I often wonder, in times of empty mindedness and casual thought, of how a cello comes to be a cello. Not mine specifically, but just in general.
If you think about it, the whole concept is so... outrageous. Sure it might seem like four strings, or wires, on a hollow chunk of wood with a stick stuck on top; but there’s so much more there besides the superficial description.
Just imagine all the hours, days, years of tampering and evolving shape and size to construct an instrument of such precision. That alone is enough to send shivers down my spine. The countless arrangements and hoof positions; the endless number of possibilities for the creation of notes and chords and progressions; and eventually the construction of a song. Whether it be something as simple as Ba-Ba Blacksheep or as elegant and majestic as Johann Buck’s, Cello Suite No.1; the process to even get to the point to be able to create those songs is almost intangible.
On top of that there’s tuning, and technique, and acoustics, and endless other factors that a cellist can place in their toolbox to create new and exciting sounds. It really is a work of art.
My cello, my personal tool of musical greatness, is one of a kind. Before the mass production of instruments began in Equestria, only the wisest and most skilled unicorns created cellos. Each one was completed with a specific spell for that exact instrument. Each spell manipulated the sound of the cello in such a way that it would subtly evoke new magically constructed emotions in those who heard it playing.
These emotions have no names, they are concoctions of imagination and personal experience. Have you ever listened to a song and felt a pang of not-quite-melancholy or not-quite-nostalgia? That is the cello’s magic at work. Dipping into your personal memories and sampling your strongest emotions to make a frankenstein of feelings.
My cello, is the last of these magically crafted instruments. I first heard it play when I was a filly. A gentle tune at one of my father’s receptions. The song’s name is lost on me, but I haven’t lost the song itself. Its dips and dives on the treble and bass clefs are imprinted in my memory, so much so that I could recite it for you right now if need be.
The day I heard that song; that cello, I wanted it. I wanted to wake up in the morning and hear its tune at the movement of my own hooves. I wanted to play it for theatres of thousands who would feel the same way i did when I first heard it. I wanted to rest it on a pedestal and treat it with every ounce of respect I had; the respect it deserved. But alas, by the time I had made my intentions clear to my father the cello and its owner were already gone.
I felt an emptiness in my heart that could only be paralleled to the death of a lover, or a close friend. While I had been subjected to the musical whims of that cello for just several minutes, my heart had reached out and grasped its mahogany fingerboard tighter than anything before.
For fifteen years I searched high and low to find that cello. Year by year I uncovered tiny bits of information from vendors, musicians and students alike. I felt like a musical Shetland Holmes; a sleuth of sound as I hunted down leads and uncovered what knowledge they might have of my ultimate goal. Slowly the pieces fell together, and one day I had tracked the object of my obsession to a small ramshackled music store in the skidrow streets of Manehattan.
I hadn’t seen it on my first or second circuit around the cluttered shop. Like many times before, I thought I had found nothing more than a dead end. But as I was about to leave a desperate old pony clung to my attention.
She pulled back a dark curtain and unveiled a hidden room of battered antiquities and instruments. Rusted trumpets, oxidized copper trombones, stained pianos filled my nostrils with the stench of neglect and desecration. I gingerly stumbled through the wood-wind graveyard and the percussion crypt, before finding myself standing face to face with what I had been looking for since that evening so many years ago.
The shop keeper let me take it for free on the condition that I could simply play it. Over the years, hundreds of ponies had attempted to extract a melody from its strings, but none had succeeded.
I’d heard rumors that because of the magical qualities of such instruments, only those who matched their spiritual DNA were able to play them. This cello seemed to follow a similar rule. It had passed hooves faster than a hidden plague after the original owner had sold it. No matter how hard they tried, nopony seemed to be able to play it. It even managed to create somewhat of a cult following in several of Canterlot’s multiple orchestras as the musical equivalent to excalibur. Hundreds showed up to try their hoof at playing it, but after everyone failed and the novelty wore off, it was tossed to the curb like a three-legged, rabid dog.
The shopkeeper said she found it when was walking home one night. Said she felt that leaving such an instrument out in the garbage was musical sacrilege. So here it sat; hiding away from the world; trapped in the back of the store like excalibur in stone. And I, slightly intimidated by it, was a regular King Arthur coming to succeed where others had failed.
Looking back I feel a pang of regret for walking out of the story without parting with a single penny, I don’t think the shopkeeper realized what she had. True it was a piece of orchestral taboo, but its fame and value ascend that by much, much more.
It is the last of its kind.
A vanguard to prehistoric combinations of magic and music.
Even now, as I rest my hoof on its scratched belly and listlessly traverse it’s curves and contours, I sense an energy which is all too absent in instruments today. Whether because of its character, magic or simply personal value, I find that I am unable to play any other cello. Each note it sings, each string it has is a part of me; just as much as my stomach or lungs are. To touch another would be blasphemy; to play another would be unforgivable.
It may sound like the ramblings of a mare who takes her job, and the tools of the trade a little too seriously, but that cello is sentient. Not once while it has been in my possession, have I ever found a moment where it needed to be tuned or repaired. Some may argue that I’m fabricating these stories, these occurrences, for attention and publicity. But I swear on my bow it can tell who’s playing it, and who’s worthy of its resonance. It makes me feel comfort to know that it has picked me as its method of melodious construction.
I often wonder, in times of empty mindedness and casual thought, of how a cello comes to be a cello. Not in general, but mine specifically.
Whose careful touch cut and carved the wood?
Whose strong yet cautious pull strung the strings?
Whose precise movements turned the tuning pegs?
Whose powerful magic granted it the ability to feel the music as much as I do?