fandomtownies | Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

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Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

There was music at the Groovy Tunes today.

This was, granted, something akin to saying that there were books at the library, and that there was snow at the North Pole, and that people, as a general rule, tended to do things like breathe air and eat food. But there was a marked difference in the music that was being played, if nothing else.

Jonothon wasn't playing anything on the stereo. He was playing songs that nobody had ever heard before, because he was in the middle of the writing process. He had, after all, promised Ino that he'd throw together a few songs for her. And writing was easy enough for him, really. The trouble was that she'd asked for happy songs, and he was having difficulty delivering.

//Needs more trite drivel about sunshine, don't you think, Joni?//

The kitten blinked up at him, and then got back to swatting one of his guitar picks across the floor. How was she supposed to know?

[Open, OCD-free, and I'm actually home all day, today! Tuesdays off! IT IS AMAZING.]

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Ino wasn't a ninja for nothing, you know. She snuck in and listened critically to what he was playing and considered it for a moment.

"I like the first bit," she said brightly. "It sounds like it'd be fun to dance to. Gets a bit slower though, 'round the middle don't it?"

That was totally the way to say hi, yes.

//Well, yes. Because presumably even you are going to want a chance to breathe, sunshine,// Jono replied, rolling his eyes a little. //But I can pick it up again, if you prefer.//

She grinned at him, leaning over to track Joni's progress across the floor with bright eyes.

"Can I try singin' it?" Ino asked, with a tilt of her head. "I'd know better, then."

And he'd get someone to drag through his songs in progress!

//I don't know, luv. It's a little...// He looked at the sheet of paper, scrawled on and scribbled over dozens of times already. //... Unfinished.//

And it would be far easier to finish if he had a voice on hand to try it out with.

"But wouldn't havin' someone 'round to try out an idea with make the work go quicker?" Ino glanced at him curiously. "That makes sense to me, anyway."

Face it, Jonothon. You weren't going to win this one.

//... I suppose. Have you learned to read music yet?//

"I can read what's in the practice books?" she said, wrinkling her nose. "Kinda one of the reasons I came in today--wanted to see how I'd measure up against stuff that ain't approved for teachin'."

... Well, Ino certainly seemed to be a more apt pupil when it came to practising with music than some he could name.

//Yer welcome to give it a try, then. Though some of it is downright insipid, really.//

He held the sheet out toward her. If she could decipher his scribbles, then she'd be treated to a piece of writing that seemed to involve a large amount of sunflowers.

... He wouldn't call it inspiration so much as filling the order.

... Jono probably didn't want to know how much she'd studied in the last few weeks. When Ino wanted to learn something? She learnt it fast.

Ino took the paper and glanced at it.

Then had to squint at it.

Jono needed a proper writing course, geez. "Okay," she said, after a few minutes of reading it carefully. "It goes like this, right--"

For someone who'd only started learning to read music a few weeks ago, the fact that Ino was getting a great deal more of it right than wrong (perhaps an eight-to-twenty ratio of right-to-wrong) wasn't bad.

And Ino was totally blaming that on the scribbles. She looked at him, a bit sheepishly, when she finished it. "I ain't perfect, I know that." But... was she good enough to help him even a bit?

Well, in all fairness, she was better than him.

He actually gave her an appreciative look when she'd finished up. The song was bloody terrible, by his own standards, but she hadn't made it sound half bad, for the most part.

//Something like that. Th'bridge, there, goes more like this,// and he demonstrated, with his guitar. //That note gets held.//

He squinted at the paper. //Not that you could tell, really.//

"It's a bit hard to read," she said, with a bit of a laugh. "But that's good to know, absolutely."

//My writing process is a touch... haphazard, you could say. I was going to clean it up before giving it to you, obviously.//

He eyed the paper for a moment more, and then glanced up at her. //What did you think of it?//

She hummed the melody for a moment, getting it right this time, as she thoughtfully reread it.

"Catchy," she deemed it, approvingly. "Somethin' that'd have people remembering it."

//Well,// he noted, //that is what you asked for. And we can work with th'lyrics, if you like. I think I used too many sunflowers.//

You know. Two or three or twelve too many.

Ino chewed her lip.

"The chorus needs a little work," she admitted, "maybe somethin' more 'bout the colours of a sunflower and the sky and sun on a cloudless day instead of just lots of sunflowers?"

