VIRTUOSO - A MYG Story

TIME OUT

TIME OUT

I sat, nestled against Hobi's chest, his breath slowing as his heart still pumped in his chest. I sighed, watching Yoongi's graceful, statuesque frame, cross the room over to a large speaker designed to look like a vintage record player. The frantic tinkling of piano music filled the room, followed by an almost clashing trumpet line.

As the drums kicked in, I felt Hobi gently nodding along to the beat, his body being swallowed up by the music. Yoongi climbed into bed next to me, leaning back to close his eyes, hands resting behind his head against the pillows.

"Such a great vibe to this song, man. Makes you want to get up and dance, but at the same time, makes you kick back and just... take it all in." Hobi sighed, closing his eyes and coaxing my head onto his chest.

The song made me feel tense. The notes sounded hurried, almost tripping over each other, bouncing along in a race of intricate rhythms. It hardly gave me the relaxing vibes that Hope had described. Then the music suddenly changed. After a string of solos, a cool groove took over the room, changing to a melody that you couldn't help but tap your toes along to.

"It sounded so chaotic at the beginning. Made me feel so anxious," I spoke up, my voice a bit raspy from recent... activities. I continued, "But then, in a sudden shift of the music, it just...fell into its groove.

I heard a whispered, satisfied-sounding laugh slip from Yoongi's lips as his fingers found a few strands of my hair.

He sighed.

"Ahh, yes. Blue Rondo a la Turk. That's exactly as it's supposed to be," he started to reply, taking a sip of wine straight from the bottle, "Dave Brubeck loved to travel - believed that it was critical to a musician's growth to explore new music, hear other styles, and incorporate those new ideas into new music."

I sighed, pulling the blankets up to my chest, still just listening to Yoongi. He continued.

"The reason this song sounds chaotic is because it is chaotic. It's in a weird time signature - 9/8. It feels jarring to our brains because it's not a normal pattern divisible by two or four. It's counted in three groups of three."

"One two three, one two three, one two three," Hope whispered in a quick, sharp rhythm next to me to demonstrate.

They are such adorable music nerds. I love it.

"Here, let me show you," Yoongi offered, grabbing a composition notebook from his side table to write out examples of 9/8 rhythms.

"What you're feeling is how Brubeck used 9/8 to shake you with unpredictability and chaos, then suddenly shift into an irresistibly sexy groove, playing it in such a way that makes you grind on it, enjoy it, despite its chaotic, unpredictable, almost off-putting nature." Yoongi had so much knowledge about this, and was clearly passionate about it. I watched his eyes, deep in thought, his brows raising and lowering with expression, as he continued on with his jazz history lesson.

I heard a low chuckle from deep in Hope's chest, my head bobbing as he laughed.

"You know," he started, "that's an interesting parallel, actually. The chaotic nature of the sudden presence of three, an odd number that makes things feel unbalanced, but finding a way to groove on that unbalance, finding the sweet spot and relaxing into it."