Don't You Ever Listen to REAL Music?
It was another typical night at Vinyl Scratch’s. She was lying on the sofa in the living room with her stereo on her lap, bumping to her favorite new dubstep track. Her roommate Octavia was across the room, slumped over in the easy chair with her cello lying lazily beside her, curling up with her favorite book, Bridleway Musicals of the 1940s. Unfortunately, Vinyl’s music was a little too loud for Octavia’s liking.
“Vinyl, can you please turn that down?” she called. “I’m trying to read!”
“It’s barely over 50% volume!” Vinyl shouted back.
“Well, if you have to shout over it, then it’s still too loud!”
“All right, all right!” cried Vinyl, cranking the volume down to 30%. “Sheesh…”
“You know, it wouldn’t bother me so much if you listened to real music every once in a while.”
Vinyl sat up and pounded the pause button on her stereo, causing her music to come to an abrupt halt. “What did you say?” she demanded.
“Um- nothing. Nothing, Vinyl,” muttered Octavia, wanting to avoid a confrontation. Vinyl was having none of it, though.
“Yeah, you did. You said my music ain’t 'real'. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”
“Nothing,” Octavia repeated. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Then why’d you say it?” asked Vinyl, refusing to let this one go.
Octavia sighed, putting her book down on the coffee table. “Well, it’s just that- every time I come home, you’re always playing that awful WUB-WUB noise.”
“That’s not true!” Vinyl snapped. “I’ll have you know that I listen to lots of genres besides dubstep.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like house, and drum ‘n bass, and trance, and trip-hop, and electro-swing, and 70s synthpop, and ambient, and indietronica, and-”
“Stop,” interjected Octavia. “I get your point. But Vinyl, what about traditional music? Like the intricate compositions of the baroque period?”
Vinyl just gave her a blank stare.
“I’m saying that most of those genres you listed sound like subgenres of techno.”
“EDM,” corrected Vinyl.
“Whatever.” Octavia rolled her eyes. “It’s all the same to me.”
“What do you mean, it’s all the same?”
“It’s just all so… artificial. It’s just electronic beeps and whirrs and clicks. I mean, how can you call that music?”
“How can you not call it music?” Vinyl shot back. “I mean, you listen to an electronic dance song, and it’s still got… you know, chords, and notes and melodies and such.”
“Well, yes, it is,” Octavia admitted, “but it’s not… organic. It’s all synthesized.”
Vinyl pushed her sunglasses down to the bridge of her nose, baring her blood red eyes at Octavia. “Is that what this is about?” she asked.
“Well, yes,” Octavia said hesitantly. “I mean, I can’t bring myself to call it real music when it’s all so automated and, well, soulless.”
“Hey!” snapped Vinyl, getting increasingly annoyed with Octavia’s snobbery. “Octavia, I’m not going to sit idly by while you insult my craft. I’ll have you know that I put my heart and soul into everything I compose and produce.”
Octavia raised an eyebrow at her. “Including ‘Smack Dat Flank’?” she asked pointedly.
Vinyl blushed. “Well, that one was… that was a special case. But other than that- other than that- everything I create comes directly from here.” She puffed out her chest and gave it a light thumping with her hoof.
“I don’t believe that,” Octavia said plainly.
“Why the hell not?!” demanded Vinyl.
“Because you’re just letting a machine play the notes for you,” explained Octavia. “It’s just not the same. Here, let me demonstrate.”
She reached down and grabbed the neck of her cello. She took her bow in the other hoof and immediately started improvising a melody. Her eyes involuntarily sealed themselves shut as she fell deeper and deeper into a meditative trance. She allowed her impulses to guide her, creating a melody that was dictated almost solely by her subconscious.
Vinyl Scratch’s jaw fell open. She and Octavia had been living together for years, and yet, Octavia somehow managed to impress her over and over and over again.
When Octavia felt that her point had been sufficiently driven home, she dropped her bow and gently laid her cello against her chair. “Now do you see the difference?” she asked smugly.
“Well, when you put it that way,” said Vinyl, “no.”
Octavia’s eyes shot back open. “No?!” she cried. “What do you mean, ‘no’?!”
