Chapter 65: Piano Fingering

"Is your fingering from a Liszt piano piece?" asked a sailor who had leaned in.

"Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, a noisy classic, isn't it?" Henry replied directly. He added, "I've been reading books about the piano lately. Unfortunately, my home lacks one, so I can only move my fingers, pretending there is a piano here."

"Ah ha, your fingering and movement are quite standard, which is why I recognized it."

"Have you been studying for a long time?" It wasn't customary in America to hand out cigarettes to everyone. But when conversing, offering a cigarette to a smoking companion remained an excellent opening. So Henry took out the cigarette pack from his chest pocket, shook one out.

The sailor didn't refuse; he took a cigarette, placed it in his mouth, and immediately lit it. After taking a satisfying puff, he said, "I actually have an old piano at home that I particularly like; I've studied for a very long time. I joined the army just to save up for music school tuition."

Henry splashed cold water, saying, "If you joined the army because you need money, can you really pursue the path of a pianist in the future?"

Can a child from a poor family who studies piano become an international piano master?

Dreaming nonsense!

Increasing employment opportunities for piano teachers is the real truth.

The sailor, doused with cold water from head to toe, smiled bitterly and said, "You really are not the least bit tactful."

Henry pointed with his finger and said, "To stand out in music, there are two ways: either your family has money, or both your parents have walked this path. Relying purely on interest, wanting to make a name for yourself on your own, is not impossible, just too difficult. You must have this realization to take the money earned from the army and go study music."

"Wow, you speak just like my mother. Did you two rehearse these lines?"

"Do you know Brian May, the guitarist of Queen?" Henry asked.

The sailor nodded.

Henry said, "He majored in physics and mathematics at school and even taught. Music was just his interest; talent was the major factor that achieved what he is today. Without music, he still had a path to a proper job."

"If you just want to spend money to attend music school because you like it, without considering how to earn money in the future, then most people here are your future self." Henry pointed to the background actors chatting and killing time in the rest area.

Those main actors who ranked on the list, including the protagonist and supporting roles with lines, rested in a separate area, which was more comfortable.

The sailor, of course, could recognize that there were few familiar actors here. Curiously, he asked, "Don't you make money? Why is it different from what I heard?"

"Those who make money are the big stars. The people you see here only get paid when they act. When there are no roles, they must find ways to do odd jobs, otherwise paying rent becomes a problem. Tell me, do we make money?"

Henry spoke of the situation for most people, not including himself. With the salary from a crab boat as a base, Henry's life was quite comfortable.

The sailor was not discouraged, saying, "I have thought of this point, but the musical path isn't limited to being a pianist. The piano is the king of instruments; as long as one understands music theory, there are actually many things I can do. Isn't that right?"

"Indeed." Henry did not deny it.

In today's global music scene, American and British music reign supreme, followed by the respective musics of each nation.

The reason one dares to say this is that the markets in these two regions are the largest, and the returns for musicians are the most substantial. No musician in any country does not hope to squeeze into the American music hall of fame.

A large market also means a similarly large employment market. Otherwise, where would so many people come from to produce music and satisfy everyone's auditory needs?

Henry turned his head and asked, "Speaking of the piano, since I have been blindly reading books and teaching myself, do you, who started learning from childhood, have a recommended learning sequence, or which people's piano pieces must be practiced? Can you tell me?"

Whether in the Eastern or Western world, there is no one who dislikes playing the teacher. Since Henry asked sincerely, that sailor, of course, spoke of his piano learning experience as if recounting his own family treasures.

Although his family was not wealthy, he had found a piano teacher and taken a few lessons. With this foundation, plus his own hard practice, and since it was very easy to obtain classical piano scores in this era, these were the sailor's advantages in self-teaching the piano.

So when talking about these things, he spoke in complete sets. Henry could occasionally hear some piano pieces for which he had also memorized scores in the sailor's tutorials, and the two demonstrated and discussed fingering right there on the spot.

But actually, Henry's fingers tapping randomly on the battleship's railing were not to pretend he was playing the piano. He was using the principle of sonar to probe the entire structure of the battleship Missouri.

At first, he did not intend to do this. It was only while smoking in the rest area that he inadvertently tapped on the walls of the battleship's hull.

The returning sound waves, collected under his super hearing, were used by his super brain to construct a 3D model in his mind. This was precisely the hull structure near his current location.

With his playfulness aroused, Henry attempted to optimize his method and make the structural diagram in his mind more complete.

For what reason, Henry could not say for sure. He just wanted to create a set of battleship blueprints for himself, just not on paper.

Regardless, this thing is a military weapon; blueprints cannot be found in the library.

Even though the Iowa class was designed during World War II, in the construction of warships, all nations capable of building them seem to know how to hold something back.

For example, during World War II, the so-called largest battleship in the world, Japan's Yamato, whose true hull data remains a secret to this day.

Of course, there is a set of explanations for public release. But voices claiming that set of data is false have never ceased from the past to the present.

The Iowa class under Henry's feet now appears to share the same tradition of concealment.

According to technical data available in the library, the battleship Missouri has a standard displacement of 45,000 tons and a full-load displacement of 56,270 tons. Its overall length is 887 feet 3 inches, the waterline is 860 feet, and the full beam at the waterline is 108 feet 2 inches.

The thickest armor is on the gun turrets, 19.7 inches. The side armor is 12.1 inches, the deck is 7.5 inches, and the bulkheads are 11.3 inches.

However, according to Henry's judgment using echoes combined with his X-ray vision, all the above data are wrong!

This error is not due to the discrepancy between the original design and the Missouri after its modernization. The numbers given from the very beginning were simply problematic!

The only thing probably correct is the beam width. Because it needs to pass through the Panama Canal to travel between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the warships designed by the US Navy must consider the canal's standards.

Apart from that, as long as no one personally boards the ship to measure, the true data will only lie in the shipyard's pile of blueprints or in the military's database.

Knowing this is not because Henry wants to publicize such intelligence or use it for profit. It is simply to find something to do for himself and pass the time.

To put it plainly, he is full and bored.

(End of this chapter)