Cello Lessons

[Mercury / Scarlet / Octavia]

Dinky is waiting in her room when her mom shows Octavia in. Her room is... well, at least the walls shouldn't absorb the sound. The acoustics probably aren't top notch, though. Stone walls, stone floor, stone ceiling. Almost no furniture. Dinky is lying on her mattress, sheets disheveled, trying to figure out where a piece goes of a giant wooden puzzle that resembles the town of Ponyville. It seems to be about half done and covers half the floor.

Octavia walks over closer to Dinky, and gently sets down a large cello case. She lies down next to her to get down to eye level, and looks at Dinky's puzzle appreciatively for a moment before smiling over to her. She's very careful not to capture any pieces underhoof and scatter them to the four corners never to be found again. That sort of thing has a tendency to be discovered only at the very end of the puzzle building and can really put a damper on the satisfaction of a puzzle well done. "You must be Dinky."

Dinky looks over as soon as Octavia comes in. Really, she knew she was in the house. This place is bigger than it used to be, but it's still pretty small. She's not working on the puzzle anymore, but may be pretending to. "Yeah. And you're some random double bassist or something my mom met and decided to drag home for me?"

Octavia says, "More or less, at least, I believe she was your mother. She can be uh... unclear, at times. I primarally play the cello, but I'm do have some experience with the double bass."

Dinky nods wryly. "Yep, that's her. Nice and unclear. She really thinks I can learn the cello, then?" The little foal stands up. "It's, like, bigger than I am."

Octavia looks over at it, then back at you. "Yes. She was rather insistant on hiring me as a tutor. My name is Octavia Melody."

"Dinky Doo," says Dinky. "And just so you know, my mother's a few feathers short of a pillow. Octavia, huh? Think I heard of an Octavia somewhere..." She tilts her head up and tries to remember.

Octavia opens up her cello case and tunes up her bow. Her cello is immaculate, gleaming, and already flawlessly tuned. She elegently and patiently bites down on a little box holding a rosin cake, and rosins up her horsehair bow. (Which pony was kind enough to volunteer their mane for one of Octavia's beloved bows remains a mistery even to herself ^_^) She lets her try to pin down where she had heard the name before, while she prepares.

Dinky watches with some interest, no longer feigning one in the puzzle. "What's that?" she asks, pointing to the rosin. "You getting the bow ready?" After some thought, she happens to glance into the far corner of the room, where a small cherrywood guitar stands. "Oh yeah. My guitar teacher said she had a roommate or something called Octavia once. Wonder if she meant you."

"I am indeed. Your mother didn't tell me how much experience you have, so perhaps I should start with the basics. This is rosin." She smiles. "Oh yes, Vinyl was my roommate in college. Ever the small world in which we live, isn't it? Your mother already told me she had been tutoring you. Wait, or, well, I know her as Vinyl, but what the devil does she call herself now? Pone-three? Deejay pony?"

Dinky grins wickedly. "Yeah, DJ Pon-3. But I mean, she's Vinyl Scratch around here. Her husband used to be Chancellor, and my mom managed his campaign, or did something with it anyway. She's good. I've been to a few of her shows." She sits down before Octavia. "Rosin, huh? I think I read about that somewhere. Wait, no. That was resin. The tree stuff? Is that the same thing?"

"Yes they're the same, you can pronounce it either way, and it's absolutely critical to produce the sound. It's what gives the bow its friction, and allows the strings to vibrate." Octavia very gently, with both hooves, holds the bow out toward you, as though she were hoofing you her child.

Dinky takes the bow. A little clumsily, really. She doesn't know how to hold it, and Dinky isn't the best at holding delicate things at the best of times. She doesn't employ any magic--her horn is quiet as an oiled doorknob, and lightless. "Friction. Got it. So you rub it up with rosin so it'll cling to the strings?"

