Every Single Moment
Songs of Civilization
His manager brought Raymin a glass of water, standing on a white cloth on a tray. For herself, a cup of tea.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Sing it again.
Don’t worry about the lyrics. Don’t worry about the technique or the pitch or any of that.
Just focus on stage presence.
Mireille-Astrid Langès walked over to the piano to give him the starting pitch. Raymin lifted his fingers to dismiss her.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Right, I forgot. You don’t need a starting note.
Raymin closed his eyes to take the stage in the sound-proof studio.
RAYMIN
Mic. I need mic.
Mireille-Astrid curled her lips into an amused smile. She passed him a mic. It was off. Dead as a rag. Still, Raymin brought it to life as he brought it to his lips.
This man breathed music. There was no need for a backing track.
His voice was deep. As if vocal control required less effort than basic English. Child’s play.
Mireille-Astrid was transposed between the front of the audience and the side of the stage where the musicians would play at his concert. Soon. Hopefully very soon.
Raymin’s words floated up to a mid-voice whisper. Still the sweet vibrato graced all the right notes. Their eyes met. Raymin took forward and his gaze jumped over her to the horizon.
Was this what it felt like to stand in the pit, right up close to the stage, at the foot of the singer?
Now for the high and clear notes executed as rock screams. Not backed and resonant in the mouth like soprano voice, but fronted, with mask, and with emotion so easy to grasp you could touch the tension in the air. Mireille-Astrid stepped back. Raymin was projecting the sound in her direction.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Stop!
Raymin froze. His manager picked up his phone and took a picture of him. She stood next to him and handed him the phone so he had access to translation.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Every moment you have to look good.
People will be filming. When they take a picture of you, they want you to be perfect.
Raymin tilted his head. She was speaking too fast. Raymin looked at her, pondering his manager’s words. Mireille-Astrid stood behind the piano. How could she get her ideas across to him? She didn’t intend to act like she was a man on stage. Her commentary would have to suffice.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Your body language is all over the place.
Simplify. Count the number of poses.
Say you have two good poses. How do you transition from one to the other?
She handed him the phone for Raymin to check the Kipchak translation. He raised his shoulders, setting his neck at an angle to open his chest, and held his hand close in his field of vision; the gesture he had used for the softest breathy words. He held the pose in silence, mic waiting, ready for his voice.
Then Raymin switched hands with the mic. He took a wide stance and bent over the edge of the stage to the front row for the scream with wide mask and breath support from the lower core.
Mireille-Astrid took a photo of both poses for future reference on Raymin’s phone.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Yes. Let’s use those two. We should name these.
It's exactly like when you sing a run.
She played on the piano the musical run which Raymin had invented especially for the French song as an embellishment. Raymin smiled. The notes ran and jumped at the point of highest emotional intensity.
Raymin spoke softly in Kipchak as he walked around the room.
RAYMIN
You want me to sing that again?
Sure, Mademoiselle. As many times as you like.
Raymin put the mic down on the electric piano. Mireille-Astrid caught it on the keys before it fell.
Raymin continued to speak to her in Kipchak. Langès seemed to like the flowing sound of his native words.
RAYMIN
You’ve been working at the piano. You’ve memorized everything you heard me sing.
Her shoulders tensed when his voice became too intimate.
He took the stage there and then. Mireille-Astrid Langès could picture him standing in an open landscape of natural beauty in a music video.
Raymin executed the run, pitch-perfect.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
How do you separate the notes… for a clear sound?
Raymin grabbed his phone again to read the live translation.
Mireille-Astrid continued to explain with hand gestures.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
You raise the back of the tongue and engage your vocal chords to ring out the first note.
Then the tension drops down, to open the airway. No sound.
Then the tension goes back up to break into the next note. Cleanly.
That's how you separate notes in your technically demanding runs.
Raymin nodded. She was spot on.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Now do the same with your body.
You are in a public setting. You're on stage.
How do you transition between two poses?
You always go back to a neutral pose. Low tension, relaxed. This is essential.
Raymin stood with the model resting face the stylist had taught him to hold with his tongue and his jaw. This neutral position, he would have to use between gestures.
Raymin held his hand up in the soft whisper, transitioned into the neutral demeanor, then locked into the fiery scream.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Don't rush.
They made considerable progress. Raymin didn’t even need to try to capture her attention. Her mind was on his every movement, even the most minute, deliberate or fleeting. But even as the hours flew past, there remained one thing that needed addressing.
If the singer had been French, or even American, she would have explained what was required of him.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Okay, I'm sorry… How do I say this?
Raymin stood holding his coat like a conqueror.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Do you have a girlfriend?
Raymin frowned. By now he knew the word friend. And the word girl.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Girl-friend
RAYMIN
I am. not. marry.
Mireille-Astrid insisted.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Not married. A girlfriend— A woman you engage with.
RAYMIN
I am not engaged.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Not a fiancée—forget it.
He probably thought marriage was the only relationship. She didn't want to know any more.
Today would not be the day she explained to him the concept of sex appeal.
Youthful and untouched would have to do, for the stage.
Mireille-Astrid Langès walked back into the meeting room. She didn’t want to look at him anymore. Even after staring at his eyes and his face and his cheeks and his jaw and his hair and his shoulders and his hands and his legs for hours, she felt like she didn’t know him at all.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Do you want to call your family back home?
Raymin checked the translation on his phone. Every time Raymin wanted to call them in the evening, it was the middle of the night in Kipchakstan. Would his manager let him make a call? It sounded too good to be true.
RAYMIN
Now?
They were in the middle of work.
Mireille-Astrid smiled at her star.
Raymin rearranged a strand of hair.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
Do you want to sit at my desk?
She gestured. Was his manager challenging him to sit in her place? Surely this was not a real invitation. And regardless, Raymin could not do that. He would simply show his family the view of Paris.
His manager handed him a card she lifted off her desk.
MIREILLE-ASTRID
This is your new gym membership.
You can thank me later.
Raymin examined the card, then took out his phone to call his grandparents.