In a world as magical and musical as Equestria, it should come as no surprise that every single pony was a half-decent singer, and most had more than a passing familiarity with an instrument of some kind. For instance, Fluttershy could not only sing, but was also rather skilled with the flute. The same could not be said of Twilight Sparkle.
She was a very good singer, to be sure, but as an instrumentalist, she just plain sucked. No talent whatsoever, though not from lack of effort from both her and her parents. Which was why, when Rainbow Dash dared Twilight to join an amateur band one night, Twilight immediately started looking for bands who needed a singer, and not anypony who could play an instrument. She found one quickly enough.
The band was one of the four-piece pop bands that were becoming more and more popular with the younger ponies, though they had apparently been around for a few years. When Twilight Sparkle went to meet them, they seemed pleasant enough, and they were in desperate need of a singer, after their previous one had accidentally misused her voice. They explained that they were doing a gig in Ponyville square at the end of the week, and Twilight’s voice would be a perfect fit.
“There’s just one other thing, miss Sparkle,” said one of the ponies, a brown earth pony, “We need to make you look like our usual singer. Sotto Voce only agreed to this because her voice wouldn’t recover by the end of the week, and her condition was that nopony know that somepony took her place for even one performance.”
Twilight sighed, but nodded her agreement.
*****
The end of the week came all too quickly for Twilight and the band. They’d crammed every practice session they could into the five days between when Twilight met them and the performance, and were now waiting to go up on stage. Twilight fiddled uncomfortably in her temporarily white coat, a dress hiding her wings, and counting herself lucky that Sotto Voce was a unicorn, or she’d have to disguise her horn as well, which would make this even more difficult. At a cue from the stage hand, the band, plus Twilight Sparkle went up on stage.
The next few hours passed in a blur for Twilight. She vaguely remembered singing some things, but the details had been lost in the adrenaline rush of performance.
“You did great, Miss Sparkle,” said the brown earth pony, “much better than anypony else could have done. Thank you.”
“Oh, it was nothing. I was just glad I could help,” said Twilight, still coming down off the adrenaline high. They parted ways, the band back to their hotel in Ponyville, and Twilight back to the library to wash the dye out of her coat and mane.