Welcome to the lions den, Sam. We want to support you and all your wonderful work, but content and techinical aspects are just as important as style and will make a difference to those reading. If you write about music, people are going to comment about music. I am sensitive to you because the first time is always a bit hard, but it wouldn't be helpful if we didn't tell you our honest impressions. Just remember that it is still your work and in the end only you can say what you want for your piece and what impressions you can use. None of us are really experts here, but we all try our best to learn together. At least that is my feeling on it.
Thoughts While Reading:
Some of us are good at reading people;
I don't like being addressed in second person. At least not the very start of a piece. Play with your beginning a bit, might even consdier throwing out the first paragraph.
young wife
Really? I thought he was a kid based on his little temper tantrum. Oh well, not that big of deal.
“No. David got it.”
Already told us this and to me, it brings out more of a case just to drop the first paragraph.
Howell was victim of the near-sightedness that blinded all males of the species;
Way too telly. I don't care about the rest of the male species. Just show me Howell.
“What?” asked Howell, who didn't know French.
Howell began to discover, subconsciously, that true love is doing, not feeling.
Kill this. I like stories with morals, but if you ever point blank tell us what the moral is, you sound preachy. Let me feel and discover the moral for myself.
Overall impression:
I wouldn't call any of this magic or fantasy, but it was still a great piece. I had some problem with the showing vs telling especially when it got repeatitive, but that's an easy thing to fix once you are aware. As far as the techincal aspect of music, the only problem I had was consistancy. Some times you used the terms and sometimes you didn't, which made it a bit awkward. I think consistancy in that area is more important than the word themselves. Then with showing more emotion, I'll use your example and let you see if you can take it and apply it elsewhere.
"Howell stamped in frustration"
Okay, if the situation is fustrating, you should never have to tell us this. Build the scene and show his reactions. You can even tell us his specific thoughts, but if you want your audiance to feel it, never name the emotion. Do everything but. Final thought I had was that your scenes were short and a bit chopy. I think you could probably combine a few of your plot points and take out a few othe breaks so the story flows better.
I thought your story had an interesting premise and I enjoyed reading it. Clean it up and I am sure you can find a place to put it.
Great Work.