Andante - The path of the dreams

by CaioCoia

A night of Symphony in G

As the group of ponies walked around dressed for the occasion, the little purple dragon walked around finding the most interesting view he would ever see the amount the ponies. A group of musicians who each of them walked to their sits and prepared their instruments.

Spike admired all the ponies who looked so solemn and ready to enjoy their night playing everything they must have practiced during months or possibly even years.

As he watched the groups of stations preparing their tubas, Spike heard a rehearsal of a single violin, which followed by simple mistakes... Following the sound patterns, Spike knew that kind of mistakes like that would be made by a kind of amateur, and something like that wouldn't be actually appreciated at the festival, so he decided to follow the sound.

The groups of stallions and mares were focused on their own instruments, ignoring completely the suited dragon who walked beside them, and watching at the corner, a shadow of a little filly who seemed struggling to make a simple note.

"Bananas...please, come on..." The despaired whispering from the filly who seemed to her backs to the dragon who kept reading the violin struggling to make a correct not, leave Spike to understand well what the filly was doing. "Minty, be calm, I know that it's your first event, but you need to stop making mistakes, and stop being nervous."

The filly trying to command herself to calm herself down actually was making her legs tremble even worse, as her voice was starting to crack up.

Spike looking at the filly who seemed to be fighting her problems, decided to intervene and help her out.

"Are you okay?" The voice from the dragon made the filly jump on her spot and turn 180 degrees immediately. She was going to scream but she reminded herself that she was in an open place with many ponies who could see her scandal. So she gulped her scream.

"You scared me."The filly hissed to the dragon who seemed to see that her hooves were shaking, as she looked angrily at him. "What do you want?"

"I noticed that you seem to struggle with some notes, I want to ask if you are okay." Spike noticing that the filly seemed to be holding on to her anger, wanted to tell the truth, which made the filly stop and look at her own violin.

"I'm fine... I'm just..." The filly thinking about her nervousness made her forelegs start trembling again, and her teeth grit as she imagined herself falling on the notes again. "It's just..."

"You're scared, aren't you?" Spike sadly said as the filly didn't deny as she lowered her head. Spike touched her head. "That's okay to be nervous, it's crazy going around and having many ponies watching you. But let me tell you, it will be over after you finish it. And all the applause would be heard from everypony. Are you the soloist?"

"No." The filly shook her head. "I'm a ninth violinist with not much to play, just a steady background for the play."

"Well that's even better, you can use the other violinists as references and when you feel that you are going to make a mistake, you can lower the volume of your violin and let the others carry you." Spike clapped his claws like a good idea while making the filly shrug her body in consideration.

"It seems so. But still, this song is way too hard." The filly pouted as she moved her violin in front of the drake which raised his eyebrows.

"Really? And what is the song?" Spike asked as the filly gave him her partitures, which made him read carefully, and then he looks at her in disbelief. "GOD SAVE THE PRINCESSES? Who would make a filly try to be part of one of Paganini's most difficult plays?"

"Right?" The filly raised her arms in disbelief as well and looked at the partiture with a bit of fear. "And my parents are over there, and I don't want to make them feel disappointed in me. But still, this song is really annoying for me."

As her forelegs pressed over a position and the filly started playing, Spike's eyes went wide open in surprise, the position was solid, as her arms moved like a normal violinist pony would be, as she moved her bow it made the right tones at the beginning, which surprised that even she wasn't the soloist, she had a potential to become one, and made Spike asks what would be the difficult part that she was. Until a part that she was sounding hesitant which made sudden stops and made Spike's eyes raise until he noticed that the hooves she used were tight in the bow she was holding which made her make some disharmony tunes.

"It's too rigid," Spike mumbled, which made the filly raises her eyebrow at him.

"What do you mean?" The filly asked as Spike pointed at the bow.

"You are holding the bow too tight, you need to relax a little of your hoove, but not too much, it needs to relax but maintain the consistency. Here, may I?" Spike raised his hand, which the filly shrugged and gave to him her violin and bow."Firstly let me tell you something... Paganini is a crazy stallion. He is cuckoo."

Spike moved the bow around his head making the sound like a crazy dragon and made the filly giggle in her place. Spike smiled as a way to relax the filly.

"Second, Paganini's work isn't about always being perfect, unless you are the soloist. And trust me being a soloist you would need to make a lot of crazy techniques... Like, I love the song God saves the princesses because I remember one street stallion doing this amazing trick and I kept practicing since I was a little drake."

At the moment Spike decided to use the violin, the eyes of the little filly went wide open as surprised skill at the drake was playing, the loud tunes made not just the filly surprised, but all the other ponies who were preparing themselves at the play, looked at Spike who seemed focused on the skills of his fingers, which made the play into something that ponies never heard before. It was so majestic and yet crazy enough that not even the most experient ponies would do, since the dragon was taping his claws on the cord as the showed a good speed on the notes.

