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Can You Hear Me?
Octavia’s favorite chord progression is a secret. She hasn’t told a soul about it, written any clues as to how it goes, and she doesn’t dare compose anything with it. She knows better. It’ll never sound as good as it does in her head.
But she thinks about it whenever she loses faith. When her pieces are frowned upon by her peers. When her orchestra plays Beethooven’s Xth Symphony for the thousandth time. She takes out her cello and plays the note that it hides behind.
C.
It works at any octave. She plays that note, and the movement blooms in her mind, like vines traveling up the bell tower of a broken-down church and making the whole place worth visiting again.
It’s so pedestrian, on paper (figuratively). That’s why she loves it. Chord, scale, chord and scale.
C-seventh (this she hears).
D pentatonic (this she would play).
F-seventh (she hears).
G pentatonic (she plays).
So the pattern goes. The notes don’t matter; there’s a million ways to order them, and it’s different every time she plays that C. It may even go further, if Octavia could ever work up the nerve to explore it.
“You must write it down,” her composition teacher, Filo Forte, scolded her when she accidentally let the secret slip. “If you don’t write it down now, somepony else will play it first. Then what will you do?”
Her answer was simple: “I will marry them.”
She wonders when she practices around others. Does anyone else hear it? Is she leaving bread crumbs in all her pieces that somepony will follow right to her door? She's tested it on her roommate. But when her pieces catch Vinyl’s fancy, she hums them later (usually when she’s washing the dishes), and it’s always the piece and nothing else. She hums them note-for-note. She doesn’t ask them what they’re hiding. And Octavia feels safe and alone.
There are days when Octavia tries to forget it. Days when it isn’t hiding behind C, but behind every note there is. A bird sings tea kettle tea kettle tea and the trill is the perfect set-up for the next pentatonic fluorish. It’s impossible to write. Her hoof, controlled by the melody in her mind, begins to scrawl the notes in the air.
On these days, she goes out looking for noise. The gushing water of the Ponyville dam, for example. Or the discordant voices at the Ponyville market (There’s nothing musical about two ponies haggling each other, except maybe some percussion). Anywhere that prevents her from humming, singing, or thinking. Even Vinyl’s raves do the trick. There’s nothing like a good blast of synthesized sound, scattered here and there with the tattered remains of a mare’s vocals. Hooves in the air. Beach balls bouncing off unsuspecting noses. The same glowing necklaces on every neck, hanging like religious keepsakes. It’s enough to make a tired musician relax and enjoy the creative silence.
“Hey, y’all,” Vinyl says over the microphone one night, to the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Octavia watches out of the corner of her eye as the glowing performer adjusts her sliders and switches. She waits for the noise to come back. She can already hear her secret behind Vinyl’s voice.
“You know what’s great about being a DJ?”
There’s a cough.
“That’s okay, it was rhetorical.” And the crowd laughs. “What’s great is I don’t have to make my own music. I can just play other ponies’ stuff.”
Laughs, whistles, and a stray taunt here and there.
“But sometimes I can’t help it.”
The noise comes back and the beach balls fly again. Something sounding like rain on a metal field fills the room, and Octavia can relax again, until the synth blasts in and plays a note.
It’s C.
She laughs. There is no escape. That poor mare’s voice comes back, torn into new pieces, and everything is noise again. It’s almost nice, in fact, which must mean it’s part of a scale.
D pentatonic.
Octavia stands from her chair as the F-seventh plays. She makes her way into the crowd, pushing and shoving as hard as they do. The sea parts. Her ears scream at the speakers, but the music cuts out, and only the vocals are left.
G pentatonic, Octavia mouths, as does Vinyl, who flips up her glasses and stares.
It’s so quiet here, before the chorus, before the vines rush out of the speakers. And they both know the chord that comes next.
But she thinks about it whenever she loses faith. When her pieces are frowned upon by her peers. When her orchestra plays Beethooven’s Xth Symphony for the thousandth time. She takes out her cello and plays the note that it hides behind.
C.
It works at any octave. She plays that note, and the movement blooms in her mind, like vines traveling up the bell tower of a broken-down church and making the whole place worth visiting again.
It’s so pedestrian, on paper (figuratively). That’s why she loves it. Chord, scale, chord and scale.
C-seventh (this she hears).
D pentatonic (this she would play).
F-seventh (she hears).
G pentatonic (she plays).
So the pattern goes. The notes don’t matter; there’s a million ways to order them, and it’s different every time she plays that C. It may even go further, if Octavia could ever work up the nerve to explore it.
“You must write it down,” her composition teacher, Filo Forte, scolded her when she accidentally let the secret slip. “If you don’t write it down now, somepony else will play it first. Then what will you do?”
Her answer was simple: “I will marry them.”
She wonders when she practices around others. Does anyone else hear it? Is she leaving bread crumbs in all her pieces that somepony will follow right to her door? She's tested it on her roommate. But when her pieces catch Vinyl’s fancy, she hums them later (usually when she’s washing the dishes), and it’s always the piece and nothing else. She hums them note-for-note. She doesn’t ask them what they’re hiding. And Octavia feels safe and alone.
There are days when Octavia tries to forget it. Days when it isn’t hiding behind C, but behind every note there is. A bird sings tea kettle tea kettle tea and the trill is the perfect set-up for the next pentatonic fluorish. It’s impossible to write. Her hoof, controlled by the melody in her mind, begins to scrawl the notes in the air.
