Dear Pinkie Pie
As you should be aware, a tree does not grow overnight. Indeed, in the growth rings you can see quite clearly how even the mightiest oak has grown at the rate of at most a centimetre a year. And the early life of a tree is hardly unproblematic. In fact, by the time a tree has gotten to that age, it has survived countless attacks by grazing animals, forests fires and loggers. Not to mention a number of diseases that can completely ruin the wood.
Getting a wide enough plank for a cello requires a tree at least half a century years old. For a double bass, almost a full century, and most trees simply won't make it this long with its quality intact. In fact, out of a thousand trees, only about a hundred produce wood of the right quality to be used in musical instruments, and of those all but ten will be useful only for low-budget fare. And out of those ten, only one will be deemed good enough to be used by a master luthier.
It isn't strictly a matter of quality, but also one of history. An old tree is like a history book and quite often a better one than the one that would've been printed on its pulp had it been harvested a decade earlier. The weather of each year has left its own mark on the growth rings. For example, maples older than 75 years will have a missing ring due to the infamous “year with no summer”. And considering the overall change in climate, it can be safely said that an instrument made a century ago simply won't have the same qualities as one made today.
Oh, and don't get the idea that all you need for a good instrument is “a tree”, no matter how high-quality that tree may be. In order to get the properties exactly like, you need to layer several types of wood. Each instrument maker has their own 'recipe' which they'd prefer to keep a secret, but for a basic cello, you need four elements:
* Spruce, representing winter.
* Maple, representing autumn.
* Willow, representing spring,
* A varnish made out of egg-whites, gum and honey representing summer.
Each ingredient needs to be high-quality, even the type of honey has a certain influence over the harmonics, or so I'm lead to believe.
Not to trivialize the contributions of the luthiers; anypony who know how to cook knows that it doesn't matter how good the ingredients are, a bad cook will only spoil them. And instrument-making, more than most arts is a skill that can only be perfected through generations. There's a reason most luthiers are known only through their family name, such as the brilliant Guarius family, or even the popular but overrated Strato-various. However, both of those families have died out by now, and with them, their secrets.
The art of instrument-making itself have grown like a tree, small and primitive at first, mainly focused on lyres and harps, but reaching out to the heavens once the foundation was solid enough. And like a tree, it' endured its share of 'forest-fires'. A lot of luthiers simply went insane during the Discordian era, and it's only due to the zealous (and at the time illegal) archival efforts of the former court librarian, Jupiter Sparkle that even a fraction of pre-Discordian knowledge could be salvaged. Many families had to re-learn their art from scratch, the ones that didn't just disband and became farmers, that is.
Even a personal tragedy can rattle the foundations, if not bring it down completely. The last stallion who possessed the secret of the braided bowstring technique committed suicide over the death of his lover, who died at sea. Maybe it's only a story, but they say that she actually survived; lived on a deserted island for a year until she got picked up by a sailboat and that she was on her way home around the time he killed himself. A whole school of instrument-making could've been saved if the northern winds had been more cooperative and she had arrived just an hour earlier.
But like I said, that's just a story. Do you want another one? Well, exactly 1245 years ago, a mare called Delirium Do got it in her head to travel to the west Horse-shoe Peninsula. In her diary she states that she had a dream that she'd meet her true love there. She brought a a house and its surrounding forest, in which she found was a grove of rather unusual oak trees. The unique terroir had produced an unusually thick kind of wood, with long, fine fibres that gave it a springy quality. Being an entrepreneuring sort, she immediately went out looking for potential buyers of the wood and happened on a mr. Guarius Twain.
The stallion was the only practising member of the family at the time, but his business was not going well. His instruments had gotten a bad reputation due to a disastrous performance at the Nocticular Opera house. The fact that the violinist was drunk at the performance had been kept from the public in order to prevent a scandal and the sensationalist press opted to blame his alto-violin instead. (Unfairly, I might add.)
So, he was all set to close up the shop when Delirium convinced him to build one last cello, just to try out the wood. I suspect that she was less interested in the artistry, or having him as a customer than she was in getting inside that frock coat of his, but the result was spectacular. The oak married perfectly with the spruce and produced a rich deep tone that became nothing short of legendary. This made him an in-demand instrument maker again, with lots of advances coming in.
