Recently, Takamine considered contributing to the music webzine by profiling people she's worked with in the industry, in order to help people understand who they are and hopefully entice them towards trying their music a go. If I remember correctly, she's contacted you about this, as well, and asked the two of us to be her guinea pigs in this rather personal style of interviewing (she even had me measured, for whatever, and helped me realize that I've been buying ill-fitting bras for years, oddly enough). She sent me the final draft of her interview with me, and I thought you'd like to give it a peek. I wonder if you'll find anything here that you didn't know before, perhaps something that will better inform the things you decide to do for me? At any rate, here it is for you peruse and digest however you will. Do be gentle, won't you?
Name: Octavia Melody
Age: 25
Height: 124 cm
Measurements: 29B-28-32
Weight: 61 kg
Family and other Loved ones: Caesar (Father/CEO of Pristine Enterprises, a company focused on hotels serving different economic levels along with several side ventures), Reinmelodie (Mother/Art Dealer), Blanctorche (Family Butler)
Occupation: Cellist and Cello Instructor
Hometown: Trotshire, Wingland
Tools of the Trade: Handcrafted Cello and Bow, Pen and stacks of blank music sheets
Favorite Color: Purple
Favorite Food: Chicken Tikka Masala
Favorite Song: “Ocean Avenue” by Yellowcard
Favorite Book: An Artist of the Floating World, by Ishiguro
Favorite Show: Mr. Bean
Dislikes: Belching in public, Earl Grey tea, Sauerkraut, high society parties, noisecore
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Q1: To kick things off, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself, your profession, your hopes and dreams, and all that jazz?
Considering you already know my favorite food, color and so on, the only thing yet to be broached is my time being a cellist, the passion I acquired after hearing Coilsfield House as a young lass. The strength and grace that echoed through each time the bow drew across those strings filled me with awe, a feeling I badly wanted to recreate, and lead to me picking up the instrument, along with the Violin a little bit later in life. As I got older and got to see others perform with these instruments on stage, something deep inside yearned to be up there and soak in the kind of adoration those performers got, to have people recognize my performance with the same kind of enthusiasm and positivity
Q2: As a performer myself, I totally know the feeling. Having all those eyes on you as you do your thing just gives you that special kind of rush as you try to keep it together and not faceplant too badly. May I ask what drove you to pursue your chosen passion in the face of all the training, all the stumbles and all the other struggles you faced?
To be brief, it felt fun, it felt natural, and as I think we've discussed before, it felt like I finally had a way to give voice to everything I held deep inside, but didn't yet have the clarity of thought and spirit to put into words. That much manifested the day I heard the family butler, Blanctorche, play that tune in our arts and recreation room and I asked if he could teach me how to play it. I'm sure I sounded terrible on my first go, but his kindness, patience and willingness to demonstrate proper technique fed my curiosity, leading to a proper instructor to come by and help me develop what came to be a latent talent for the instrument-even if his approach was far stricter than Blanctorche's.
In those days, nothing else took precedence over honing my skills with my musical instruments. Not studying any more than I had to, not being particularly close friends with other children within my place in society, not trying to get closer to a mother or father I barely saw either on my way out to school in the morning or on the way home from my extracurricular activities, none of it mattered more than my practice of those instruments and learning to make the music my heart wanted to convey. The only person who could show me otherwise was someone who had the same kind of passion I had, a passion I sensed the first time I met Vinyl as ten-year-olds.
Q3: Speaking of, Octy, I gotta know: You and Vinyl. Why-and more importantly how does that work? Because even after reading about how you two met up, it still doesn’t make any sense
On its face, our relationship does seem rather strange, doesn’t it? To be perfectly honest, when we first met, I didn’t know what make of her, as the only thing I knew about her was from her grammar error-ridden correspondence. Upon seeing her, however, I felt a strong sense of boldness emanating from her, a sense that she had no airs to put out and absolutely nothing to hide. I did think she was rather crude in her manner, but as I got to know her, that became part of her charm.
To be honest, I never thought about the hows and whys that deeply, considering how much each of us bonded to each other the more we got to know each other. Upon further reflection, however, one of the more remarkable things I saw in her came about when my status came up, in relation to where she and I lived, one evening on the park swings. After I told her about the mansion and such, I was fully expecting her to be critically envious and speak on the injustice of it all. What happened, though, was that she simply smiled and said, “Cool. Maybe you can invite me over for dinner one night so I can enjoy some Filet Mignon topped with Black Caviar?”
