Club Vinyl

by BlazzingInferno

Concerto Tuesday

The following night, Octavia took a fresh look at the club’s DJ booth, this time assessing it as a potential stage and not just a glowing technological oddity. There was a little space to the left of the speakers, but not much. If she and Concerto both played their instruments there they’d be sandwiched between the back walls and the edge of the stage itself. Everything about this place, including what the bass notes were doing to her full stomach, told her the same thing.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

Concerto, who was standing next to her, nodded. “It’s a tight fit up there.”

“It’s not just that… I was serious when I talked about giving up performing. If I can’t take one blue-faced conductor yelling at me how am I supposed play impromptu backup music in a seedy dance club?”

He pulled her into a hug and kissed her cheek. “Three reasons. We’re helping out a friend, in a place like this we’ve got nothing to loose, and, face it, this is going to be fun.”

She stared at the grin on his face. “Fun?”

“It’ll be just like our wedding reception. Wasn’t that fun?”

“Yes, but… well…”

“You never thought you’d do it again?”

“Exactly.” She closed her eyes and tried to picture the wild party that followed their wedding. If only she could channel the euphoria she’d been running on then.

He kissed her again. “Electric dance music isn’t really that different from what we normally play. It takes the improvisation of jazz and adds a wider selection of instruments.”

“Except jazz has been maturing for decades. Compared to that this music is primordial ooze. My fillyhood music teacher would have a coronary if she knew I was even considering playing in a place like this.”

He squeezed her a little tighter, and then let go. “Just think of it this way: Perfect Note would too.”

Her ambivalence vanished. That tiny bit of stage space was more than enough for an execution, symbolic or otherwise. “Death by bass… that’s almost too poetic.”

Vinyl Scratch stepped into the DJ booth amid wild cheers from the crowd. Her voice, amplified by the club’s sound system, shook the air like thunder.

“Hello Club Vinyl! Who’s ready to crank it up right before closing time?”

The cheering from the crowd grew louder.

“I’m gonna need more than that!”

Ponies jumped up and waved their hooves in the air. The more noise they made, the wider Vinyl’s smile became. The lights illuminating the stage pulsed with ever increasing speed.

“Who’s ready for a couple brand new tracks? Who’s ready for some special friends of mine to take this to the next level?”

Vinyl couldn’t possibly inject more hype into the atmosphere. Instead she pointed into crowd and the spotlights followed her gesture. Suddenly Concerto was standing under a dozen beams of multicolored light.

Octavia, who’d been left in the shadows, grinned. “I guess that means you’re first.”

“I guess so.”

As good as Vinyl’s stage presence was, she would always prefer that of her husband’s. He trotted up to the front as if he was joining a world class jazz band instead of trying out a solo act in front of a rowdy crowd. The lights pulsed in time with the bass beat as he alighted the stage, stepped up to a microphone, and placed bow to string. She’d never tire of listening to his violin.

Then he started to play. She did her best to tune out Vinyl’s contribution to the song, which did little to improve it. For a moment he’d be play a few familiar notes, something halfway related to the classical piece he and Vinyl had picked, and then things would get weird. Vinyl would throw in some random electric flourish and Concerto, rather than pause until the next recognizable measure, would play on. His bow flew across the violin strings while she scratched the record, and Octavia’s ears, mercilessly. They’d thrown another musical masterpiece into a blender and the result was exactly the sort of dissonant, chaotic mess that she’d expected.

Five minutes later, the bizarre tune faded into the sound of screaming. The crowd was jumping up and down with more enthusiasm than ever. Her fate was sealed; the first song was a success, which meant she was up next. Concerto did a quick bow and then beckoned her towards him. She moved on stiff legs, trying to keep her focus on him.

“I have to do this… for Vinyl… for Con. It’s just another performance, just pretend it’s a jazz club, just follow the notes on the page, just follow the…”

All too quickly she was in the front and Concerto was pulling her onto the stage. He took a final bow and stepped into the shadows. Now she was the pony under the flashing spotlights with nothing but a classical instrument and a microphone for company.

Vinyl looked over at her from the DJ booth and pumped a hoof in the air. “Let’s do this!”

Octavia bit her lip. “Yes… lets.”

They’d spent hours choosing what to play, finally settling on three simple pieces that she and Concerto knew by heart. All she had to do was put bow to strings and let muscle memory do the rest. In a few minutes the song, and her good deed, would be complete.

A familiar melody arose from the constant thump of bass. She closed her eyes, leaned against the cello, and began to play her part. Each string hummed its own sweet sound that she could feel more than hear. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad after all; as long as she could feel the vibrations in the cello she could tune out the rest of the world. That’s all she needed to do.

Now if only the rest of the world wasn’t so noisy. She clamped her eyes shut and willed her ears to do the same. She was playing in a storm filled with bass note thunder and multicolored lightning. The sheet music in her mind blew away in the cacophonous wind, and she began to sweat. Dragging the bow back and forth was almost too much work, but she couldn’t stop now. Stopping meant that Perfect Note was right, that she didn’t take her profession seriously.

“I’ll show you serious! I’ll show you craft!”

Her teeth were clenched, her muscles were on fire, and she didn’t care. So what if it she was playing in a sonic thunderstorm? If she dug deep enough she’d find the root of the music, the ancestral link between this modern drivel and the classical masterworks that it had descended from.

Her bow stood still. She held her cello tight and listened to the other sounds, the ones she had no control over, resonate through the instrument. Perhaps she’d been right all along; this was indeed a thunderstorm. It was loud and crazy, but not random. She pictured herself on a hilltop while the rain came down. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and wind whipped through her mane. That was the surface of the sound, the notes that any foal with an untrained ear could pick up. She needed to go deeper.

The notes weren’t random, for starters. A hundred different melodies were darting in and out of the music all at once, like blades of grass blowing in the wind. She needed harness that current, the invisible force that moved all of the tonal elements along. Bass pulsed through her and, two measures later, the vibrations of her cello joined them.

Storm or symphony, it didn’t matter so long as she was part of it. She wasn’t a fifth seat cellist following the sacred movements of the conductor, she was the music’s driving force just like Vinyl. Soon she didn’t want the music to stop and, by her and Vinyl’s unspoken decree, it didn’t. One song faded into the next, and a violin joined the sonic storm. Their third song, the one they’d agreed to all play together, rose up in place of the last. Concerto was on the hillside with her now, adding a new and welcome voice to the music.

She couldn’t help smiling. This was yet another thing they hadn’t had time to do lately: play a duet. While this wasn’t their normal fare, she couldn’t ignore the raw energy and emotion racing through her. She’d been a fool to think she could quit this life. So what if Perfect Note hated her? So what if he fired her after the charity performance? Membership in the Canterlot Orchestra wasn’t her reason for being a musician, it was an excuse. She was a musician because music was life, just as much as eating or breathing.

A quick riff from Concerto’s violin reminded her that he was on that list too. He was more than her husband; he was her musician, and she was his. Tonight, when they finally found a place to crash, she’d have to find a way or two to remind him of that. They were still on a date, after all.

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[Kittamaru]

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[Noctus Umbra]

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