A year later, they both got married. Sadly, it would mark the beginning of the end for their relationship. Delirium started to matter less and less to him now that he was getting rich enough to attract attention from young socialites. The record of his infidelities is extensive, to say the least. At the same time some of Delirium's mental instabilities began to manifest themselves. She had never been the most stable of ponies, but Twain had kept her grounded. Unfortunately, there was nopony around to keep him grounded.
When he discovered that he could play to his wife’s loose grasp of reality by simply denying he had gone anywhere after a night of salt rocks and loose mares, he took advantage of this 'gaslighting' technique quite frequently. All those nights she spent alone thinking he was still there didn't do good things to her mind. Her inner demons caught up with her one faithful night when she set fire to the grove just to get his attention. After burning down most of the forest, including her old shack, she migrated to Canida where she became a farmer.
After the prototype, only three cellos were made using the same wood and model. One of the cellos is currently at the talons of the griffins following their invasion in '09. Another was the concert instrument of the bassist Clammy Boots until it got broken during the riots at the première performance of “Rides of Spring”.
The last one was missing for many years until it was found in the attic of Quartz Tiara's summer home. She should have gotten it appraised, but the family's finance was in ruins and she needed some bits quick. She auctioned it off during a garden party that happened to be attended by a young classical music enthusiast... me!
I fell completely in love with its timbre and its simple, but competent design and I bought it, even tough I was hardly rich at that point in time. It cost me every single bit I had saved up for college and even then it wasn't a fraction of the prize it was worth. In all honesty, I never intended to spend that much on it, but I got into a bidding-war with some nouveau riche hag named Amberol Scratch, and in the heat of the moment, I went “all in”, as they say. My family were... less than pleased with this decision, in fact they kicked me out on the spot.
I spent the next half a year with my crazy uncle down in Stalliongrad, playing gigs at the local jazz clubs together with a band to raise money for my education at the Royal Philharmonic School. Things were looking up... right up until the point where my uncle tried to cop a feel on me. I could blame his drink but truth is, he had always been a dirty old goat and he misinterpreted some of my comments. I didn't really have anywhere else to go, but after that I think it was obvious to both of us that I had to leave.
I did so in the middle of the night, with my cello in its case, the few bits I had managed to scrape together and nothing else. I should probably have taken it to the pawnbroker, gotten myself a loan and rented room at some flophouse somewhere, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I lived for a year busking at day and at night sleeping under a bridge clutching the case like a lover.
I think the loneliness was the worst part of it, I could deal with the poverty and the occasional sleepless night hiding from the guards. It might even have been somewhat exciting, like in the stories of Olive Twist, if I just had somepony to share it with. Over time, I got used to being invisible, however. I played my music for deaf ears, hoping for somepony to throw me a few bits out of pity. All thoughts of finding love had been soundly erased from my mind, then I met this stallion...
He had it all, he was rich, handsome and classy and he apparently got entranced enough with the simple melodies played by some humble bum in Equestria's shining city to fall in love with her. The whole thing played out like a fairy tale, he got me back on my feet and I discovered how much I had missed the supposedly dull life of fancy dinner parties, opera nights and mingling.
One day I got the letter I had been dreaming about for my entire adult life, an acceptance letter from the Royal Philharmonic School. When I saw the monogram “RPS” I knew immediately what it was and my mind stopped working for the rest of the evening. I had him open the letter, my hooves where shaking too much and when he read it to me in that fancy accent of his I must've cried a little.
It didn't completely end like a fairy tale, however. We broke up fairly undramatically a few months into my first term because... well, let's just say that his affinity for my music may have obscured the fact that he wasn't as into mares as he first thought. I can't help but wonder if I had been holding him back without realizing it, because it was only after he broke up with me that he became the phenomenon he now is. You've probably seen his name in the papers: Hoity-Toity.
Anyhow, I'm rambling. I just wanted to give you a sense of just how rare a good musical instrument is, and how much it means, not just as a tool, but as a piece of history and a personal treasure... So that you know what you sat on.
Sincerly
– Octavia Philharmonica, Chardonnay Avenue, Canterlot
