Chapter 4               Annette, Minnie, Sammy and the Rest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

When Annette came out of the forest at last, she came to a village made up of beautiful little houses of all different colours. There were blue houses, green houses, red houses, yellow houses, orange houses, purple houses, indigo houses, violet houses, pink houses, white houses, a few brown houses, and absolutely no black houses.

           

Annette stood looking at the pattern made by all the different colours, trying to choose a house where she could ask for directions. She decided on a lovely pink one, because she had pink ribbons in her hair. So she walked up the white path across the lawn to the door of the pink house.

           

She expected to ring the doorbell by pressing a button, but beside this door there were seven buttons, each one labelled with a letter. The one on the far left was A. Then there were b, C, D, E, F and G in that order. She pressed the A button, because it was the first letter of her name, and it made such a sweet sound that she could not resist pressing the B and C buttons as well, to complete her initials. Each button made a different sound, getting higher in pitch as they went to the right.

           

"It sounds like the first few notes of a scale," said Annette to herself. It must be A minor." And she pressed all the buttons in turn. It really was a minor scale - at least until she reached the G button, which didn't sound quite right.

           

"Of course!" she exclaimed, after a little thought. "G is the leading note of a minor, and it has to be raised a semitone. But I can't do that, because there are no more buttons." Even if she had been able to play G sharp, the scale would still not sound good, because there was no high A to end on, and music never sounds right if it ends on the note before the tonic. Before Annette had time to be annoyed about these things the door opened, and a real note walked out. She was just like the crotchets, except that her head was not filled in, and she had a pleasant smile on her face.

           

"Come in, my dear," she said. "I've been expecting you. Don't worry about those silly bells. I'm going to have some sharps and flats put in next time I have my house painted."

           

"Do you have it painted very often?" asked the visitor, following her host into the house.

           

"Oh, yes! Every couple of days. We love colour so much here that we are allowed to have our houses painted a different colour every time we let ourselves be played."

           

"How do you do that?" asked Annette.

           

"Oh, it's easy. All we have to do is join the staff when a piece is being played."

           

"Are there many people on the staff?" asked the little girl. She knew what that word meant, as her father sometimes talked about problems he was having with the staff who worked for him.

           

"Well, it depends on how many notes are needed. If a piece like 'Dolly Dear' is being played, only about twelve notes are needed, including four minims, like me, but if one of Beethoven's Sonatas, for example, is being played, then lots of notes are needed because they are very long pieces, even longer than the Sonatina that you play. My last job was to sit on the treble staff of Burgmuller's 'Tender Flower', which I enjoyed very much, because I am very fond of flowers. Did you see my garden when you came in?"

           

Annette quickly glanced through the window at the flower garden so she would be able to say yes. Actually she had been too busy admiring the house to think of the garden.

           

"Tell me what you have seen so far," said the minim, handing her a glass of lemonade. "By the way, my name is Minnie."

           

"And mine's Annette."

           

"Yes, I know. Now, what adventures have you had on your way here?"

           

"Well, I met some quavers. But they ran around so fast, it was very hard to talk to them. And then I met some crotchets, who I didn't like at all. And they said some very nasty things about you!"

           

"I'm not at all surprised," said Minnie, her smile dropping a little for an instant. "Those crotchets are very bad boys. They don't deserve any fruit!"

           

"Every good boy deserves fruit," said Annette, half to herself, trying to think where she had heard that sentence before.

 

"They certainly do," answered Minnie. "And so do good girls, especially girls who play their notes right. We hate to be played wrongly, you know, even though we get paid extra for accidents."

 

"Then I'll always be careful in future to play my minims properly, because you're so nice. But I won’t worry so much about crotchets and quavers. I think it would serve them right if I played them wrong."

 

"But if you make other notes shorter or longer than they are supposed to be, then I won't know when you are coming to me, and I might not be ready for you. If you play everything right that comes before me, you are much more likely to play me right as well."

 

Annette had finished her lemonade while Minnie was making this speech, so the minim suggested that they go for a little walk. "I will show you the village and introduce you to some other notes."

 

Annette secretly hoped the other notes would be as kind as her new friend, and not cross like the crotchets. "First I'll take you to see the semi-breves," said Minnie, leading her visitor out the front door.

 

The semi-breves lived in big important-looking houses on the other side of the village. As Minnie and Annette passed through a gate into the yard of one of these creatures, the minim said, "I know this semi-breve personally. You may not like him much at first, but, like all semi-breves, he is really quite friendly when you get to know him. His main trouble is that he is very proud. He is an important note, who gets paid much more than we do, and I'm afraid it has gone to his head, which, as you will see, is the main part of him.