//... Seriously?//

Don't snark about the crappy lyrics you wrote, Jono. Don't. You stopped caring about them three lines in. Of course the chorus needed work.

//Perhaps some butterflies as well, then, for good measure.//

Her lips twitched as she studied the chorus.

Don't laugh, Ino. Just... don't laugh.

"How 'bout something like--" of course she was going to have to sing this, so:

Sunflower, Sunflower,
Yellow, orange, and warm,
Butterflies, soaring high,
Sunflower, Sunflower,
You turn your face to the blue, blue sky,
Flower, flower power,
Oh please why don't you be my
Sunflower, Sunflower, please...

Heaven help him, she actually took the butterfly suggestion seriously.

He was trying not to make faces, yep.

//I suppose I could add a bit more in, to accommodate for th'new lyrics,// he noted. Because... hey, it was her song. Who was he to tell her no?

Even if the butterfly line made him think about Reading Rainbow.

//You actually like it, then?//

Lord, she'd kept the 'flower power' part, too. He'd been joking!

She looked a bit sheepishly at him.

"It's catchy," she said, like that explained everything.

That was a 'yes', Jono.

A very sheepish yes.

//Well, there's no accounting for taste, I suppose,// he mused, lightly. //I'll clean this one up some, then, write it out so that you can read it, and then wash my hands of th'bloody thing.//

Because, honestly. Sunflowers.

//Unless you wanted more like it, I suppose.//

Ino, don't give him the puppy eyes.

"It'd help a lot of I had more than one," she said, trying to look adorable.

//And I suppose in th'next one, you'll want puppies and candy?//

Jono, stop teasing.

But it was so much fun!

"It would serve you right if I said yes," she said pertly.

//No, no, it'd serve you right,// Jono replied. //I can toss out banal nonsense until my fingers fall off, luv. Yer th'one who has to sing it.//

Ino stuck her tongue out at him.

Such a mature response.

"Maybe somethin' a bit softer then?" she mused. "'bout true love and destiny and stars."

Watch it, Jono. This banal stuff could make millions.

The real kicker here was that Jono was actually okay with writing songs about true love and destiny. And, hell, even stars, yes.

//... How much softer?//

He could work with this.

"And moons," she amended. "Possibly ribbons."

He really shouldn't ask her for these suggestions no.

"Um," she tilted her head, "maybe kinda ballady?"

... Moons and ribbons. He'd have to sneak in a few errant uses of the word 'sparkle' to see if she even noticed.

//I think I can manage that,// he finally decided. //We'll try to keep it from turning into a ten-minute epic, though.//

"I could hug you," she said, beaming at him. "You're totally awesome for this, you know that?"

//Please, no hugs.// Jono even inched back in his seat a little at that statement, kind of positioning his guitar between them. //But I can live with being 'awesome,' I suppose. There're worse ways to be, after all.//

And he fully expected royalties. So there.

"I've hugged you before," she said, with a sigh that totally didn't touch the way her eyes sparkled. "The moon song, then. And--maybe something 'bout, hm... trees and stuff. Greenery?"

//With th'way you're suggesting things like that, a person could almost think you were planning to perform for the inside of a concrete block,// Jono mused, not even remotely aware of how accurate that statement kind of was. //True love and th'moon, stars through th'trees... something. I'll figure something out.//

Ino winced.

"You ain't far off. Midgar don't got a sky. And greenery is super rare."

//Sounds like a ruddy charming place to be,// Jonothon intoned, almost darkly.

Lovely. Truly.

//Right, then. I'll write them a song, and you can sing them into a bleedin' rainforest if that's what they want. Give me... a week or so. We'll figure something out for you.//

"It's not that bad," she defended, stung. "I like it. It's very alive."

That wasn't the point, Ino.

"Thank you, though--should I show up next week or something?"

//Can't hurt. I'm here every Tuesday, after all. Easiest place to know where to find me, with the added bonus of me having my guitar here nine times out of ten, as well.//

So, really, why bother meeting him anywhere else, right?

Well, she could stalk his room.

"Watch it," Ino laughed, "you say that and then we'll never stop seein' each other everywhere else." She glanced at her watch. "I've got to go--lunch break is almost up. We good 'till next week?"

//I think we've got everything figured out that we need to,// Jonothon decided, waving toward the door. //Butterflies and all.//

"Good," she said, heading for the door with a laugh. "I love the butterflies, keep it up, and all of that!"

Sunflower, sunflower...

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Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

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