"Nah, I don't think so. This one doesn't suit me."
"Maybe this one?"
"Nope, not for my main projects. Not loud enough."
"Why don't Ponyville ponies listen to rock music?"
This is me, a human living in Equestria. I arrived here by virtue of using unknown, crazy, hard-to-believe science to spawn a portal. It ended up working perfectly! After just a short trip through the dimensions, here I am in the magical land of pastel ponies that I had always dreamed about going to.
As of now, I have no way of returning home. The science I used to create the portal won't work in reverse; all of my tools disappeared when I got to Equestria. So it's up to magic expert Twilight Sparkle to do the rest.
However, I am considering moving to Equestria full-time. I have had nothing but a great life here so far. Everypony I've come across has been incredibly nice and helpful, including Applejack, who was my first contact after the portal ended up placing me in Sweet Apple Acres. She and her family graciously allowed me to not only live on the farm in the meantime, but also work there! They were extra inclined to do so in this case, because of the occupation I took with me. Back on Earth, I had worked as a data specialist, which undoubtedly is incredibly useful in the apple industry. In fact, it was only on this current day that I just landed a job at the farm after I successfully calculated how many red apples should be on the shelf compared to yellow and green ones.
Between calculating more sweet statistics and whatever else comes my way, I'm excitedly looking forward to what lies ahead of me in this industry. I can even foresee myself working outside of Sweet Apple Acres in the future. I got to go on trips to Appleloosa, working with other Apples on their orchards. Great stuff.
It feels wonderful to provide service and see happy faces upon it. And based on the popularity of the Apple family orchards, I also would think I'd make decent money with this occupation; more than I did on Earth. So why go back? It would be counterproductive.
In the midst of all that, another wide-open job opportunity went successfully for me; the spa.
I was the first human to be seen in Equestria for over a millennium, so no ponies other than Princesses Celestia and Luna had ever seen one before. What is something about us that the ponies would be curious about? You guessed it, hands.
Starting with my current housemate Applejack, then moving on to many other ponies, I had been happily giving them a taste of what being pet and scratched by a human is like. How our fingers and nails feel on them. I have received nothing but positivity so far. They all loved it. Plus, given my species, I was already making the news all over the place. This created a perfect recipe for me to shoot for a job at the Ponyville Day Spa.
Which I did. I gave Aloe and Lotus a taste of my unique hands, and low and behold, the spa ponies themselves enjoyed it and decided hire me. I am quite excited about that too; I had always wanted to pet and scritch the Equestrians, so what would be not to love about a spa job?
But, I have pushed it until later, because right now, there's something else on my mind: music. I play the guitar, primarily the electric guitar, and primarily work with rock songs; writing original ones and covering existing ones. I grew up on the rock genre; scorching electric guitars had always been a staple in my music-filled life.
There is a problem here, though. The problem being that rock music doesn't seem to have highly usable popularity in Ponyville. Sure, it exists, and I can only bet there are other cities in the nation where it is popular, but Ponyville is my home. I directed the portal to bring me there for a reason. Canterlot is too fancy for my tastes, I'm physically incapable of being in Cloudsdale, and everywhere else, those ponies are all complete strangers to me. Yes, I will go and meet them eventually, but for the start, since I was going into a whole new world, a whole new country with a different culture, I think it makes sense that I'd want to start with the ponies I had seen on the show. The ones I have some familiarity with. I knew I'd feel more comfortable around them. Same with the city itself; I know nothing about Fillydelphia, but plenty about Ponyville. Baby steps.
Anyway, so here I am, walking around a music poster board room inside of town hall for some info about places I could potentially go to meet other players, in particular ones that share my rock music preference. But so far, I have found no luck. Most of the offers on the board are for classical and electronic events.
"Hey there.", a guide pony says, walking up to me from behind. "Still looking?"
"Yeah.", I said with a sigh. "Being a player of an underground music genre is hard, especially if you aspire for big commercial success. But even if there are places in this country where rock music is popular, I don't want to go there. I don't want to leave Ponyville."
"I totally understand. There are places in Equestria that do have a large rock music scene, but they include Manehattan, Baltimare, etc. Those places would not be good for someone like you."
"Oh yeah, for sure." I had heard quite a few negative anecdotes about those cities from ponies who lived there and migrated to Ponyville. Apparently, they all snap at each other, overly strict social guidelines, no friendship... bleh.