 

Annette soon found that this was true. All the semi-breve was made up of was a head and some small arms and legs, which he had to tuck out of sight when he did his work on the staff.

 

"No salesmen, please!" he said, in a slow voice, as he opened his front door. "Oh! It's Minnie! Come in. You may leave your pet outside."

 

"This isn't a pet. This is my friend, Annette. Annette, I'd like you to meet Sammy Semi-breve."

 

"Pleased to meet you, Natette," he drawled, but he didn't look very pleased. "All right, you may bring it in, Minnie. But you must promise me that it won't bite."

 

"Of course she won't! She is a human child, one of the people who play us on the piano."

 

"Hmmm! Is she now? I have a lot of time for such people - four beats to be exact. Well, come on in."

 

As the trio walked down the passage to the big lounge-room, Sammy started talking about his favourite subject - himself. "My last job," he said to Minnie, "was to sit on the very last movement of a symphony. I was in the last bar, tied to a few other semi-breves in the bars before mine. That, of course, is because they are unable to obtain any notes bigger than me, so they have to have some of us tied together to make the sound long enough."

 

"Excuse me," said Annette, at which a shocked look came to the semi-breve's face, as if he didn't know the girl could talk, or at least hadn't expected her to do so in his presence. "Excuse me, but there must be notes longer than you, because 'semi' means 'half', and you are only a semi-breve."

 

"Impudence!" thundered the semi-breve, glaring at her. "How dares this creature contradict me? It should be sentenced to a line of rock music for ten years."

 

"But she is right, you know," answered Minnie, sticking up for her new friend, who was almost in tears about what she had said. "You know there are notes twice as long as you are."

 

"Nonsense! Nobody uses breves these days. There's one over on the next hill, living in a big church, and he hasn't been used for years. The pompous old fool calls himself Bartholomew. I happen to know his real name is Bruce - plain old Bruce Breve. And I'll be happy when he breves for the last time, the long-winded old fool!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Well, we must go now," said Minnie, hoping to get away before Sammy's temper got any worse.

 

"Yes, you must," answered the semi-breve, leading them to the door. "Drop in any time, but please leave your pet at home if you can. I really don't like them in the house, you know,"

 

When they were back on the road, Annette said, "I would rather not meet any semi-breves, please, if you don't mind. He was not very nice at all."

 

"That's because you contradicted him If a semi-breve says something wrong you just have to keep quiet about it. They are so proud that they believe a thing is true just because they say it is.  So they are not really telling lies when they say something that is not true, because they think they are making it true by saying it."

 

Annette found this a little difficult to understand. "I don't see why they think they're so important," she said. "I know their time is twice as long as yours is, but you can make yourself nearly as long, by using lots of dots after you, like the crotchet did to become as long as you. Annette had already told Minnie about the crotchets' attempt to reach the value of a minim.

 

"Of course," said Minnie. "That is one reason the crotchets can't make themselves as long as me. You see, it doesn't matter how many dots they use; I can always use the same number to keep myself twice as long as them. And even if I stay as I am, with no dots at all, it would still take an infinite number of dots to make a value of two quarter beats."

 

"Excuse me, Miss Minnie Minim," said a voice behind them, "but there is a way the crotchets could make themselves longer than two beats - though they are too stupid to think of it themselves."

 

Annette and Minnie swung round, and saw the peculiar crooked-shaped figure who had spoken. They were now outside the village, and there were fields on both sides of the road, where similar creatures were running about in what seemed to be slow motion. "This is Rodney Rest," said Minnie. "Rodney, I'd like you to meet my friend Annette. I see you are all having your afternoon run."

 

"Yes. We all have half an hour to play and then we go back to sleep for the rest of the day."

 

Minnie told Annette that Rodney was a crotchet rest, and pointed out some quaver and semi-quaver rests, jogging sleepily but happily about in the field. "It is strange," said Minnie," that you rests always look so happy. You are treated so badly by some people who play you, that you have much more cause to complain than the crotchets whose place you sometimes have to take."

 

Annette felt a bit guilty when Minnie said this, as she knew she had often left out rests in her music, not letting go of the notes before them, but holding them all through the time the rests were supposed to be given.

 

"It is very strange that people play us wrong at all," replied the rest. "After all, we are easier to play than notes. You play us by not playing anything at all."

 

Annette decided it was time to change the subject. "You said before that you knew how the crotchets could make themselves as long as a minim. Well, could you tell us how please?'

 

"Certainly," answered Rodney. "I will tell you the solution at the beginning of the next chapter."

 

"Oh, I can hardly wait!" said Annette.