Octavia says, "In a manner of speaking. Without it, the bow would silently glide across the strings, but if you put too much on, you can quickly end up with a dusty mess. With practice, the perfect balance can be reached. Would you like to try?" Octavia looks around, then hmms, and hefts her cello cautiously onto her back, brings it over to the edge of your bed, and gently leans it upright against the bed. "Don't worry about being small. I was just as small as you when I started."

Dinky frowns heavily. She takes the rosin in one curled cannon, then puts it between her teeth more or less like she saw Octavia do. Then she tries scraping the bow against it. It seems to stop too soon. She forced it back and forth, but she angle is awkward. "How do I know if it's getting on?"

Octavia giggles, and patiently watches her attempt to rosin the bow with a bit of a smile. "Actually, I meant, would you like to try playing? I've already given it just enough rosin, and I've tuned him for you as well. I figured you might prefer to get right into the fun stuff right away, and worry about all the prep work later, but we're free to do whatever you'd like." She unconsciously adjusts her pink bow tie, watching Dinky carefully.

Dinky smiles conspiratorially at Octavia and her pink bow tie. "Oh! Yeah. Sure, may as well give up hope before we get too involved. Of course, now I've probably gotten the bow all dusty, so." She shrugs, sets it down, and picks up the cello, with some difficulty, resting it on the mattress. "Uh... how do I hold this thing? Let alone the bow."

Octavia sets herself to making the cello as low it can go. "Because you're still small, you'll need to sit up on the bed." She pats the mattress, and once you settle in, she gently lays the cello against you. "Your left hoof goes up here on the hooftipboard, and your right hoof holds the bow." She stands up to retrieve the bow you set down, leaving you alone with her beloved cello for a moment, before returning to set the bow gently on your right hoof.

Dinky sits on the edge of the mattress and follows directions as best she can until she's somehow barely in control of the heavy thing. "Guess this makes sense," she admits, partly to herself. "Vinyl's good, but she's a unicorn. Hire an earth pony to teach a magicless unicorn. 'Cause they're more likely to guess it." She experimentally rubs the bow at an angle against the strings, and winces.

Octavia climbs up on the bed behind Dinky with her chest against Dinky's back. She reaches around and takes your bow hoof, and murmurs, "Hold your wrist outward, like this, and it should be very relaxed. Use only your hooftip to hold the bow." She pushes your hoof gently, producing a clear resounding note. "You don't have any magic? Well, that should be alright. All the greatest string players use their hooves." She clears her throat. "Don't tell Vinyl I said that."

Dinky tries curling the very tip of her leg around the bowtip, but she has trouble holding it. She does saw it back and forth to recreate that note a few more times. A crawling, desperate, almost-bodied A. "Huh. Well, I'm not -totally- magicless. But yeah, nothing useful for this."

Octavia smiles, and gently takes Dinky's hoof to correct her form, praising her for every improvement. She never takes the bow away to demonstrate. She always lets Dinky do it, or holds her by the foreankle gently at worst. "The cello can be more challenging than the guitar, because there are no frets. See?" She points to the hooftipboard. "You can place your hoof at any point on the hooftipboard, and it will change the pitch. It has advantages and disadvantages. It changes the method and the sound for vibrato, which is very important for creating a soulful performance, but it comes at the cost of remembering your hooftip positions. Has Vinyl done any ear training with you?" She chuckles. "I imagine you're probably quite sick of ear training, if you are anything like I was when I was your age."

"Yeah, I'm not myself without frets," quips Dinky. She slides her left hoof down the neck and tries again. That's almost a C. "Ear training?" She wiggles her ears in alternation, forward and back. "You mean, identifying intervals and stuff?"

Octavia says, "Precisely. If you wish to play precisely, you must place your hooftip very carefully, and although much of the positioning is memorization, it's important to be able to hear when you're off pitch."

Dinky smiles. "You know? I think I can do that." She now starts playing the same two notes, A and C, over and over, adjusting her position a little each time, until the interval is just right. The tone quality is still pretty painful, but she finds herself on pitch and grins wickedly.

