Worldbuilding III: Music · 4:07am Jul 31st, 2014
Worldbuilding 3: Music
This will be shorter than usual, 'cause Bronycon is coming up.
We know the ponies have music. Even if we discount the 'musical' numbers in the show, we have seen plenty of canon evidence. Record players, fiddlers, quartets, DJs, alpine horn players, seafoam green unicorns with lyres on her flanks (and lyres are popular cutie marks among the BG ponies).
It would be interesting to speculate what kind of music ponies most liked. We can assume that the music in the show is supposed to appeal to its target audience (humans, mostly), or we can assume it's a faithful representation of what the ponies actually listen to. In that case, Daniel Ingram would be all kinds of popular if he showed up in Equestria.
Has anyone ever written a Daniel Ingram in Equestria story? (Or for that matter any member of the production team besides Faust?)
Right—back on topic. Y'all know that I'd probably dig around and try to find studies on what sorts of music or sounds horses found soothing, and which ones they found alarming; do a little bit of studying on their aural range, etc. Anyone who's a scientist that studies that particular topic (or know someone who does, or know of studies), feel free to leave links in the comments!
(yes, I know he isn't wearing the headphones right)
Regardless of what actual music the ponies might listen to, we know from canon they enjoy music. I would be wiling to wager that music cutie marks are in the top 5 in Ponyville.
Even ponies without music cutie marks get in on the act. Think back to the pilot episodes—we had AJ handling food, Rarity handling fabulosity, RD taking care of weather, Pinkie preparing the party, and Fluttershy arranging for birds to sing.
Why, even picnics aren't romantic without a record playing.
And yet. . .
One of the things I bought to prepare for the road trip was an iPod. Before you get all insanely jealous about that, it was a used iPod Classic, complete with scratches on the shiny back and a scuffed-up screen. Besides it being cheaper than a shiny new iPod Touch MCMXLIV or whatever number they're up to now, it holds way more songs, and that's important to me because I have 55GB of songs on iTunes, and once I start to import my record library that number will probably double.
And that got me to thinking—we take it for granted that we can have a computer or a portable music player that can play for an entire month without ever repeating a song. When we go to a chain store, there's usually Muzak playing in the background. Elevators have music piped in, cars have ever fancier radios.
We can now get specific channels beamed down from satellites, over our cable and onto our televisions, and I don't even know how many services like Pandora are available on the internet. If that's too mainstream, there's Soundcloud, YouTube videos . . . in short, we can get pretty much any kind of music with a few keystrokes, and we can get it practically anywhere, anytime. So much so that we take it for granted. We tune it out.
Most people who read my blog have probably noticed that I write a lot of HiEs; this first part applies to other HiE writers.
Recorded music isn't as readily available in Equestria as it is on earth.
They may have radios (in my headcanon they don't). Otherwise, if you want to hear music, you need either a record player and the record . . . and you can listen to it in glorious scratchy monoaural through a listening horn.*
If you have more disposable bits, you can hire a DJ
Or a quartet.
Or, if the music is really moving you, you can sing yourself.
But one of the things a human from an industrialized society (and I presume most of my readers are; given that this is published on the internet) would probably notice the conspicuous absence of continuous background music.
Still, with so many ponies with musical cutie marks, maybe it isn't so bleak. They might not have mandolin players in their cheese shops, but with as much idle time as the ponies appear to have, it's hard to imagine that the park, at least, isn't filled with the gentle sounds of buskers plying their trade.
It's odd that the animators missed this. While there are many, many examples of ponies making music for special occasions, there are so few of a single pony just playing something that amuses her. [Musical numbers are an exception, if in your version of Equestria they actually happen.] There's tons of fanart of Lyra playing a lyre, but I can think of no canon examples.
It might even be a skill ponies mostly take for granted. Remember, Scootaloo composed the CMC's talent show music, and was writing notes on what she came up with. Now, we never saw those notes; it might just have been the lyrics with no musical notation whatsoever . . . or she might be familiar enough with sheet music to properly write it out. Either way, she can play the piano at least a little bit.
Lots of people can play the piano a little bit, of course. I can play the piano a little bit. Nothing complicated; despite my mother's desire to turn me into a talented pianist, I turned to trumpet instead because it was louder, shinier, and it had fewer keys. So maybe it isn't surprising that a stunt filly like Scootaloo happens to know how to play the piano; maybe her mother or father taught her; maybe pianos are the only form of escapism in the filly orphanage. But she wasn't forced to do it in the episode, she wanted to compose the music.
So, here's what I think. I think ponies like music. I think a lot of them are talented in music, and even those who don't have musical cutie marks dabble in it—be it singing, playing the piano, or composing anti-zebra propaganda.
I think that while there might not be canned Muzak drifting through the streets of Ponyville, you'd probably be hearing snatches of music all day long.
*Carrot Top is not amused.
I honestly want to see a fic comparing and contrasting our music with pony music.
And then mashing it together to see what works.
