Jack Of Arts

October 18, 2010 Monday. The prelims exam week has arrived in Northwestern University. Tayaw who finished all his projects and other school works is in a relaxed state unlike the rest of the freshmen who are anxious to take their first exams in college.

Plane and Spherical Trigonometry exam was a breeze as he used it often in his previous life as an engineer. General Chemistry exam was not as easy, but he still felt he did well because he realized it was fun to know how atoms and molecules combined. Engineering Drawing exam is also easy for him, after all his often use of AutoCad in his previous life helped him visualize the accuracy of his drawings.

Teungebian was a subject he did not focus on, but he still felt he did alright in the exam.

After he was done with his exams for the day, Tayaw found nothing school-related to do. In addition to the school work he already submitted, he realized he came far in his advance reading in August. The topics covered in the prelims were things he already studied in advance.

He then decided to go to back to his apartment to try to write down as many songs he arranged in his previous life he can remember and also to browse songs he plans to arrange. From 3pm to the night, he locked himself in his room to do just what he planned.

The next day, his exams were much easier for him. College Algebra was easy as he figured out its application for functions and graphs which made him have fun learning it this time around. Back in his enrolment period, he chose a PhysEd class tackled billiards, which is a sport he is very skilled at which made the Physed exam pretty much a sure A. English 1 was also easy for him after reviewing the structure and parts of English grammar and speech.

After his exams, he decided on skipping his classes. He asked one classmate from each of his different classes to inform him if he missed anything. He even convinced those classmates to write in his name in the attendance sheet on his behalf, in exchange for a cup of coffee or a copy of his school work that they can revise for themselves.

He decided to skip those classes as the professors and instructors are only checking for attendance while they grade their students' papers. Those class hours are also to be used by the students to finish whatever school work they have not finished yet.

At 1 in the afternoon, he dropped by a diner for a late lunch. After ordering his food from a waiter, he saw what appears to be an education major student sitting by the table beside his. On the student's table is a thick transparent file case, containing a hardcover copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales among the student's many files. For a few times now, he saw some education major students carrying a copy of his book. He approached the student to ask for her opinions on the book.

"Excuse me. Hi." Tayaw greeted the student.

"Hello." The student replied with a hint of apprehension. Seeing this, Tayaw felt anxious that he appeared creepy.

"Oh. I won't bite. I just noticed the book on your file case. I saw it a few times now in the hands of student teachers. The cover of the book is so eye-catching too. Is it any good?" Tayaw explained his intentions.

The student then lowered her guard hearing Tayaw. "Oh. It's good. Our professor actually recommended us to buy the book to use in our teaching training with pre-school pupils. I bought the book and just intended to use it for teaching purposes but as I started reading it, I enjoyed it very much instead. So guess what I did? I bought the a.d.u.l.t version." The student said as she pulled out an a.d.u.l.ts' version from her backpack to show Tayaw.

Tayaw smiled at this. "There's an a.d.u.l.t version? What's so good about it?" Tayaw asked.

"Oh! The a.d.u.l.t's version is not much different with the children's version when it comes to the core of the stories. No matter, these books are too different to the conventional fairy tales! The stories in it have meat on their bones! The good guys are heroes and the bad guys are evil." The student enthusiastically started expressing her opinions on the book.

"But, isn't that the same as the convention?" Tayaw asked, playing a critic.

"Oh. Even though the bad guys are really bad in the stories, there are reasons stated why they are unlike the usual fairy tales. Also, the good guys also fall due to mistakes in their actions, which is a great lesson for the children. The bad guys also get what they deserve. If it's the conventional fairy tales, the good guys will always make the right choices. The bad guys will not be punished and will quit their ways just because the good guy told them so or beat their asses to submission. These stories really have meat in their bones." The student defended the book.

"I see. It seems to be good then. Thank you. I've interrupted your meal enough, so I'll get back to my table." Tayaw decided to stop there.

"It's okay. If you can spare it, buy a copy of the a.d.u.l.ts' version. Hehehe. I think it's for you." The student told Tayaw with a suspicious chuckle. Tayaw only nodded as he knows what the student is talking about.

This interaction gave Tayaw a great satisfaction about the book starting to propagate into culture. He has a theory that these stories the roulette gave to him came from another world.

The first version of the Grimm's Fairy Tales is an evidence of that. Why is the original book in German? Who is Grimm? He figured it's the German author who wrote all these fairy tales.