At this point, I start to feel fairly defeated, but then the guide pony brings out a near-miracle.
"But here, I have an idea. Why don't you go try this?", she says, pointing to a poster I hadn't noticed yet.
I take a close look.
Octavia and Vinyl's Newbie Music Party
Beginning musician looking to gain some traction? You're in luck! Ponyville's two biggest celebrity musicians, Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch (aka DJ-Pon-3) are hosting an event where any aspiring musician can come and play with them, on stage in front of an audience! Does that sounds like a good path to success? It should! And it doesn't matter at all what genre you play; remember, Octavia and Vinyl play together when Octavia is a classical cellist and Vinyl is a dubstep DJ, so anything works!
"This has got to be the best option. I love this. Those two are geniuses in both their music playing and promotion offers.", my guide says, happily.
"I agree, it sounds very nice," I respond, "but this isn't what I'm looking for as my career in music. I don't want to play a fusion of rock and classical music, or rock and dubstep music, or all three of those. I just want to play rock music."
"Well, here's the thing: you can still do that!", my guide says. "Look at the poster again; they said 'path.' Just because you mix up wildly different genres together the first time doesn't mean you have to stick with that. But doing it right now; taking up a grand, perfect, easy opportunity at the beginning, will help you get to where you want to go."
"Hear me out: in this option here, the event with Octavia and Vinyl, you appear with two already very popular musicians, which naturally gains you some good attention. Having that in your pocket then gives you better opportunities to find others who do play your genre. And you don't have to move out; I'm sure there are some other rock musicians in Ponyville."
This sets off a bomb in my head. It is true! I can't be the only one; and finding the others will definitely be easier if my musical presence is well put-out first!
In order to find success, you must first find the correct path to it, and this sure looked like the correct path to me!
Now seeing that, thanks to my helpful guide, I decide to go with it.
"I like that idea! I'll do this event! Thanks!"
"Any time! This is my job; I always strive to help others find their destinations!"
I take hold of the black pen from the side of the board and write my name on the paper for Octavia and Vinyl's. I end up being the first to do it, I am the only sign-up right now. But I am expecting more. I predict at least a four-player jam.
Alright, I'm excited for this! Okay, so it's not what I want to do full-time, but it could be a side project! And I'm going to be able to play with Octavia and Vinyl! The big names! What is there to lose?
Author's Note
This story was edited after publication due to a change in my career's plot spearheaded by this story's prequel. I originally had it so that this story occurred after I had already held the Sweet Apple Acres job for a while and before I applied for the spa; that changed to this story occurring right after I get hired to both on the same day and choose to pursue music before heading into those.
After the passage of a couple days dedicated to waiting and practicing, the day of the newbie music event is here. In just a few hours from now, I am due to make an appearance on stage with Octavia and Vinyl Scratch to publicly jam out a mix of rock, classical, and dubstep. It does turn out that trio will indeed be the whole of it; nobody except me signed up. Either way, though, I can bet it will be awesome.
Owning up to the event being called a "jam session", the music is set to be mostly improvised. This isn't like a traditional concert, where the musicians perform already-prepared material. And yes, there will be a crowd. The three of us are going to get up in front of who knows how many ponies and just wing it. It's also not like the three of us could individually make up some parts to keep in mind later, because after all, it's a wacky fusion. We have no way of knowing what it would sound like paired with the other instruments that have very little in common with each other.
Walking around my home and getting ready to leave, I feel the excitement about this uncertainty. Over the years, I had come to appreciate that. I like the feeling of going into something where you don't know exactly what will happen. It makes for a more interesting aftermath, or at least I think it does. Surprises are more memorable and stand-out to me than things where I already knew what would happen.
Eager to find out how this story will go, I pack up my music equipment and head off into Ponyville.
I walk into town and there's not a flock to the venue yet; despite no pre-show music playing taking place, the three musicians are scheduled to go there early so they can talk about stuff. Get to know each other better.
When I say "walk", I really do mean walk. It was something I had been needing to adapt to in my new home; transportation in Equestria was quite different from what I was used to. There were no such thing as gasoline or electricity-powered cars here, nor were there any jet airplanes. There was a train, but it was only useful for travelling between cities, which I didn't need to do here. I live in Ponyville and the music event is in Ponyville.
