I#1A: The Audition - Ainsleigh & Chloe

At the appointed time Ainsleigh and Chloe arraive at the auditorium. A work-study student man's the front desk and points the pair to the second floor of the East wing where the performance studios are. The west wing yhay holds the large amphitheater for plays and concerts is loved by a sign hanging from a velvet rope

Once upstairs the freshmen notice the building is incredibly quiet. Likely a result of all the padding and soundproofing. Rounding a corner you see a group that has to be the people Ainsleigh is looking for.


The guy in the middle smiles and extends a hand to someone, but he isn't sure which to greet. "Count?"

'In the flesh,' Ainsleigh shakes his hand, then performs a Restoration-style court bow, leaning over the hand as if to kiss it, but stopping short before rising back to a more casual standing position. The whole gesture was certainly pompous and eccentric, and would look silly if not for how smooth and self-aware it was, and so instead it came off as quaint. 'Though the real name is Ainsleigh. I could never get the repertoire to match the online handle anyway, so may as well relegate it to the narrow context where it was created. Besides, even there it's rare for people to call me that.'

Ainsleigh didn't rush to post any links to prior creative work druing the first week at the new university, but a trivial search for 'Count63' would indeed show a few videos with the comment section mostly consisting of (now former) classmates, who seemed to predominately refer to the uploader as 'Angstlord'.

'Ah, and this is Chloe, an ingenue I allowed to invite along, for the sake of offering a first-hand experience of the corrupting influence of eldritch and unholy music,' Ainsleigh adds in a melodramatic tone, imperfectly suppressing a smile.

"Excellent. Welcome Chloe, nice to meet you. I'm Cliff. Ainsleigh, let me show you the setup for today." He leads you and the rest of the band down a hallway. Along the way are sets of three doors. Some doors are marked Studio and have numbers, others are marked Recording and have letters. He stops at Recording 4 and enters. Inside are two elaborate console setups for recording audio, one to the left and one to the right. Above each console is a window that allows you to view what would be Studios G & H respectively. There is also a large leather sofa and four office chairs. In one of those chairs is a young woman with a partially shaved head of bright red hair, wearing a purple blouse and jeans. She turns and smiles broadly at everyone, pulling her hand in close to her shoulder to excitedly wave at everyone as they file in.

"D, this is Ainsleigh and Chloé. Ainsleigh is one of the potential vocalists, Chloé is their friend. Ainsleigh and Chloé, this is D. She's going to be manning the booth for us today. She's a whiz with the sound board. She's going to make you sound great."

"Aww, thanks Cliff. I'm not going to do anything really. Just help everybody get their best performance."

Through the open door you all hear a small voice call out.

"Hello!? I'm looking for Cliff! I'm here for the audition?"

Cliff responds, "Yes! End of the hall. Open door." and a moment later another student appears. She is incredibly tiny, blond and looks to be dressed for an anime convention. Cliff introduces her to everyone as Beatrice.

"Beatrice is the other vocalist. Beatrice this is Ainsleigh, who i told you about."

"Oh, I see. Well, Good luck I suppose. Not that it will help. This isn't a competition I'm likely to lose." Her expression turns sour, but her time remains sickly sweet. She seems to think her confidence might be enough to knock Ainsleigh off their game.

For a Star of the Stage, haters' comments are par for the course, and have long stopped having much of an impact on confidence in one's own musical competence. Ainsleigh waits for Beatrice's interruption to end, paying little attention to it, and instead addresses the band, with a slight nod to D:

'Delighted to meet you. And pleasantly surprised you've brought in a soundboard specialist even at such an early stage as this. I've seen too many who underestimate the importance of the off-stage members for the band's final product.'

D grins broadly at being acknowledged by Ainsleigh. "Just to be clear, I'm not officially part of the band. I'm helping out as a favor. But i appreciate you saying so Ainsleigh." Her attitude is quite bubbly. She lets her eyes dart over to Beatrice then meets Ainsleigh's gaze again. The message is clear that she too isn't impressed with the other young woman.

Cliff steps in. "Well, looks like we've got a couple live ones here. Why don't we get you two in the booths and let you get warmed up and a chance to listen to the song. Remember you don't have to be perfect, just be entertaining. Once you're both ready we'll listen to what you've got."

He points toward the door again. Beatrice stomps her way out seeing her efforts had no effect on Ainsleigh. He takes her to her door first and opens it. She looks over her shoulders and bats her eyelashes at him. He brushes it off and closes the door behind her. He then leads Ainsleigh the few feet away to their booth. And lets them in, closing the door behind.

There is a narrow bend around the Recording room before Ainsleigh is in the space proper. The room is softly lit with gray and black foam to mute sounds. A leather love seat is against one wall, a microphone hangs down in the center of the room with the boom arm and chord going over tone side, a stool sits underneath next to a music stand with a small remote control device and a pair of headphones. A large window shows the Recording room with D, Chloe, and the band. Behind them Ainsleigh can see Beatrice in a similar room.

D waves at both of you and motions to put the headphones on. Once you've done that a click indicates the connection is made.