Here is the main thing that has annoyed me about musical ponies in equestria. They are *ALL* earth ponies and unicorns. Except for Scootaloo, who would try anything in pursuit of a cutie mark, we have NEVER seen a SINGLE pegasus play ANY musical instrument. It is not for lack of a sample size. We have seen dozens of earth ponies play, and a handful of unicorns, but 0 pegasi. This even includes the cutie marks. The ONLY pegasus with a cutie mark for music was a Lyra reskin and even there she was blurry blob in the scene and you couldn't make out the cutie mark so even that is inconclusive.
Thusfar there is absolutely no evidence in canon that any pegasus plays a musical instrument at all which is quite scary...
human 64-23,000
dog 67-45,000
cat 45-64,000
cow 23-35,000
horse 55-33,500
sheep 100-30,000
rabbit 360-42,000
From the above, I would guess that a MLP pony would be able to hear things roughly as low as we can and somewhat higher in pitch, but that isn't by much, just half an octave.
2330780
It would take a better author than I.
That fusion is very likely. I heard about a trumpet player who loved Middle Eastern music so much, he added a valve to his trumpet so he could play halftones.
2330789 Musical instruments, true. But there have been plenty of pegasus background singers. XD
2330789
In at least one episode, there were pegasi horn players involved in a Wonderbolts event.
Plus, the piano that got dropped. It's hard to imagine they would be moving a piano by air unless it was supposed to go to a cloudhouse.
Lots of pegasi sing; maybe they don't like bulky musical instruments because they're nomadic at heart.
Actually there was ONE -- in season 4 and you only see his cutie mark for a small amount of time, but the fat pegasus who wanted the cutecenera for his kid had a guitar. (Yes I actually went back through them all to locate that one) -- of course that was part of the gag, but yes it is an actual singular example.
Actually I want to see a unique pegasus instrument. I mean in my fic I have the pegasus wind harp, an instrument where the pegasus plays the harp by controlling the air coming off her wing. Yes a very hard instrument to play, but it would make great music if you could do it.
2330842
You'd have to show where -- The horns I remember were played by unicorns at the wedding.
Your mother tried to turn you into a talented WHAT?!
(G'night everybody!)
It kind of makes me wonder, what's the value of a musical cutie mark, when so many ponies are gifted sith musical ability, even without having a corresponding mark? It certajnly wouldn't be bad for the career prospects of a potential musician, but I'd imagine the market is rather crowded.
I've been browsing blog posts all night and this is probably the most well thought out one that I've read. You've earned a follow from me.
As for what music the ponies listen to, we can probably assume that it's as wide of a variety as our music, given the variety of musical instruments and musicians that we've seen in the show.
2330876
Damn it, man. I had to go back and scour Youtube after you mentioned that.
But it produced results.
2330853
iambrony.steeph.tp-radio.de/mlp/gif/187553__UNOPT__safe_animated_spitfire_wonderbolts-academy_spoiler-s03e07_maverick_goose.gif
Granted, that's a quasi-military application of 'music', but at least it's not nothing.
2330850
Seems like something the writers probably won't ever do, but that would be kind of cool, especially since with the extra set of limbs they could come up with something pretty awesome.
2330896
Since their economy is probably not at all the same as ours, and since whatever your view on cutie marks, the pony bearing it isn't stuck slavishly doing that one thing and never anything else, I don't think it would be a problem.
At least half of the PonyTones don't have music cutie marks yet they perform as singers; there's no reason why a pony with a treble clef cutie mark might not work in the smithy during they day, pumping the bellows with a perfect rhythm to keep the flames consistent, and at nigh t write down the music of the hammer and anvil.
Or maybe some of them are perfectly happy with playing in the park all day, maybe performing for their meals (or grazing is an option, too). If a pony had a lot of bits, what would she do with them? Buy a computer and a new car? Buy clothes? It's possible that there is nothing in Ponyville that you need (like food, shelter) that you have to use bits to buy (but that's a topic for another blog post!)
2331020
I would assume so.
I also wonder if they use the same tones that Western humans prefer, though, or if they have their own prefered chord progressions, note frequencies, etc. Even on Earth, there's a huge difference between Cologne and China, for example.
2331568 At the same time though,I figure it's less useful to have a special talent for music, when everyone (exluding scoots, anyways,) is good at music, and also be okay at something else, than being good at a specialized talent which most other ponies can't do (ex. Theoretical physics, contortionism) and also being decent at music.
Im wondering if the strangeness of ponies being usical is more to do with the main animator, viewers in the USA, forgetting that only a hundred or so years ago, before teh main industrial revolution, that because there was no regular high speed indepth information communication, that a lot of information was oral and aural, this is why in DnD the meadaevil Bard is so important. He is the newspaper, the post office, the library. the Shamen, and Witch is the local health service, and music makes things far more memorable. Every house has musical instruments, if for relaxing together at the various get togethers or while there was the odd hour between end of supper and bed etc.
Even in Star Trek, people will play musical instruments in Ten Forward, when their computer is vastly more capable than anything the normal person could possibly consider. Minds however are a totally different realm of thought.