I did have the option of taking a pony-powered carriage, which I had done before, but I decided to take the trip on foot, to give greetings to some of my pony friends along the way.
Somewhat unexpectedly to me, many of them knew where I was going. The first to do it was Golden Harvest, somepony who I had become quite friendly with, who hollered at me "I'll be there!", as I strolled by her carrot farm.
I didn't have to guess what she meant, but I didn't know she had been to town hall in the recent days, much less looked at the sign-up paper for this event. Truth be told, though, I hadn't been thinking about the crowd size at all; I was just trying to prepare for the event itself. So the thinking of how much attendance would be there had completely glossed over me. But as I walk through Ponyville and hear a lot more ponies telling me they'll see me at the show, now I'm thinking about it.
I guess I now know that these types of things are pretty popular.
I make my way to the venue. I push the door open and head into the backstage room, where there's a large coat of red paint and an abundance of musical decorations. Pictures of some of the starts; rows of stringed instruments; truly a music building. They did a great job on the aesthetics.
But most importantly right now, this building is the current location of my fellow musicians. They had already arrived.
"Hi there!", Octavia says excitedly, waving her hoof. "We're so excited to have you here!"
"Out of all the humans that could have possibly been the first to come here in over 1,000 years, it turned out to be a musician! I feel so lucky!", Vinyl says.
"I do too!", Octavia responds. "What were the chances?"
Vinyl giggles, and starts the actual conversation, which is directed at me.
"So you call yourself 'Player 4', correct?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, P4, since there are only three of us, your name might sound a bit... off.", she says with a giggle. I was used to this; my stage name was joked about like that all the time. You can't exactly be Player 4 without four players.
"That's okay.", I tell her. "I do events with fewer than four members all the time, so I'm used to switching over to 2 or 3."
"But you're still Player 4 in spirit, aren't you?", Octavia asks.
"Oh yes!", I say. "It's in the name." This was also true; while I couldn't always be P4 in terms of what is actually going on, it was still my stage name. I was still called that.
Vinyl nods.
"Anyway", she then switches the conversation with, "How do you think we should go about this? By which I mean, how do we start the music in a way where you feel like it's possible to play over it?
"Well," I say, "what you just said there is how I was already thinking of it. What I'd like to do is have the two of you start the music. I plan to add to it, by, at the start, just following along by listening for the rhythm and key. Whether it will sound good; well, that's what we're here to test for."
"That sounds good.", Octavia says.
"I have another thing to ask, though.", she continues, "While I don't know a whole lot about your instrument, I do know that the guitar, especially the electric guitar, is very versatile. There's so many different sounds you can get out if it. Sure, electronic music is the same way, but Vinyl tends to stick to one overall feel. How far do you expand?"
"Ooh, well, turns out, I expand a lot!", I say. "I do range all over the sound spectrum that an electric guitar comes with. Some of my work is heavy, distorted, hard rock, some of it is slow, soft ballads, some of it is in between, you name it. And note that rock music in general is a very diverse genre. Two bands could both be rock bands, but sound completely different."
"So yeah, we'll have to work around that."
"Great!", Octavia exclaims. In fact, now that you've explained it, I've already thought of something; on a slow ballad, I, with the cello, take prominence in the music over the DJ, whereas when we go heavy, I fall into the background."
"I agree with that. Your soft classical vs. my energetic dubstep; whichever one takes the lead depends on what the one with the in-between instrument does."
"Sweet!", Octavia says.
"Anything else?", Vinyl asks.
"I think we've got all we need for now! I say we just wing it from here on out!", I say.
"Alright! Here we go!", Vinyl exclaims.
A somewhat long wait later, the show is about to begin. The venue opens its doors, and a flock of ponies gather in to watch the musical event.
I peek outside the curtains, feeling great. Interestingly, I don't get stage freight. Like, at all. I absolutely love performing music; I feel empowered by it. Especially when I'm really prominent in the sound; hence why I am a guitarist and not a bassist. I like to have a louder and more up-there presence. (No disrespect to bass players though, the band would sound empty without them.)
The initial crowd noise begins to die down and the show's announcer prepares to do the introduction.
He begins.
"Ladies and gentlecolts, welcome to Octavia and Vinyl's Newbie Music Party, where you get to see the big ones paired with a small one, hopefully to give the small one a launch pad to a music career of there own! Starting with the hosts, we have cellist Octavia Melody, and DJ Pon-3!"
