Suzie’s House 280: The Power of a One Man Band

“Before we jump for joy over all his connections,” Gene said in a way that made Emma nervous, like he was mad about something or maybe like he didn’t much care for this guy named Bruce. “Let’s see if he’s any good. He’s not a member of the band yet, you know.” He gave Tracy a hard look.

“Of course.” Bruce didn’t seem to mind at all. He pulled a keyboard out of his backpack like he’d been expecting this all along. He looked around the living room real quick. He didn’t seem to see any of them – Gene, Tracy, Justin, Kate, or Emma.

Emma would have put the keyboard on the coffee table and kneeled in front of it, but Bruce wasn’t like that. He found a TV tray and put the keyboard on that. Emma couldn’t see how he’d get much out of the little black thing. She knew enough about piano to know there were only three octaves. Then he hooked up a laptop, speakers, and a microphone.

“Wow,” Kate said. Her eyes were big. Emma bet she’d be telling everyone in school about this tomorrow.

“It’s a Korg R3,” Bruce said to Kate. He grinned like this meant something.

Emma trapped her hands under her legs to keep from doing anything stupid with them. It wasn’t even her audition, but she was getting nervous.

Bruce raised his hands with a flourish, then brought them down on the keyboard. What came out blew Emma away. Everybody else’s jaw was hanging, too, so it wasn’t like she didn’t have any dignity or anything. The sound was amazing, like they were in a club or something. Sometimes the notes were all deep and heavy like an elephant sitting on her chest. Sometimes they were so high and sharp they could lacerate. Seriously, he was good enough for a youtub video. He must have went on like that for ten, fifteen minutes.

“Well?” When he was done, he looked around like he already knew he got this one. How could they not let him be in the band when he was that good?

“He’s fine,” Tracy said like it was no big deal.

“No he isn’t.” Gene looked mad again. “That’s Dubstep. Is Dubstep what you want to play? Not one of us picked any Dubstep songs for the talent show.”

If it had been Emma, she’d probably pass out to have Gene look at her like that. She’d probably pass out anyway if Bruce teased her again. He kept giving her these looks. Leering at her like she was a ripe peach or something. It made Emma shiver. But then, everything made her shiver. She was shivering just being in the room with all these cool people.

“Fine. How about this.” Bruce started playing again. This time it was completely different.

At first it sounded just like a piano. Then it started sounding more and more like other instruments, too. Pretty quick he had a whole song going, everything but the singer.

“He’s a freeking one man band,” Gene grumbled.

“Oh!” Kate bounced in her seat, making Emma bounce too because they were both on the couch. “I saw this in a Kimbra video.”

Bruce’s hands were hardly moving, but still all this music came out. Sweet and smooth. Emma closed her eyes to savor it.

That was better. A lot better. She knew the song. It was called Two Way Street. The sound was so rich, and good. Except the vocals missing, like karaoke. She started humming along, thinking about how good it would be to have this play while she sang in the shower. It just went on and on, and pretty quick she was actually singing.

That felt so good. Her voice and the synthesizer went together really well. It was easy and fun, and she really got into it.

Then the song ended. Emma opened her eyes, surprised because she’d totally forgotten where she was. She looked around, and there was everyone else in the room, all looking at her. If Kate hadn’t grabbed her hand and squealed, Emma would have passed out from all the attention.

“I believe we have our lead singer now,” Tracy said with a grin.

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