This also gave him the idea that the stories the roulette gave him are not only just obscure works, but actually popular in their place of origin. This gave him more confidence in the other works given to him by that mysterious giant roulette.

He knows there's no free lunch, so he figured that the giant roulette also gave him a mission to spread the works it gave to him to his own world. There's an evidence of this with the appearance of the "View Points" currently in the corner of his field of vision. So tiny yet always seducing him to look.

Regarding the View Points, he decided he will not focus his eyes on it until the end of the month just for the suspense. Despite that decision, he can already see the signs of his books getting more popular when he read some online articles about it, with majority of the articles praising the books.

After his lunch, he headed straight to his apartment to practice and arrange the order of the songs he will perform later in the evening.

"Ah! Tayaw! You dumb motherf*cker." Tayaw cursed himself as he realized something was wrong when choosing which songs to perform.

He has not arranged many new songs since the beginning of October due to him finishing his school projects and home works so with his previous gigs, he ran out of not only the song re-arrangements he did in his current life, but the songs he re-arranged in his previous life are also starting to be used by him much more frequently.

"Why do you have to f*cking perform re-arrangements every f*cking time?! This is your fault by not staying to watch the other musicians." He blamed himself for not staying longer in the greenroom after his gigs. As a result, he was not reminded of the practices of bar musicians and cover bands.

He remembered that he and the Percussive Corrections also performed unarranged covers when they still were not re-arranging songs. While remembering him and the Percussive Corrections' time when they were just starting out in ROH Bar, he suddenly realized something.

"OF COURSE! No wonder the boss is treating me so well!" Rudy's treatment of Tayaw is a far cry from the lukewarm treatment he and the Percussive Corrections received from Rudy when they were still rookies.

Rudy also currently gives him an average of 350 BGC a gig, which is basically overpaying a rookie opening act like Tayaw. He might even be out-earning Amelie. He knows that Rudy treats his mired musicians well, so he figured he is special to Rudy.

He also knows that Rudy will not mind even if he noticed what he's going to do. After all, a regular musician at a bar, performing a couple nights in a week, cannot possible perform different songs each rearranged by the musician in each of their gigs.

It's just not doable, so performing unarranged cover songs is a very common practice not only in smaller, emptier bars, but also in huge popular bars like ROH Factory. In fact, he might be the only musician in Rudy's list that has performed that many song re-arrangements despite his short experience.

"Rudy must be thinking I'm an arranging prodigy, which I'm absolutely not. How could I not notice it before? I already performed almost two hundred re-arranged songs in the bar. I must be out of my f*ckin mind." He cursed himself further as he started practicing the songs he started looking up songs in the internet.

He then decided to just play straight out unarranged cover songs. What he wants to rely on this time is his guitar skills and experience in his vocals.

He plans to memorize the chords of the songs he will perform, and play them in his own way on the spot. For example "Becoming Alone", is a ballad song accompanied by just a piano. What he can do with the song without re-arranging it is just to sing it in his preferred key, play the chords by plucking them as close to the piano accompaniment of the original as he can, and voila! A good cover song!

He can also choose among the many and love anthems and rock anthems and slow them down. For example, the song "Beautiful Farewell" is a song by a rock band that has simple chords but very catchy melody and easy rhythm to sing along to by a crowd.

He has plenty of plucking and strumming patterns in his repertoire so he will just use those accordingly when performing a slowed down, more melancholic version of the song. He can even improvise on them, he is confident his skills are enough to do so.

In exchange with him not relying on his own arrangements though, he has many new songs to practice and familiarize with. He bets Rudy will also not mind him bringing a print out of the songs and put it in a music sheet stand in front of him to serve as a guide. He noticed Amelie doing the same thing and Rudy still treats her amiably. Amelie is a cute girl, but Tayaw knows of Rudy's preferences in women, so that's not the reason.

Despite his decision of using a guide, Tayaw is still too proud and he feels hesitant using it. With no choice however, he will just work with it without forgetting his standards. For Tayaw, making mistakes even while reading from a guide is just a new low. To avoid disappointing Rudy though, he chose to play a re-arranged song as a highlight of his set.

"Tayaw you stupid c*nt. Whatever. Just treat this as training for your improvisation skills." Tayaw comforted himself as he waited for the printer to spit out the pages containing the fifteen songs he decided to perform later in the evening. So, starting tonight, Tayaw decided to perform less of re-arranged songs.