Vinyl and the Concert Hall
Vinyl Scratch’s eyes rotated about the concert hall, taking note of the detail that seemed to be the cherry on the overkill sundae that was the massive building. With each aspect she’d compare it to her natural habitat. Forget the tediously polished wooden raised floor that was the stage, she was familiar with the large concrete platform that was necessary to carry her turntables and the massive speakers on either side. The mood-setting stage-lights set to a low brightness, she’d replace with the blaring LEDs that hung raised above the middle of the dance floor, constantly swapping between darkness and a new color that painted every surface within range of it. Overall, this new setting was sickeningly boring.
She’d make her negative opinion of it all obvious through means other than thinking it, but she had already had her hooves tied as of last week’s drinking contest with her musician friend, Octavia, having sworn to her that she would be on her best behavior, and even then her earth pony friend was skeptical. Vinyl made three mental notes to herself, all of which she hoped would stick with her:
One, never let Octavia choose the drinks
Two, don’t, under any circumstances, underestimate wine drinkers
And three, if you cant pronounce the name of the drink while sober,you’re most likely going to lose
Simply being here was one problem, the other ponies in attendance were an entirely different one. Vinyl stuck out like a chipped hoof, her unkempt electric blue mane and tail attracting looks among the well-dressed ponies, many of which were wearing what looked like very expensive clothing as well as sporting impossibly-arranged mane-dos. Vinyl’s ego would have gladly accepted the stares she attracted as silent admiration from some of her own fans, but most of them were a sneer or a glare, her presence obviously unwelcome.
The tidbit that Octavia had left out until they actually arrived was the fact that she would be playing a solo piece, while Vinyl had thought that Octavia would be sitting next to her in the audience. Since Octavia’s segment in tonight’s show had not come yet, it gave Vinyl a reason to stay awake through the other performances. Currently, a brown coated stallion and crimson coated mare were performing, the stallion utilizing a black grand piano and the mare standing upright with a Cello. 'I still don’t get Octy’s deal,' Vinyl thought. 'The thing up on stage and her bigger thingy look exactly the same!' She learned firsthoof to keep that opinion to herself, the first time she tried asking Octavia about this had resulted in a 2-hour lecture on the difference between a Cello and a Double Bass, most of which had went in one ear and out the other.
It wasn’t that Vinyl simply dismissed all classical music as a whole, it was just that she had a picky taste when it came to it. One song that featured an orchestra that she liked in particular was ‘For An Angel’ by Paul Van Buk. However, when she showed that song to Octavia, the classical mare immediately dismissed it because of the presence of electronic instruments. It was then that Vinyl learned that her friend could be very stubborn in her tastes.
Once she had ran out of things to scrutinize and analyze, her conciousness started to fade, mostly assisted by the.....boring music.....being play...zzzz-huh? The off-white mare had been denied her sleep from the end of the Cello and Piano performance, followed by the clopping of hooves upon the ground in applause, a pretty rude awakening, anypony could agree.
Shortly after the mare and stallion departed left of the stage, an ensemble of four ponies, a unicorn mare with a violin, a pegasus stallion who possessed a polished black Double Bass, but lacked a bow, and another two unicorns, one with harp and one with Viola. After half a minute of uncoordinated notes,something which Octavia had told Vinyl was ‘tuning’ the instrument, they began to play. Instead of the typical slow and sometimes depressing music the audience had been treated to, this group played something more upbeat, the pegasus stallion plucking the strings of his Double Bass, a tactic Vinyl had never seen before, as it made a series of low notes that kept the beat for the rest of the ensemble.
By the end of their performance, even Vinyl found herself stamping her hooves in applause, thankful for the refreshing change in tempo this group offered. Once again her patience was refreshed, just in time for the last performance of the night, this one being a single grey earth pony on stage with a chestnut brown Double Bass. The low stage lighting had provided a slight glow to the wooden majority of the instrument, sporting the effort that went into polishing it. To Vinyl, this was an explanation to the many wood varnish and polishing cans she found in Octavia’s trash. 'Well, myth busted; Octy isn’t moonlighting as a handymare', Vinyl rewarded herself with a smirk for her bad joke as Octavia prepared to play.
She didn’t spend as much time tuning her instrument on stage as other musicians did; she liked being prepared beforehoof, and even then the minimal seconds she took tuning sounded closer to playing an actual piece. Once she checked her upright posture and took her bow in the crook of her right hoof, she began to play
The first thing that caught Vinyl’s attention was the apparent lack of one of Vinyl’s pet peeves with instrumental songs. Well this is new, Octy makes a song that doesn’t start off slow and depressing. It was a pattern the DJ had noticed in a number of the songs Octavia has performed or written, they’d always begin slowly. The fact that it started off with a different tempo was enough to satisfy Vinyl, and so she closed her eyes and let the tune carry her thoughts.
Vinyl had begun to envision the sun rising over a grassy hill, breathing color into the sky going from a soft purple, to orange, soon to reach a true blue as the notes playing from the stage reached a high point and--wait, what was that?
Vinyl had snapped out of her trance-like state to look in all directions surrounding her seat to look for a sound that was similar to....somepony sniffling? Once she had passed over that idea, she realised that Octavia’s music had driven a number of ponies to silent tears. 'Oh come on', the unicorn quickly called nonsense on the audience’s reaction, 'Its just....music?' Vinyl was about to continue her skepticism when she realised something was causing a distorted view in the purple lenses of her shades, learning that a few of her own tears had welled up in the frame edges. A small realization dawned upon her, and for a second, she wanted curse herself for missing it until now.
Once she cleaned the lenses and fit them back on, she relaxed in her seat in the audience and closed her eyes once again. She knew Octavia would be most likely to scold her for falling asleep during her performance, but at this point, it’d be with good reason, Vinyl finding a way to appreciate a type of music she previously loathed.