“I mean that I don’t see the difference,” Vinyl said plainly.
“Now you’re insulting my craft,” Octavia fumed.
“What, by insinuating that it isn’t any better than mine?” Vinyl retorted.
“For Celestia’s sake, you don’t get it!” cried Octavia. “Didn’t you hear the raw emotion I poured into every note? Didn’t you hear how deftly I was able to control the timbre, the vibrato, the phrasing?”
“Well, yeah, but I can control that with my music, too,” Vinyl said with a shrug.
“Yes, but you control it manually,” explained Octavia. “I do it instinctively.”
“Is there a difference?” asked Vinyl.
“Of course there’s a difference!” exclaimed Octavia.
Vinyl shook her head. “Not the way I see it, sister. I can compose a synthesized cello melody just like the one you played for me, and at the end of the day it’ll still sound the same. Who cares what goes into a piece? It’s what comes out that really matters.”
Octavia crossed her arms. “Great,” she said acidly. “Nice to know that my friend doesn’t consider the music I pour myself into any better than some artificial reconstruction of it.”
“Stop calling it artificial!” Vinyl shouted, springing up from the couch and letting her sunglasses fall off her nose and onto the coffee table. Her fiery red eyes were now burning with the intensity of the sun.
“I’m only calling it what it is!” Octavia hollered, getting up from the easy chair. “And I’m not going to sit here and listen to you call my trade obsolete!”
“I didn’t SAY it was obsolete!” cried Vinyl.
“Well, it sure sounded like it!” snapped Octavia. “The way you’re talking, I could just be replaced by some… some robot synthesizer copy of myself and nopony would be the wiser! Why do we even NEED real musicians, by your logic?!”
“Ponies like me ARE real musicians!!!” Vinyl thundered. “I’m sorry that you’re too much of a God damn purist to see me as one, but I am! And let me tell you something, you snooty, self- important little bitch: if you don’t like my music and the way I create it, then you can just take that pretty little bow of yours and shove it straight up your-”
Vinyl paused. Wait a minute, what am I doing?, she thought. Was I really just about to say what I THOUGHT I was about to say?
As soon as she realized what she was saying and regained control of herself, she immediately hit the brakes on her furious, vitriolic rant. Her heartbeat, which had been going at breakneck speed mere seconds ago, began to slow down and stabilize. The fire in her eyes dissipated as her expression softened and her muscles unclenched themselves.
“I…I…” Vinyl uttered, shrinking away from Octavia and letting her gaze droop downwards in shame. “I’m sorry, Octavia.”
Octavia’s expression began to soften as well. She just couldn’t stay mad at her roommate when she saw her like this. “It’s okay, Vinyl,” she said warmly.
“No. No, it’s not,” Vinyl said glumly, shaking her head. “What I said wasn’t okay. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like I did.”
Octavia chuckled. “Well, you know, to be fair, I was yelling at you, so-”
“Don’t you dare try to cut me any slack,” interrupted Vinyl. “I was out of line. WAY out of line.”
She looked up into Octavia’s eyes, her bottom lip starting to quiver. “Octavia, I… I want you to know that I have nothing but respect for what you do. You’ve got talent. Like, a lot of it.”
“As do you,” said Octavia. “I’m sorry if I insulted you. I DO see you as a real musician, Vinyl, make no mistake about that. It’s just that your music… well, it isn’t really my cup of tea.”
A faint smile started to pass across Vinyl’s lips. “Hey, listen, that’s okay. You know, nopony really chooses what music speaks to them and what doesn’t. It’s all based on a purely subjective, emotional, irrational response. No two ponies are going to react the same way to the same composition. It’s just a fact of life.
“It’s okay to dislike the kind of music that I make, Octavia.” Vinyl gave Octavia a warm, brave smile.
Octavia smiled back and gingerly extended her hoof toward her housemate. “Friends?”
Vinyl took her by the hoof and gave her a good, hardy hoofshake. “Friends.”
Vinyl packed up her stereo and started to climb up the stairs to her bedroom, opting to give Octavia the peace and quiet that she wanted. Octavia quietly thanked Vinyl and let herself sink back into her easy chair, continuing her book.