Octavia gently tweaks her hoof, encouraging her in the right direction. "I'll have to complement Vinyl on her teaching. You're doing quite well. Here..." She explains the standard tuning... what each open string produces, and points out a rough idea of the hooftip positions, then asks you to start by playing some simple scales. She sings along with the notes, "Do re mi fa so la ti do..."
"A little more pressure, but not too much..." "Careful, you're on two strings at once. Just the one."

"That's actually kind of neat. Two strings at once. Nice and... I dunno. It has character." The word Dinky is looking for is 'discordant'. She stes her jaw tightly and starts bowing out that scale. Do... re... no. Re... re... Ugh. It takes like ten tries for her to get each note. Eventually she gives a disgusted nod and moves to the next one.

Octavia says, "So how are you enjoying it so far? Should I ask your mother to buy you a cello of your own so you can practice?"

This sudden question seems to ruin Dinky's experience. She loses her note and winces, and then holds the bow while breathing hard. "Let's not get too crazy, here. I don't suck as much as I thought I would, that's all." She's staring into the far wall.

Octavia smiles. "Alright. We'll give it a few more sessions, and then you can decide." Dinky finds her hooves being ushered back into position. "I hope you find me a good teacher, I'm afraid I've never done this before."

Dinky looks oddly at Octavia. She lets her hooves get manipulated, but the passion she was inadvertently putting into it before is gone. "What do you mean? I have to teach you to teach me?"

Octavia flats her ears a bit. "That's one way to say it, if you like. I play the cello professionally, among other instruments, so perhaps your mother's heart was in the right place, but the only experience I have with musical education was my own, and that's not something I'd like you to experience."

Dinky looks confused. "What. Did they lash you with violin strings in a conservatory or something?"

Octavia says, "No. They made me play, whether I liked it or not, and I did not."

Dinky looks into her teacher's eyes. A piercing look. "Why didn't you? Was there something else you wanted to do?" She glances down for a moment at the earth mare's cutie mark. Yeah, she knows what a clef is.

Octavia says, "I wanted to be with my friends, not practising all day." She notices where you're looking. "This was before I got my cutie mark."

A tear appears in Dinky's eye. She firms her grip on the bow and on the cello, and tries to find the right positioning again. A mournful deep note creaks from the instrument like the slow opening of an old door. She's silent then, and doesn't look up as she asks her quiet question. "Do you think your mark would have been different, if they hadn't done that?"

Octavia gently wipes Dinky's eye and smiles at her. "My mind says yes, but my heart says no."

"Well, that's..." Dinky doesn't have an analysis for that, actually. "Okay." She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "I don't think my mom can afford a cello. I'm surprised she can afford you." She gives the bow a few more slow strokes, tilting it to hit all four strings in succession, then coming back the other way. It doesn't create much of a melody, but it seems cathartic.

Octavia seems to very much enjoy the sound, though she does reach up and gently turn the D peg. She explains how the strings are tuned to perfect fifths and how that differs from the guitar while you go back and forth across the open strings.

Dinky seems to be listening, but the explanation may be going in one ear and out the other. She seems intent on creating her own... experience, here. NOt quite a composition. Maybe more of a regimen than a song. It's like the cello is weeping from some prison in which it's been ensconsed. One of her open G's falls precipitously away, and she shudders throughout her body with the feeling of it. As if she's gone off a cliff in a cart.

Octavia seems quite intent on not becomming her old cello master. She gladly lets you ignore her, and be creative, and just keeps explaining the mechanics of what you're doing, offering examples of how you can use that to learn something else, gently correcting your form, but ultimately letting you do what you will. She was going to play some intervals and chords for Dinky to identify, but she just lets her set her own pace.

Dinky's made her own course here. Who knows what dark thoughts she's dwelling on as she ekes pain from the strings. Eventually, the bow starts to squeak, and she looks up, her breath barely audible. "I think it's low on rosin. What do you think?" She doesn't acknkowledge what Octavia's been explaining, though her ears have been moving.