Another story collection would be Dragons Of Pern by Anne and now Todd McCafferey, where they start by being interstellar travelers, colonists, but lose almost everything, throwing thm back into medaevil times of fighting for their lives, and the second most important place after the defence dragons, is Harper Hall.
Have some 20 year old 8 bit music made on a 30 year old computer. This puts it midway between the Very first Valve based commercial computers, and todays iPad4, Galaxy S etc.
[youtube=CwtkZ7aExI8]
Thats right kiddies, 406k for the song, but on a 2 Meg machine. with tweaking you can get it to run within the 640k equiv limit of the first PCs.
This isnt a PC.
A resonable comparison? The average PC is like a changeling. You can make it look however you want, but inside its the limited same, full of secrets, unable to truely adapt quickly to a wider world, but still within a spread enough enviroment to be masterfull.
These things were like Pinkie Pie. Their abilities on launch day, real time karaoke, video work, graphics even in prototype version finished a half hour before being seen, showed what it could be like with everyone having an easy to use painting, music, animation home computer that was similar in price to many lower end musical instruments.
But, music, video, this is all play, the companies say, we want people to work, to mindlessly grind, carefully avoiding the creation of the mechanical and electronic computer, to remove the need for drudgery and grind from the human computer.
Something to think of.
In the USA, even the Slaves sang.
How bad is it now that the average worker cant even enjoy themselves to the level the Slaves could?
Quick bit to really make you think? when freinds scuffle, theres shouts and insults.
If someone is silent, its because they are too busy focused on trying to kill, or not be killed.
2332112 Commodore made some truly amazing machines...
It was amazing to have a machine with so much dedicated hardware, out of the box. The CPU didn't HAVE to work that hard, when you had a dedicated chip for every other task under the sun!
...
Hmm?
2332112
If I remember right, I think it's exactly the opposite, and the animators got it correct. Before recorded music was widely available, the only way to have music was to have somebody play it. I recall reading that it was very common for at least one person in a household learn an instrument, because they would provide musical entertainment. Granted, this person wasn't always very good, but I think that people used to be a lot more forgiving of amateurism, because they really didn't have excellent music available to them unless they lived in a large city and had the money to go somewhere.
It's easy to forget that today we have a huge variety of world-class goods and services available at our fingertips. This wasn't always the case. We remember old stuff being very sturdy, but that's mostly what has survived--and it would represent a very large fraction of a household budget.
ETA: I remember where I got to talking about this: I was discussing player pianos with somebody who had one. Their popularity back in the late 19th/early 20th century was because it was the first chance to have very good music in the household.
2331568
There's definitely a strong barter economy. Note how Spike was able to trade gems for goods without the storekeepers acting at all surprised? Applejack takes bits, but she probably takes a lot of payment in kind as well
2332647
Modern PCs have hardware acceleration for everything under the sun.
But, there is one major difference.
The latest hardware developer news was that they couldnt get the Intel HD sound working through poking or mixing, monitoring, because the NDA released documentation they had didnt list such things, only the way Intel wanted the chip to be used standard, in a streaming network fasion. It took a second version of the documentation before a single register bit was discovered, marked karaoke, and a single manufacturers register was discovered, for controlling what the chip did at the hardware level.
So, NASA liked the old machine, because they got a four foot stack of technical details for everything, binary codes, circuit layouts, chip timings at the nanosecond level, when they asked the Old Commodore. then the new guy took over management, and tried to be the new Jobs.
So, PC? Villans, all the different super power enemies trying to work together, and the slightest upset causes all sorts of fun. Alternate? all 7 processors of diffrent classes and specialities, with one super powered central coordinating chip, all working together, meshing in harmony so efficiently that the weirdest example of its power has to be running the emulation of an OS on a machine, faster than the native version of that OS on that machine.
Commodore had a machine that could run Mac software under emulation faster than a Mac of twice the price, While running MS programs, multitasking, on a plug in board, that in total made the machine still cheaper than a similar spec PC. In 1987. In 1992 they couldve bought up IBM And Microsoft. In 1994 they were banckrupt, because they tried to compete in the PC market where they were loosing money, because they refused to do any RnD accross the board. thats where 3rd party cards really took off, Soundblaster audio, Virge 3D graphics etc.
Pity that all the standardising methods were killed off as well, IFF data, locale, phonetic speech, simple compiling Basic, hyperlinking, even the Help key.
You might have had to pay for just about everything to run on the machine, but the free public domain software given away by Fred Fish covered a suprising range of abilities and requirements, even in limited forms.
I used to be so enthusiactic, writing, doing smple coding, drawing, recording, playing..
And then I had to get a PC in 2006, and the fight is just for survival ever since.
2332925
That's what I think, too. They don't buy their music, they make it themselves. And yes, not all of them are very good at it, which is why a pony could make a good living if she were a good singer or musician.
Pinkie's sometimes a fine example of a pony making a song to remember something important (like Zecora being evil). Maybe not the greatest song, but Fluttershy knew the tune and the words. . . .