Horse, Sheep, Chicken and Cow p.3

Bruce and Horse trained for hours that day. Charlie was enamored with the beautiful guitar, a Gibson SG like Angus Young's from AC/DC. Bruce, meanwhile, was excited at how well Nakamura's apparatus was handling Horse's movements and transferring it to his guitar.

Horse knew, of course, that he would never play the guitar like a man could. He would never lay fingers on the frets, use a pick or, in fact, ever touch the guitar with his hooves directly. But Nakamura was a genius, and he designed his machine to translate a any of a horse's actions into the guitar flawlessly. Any riff, any chord or song could be recreated perfectly.

It was a beautiful machine and Horse fell in love with it. He was paid well at his job, which allowed him to immediately purchase one of the machines to be set up in his home, as well as book a series of weekly or biweekly appointments in Wentworth's studio with the brothers.

After months of training, Horse reached mastery with Nakamura's device. He could play songs from Money for Nothing to Master of Puppets with ease. He continued to practice throughout the winter, learning traditional Christmas songs for the novelty and always keeping himself sharp.

But as time went on, Horse began to feel a bit of staleness in his play. He had learned so many riffs, played so many songs, and yet the variety wasn't enough.

He went to work one day, exactly six months after his first appointment with Bruce. And it was as he was handling a stack of dull paperwork that he realized what he needed to get the feeling back into his play.

He needed a bassist.

Horse's coworkers had always been somewhat frosty toward him and none of them had shown any inclination toward being interested in playing music, so he reached out online. Craigslist, Reddit and various music groups on Facebook all saw posts along the lines of "ISO: A bassist looking to hang out with a skilled animal guitarist for weekly 'jam sessions.'"

People scoffed at his statement of being an "animal guitarist." No animal, they said, could ever be a guitarist, or play any music for that matter. Skilled or unskilled, it was impossible.

But one person reached out to him willing to come for sessions. His name was Shaun, he had no bass experience but was interested in learning, lived in uptown NYC and could easily make the half-hour drive it would take to reach Horse's house.(edited)

There was one problem, he said. He was a sheep.

"Not to worry, Shaun," Horse replied. "Have you ever heard of a man named Eiko Nakamura, or his machines?"

"No, I haven't, actually. What's he got to do with anything?"

"Ah, my friend... you'll be playing the bass soon enough. Call up Wentworth Music, they'll fill you in."