‘And Amy is even more precise than that?’
He grins. ‘You’ll see.’
The air is already warm as we head across to the main restaurant for breakfast, but we’re pretty much the only guests up at this time. Some of the hotel staff are pushing large trolleys laden with linen, getting ready for the day’s cleaning,but we appear to be alone otherwise. I glance across at Robert as we walk. He seems a totally different person from yesterday, thankfully, but I realise my hopes of not antagonising Amy have already gone up in flames as we reach the dining room and I spot the rest of the group already sitting at a table. Lily smiles and waves us over, but the expression on Amy’s face is far less welcoming.
Oh, good. Another difficult day in paradise looms. I wonder what time Raphael’s bar opens?
14
I’m feeling absolutely frazzled as I head towards the main hotel bar late that afternoon. It’s a mixture of lack of sleep, although I did doze off during the very pleasant Ayurvedic massage, and the stress of navigating Amy. Robert, Stuart and Dan disappeared after breakfast to do their own thing, and I haven’t seen any of them since, as every second of my day to this point has been micro-managed by Amy. I can’t work out if she’s genuinely that much of a control freak, or whether she was doing everything she could not to let me out of her sight. She patently doesn’t trust me around Stuart, if the little barbed remarks she aimed my way throughout the day are anything to go by. I’ve been sorely tempted to tell her she’d do better to leave me alone and focus on him and his wandering eyes, but I’ve just about managed to keep myself in check.
The other thing that I don’t understand is the way Lily is around her. She was obviously concerned about me being forced to share a room with Robert, and very sweetly took time to check if I was OK over lunch, but she seems to be completely under Amy’s thumb and happy to just go along with whatever Amy wants. I, on the other hand, have had quite enough and amplanning a spot of open revolt. Our first session after breakfast tomorrow is supposed to be a mani/pedi and, having escaped her for the time being, I’ve just taken the opportunity to pop by the spa reception and cancel my slot. I fully intend to spend the day on the beach, alternating between reading my book, dozing and cooling off in the sea. What’s the point of coming all this way if you’re just going to spend all your time in the spa which, although nice, isn’t that different to spas at home?
I’m pleased to spot Gabriel behind the piano as I walk into the bar and order a mango kombucha. Although I’m perfectly capable of finding my way along the beach to Raphael’s bar and having a well-deserved rum punch, I’m still not quite confident enough to do it alone. As I settle into a chair with my drink, he glances up at me and smiles. After a moment, he wraps up the classical-sounding piece he was playing when I walked in and breaks into something new. It’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it. It starts very quietly, but quickly accelerates into something very flamboyant with a lot of syncopation. At times, his hands are moving so fast they appear blurred. I’m mesmerised both by the performance and the way his facial expressions seem to mirror the music. When it finishes, I can’t help but give him a standing ovation, and I notice that the other couple, who are also here again, have put down their phones to listen and are applauding too.
‘That was awesome,’ I tell him. ‘What was it?’
He grins. ‘A bit of jazz, just for you. Gershwin’sRhapsody in Blue. Did you enjoy it?’
‘I loved it. But how on earth do you remember all these pieces without having the music in front of you?’
‘Good question,’ he tells me as he shuts the lid of the piano. ‘I use a mixture of techniques. I’m lucky to have a reasonably good photographic memory, so I can often visualise the score in my head.’
‘Is that why you sometimes close your eyes?’
‘Yes, but there are other techniques as well. Muscle memory is a big part of it. If you play a piece often enough, your hands start to learn where they should be without you having to think about it too much. Then there’s understanding of the structure of the music. A lot of music has themes that repeat throughout with small variations each time. So I take time to learn those themes and then I just have to remember the variations.’
‘What if someone requests something you haven’t learned in that much detail?’
‘I then have two options. I can see if I can find the sheet music online and sight read it off my tablet, or I improvise.’ He opens the piano lid again. ‘Name a tune you think I won’t have learned.’
I think for a while. ‘How about “Disturbia”, by Rihanna.’ I’m not sure why that one came to mind, probably because I’ve spent the whole day with Amy and it seems appropriate.
He smiles. ‘Who’s being retro now? But it’s a good choice, I admit, even if I suspect it contains some computer-generated elements. So, let’s break it down. We’ll begin with the melody.’ He starts to pick out the chorus with his right hand. ‘That’s your basic melody, yes?’
‘That’s it.’
‘But it’s pretty dull on its own. Let’s add the bass motif, theBam-bam-bedum-bum-bum-di-bum-bum. We’re building bit by bit, can you see?’ he informs me as his left hand starts to play.
‘Yes, but how do you know which notes to use?’
‘It’s less about the specific notes, and more about the intervals, or gaps between them. I couldn’t tell you offhand whether the pitch I’m using is the same as Rihanna’s, but as long as I get the tune right, it doesn’t matter.’
As if to illustrate his point, he suddenly shifts to a higher tone. ‘See? Same tune, different pitch. We could also go lower ifwe wanted to. However, let’s focus on building the song. We’ve got the basic melody and the bass riff, but it still sounds a bit empty, doesn’t it?’
‘A little bit,’ I agree.
‘So we’ll add in some chords. A surprising amount of music is just playing with chord progressions, so we’ll pop some of those in.’ The fingers of his right hand are now working together, producing a richer sound.
‘Now we’ve assembled the basic building blocks, we can start to have a little fun and improvise,’ he continues. I watch and listen, captivated, as he starts to add extra notes around the tune and the bass. Before long, what he’s playing sounds much more complicated than the original and, when he finishes, there’s another round of applause from the couple sitting at the table.
‘That was incredible,’ I tell him as he closes the lid of the piano once more. ‘And you just made that up on the spot?’
‘I think the songwriters made it up. I just improvised around it using some simple rules.’
‘Amazing. Can I ask you another question?’
‘Of course.’
