Singing Practice

S.R. 19 Blotmath, 1388

Frodo grabbed but an apple as he shot from the hole Friday morning, devouring it before his snow-dusted feet hit the threshold of the Ivy Bush Inn.  A lass about his age was the first chorale-mate he met as he slid across the slick hallway and landed with a thud against the table at which she was sitting.

“Goodness!” she exclaimed with a laugh.  “You must be Frodo Baggins.  I’m Glimmer Hornblower.  My father told me to keep an eye out for you.  Why are you in such a rush?”

“I was afraid I would be late,” he answered when he regained his wind.  He stooped down to retrieve a bell that had been sent flying by the force of his impact with its resting spot.  He was rewarded with a pleased flash of jet black eyes as he handed it back to her.

“You aren’t late,” she assured him.  “In fact, you are the first one here.  Papa’s still conducting a private lesson with Warren Burrows, our soloist.  I was sent out to keep anyone who came in from entering too loudly.  From the spectacle of your arrival, it’s a good thing I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, Glimmer,” Frodo apologized.  “Should I wait out here with you?”

She looked at him coyly.  “If you can be quiet, you may.”

Frodo did not pick up on her flirtations.  He quietly dropped to the floor against the opposite wall and crossed his hands in his lap.  He noticed that she seemed to be watching him, so he dropped his gaze to his hands, which began to fidget.

Salisfrond Brungle came in a few minutes later, in a manner significantly more reserved than Frodo’s.  Glimmer raised her finger to her lips and gestured for him to sit next to Frodo.  He chose instead to take a seat on the other side of the small stove next to her table.

Half a dozen other tweens had soon taken spots in the hallway.  Glimmer seemed to relish her role as proctor, and if anyone made even the slightest movement she turned on her most disapproving glare.  Anytime Frodo glanced up she was staring at him.  It made him so nervous that to still his hands he sat on them. 

Glimmer did find herself studying Frodo more than was polite, so she stood up and put her ear to the door of the assembly room.  Ascertaining that the lesson had ended, she motioned to the others to follow her through the door.

“Papa will test your range after practice, Frodo,” Glimmer said as she placed him directly in front of a lad she introduced as Warren. 

“Lean backwards if you think you might not be in tune,” Warren told him convivially.  “That way you can match your pitch and tone with mine.  Don’t sing too loud until you’re confident that you’re hitting the right notes, or you’ll throw everyone else off. 

*

Frodo was a tad surprised that the choirmaster’s own children were not actually in the chorale.  Instead, they were accompanying the singers with instruments.  Always fond of music, Frodo made certain to meet them during the break.  Glint Hornblower, appropriately enough, played horn.  Not just one horn, either, but three different horns that had varying degrees of brassiness.  Gilda, a striking copper-haired beauty, played a variety of flutes.  Her silver flute provided a lower pitch than her tin whistle (which was similar in pitch to a bone whistle Frodo had that he had won at a Free Fair he had attended with his parents when he was quite young).  Gilda also had an instrument made of wood that she played through a reed for a remarkably smooth, less breathy sound.  Spark – or Tipper, as everyone called him – played all sorts of percussion instruments; everything from a bodhran of goat hide stretched over a Beech shell to a chromatic xylophone that sounded a bit like the dwarf-made celesta at Brandy Hall (that had apparently once been Frodo's grandmother's and that his mother had taught him to play).  Glimmer played the stringed instruments: fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer and harp.  Shimmer played a concertina.  Little Sunny, who was no older than Merry, cheerfully shook a pair of hollow gourds filled with seeds.

*

“So, Master Baggins, let’s test your singing range,” Brite Hornblower said when he had released the chorale for the day.  “Glimmer, will you accompany us on your fiddle?”

“Yes, Papa,” the lass answered and quickly tested the tuning against the xylophone before following them into a small room.  She smiled warmly at Frodo and suggested that he relax as she raised her fiddle to her chin.

“We’ll start with scales, Frodo,” the choirmaster directed.  “Glimmer, would you please give us a starting note that’s not too hard to reach?”

The lass nodded and played a note that was neither high nor low.  Frodo took a breath and began to sing.

The expression on Brite’s face brightened as Frodo completed the octave.  “Again, Frodo,” he said, “a little louder, please.”

Frodo obliged.  He finished several scales, going high and low, before the choirmaster asked him to sing The Yuletide Carol, which was a song every child in Middle Earth knew.   

Without comment, Mr. Hornblower had him move on to each of the other songs the chorale had sung that morning.  Frodo wondered self-consciously at the fact that he kept being asked to repeat again and again long past the point where everything sounded just right to him.  He kept trying to improve.

The choirmaster finally gestured for him to stop and for Glimmer to leave.  “I have a special song that I would like to add to the recital, Frodo,” he explained.  “It’s a solo, sung without accompaniment, that doesn’t quite suit Warren’s voice, but I think it might yours if you project.  Would you try it?” 

Frodo could find no reason not to and was soon introduced to an exquisite little melody; the most beautiful he had ever heard.  The choirmaster was exacting, though, and for a reason Frodo respected.  The composition was the choirmaster’s own and he was not going to allow it to be heard unless it could be realized as purely as he heard it in his head.  Frodo became equally determined to give it the performance it deserved.

There was another advantage to the personal exchange that was every bit as enriching to the boy.  “I understand you are learning to read, Frodo.  Let me show you the system I’ve come up with for symbolizing music.”

“That was quite a length of time you were gone,” Bilbo alleged as Frodo entered Bag End well past dinnertime.  “Were you really practicing all that time?”

Frodo was not going to ruin the surprise of his solo.  “Mr. Hornblower wanted to determine which part I would sing,” he said, barely stopping on his way to his room to stash the music manuscript.  “I told him you’d be coming, Gandalf.  He suggested that we supply your chair.  You’ll have to sit in the back or against one of the walls, I’m afraid, so you won’t block anyone’s sightlines…”

The wizard did not find a cause to scrutinize what was on Frodo’s mind, but he picked up on the excitement underlying the words.  He leaned back in the oversized chair that was temporarily taking up a large portion of the drawing room, and replaced his feet on the stool as he partook of yet another nice chunk of cheesecake.  “I’ll devise something portable,” he promised to Frodo’s retreating back. 

*

TBC