Page 12 of Wylder and the Secret Rockstar
Wylder didn’t bother looking at it. She wouldn’t be here long enough to worry about the assignments. As she glanced around the classroom, it wasn’t anything like she’d thought. No instruments. No equipment. Just a few rows of two-seater desks and a row of computers at the back of the room. Just like every other small classroom on campus. So, how was this a music class?
“We will be working on a variety of small assignments throughout the semester. These are geared toward learning about the contemporary music industry. The business of music, label contracts, working with agents, recording albums. Essentially everything you need to know about the music industry from the ground up.”
Wylder leaned forward. It didn’t seem to be a making-music kind of music class so much as a … business class. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
But then again, hearing an I-told-you-so from her brother wasn’t something she was prepared to accept.
“You will work with your partners for each assignment, and I don’t want to hear any complaining about yourassignedpartner. In this business, you don’t always get to choose who you work with, and that is a lesson you all need to learn now.” Mrs. Shepherd paced the room in front of them.
“I realize some of you have inside experience in the industry.” She glanced at Wylder and a few others who probably had famous parents or siblings. “But I have more experience than all of you combined. In my former career, I managed some of the most famous singers and bands from the last several decades, and I’ve seen it all. And no, nothing has changed since I became a teacher, because I still work in the industry as a studio manager, and I very much have my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in various genres of music across the globe. That is why I am here teaching this class at such a fine institution.”
Several hands shot into the air, and Mrs. Shepherd smiled. “I won’t answer questions about who I managed.”
Most of the hands went down.
“Yes, Ms. Meadows?”
“Will there be any actual music assignments in this class?”
“Yes. You will have projects each semester that will be worth sixty percent of your grade. But first, your partners.” Mrs. Shepherd sat down at her desk and started calling names. Students shuffled around to sit with their partners, but Wylder ignored the activity.
She didn’t want to take this class. She wanted out of this room as fast as humanly possible. Wylder and music were not a good match, and she didn’t want to go down that road again.
“Wylder Anderson,” Mrs. Shepherd called. “You’ll be with Logan Cook.”
“No.” Wylder and Logan blurted at the same moment. “No way.”
“Yes way.” Mrs. Shepherd didn’t even look up from her notes. “And I expect good work from you two. You’re a good match.”
“At least it’s just temporary,” Wylder muttered, gathering her things to move to Logan’s desk at the back of the room. “Could this day get any worse?”
“Well, this should be fun.” Logan scowled at her.
4
“What do you have to be so grumpy about? At least you actually picked this class.” Wylder took her seat beside the scowling Logan Cook, the very last person she wanted to partner with in the very last class she would ever have selected for herself. When she got her hands on Beckett, he was a dead man.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Logan rolled his eyes. “Famous Luke Cook’s twin brother just can’t wait to share the limelight with him and the ridiculous Beckett Anderson’s little sister.”
“My brother is not ridiculous.” Wylder would throat punch anyone who said Beckett wasn’t the best at everything he did. She could call him a ridiculous goof, but that came with sibling privilege.
“Whatever, let’s just get through this.” Logan sank down low in his seat, avoiding the stares from the other students. Most of them were female and whispering about Luke Cook and his not-so-famous identical twin brother, Logan.
“Oh, comeon, put your eyes back in your heads, girls. Turn around, nothing to see here.” Wylder sat back with her arms folded across her chest, refusing to take notes as Mrs. Shepherd droned on about the final project.
“Each pair will work together to come up with a creative,contemporaryperformance. It can include original choreography, a musical score for a scene from a movie or play. It can be an original song with or without a lyric. But it must tell a story, and it must center on the current popular musical genres. It has to be creative. It has to be fresh and modern, something that has the potential to shake up the industry and turn it on its head.” Mrs. Shepherd paced the front of her classroom. Ten of her twelve students leaned forward, hanging on her every word.
I am so out of this class as soon as possible.Wylder picked at the edge of her syllabus. She’d promised Becks she’d give the class one week, but a week here might just kill her.
Logan fidgeted beside her, looking anywhere but at Mrs. Shepherd or the other students.
“This will be an easy class for you. Just mimic whatever Luke does, and you’re golden.”
Logan snorted irritably, brushing his ash-brown hair out of his eyes exactly the way Luke Cook did on stage. Once upon a time, that move would have turned Wylder into one of the giggling girls sitting around them. But she’d had the pleasure of meeting Luke Cook, and he was as much of a jerk as it seemed Logan was. Fame and wealth—even by association—had made Luke and Logan total d-bags.
“Our first big project will be due in six weeks,” Mrs. Shepherd continued. “That is not a lot of time, but if you do find yourselves working in the music industry one day, you’ll have to learn to work quickly because music never stops. It doesn’t sleep, and it doesn’t wait for anyone. It can leave you behind in the blink of an eye. I’ve seen it happen to many talented artists.
“Your concepts and project proposals are due by the end of the week. That gives you four weeks to plan and hone your presentation and one final week to practice and perfect your performance.”