The two ponies walk out as their names are spoken, to a sea of hoof-clapping and cheering.
"And now, for this party's small musician, we've got a unique appearance! We've got someone of a different species, a species that hasn't been seen here since none of us were alive, a human by the stage name of Player 4!"
As I emerge from the curtains, the crowd gives me more cheering and clapping than the other two. I guess they like the newbies.
After that dies down, Octavia begins speaking into the microphone.
"Thank you. Thank you all. We're super excited to be doing this again. And we cannot thank you ponies enough for allowing us to do hat by coming. We wouldn't be able to keep doing these without your loyalty."
The crowd cheers, saying "You're welcome!", in audience language.
"Now for what entails today.", Octavia continues. "As you can see, Player 4 here plays the guitar. However, it's probably not what you're used to. He plays an electric guitar, rather than acoustic. An electric guitar varies in sound probably more than any other instrument, but what P4 here specializes in is something called 'rock music.'"
"Rock music takes its roots from blues and jazz, but I don't know if you'll really recognize it from that.", Vinyl says. I guess the way to describe what rock music sounds like is that it's um... heavy. It's more energetic. More amped up."
Having been examining the musical culture of this town had made me think that explanation was necessary. I had heard hardly any rock music whilst walking around Ponyville. But it seems from the crowd's faces that more of them knew about it than I thought. Rather than confused-looking faces and help-seeking from their neighbors, most of the ponies are still looking at us (in particular me), and smiling. Do they know?
"Well, if we must explain it to them", Octavia interjects, "Why don't we let P4 demonstrate his genre solo, before we get into the mixing?"
Vinyl agrees with this. "Sure! Hit it, Four!", she says.
I prepare to do so, however, before I can hit any of my strings, somepony I had also been spending time with, Lyra Heartstrings, makes herself heard in the crowd.
"Octavia says that electric guitars are very versatile! I'm familiar with soft, sweet guitar music, so I'm interested to see what else you have in store!"
I respond with readiness to deliver a loud stunner. "Oh, you are in for a surprise, Lyra! And, for the rest of you, if you've never heard of this kind of music, you too! Get ready for some noise!", I say as I flip on my distortion pedal and proceed to play a heavy, brutal rock song. I begin with the basic rock foundation, power chords, blasting their name-appropriate sound all over the room. I then switch to perfect fourths, which sound even heavier. I am holding open the eyes of the ponies with this.
Even if they were familiar with rock, I can only guess it might have been softer rock. While the crowd did seem to know about the genre back when Vinyl first mentioned it, the looks on their faces right now signal to me that they're unfamiliar with what I'm playing currently, which could be considered more than just rock. With me also including a lot of palm-muting with my perfect fourth banging, what I have going on is borderline heavy metal. They probably don't know about music that heavy.
Reaching the end of my hard rock burst, I end it off with a big bash of a power chord, then say, with my voice powered by my brutal music, "How'd y'all like that?"
After a bit of un-hearable talking among the crowd, I start to hear some positive responses.
"I liked it! It made me feel pumped up!"
"Yeah! That sounds like something you'd listen to at a party! It gets you moving!
I give the crowd a thumbs up.
"Alright then, what do you say we mix all that with classical and electronic?", I then say.
The crowd cheers.
"Good! Here we go!"
After the crowd goes into silence, Octavia starts the music up, playing a slow, back-and-forth number on her cello. Vinyl adds to it with a 4/4 synthesized bass drum beat, after which Octavia picks up her speed.
This sounds very much like a build-up. A buildup that a distorted electric guitar could surely bring to its next phase. So I bring out my first appearance with a hefty stroke of a full barre chord, with significant distortion.
I then darken things up by palm-muting perfect fourths a bit, signifying to the other two that we should go into a verse. Despite being unfamiliar with this kind of music, they know well and good how the transitions should work.
Octavia and Vinyl gas it up into a faster speed and mark the transition into the next phase of this jam with a digital crash cymbal from Vinyl. However, none of them have taken a lead role. Vinyl goes back to playing nothing but bass drum, and Octavia is following the rhythm of Vinyl's beat. This clearly means they want me to take the lead. So I do.
With Vinyl and Octavia's beat sounding pumped-up, I keep my distortion on. I bust out a mix of various chord shapes and single-note melodies, often switching back and forth between those two. I add a fireball of energy to the backbeat that sounds powerful enough on its own, but not quite powerful enough.