So at the moment, he moved slow cords using the fingers to tremble the cords creating good harmonic sound and like a phantasmagoric sound remained around such beauty, and then making more ponies musicians looking at the dragon which the sound of the violin was loud enough to catch a few meters. And then the next thing made all the ponies' mouths go wide open.

The fingers of the dragon were pulling the cords of the violin which made such impressive sound which was like 10 different notes playing before he used the bow to hit the violin and then used a slow move with it as the fingers did the rest of the job, in the end creating such speed movements.

That was impressive but then it became impossible as Spike did the same part but this time he was using his mouth to pull the cord with his fingers. The filly herself was in awe of the dragon as she giggled from the silly way the dragon was playing with her violin, and the music continued as his fingers pressed quickly at the cords, creating the harmonic music. Which made in the end sound even more impressive. Until later like a maniac Spike used the bow to up down in such a crazy way to create an even more chaotic speed but yet something like Paganini would do mostly on his songs. Which made all the ponies question.

"IS THIS THE TRUE WAY OF PLAYING GOD SAVE THE PRINCESSES?" All the ponies asked themselves as Spike was just focusing on entertaining the filly who seemed more shocked and still amazed by the dragon playing one of the most difficult songs from Paganini.

At the end of the impressive play, Spike smiled satisfied with the play he did, as the filly clapped happily as she received her violin back to her hooves.

"Wow sir, this is amazing and totally silly." The filly said as she looked at the dragon with other eyes, to which Spike chuckled from her reaction.

"I know right? Nopony knows why Paganini wrote this, but most of his songs are crazy and hard, but if you enjoy playing into another way, in the end, it's just silly." Spike smiled at the filly which seemed way more relaxed after saying that the music was so crazy that it didn't bother her anymore. It was just silly. Which will help her to concentrate.

"I knew that I would hear the true version of Paganini's God save the princesses again. And it's from a dragon that I waited so much to see again." Then a voice came from the back of the dragon which turned his head and saw who would be two ponies that he couldn't be happier to see them. The black stallion with a black and white mane and were glasses and black suit remembered a baby dragon which seemed to be half of the size of the violin and yet would have made him almost have stock at his young days.

"Yeah, Ed, for a dragon who could make Paganini and BachKing like foals play, just this prodigy would have made us having an existential crisis after hearing such masterpiece. Well, Spike? Aren't you going to say hello to us?" A grey fur stallion with a black mane and glasses with a white suit smiled at the dragon who seemed to be ready to tackle them.

"Brett, Ed, it's been so long." Spike went directly at the stallions who seemed to have aged well but still, he remembered them as the time he was a little drake, they were funny ponies when he was learning violin.

"Professor Education, Professor Wood. I'm so sorry." The filly seemed to have forgotten the place where she was until she saw the presence of her 2 teachers who were looking at her calmly.

"You don't need to worry Mint Cookie, we got worried about you didn't go to your place to prepare yourself, but knowing that you just found the dragon we were looking for, we are glad to see you found him for us. You can go to your sit Mint." Bretton Wood took off his glasses as he used a tissue to clean it, as he looked at the filly who nodded her head and went straight away. Leaving the 2 stallions with a dragon. "It's been a long time Spike."

"Yeah... 11 years." Spike sighed as he remembered the good memories that he and his teachers were having when he first started his music classes. "So you both are still the teachers from Royal Music Classes?"

"Yep. Still teaching ponies of every age to learn their loves for their music. Even prodigies like this little filly." Sharp Education walked beside the dragon and looked at the way the filly went, leaving Spike nods his head.

"She has great potential. I never knew that someone as her age, she got rhythm and she can play comfortably, and she got me off guard by making slurs on her age." Spike said which made Sharp smile at him and make Bretton nod to him.

"Yeah, I didn't even have consciousness of her age. And she has made a lot of progress since she started playing 2 months ago." Bretton made the joke but even Spike looked at him in disbelief.

"A pony at that age did that with 2 months of training? Wow, I wouldn't be surprised if her cutie mark would be related to music." Spike said which made both teachers smile at him. "What?"

"You know Spike, from somepony who played BachKing with 3 years old, saying something like that made us look at you that you are being a hypocrite." Bretton smiled which made Spike's blush appear on his face.

"Well, we got to say thank you, because it wasn't you. We could have been having an existential crisis for every prodigy which appeared in our class. But after dealing with you, all these prodigies became somehow easier to deal with since they aren't that musical like you." Sharp said as both of them remembered how Spike destroyed their minds 11 years ago, and now after dealing with many prodigies, they seemed to know how to teach any of them in a way that would help them both. "Still the best part we taught them is the same thing you have been doing into our classes. Enjoy every part of the lesson and the music you are playing, you always smile when you play something isn't that right Spike?"

