Under the Eye

Chapter One: The Introduction

We were on the third floor of his condo. I sat on his couch comfortably, listening to the sound of paper as he shuffled the score sheets professionally in his capable hands. I pondered the fact that I was even sitting there. I was just a single mom, barely making the pennies stretch from one day to the next, certainly not able to stand with my head up in the circles that this man walked in. So how was it that I was sitting with this famous orchestral arranger? His credits included Land of the Lost, Star Trek, Medal of Honor, Ratatouille, Mission Impossible, Aeon Flux, Into the Blue, The King and I, The Siege, All Dogs Go to Heaven. In the years to come he would have his part in the score for the Pixar movie Up, which would win a Grammy. The list went on. And there he sat, Mr. Larry Kenton (or Lars, as I had come to know him), orchestral arranger; score sheets neatly in front of him, pencil in hand, scribing delicious notes all over the page. And where was his ear attuned? To my voice, my scrawny little voice as I indicated each note of the symphony that was burning in my heart, eager for the release that his hand would assure me. The music wove in and out of itself, high instruments registering their melody while the lower instruments took up their own, countered, and wove through the first. The choir was singing their parts—sopranos, altos, tenors, basses—only to my ear, but now they would finally find expression as Lars’s expertise pulled the notes from my head to the written page.

Thirty-six sheets of score paper outlined the melody. We had just begun. He sat at the piano with Christianna, their hands poised, and with a nod of his head they began playing the piece, melody chasing melody, high strings first, low strings next, weaving in and out of each other until they lined up over each other, each note in perfect accord with the next, flying into the melody where the choir took up its parts, slamming into each other and quietly coming to their end. When the song ended, both Lars and Christianna turned around on the piano bench, smiling, looking at me. Lars’s remark summed it up: “Wow!”

I couldn’t speak. The piece had been driving me insane. I could hear it so clearly, but I had no way of playing it, or scribing the notes. I had been given a gift, but I would have to wait upon the skills of others, their understanding of the gift, and the money that would fly this music into reality—more than six hundred songs.