The crowd shows a positive response. They begin to move their bodies to what we're playing.
Vinyl then kicks it up a notch, pressing her snare drum and crash cymbal buttons to go along with my power chord banging. Crash and crunch.
The fusion sounded great from the start. It felt a bit weird not having a bass guitar and drum kit behind me, as that's what I focus on, but this doesn't sound bad in the slightest. Octavia's cello provides some good darkness in the background, and Vinyl's electronic beats make for a backbeat that a powerful guitar can cut over and create a party-like sound.
Upon seeing these positive results and wanting to bring them to another level, we step out of the current phase and head into the next, where Vinyl stops playing all together and Octavia switches to a higher-noted, more melodic cello riff. Knowing what she's looking for, I turn off my distortion and play a soft, sweet guitar part, like what Lyra is used to hearing. I take the role of accenting Octavia's melodies, playing the same thing that she's playing every four measures or so. There's the cello, then a bit of guitar sprinkled on top of it.
Vinyl then carries back the energy by restarting the bass drum, which in turn causes Octavia and I to turn up our speed. Knowing we're about to head into another heavy part, we play nothing but more and more.
We then accent the final notes of that phase and go into a brief pause, before Vinyl and Octavia play something that is heavy, but less heavy than what they were playing before. I take this as a reason to bring out a solo.
Electric guitar solos were probably a pretty foreign concept to Ponyville residents. So I rip it out as best as I can, rapidly tapping and sliding my fingers along the bottom of the fretboard in rock guitar fashion. I give to them a special performance of wailing high notes.
The ponies in the audience look rather impressed. In fact, they look just like the crowd you'd see at a rock concert when the lead guitarist solos, with their bouncing and air hooves. It seems that they've caught onto it already!
As I finish the solo, the two ponies decide to go into the reverse of what the last interlude was; Octavia stops playing and allows Vinyl to do something with only me.
Vinyl brings out something she hadn't done yet; turntable scratching. The two of us go into a rap rock-style section where she scratches, then I bang out a power chord, rinse and repeat. Probably another interlude, or buildup.
We then do the transition into the next phase where Vinyl and I play in synchronization, me palm-muting a perfect fourth every time she does a scratch, and doing so on every single beat. Meanwhile, Octavia's cello rises from low to high. Once we run through that phase and reach the moment of truth, we bring out the finale.
The three of us use our last phase to try out a complete mix. Octavia takes the lead for a few seconds, then Vinyl, then me. Octavia provides the darkness, then Vinyl brings out the hard dubstep beat paired with powerful turntable scratches, then I rip out a solo. And then we do a part where nobody has the lead; where all three of these polar-opposite genres are truly mixed together. And we do this again and again.
While one player has the lead, the others take a supporting role. I play behind Octavia's dark cello with some dark chords, Vinyl accents my wailing solos with turntable scratches, we all chug on the rhythm at the same time; it's a true fusion.
The climax eventually runs its course and the three of us slow down. The surprisingly well-working three-way of dubstep, classical, and rock makes its way to its end.
After our final notes sound out and the stadium lights go dark, the crowd lets out a roaring cheer.
I hold up a fist in the air; a symbol of victory.
Octavia begins the post-music portion of the event by speaking into the microphone.
"All right! So there you have it! Did you like that?"
"Yeah!", the crowd screams.
"Great! So now I have something to ask you: remember that this event is primarily to help new musicians gain traction. As of now, Player 4 is looking ahead to releasing one single and four-track EP released; raise your hoof if you plan to buy any of it!"
More ponies than not raise their hooves. Looks good!
"Great!", Octavia says. "Just head on over to the merch booth right over there, and Player 4 will give you a preview of what he's got going! Plus, you'll get to meet-up with him in general!"
The ponies are in mass agreement on wanting to do that; they flock from the middle of the venue to the bottom right corner, where said booth is. They are ready to be the first members. I head over there to give some personal talks and handshakes (or hoofshakes) to my emerging fanbase. This newbie party really does work!
Feeling the career progress building up, after the end of this magic show, I head back to my house to write for my single and EP, and later, for my first studio album.
Here we go!
Author's Note
This chapter also got changed; it originally had me with my first single and EP already released, which was later retracted due to how Magical Mission: Portal to a New Home goes.