Q4: Wait, seriously? I would hope that you treated her to that, because that sounds absolutely amazing. All that aside, though, what did the fact that she gave nary a crap you being rich do to the kind of relationship you had?
It let me know that she first and foremost, she saw me for who I was, not for who I was connected to. As you well know, when you spend time among the upper class, their initial focus is on who you know and what they offer if befriended. That much was the world I knew from the day I was born, and before I met Vinyl, I didn't know that anything different was out there. Beyond my social circle were people I knew of only as a concept, as a bogeyman others I knew used to keep my peers in line, so when I learned that Vinyl came from a highly humble background, it came as quite a shock.
Before we met, I held the notion that people of the lower echelons of society were uncouth, unrefined and unscrupulous in their manner, willing to use each other like crabs to pull themselves up while pulling others down. In retrospect, they were rather unenlightened views, but those are the views my acquaintances expressed based on what they heard from others’ experiences. She was and to this day is rather uncouth and unrefined, but the day she spoke of her former life in the Red Hook section of Manehatten, the contrast between when the stories I heard of the area and her utmost honesty and strict adherence to her morality left me floored. How could that environment produce someone so committed to doing right by others?
Q5: It’s almost like people who live in the ghetto are sentient beings capable of their own thoughts and feelings, and choosing what they want to become! But seriously, though, I notice you keep coming back to these people in your social circle as part of who shaped your views as a kid. Can I ask what your life with them was and is like?
Certainly. As a child, my parents often spoke about the struggles each of their families faced trying to adapt to life in a country foreign to what they were used, of how that humility helped them realize what was important in life, and gave them a sense of focus and appreciation. They wanted me to work for the things I desired, in order to realize both how precious they truly were, and I had the strength of character, skill and so on top earn them on my own merits. Very lovely sentiments the first few times I heard them, but since I knew them only as tales and not as any one person’s immediate reality, it was difficult for me to empathize at any meaningful level, as was the case for many of my classmates, who found great joy in belittling those in less extravagant garb. At first, I didn’t see why my mother was angry with me for finding amusement in their acts, especially since they expressed less than charitable views on the poor, themselves, such as the time we got lost on the way back home one night, and our car broke down in the middle of the Red Hook district, the both of them wondering if we were going to be robbed or shot the entire time we were waiting for a tow truck.
Q6: I can respect that. When I was getting ready to move to Manehatten, the strongest images I had in my mind were of people getting shot, robbed and all sorts of crazy crap my folks back home believe about this country. How did meeting Vinyl change all that?
For one, I was able to put a face to everything I've heard about those outside my particular place in society and realize how complex and intricate their lives really were. I never realized how much pressure they were under to keep up with their dues, make a better life for their families and themselves, nor was I aware how much they struggled to get by in a land that supposedly has plenty to offer its citizens and is part of the 1st world. Likewise, for how foreign the world she came from seemed to be, Vinyl, herself, felt like someone I've known all my life, like the warm, boisterous people my parents spoke of where they came from
Q7: Sounds to me like she let you see beyond your little bubble, there, Octi, a tough thing for anyone of us to do. How did learning all that change your view of the world?
It brought to light the concept of sweat equity, in this case referring to the notion that anything I attained through training, trial and error and putting in the needed time to reach that goal became that much more valuable, things both Blanctorche and my Cello instructor worked on instilling into me, but only became crystal clear the more Vinyl and I spoke of our lives at home. Knowing how much her family had to scrounge and scrape to get by helped me see how much I had at my disposal, her infectious positivity and unrelenting spirit pushing me to become the best I could be in everything I could do, no matter how difficult it seemed to be. Admittedly, that's lead me to bite off more than I could chew on more than one occasion, but knowing how far I've come thanks to it, it's proven to be more than worthwhile.
Q8: When you say how far you've come, just what do you mean by that?
When I started playing the Cello, I only wanted to play for the sake of playing it, and in my early days, my instructor, Yeol-Hyeol, was not very happy with me, even as I improved in my technique and range and became one of his brightest students by his very proclamations! Utterly confusing, that harsh critique paired with those observations. After I realized what Vinyl and her family went through, Yeol-Hyeol did something I never saw do in all the months I was under his tutelage: a smile, however small it was, in response to my more fervent and and focused manner of practice.