"Can you hear me? Great. So, the device in front of you will control everything for your end. The one button says "Mic" right there. Green means your being heard in here. Red means you can hear us talking too like right now. Gray means we can't hear each other at all. Then you see the playback controls. We have the song preloaded in here. Stop syaty rewind whatever you need. Your hooked up to two different computers so you wont interfere with each other. So no worries there. Any questions?"

Through the window Beatrice is staring daggers at Ainsleigh. "Nope. All good, I've been in studio before. I'm ready to rock!" Ainsleigh hears her voice through the headphones, through a speaker in the next room.

'I do have one. Since this event was organised with relatively little prior discussion, I didn't spot a good moment to ask, what kinds of takes on the song would you be interested to hear? I understand that that, of course, nobody expects an identical replica of the previous performance, and experimentation is expected, but what directions of such experiments are you interested in?'

Ainsleigh leans back and focuses on the band. The glass offered a perfect opportunity to watch the group dynamics and get a feel for the members' personalities. Who's really in charge. Who displays strong reactions to the varous facets and approaches of the candidates. Who seems preoccupied with concerns more important than the current event, and thus might not have much of an impact on the decision.

It was not a given that all of those unspoken questions would get answers, but it was what to be on the lookout for. The nature of the glass windows meant that Beatrice was also within peripheral vision, but compared to the above considerations, at the moment, her and her icy stare were very low on the list of priorities.

The band memeber look toward Cliff as he sort of leans toward D's station, confirming for Ainsleigh the answer to where "leadership" of the group currently resides.

"Great question. So, when I wrote this particular piece of music I was dealing with a breakup, cliché I know, but the concepts of loss and separation were heavy on my mind. Not just the breakup though. Like, the whole spectrum of what we can experience as humans. My breakup sort of felt like a middle, yeah the relationship was over, but they weren't really gone the way people are when they die, but also there was a bit of toxicity in that relationship, so i felt free. The chain i hadn't realized was weighing me down was gone as well. So maybe channel those kind of emotions into it if you can."

The other band members nod in agreement. One of the other guys pats Cliff on the shoulder in solidarity.

With everyone distracted by Cliff's explanation Beatrice rolls her eyes and makes a "shot me" motion then hangs her head to the side with her tongue lulling out of her mouth. Quickly she corrects her posture and says into the mic, "Awesome answer, Cliff. I could really hear feel the amount of yourself you put in your music when i listend to your SoundCloud. It really moved me." She gently places her hand on her chest. An actual tear wells up in the corner of her eye.

With that input, Ainsleigh can now make a plan, which is great. Unfortunately, between the original sound and the most fitting ways of conveying the listed combination of emotions, about half of it was neither in line with the styles Ainsleigh was experienced with, nor a good reflection of the style the band was allegedly representing. Still, this was what the specifications called for, so that was what had to be done.

The first verse and first chorus would be sung in a clean but firm voice gradually turning into a gentle growl, conveying the growing tension of a flawed and failing relationship, like a gathering storm. The second verse would be sung cleanly in a higher-pitch, melancholy, almost wailing manner - Ainsleigh's unfortunately best approximation of portraying heartbreak. It would culminate in breaking into a chorus performed as growling scream, conveying the rage at everything that went wrong so far. Finally, the third verse and chorus would be sung once again in a clean, albeit low-pitched voice, full of bittersweet pride, as if standing up and shaking off the dust and finally taking - for the first time in years - a long way home.

At least Ainsleigh hopes that in the short term such a cocktail would be in line with the band's tastes. In the long term, there would be a potential issue with the difference in prioritieis, what with the fact that the prospective singer very much did care about fame and glory, unlike the other musicians. Only time could tell whether such a difference would become a problem.

'D, I think it would be best if I try to convey that spectrum of emotions through a spectrum of different styles throughout the songs. And because of this I would like give you a suggestion about how to engineer the sound during the different stages of the song. For the first verse and chorus, there's a lot of leeway in appropriate adjustments, so long as it helps convey a sense of escalation, of emotions approaching a boililng point.

For the second verse - please hear me out. I know what I'm about to say will sound a bit too commercial, and normally I wouldn't go in that direction, but I think it makes sense in context: imagine you're trying to help Anne Nurmi fill Amy Lee's shoes in the late 1990s. Just for the verse. For the chorus we switch back to a heavier style - about as heavy as it gets here - and again with a lot of leeway regarding the exact nuances of the sound.

Finally, for the last verse and chorus is a stage of de-escalation and relief, hurt but hopeful. Think something like Lacuna's Leaving Alone. I think if we work together on this, we can pull off the spectrum Cliff described. What do you think?'

D confirms going through with Ainsleigh's plan. She makes some adjustments to the board on Ainsleigh's side of the studio and gives a thumbs up. "We're all set Ainsleigh. Whenever you're ready."

"Actually, could i go first? I think my performance will need less nuiance. Beatrice interrupts.

"Yeah, lets go for it." Cliff says in response to Beatrice.

The blonde girl really rocks out to the music. Despite her bravado, Ainsleigh has to admit she has some talent. But is it enough?