Ontwikkeling

He'd known him since he was barely more than a child; had watched him grow up. He had helped teach him many things--everything from how to cook foreign dishes to checking over his homework assignments and correcting them where they were wrong. Most of the help actually came from the boy's mother, of course, but there was one thing that the young child learned because of him and him alone-- he taught him how to play the piano.

The boy had always loved to listen to him play, to listen to his or anyone else's songs. This interest joined with his adoration for the older boy, and it wasn't long before he would walk in to catch small hands trying to stretch across the keys and reproduce the sounds, the music he was so enamored with. Very soon, he asked the nine-year-old if he'd like to learn, and the acceptance of his offer was expected.

The lessons were simple at first. Most teachers will have the new pupil play scales as they learn how to read music and interpret the notes first; not this one, however. There were no books for young players which numbered the fingers and keys to indicate how to recreate childrens' tunes for this student.

The first time they sat down together at the grand piano the child was allowed to hit keys randomly until he knew how each would sound simply by looking at where it was located. It took hours, but the young player delighted in having the attention of the older, and even playing this little gave him joy.

The second lesson the elder gave had the younger creating his own songs. He was instructed to pour an emotion out through an improvised tune, and the lesson only ended when his teacher was easily able to discern what the child meant to convey. Three lessons were spent the same after that, until the young protégé was adept at it.

Lesson six saw the older playing tunes for the eager student to repeat from memory-- he picked it up quickly and soon he was listening to actual music in an attempt to hear the chords. By the end of that day, the younger could decipher and reproduce any keyboard track, be it from classical music, jazz, pop or even rock. In less than a week he had learned how to do what many musicians never could-- but he remained behind the earliest pupil in that he could not yet read sheets or name notes.

The next day, a week since they'd first begun, the child was taught the most boring lesson. The scales and chords and times paled in comparison to the joy of just playing, but he knew this knowledge was crucial, and the boy suffered through it. Unfortunately, the technical details stayed with him less accurately than the rest, and he spent two full weeks just memorizing.

Finally, the teacher came again and for the next seven days they developed the pupil's ability to play for hours, and his fingers' ability to fly through songs people decades older were still learning. By the end of the week the teacher had to inform his prodigy that they wouldn't play together again, that he had to teach himself and develop into his own person, his own performer, without his idol's influence. The teacher watched as the boy cried, tried to deny that he'd been taught everything he needed; tried to convince the elder not to leave him.

The instructor who was not an instructor, for he had no one to teach, felt his own pain at the loss tear through him as he drove away that last day. Because he'd taught the boy what he'd yearned to know he'd lost the only family member he'd loved.

So yes, he had watched to boy grow and mature--though always from a distance-- and had helped shape him into what he was. That was why he was so appealing and enticing, so utterly captivating. Ironically enough, that was also what made him so completely forbidden.