"Damn right," Spike said proudly as the stallions chuckled at his reaction.

"Yeah, I think so. Anyway, I'm glad that you are here. Are you going to be part of the orchestra?" Bretton looked at his clock to check if already was the time for the Event, but looking that they have 5 more minutes would be enough to ask one more question.

"I don't think so, Bret. I had a difficult time this week, and my parents brought me here to watch the play for the first time, I don't think that I'm ready to be a violinist for this big event." Spike shook his head sadly which made both teachers look at each other.

Sharp Education sighed in disappointment, as Bretton Wood nodded his head in acceptance.

"Well, we cannot force you to be part of the orchestra. Because tonight will be 4 hours of play and 4 conductors. Bret and I will be before the finale of the event. And we really would appreciate it if you as one of our best students would be at the orchestra to play the songs we've chosen." Sharp couldn't help but give a request to his old student, as Spike's eyes went wide open in surprise.

"Wow, you were chosen to be the conductors on the Event. What an honor." Spike couldn't help but admire his teachers whose gave themselves to the bone to teach all the ponies what they can do, to have a chance to impress princess Celestia. Since mostly just ponies with 50 years old could have such honor to conduct the orchestra. Now he has seen his teachers being able to receive such honor. It would be an offense if they refused such an offer. "Well... I can watch the first 2 conductors and when it becomes the break. I can appear to be a background violinist and give a hoof for you guys."

Looking at Spike who scratched his head nervous but accepting their request, both Bret and Ed couldn't help but be excited.

"Would you really do that Spike?" Bretton smiled as he saw Spike nodding his head to him. "That's perfect. Since you came here to watch it and didn't brought your violin you can use mine."

"What?" Both Spike and Sharp looked at Bretton Wood surprised, as he took from his back, his violin case which made Sharp Education raises his eyebrow.

"I never get out of home without violin-chan, now that you are here... This is work I've been doing for months before the festival. I want you to take a look." Bretton even after giving the violin to Spike, he opened the case and showed the partiture of his composition.

Spike was surprised by the sudden papers in his hands and with the violin. Spike managed to take a look.

"Pa pa papapa, pararara papan..." Spike hummed the sound of the composition which then started slowly but then it became higher pitch and even higher. As Spike read the partiture his eyes became wide open in disbelief and look at his teacher as if he found the answer to an impossible enigma. "IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? Make violins sing like a choral?"

Both teachers chuckled at his outburst reaction, which made him even more amazed by such impressive composition.

"Yeah, even me became impressed with this. Bret really outdid himself with this work. Are you excited to work with it?" Sharp smiled as he noticed Spike nodded his head like crazy.

"Of course, this is something that I wouldn't wait for it. This is amazing." Spike noticed that there was no way back now. He decided to leave the violin with his teacher. "I will wait until the break of the 2 concerts and then I will prepare myself. Can you please guard a spot for me to be?"

"Sure, you don't have to worry." Both teachers smiled which Spike nodded his head and waved to them before running to his spot with his parents. Watching far away, a couple of simple ponies well dressed, but the husband with 5 boxes of nachos and cheese. A curious couple indeed.

After watching Spike go, both teachers sighed to themselves satisfied.

"I can't believe it you borrow your violin to Spike, Bret," Sharp said in disbelief as his friend shrugged his arms.

"Well, he is here, and this is a good opportunity. The event will be memorable for us. Especially you that now you have to change all the work you did, Ed," Bretton knowing that the work he had with his orchestra would now suffer an extreme exchange since Spike played one of the works of Paganini in a way that nopony ever heard before.

"Tell me about it. But thankfully with my perfect Pitch, I will be able to make the exchanges to all the partiture and make it able to sound exactly like Spike played." Sharp smiled as he remembered perfectly how God save the princesses were played at the moment Spike used the violin of the little filly. Now that they indeed can make a tribute of one of the most amazing violinists on Equestria, now Paganini can rest in peace if they play exactly like the sound of the devil pony over the past.

The first night of the event would be marked as one of the most memorable Events on Canterlot for decades for many reasons.

Comments

[TrainDude90S]

Another well done for Spike. He got the chance to help out a prodigy filly when she needed it the most & reunite with his two musical mentors from his days of youth.

[The Sandwich Guardian]

Great chapter, hope to see more soon!

[Theresa]

10931692
They have meant well but there is such thing as a good time for unpleasant news. The sooner you get it over with the better off everyone will be. By lying and trying to hide it all they did was destroy his trust in them. I always believed trust can be a strong as steel or as fragile as glass it up to everyone to keep it strong.