In response, I learned techniques, musical stylings and so on from him I never even knew existed, with him demanding me to implement them in as many ways possible. By the time my school's talent show came around, he felt I had the proper training to knock people out of their socks, a sentiment that proved more than accurate when, by the end of my session, people were getting out of their seats to applaud me. A bit embarrassing, but considering it was one of the few events my parents could find the time to attend, that first recital did and still does mean the world to me.
Q9: I was the same way during my time performing in coffeehouses, and I saw my boy sipping a cuppa while he was watching me do my thing. What did your experience do for you?
That experience drove to try out for the school orchestra when I hit middle school, and then again when I hit high school, in order to fuel my drive to improve at my craft alongside fellow musicians while striving for the same excellence in my studies, however strenuous that came to be. Because of all that, I was more than qualified to enroll in what my instructor and others consider the most stringent music program in the country, the one offered by the Baltimare Institute for the Arts. The challenge along with the rewards were exceptional, and the exhilaration of performing before my peers and teachers still feels fresh in my mind, as does their applause during the school's final showcase by the graduating class. I must admit, though that after graduation, finding a place to showcase my skills was like finding the pearl cast before the swines, and was about as humbling during my search for employ.
Working reception at one of my father’s hotels under another name, teaching cello as my instructor had, being part of a classical music troupe for hire playing at weddings and socialite parties, whatever I had to do to make ends meet and let me pursue my craft and my passion. At some points, I actually considered giving it up as a profession because of how fruitless it all seemed, as well as how little results my networking in the industry initially turned up, constantly wondering when my phone would ring and be one of my contacts, and not a friend inviting out for a drink.
When I started getting solo shows or as part of the ensemble for other musicians, I noticed that aside from Blanctorche, no one I considered a friend or family showed up in the audience, leading me to either dragging myself into bed as tears stained my pillow, or becoming the angriest drunk at the nearest bar that night. The road to being a professional cellist has been-and continues to be a long, winding road full of heartache and moments of minor and major metanoia, but those are another matter deserving far more time on another day.
Q10: Metanoia? That’s the moment when you realize that everything you know is crap, right? Yeah, I’ve had lots of those in my life, more so after I moved from Japonica to here. If it’s not too much, can I ask about a major moment of Metanoia you had?.
Befriending Vinyl no doubt represents a continued point of Metanoia the more I get to know her, and see the world through her eyes, her struggles, her experiences. Personally, though, I think a particularly significant point of Metanoia was one you were there for, when I had enough of Vinyl’s demonstrated disregard for my musical ventures, and chose, rather violently, to end our friendship. The longer I was apart from her for that fact, the more I realized that for all the perspective I’ve gained about the world, I was still viewing things through how they affected me and not how my acts affected others, that I was willing to throw away everything I had with Vinyl because of those personal slights
It took months of time away to even start finding the culpability I held towards what happened in the park that night, with Blanctorche there to offer a guiding hand, and the wisdom that his years have imparted onto him. The moment I saw her in the club, a storm of emotions raged within me, a storm I couldn’t let her see because there was a show to put on, and no time to spend reduced to a blubbering mess. There’s plenty of time for that after you’ve done your duty on stage and given people what they’ve paid hard earned money to see, something I was determined to give the people at that club that night. It wasn’t until the next morning, when the rush wore off, that there only me and the storm in my heart to manage, waking up on Vinyl’s couch, going into her room to finally confront her and attain the closure I yearned her all those months, yet only being brave enough to sit with my back to her on the edge of her bed as I meditated on how much of a pillock I was towards her, soon weeping from how much repent I wanted to express towards her and how forgiving she was towards me despite everything.
After that day, the friendship we shared was reborn as something deeper, something more substantial, something stronger than either of us thought possible. For both of us, it became something that’s lasted the wear and tear a decade of growth can bring, and for me, it started a journey I should have begun years ago: the journey towards understanding friendship and understanding what it means to forgive. As you said to her, if I seek to live in a world of friendship and forgiveness, then I must live in it, starting with learning to forgive. Forgiving my parents for not having the time to be there for me when I was growing up and becoming my own person, forgiving all those who I feel wrong me for their transgressions, and most importantly, forgiving myself for holding such ire towards both them and myself. I know without doubt that as I continue this journey, then perhaps someday, I will learn to let go of these negative emotions and lead that much richer of a life, becoming that much better of a person as a result. I know there will be times where I falter at these things, but it’s better to falter at them than to succeed at never trying. That, I’m sure, is a better way to live