Octavia looks at you closely, pondering, then she nods, bites her rosin, and takes the bow gently to reapply it. She explains, albeit with her mouth full, how to apply it evenly, how many strokes you need to make. She explains when and if she gets a brand new bow, it will be a chore to rosin it up for the very first time, but once you get it going, it's pretty eas.

Dinky sits down. On the mattress, as she listens. Then she takes the newly prepared bow again, accepts help getting properly positioned, and resumes playing. Now she starts closing her eyes as she goes. A, A, A, A, D, D, D, D, deep hoof shift on the C string. It's chilling to her, anyway, becuase she repeats it. And before either teacher or student knows it, the hour is done.

Octavia hmms... "May I?" She takes the bow gently, if you let her, and presses in close to your back, reaching around you, and setting the bow on the strings. She closes her eyes, and starts to play. She takes the notes you were focusing on, and creates a melody on the spot from them. She reaches into that same dark place as you, and produces a tear-jerking sad but sweet low vibrato. It's as though the cello wants to weep in Octavia's forelegs, and you can feel her breath in her breast against your back, drawing in heavy, weighing on her. She keeps improvising, moving from sorrow to anger. The cello gets surprisingly loud, and she plays faster and faster, until it all comes to a dischordant train wreck of notes that somehow crumble down into that same recognizable melody from before, getting softer and softer, until it's gone.

Dinky loosens and tightens her muscles, now that her back and shoulders and crest are the instrument, as she feels it. She breathes laboriously, touched and sometimes pained by the notes. She moves her shoulders with the strokes Octavia makes, and by the end, she's crying tearlessly.

Octavia gently sets her bow into her case, then puts away her cello just to get it out of the way, before quickly moving back to look you in the eyes. "Oh. -- Oh Good heavens. Are you alright? I'm sorry."

Dinky lets the cello be taken from her loose grasp, and sits slouched, lost somewhere. There's the face of the serious lavender-eyed mare she's never met before today. Dinky inhales unevenly and shudders again. She shakes her head slowly. "Don't be sorry. Don't be sorry." What she can't quite say is why, though.

Octavia leans in and gives Dinky a hug. "Do you need me to go get your mom?"

Dinky's shoulder jerks at the suggestion. Like her teacher just said something obscene. "No. No. We're done," she murmurs. "Thanks. That was... that was pretty amazing." She melts a little in the hug, but doesn't return it.

Octavia pouts a bit, like she's well aware that the complement is just meant to deflect her from whatever emotional turmoil the young foal is going through, but she lets it do exactly that, none the less. "Thank you very much." She hmms, and pulls a business card from her cello case. "If you need to get in contact with me or Vinyl, please don't hesitate, alright?"

Dinky takes the card and slips it into her mattress, of all places. Still weary-eyed, as if she's been crying, Dinky reposes herself on her mattress again. "I can... I can see what this thing is for, now. It... wow. I think that helped." She stays there, staring straight ahead. "You gonna be back?"

Octavia says, "I told your mother that, if you show an interest, I'll compose a course and suggest, perhaps, that we meet once a week, or every second week, depending on what she's able to afford. I can already tell that you're talented, so I will suggest that we move forward, and it will be up to you and your mother."

Dinky looks up, a little stunned. "Talented? Really?" It's almost like the positive appraisal wounds her. "All right, then. A week or two. See you, I hope, if my mom can keep from breaking any more windows." Her eye twitches.

Octavia very tenderly straps in her cello, good and tight in its case. She hefts it onto her back with relative ease, and gives you a worried look. "Come talk to me, if you need to," she says. "You have my card."

Dinky nods. "Thanks," she nearly whispers. "Good luck." Why would the pupil be wishing the mysterious teacher good luck? It's probably just one of those endlessly plumable mysteries. She may well not know herself.

Octavia heads off, giving worried glances over her shoulder. She knows what it's like to be a troubled youth taking cello lessons.