# S410: GRATUITOUSVIOLINS By [Andrew Shanahan](https://paragraph.com/@shanahan) · 2023-04-17 --- “Just staaaaaahp! It’s atrocious! Staaaaaahp!” The conductor’s excess and excessive As hung in the air like a full can of Lynx Africa body spray, making the orchestra’s collective noses twitch with distaste. “This is a noise you are making. A noise!” The second violins wondered why he pronounced noise like no-ice. “Again, let’s take it from the fourth bar, this time be musicians, not noise-makers.” The orchestra found their place and at a signal from the conductor the magic happened. Silence and no music was instantly replaced with the poise and climb of Elgar. It was like watching a sports car go from standing to 130mph. It was good. Even the trombones knew that it was good and they were usually the more pessimistic of the musicians – everyone knew that. There was something about your musical output mostly being used to denote a comical downfall that got to a person after a while. The cellists vibrated with joy at getting to be musically centre-stage, although technically they were stage right, penned in only by a phalanx of double bass. “Tut tut, staaaaahhp! Tut tut!” The texture and art of Elgar vanished at a click of a baton on a music stand. “Tut tut to you all! Only flutes escape the tutting. Flutes were perfect. This time just flutes.” A rap on the stand and the flutes were piping out their melody once more. “Actually no, flutes too, tut tut! Awful. We have so much work to do. I’m not even sure we want to do it. Do we? Can we? Should we? Will we? I cannot say. If we all follow the timpani then we will simply collapse under the weight of our own mediocrity.” It was this rehearsal and the three others that followed that made the orchestra collectively decide that the conductor must die.                                                           \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily live-writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece I write teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it opens up an entire universe. Each S410 is a 1/1 original. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even the opportunity to be killed in my longer fiction works. --- *Originally published on [Andrew Shanahan](https://paragraph.com/@shanahan/s410-gratuitousviolins)*