to listen to one more crappy pop song from before I was born, I think I'll vomit." He cringed slightly. It was impossible to act dignified when dancing to any song by Madonna, particularly when said song is 'Like a Virgin'.
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Post by Melanie Christine Lyckander on Jun 11, 2010 4:08:35 GMT -5
"Ah... well, I could pull something up right now." She opened the spec file for the finished Kagome, Kagome track that she had done with Valdemar's voice runs, skipped to the middle of the song, and hit the proper shortcut keys. Then she opened a photoshop program and copy-pasted the screenshot onto a canvas and cropped it to show the proper image.
She listened to Valdemar talk while she worked. At the mention of Vero's music repertoire, Chris cringed visibly. "I feel your pain," she said. "There's a reason Justin Beiber died out so quickly." She smirked, and added, "The poor girl."
Chris turned the laptop around to show Valdemar the potential background for the fliers. "Does that look okay?"
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