On these days, she goes out looking for noise. The gushing water of the Ponyville dam, for example. Or the discordant voices at the Ponyville market (There’s nothing musical about two ponies haggling each other, except maybe some percussion). Anywhere that prevents her from humming, singing, or thinking. Even Vinyl’s raves do the trick. There’s nothing like a good blast of synthesized sound, scattered here and there with the tattered remains of a mare’s vocals. Hooves in the air. Beach balls bouncing off unsuspecting noses. The same glowing necklaces on every neck, hanging like religious keepsakes. It’s enough to make a tired musician relax and enjoy the creative silence.
“Hey, y’all,” Vinyl says over the microphone one night, to the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Octavia watches out of the corner of her eye as the glowing performer adjusts her sliders and switches. She waits for the noise to come back. She can already hear her secret behind Vinyl’s voice.
“You know what’s great about being a DJ?”
There’s a cough.
“That’s okay, it was rhetorical.” And the crowd laughs. “What’s great is I don’t have to make my own music. I can just play other ponies’ stuff.”
Laughs, whistles, and a stray taunt here and there.
“But sometimes I can’t help it.”
The noise comes back and the beach balls fly again. Something sounding like rain on a metal field fills the room, and Octavia can relax again, until the synth blasts in and plays a note.
It’s C.
She laughs. There is no escape. That poor mare’s voice comes back, torn into new pieces, and everything is noise again. It’s almost nice, in fact, which must mean it’s part of a scale.
D pentatonic.
Octavia stands from her chair as the F-seventh plays. She makes her way into the crowd, pushing and shoving as hard as they do. The sea parts. Her ears scream at the speakers, but the music cuts out, and only the vocals are left.
G pentatonic, Octavia mouths, as does Vinyl, who flips up her glasses and stares.
It’s so quiet here, before the chorus, before the vines rush out of the speakers. And they both know the chord that comes next.
Hmm... this was interesting! Music is often used to bring Vinyl and Tavi together, but never quite like this. But Vinyl didn't seem to be "it" earlier in the text, so circling back to her in the end was a bit of a surprise. I had begun to expect another character would pop up instead. So good work subverting the expected but then coming back to it in an unexpected manner.
Now I'm wondering whether Vinyl really caught onto Tavi's clues all along, or if she just hit the melodic jackpot with her latest remix. Perhaps a slight expansion to this will reveal the answer! :)
Now I'm wondering whether Vinyl really caught onto Tavi's clues all along, or if she just hit the melodic jackpot with her latest remix. Perhaps a slight expansion to this will reveal the answer! :)
I guess Octavia has to marry Vinyl now. But then what if Vinyl says no?
Something I liked:
This is a very nicely paced read, author. Very compact, yet ambiguous up to a point. One has to wonder what happens after that last sentence. I like how we get this really vivid picture of Octavia's persona with how she perceives music. I'm not a music expert (I can't even read sheet music), but I can imagine the sounds that are generated from this text with my mind's eye. It's weirdly sensual, without every being erotic in the slightest. It does, of course, get pretty romantic, if in a roundabout way. Lovingly written and constructed, for sure.
Something I didn't like:
I do have to wonder, though, why Octavia would want to marry whoever found out her secret chord progression. It seems arbitrary, like something out of a fairy tale, except Octavia doesn't seem like that kind of gal anyway. I get that this is ultimately a VinylTavia shipping vehicle, and god knows those two are shipped all the time, but I can't help but feel like this is more uncalled-for than most. Doesn't help that we don't know what Vinyl's perspective on things really is; you could say it's implied that she reciprocates Octavia's love, but I hesitate to buy it.
Verdict: It's a shame that nobody's talked about this one. It feels professionally done, if anything.
Something I liked:
This is a very nicely paced read, author. Very compact, yet ambiguous up to a point. One has to wonder what happens after that last sentence. I like how we get this really vivid picture of Octavia's persona with how she perceives music. I'm not a music expert (I can't even read sheet music), but I can imagine the sounds that are generated from this text with my mind's eye. It's weirdly sensual, without every being erotic in the slightest. It does, of course, get pretty romantic, if in a roundabout way. Lovingly written and constructed, for sure.
Something I didn't like:
I do have to wonder, though, why Octavia would want to marry whoever found out her secret chord progression. It seems arbitrary, like something out of a fairy tale, except Octavia doesn't seem like that kind of gal anyway. I get that this is ultimately a VinylTavia shipping vehicle, and god knows those two are shipped all the time, but I can't help but feel like this is more uncalled-for than most. Doesn't help that we don't know what Vinyl's perspective on things really is; you could say it's implied that she reciprocates Octavia's love, but I hesitate to buy it.
Verdict: It's a shame that nobody's talked about this one. It feels professionally done, if anything.
Writing about music:
According to the old saying, is like dancing about architecture, and that's the feeling I came away with here. I've been playing guitar and singing at my local church for more than thirty years, but I never learned most of the technical jargon that goes along with chord structures and harmonics and that sort of thing. So all the terminology here pushes me away from the story, makes a barrier that I can't quite get through.
The only suggestion I can make that would help me, author, would be to add more of how the music in her head makes Octavia feel. You've got some of that now, but the more you can draw me into her experience, the more the story will resonate with me. And while I didn't mean to make a pun by using "resonate" in this context, I'll be more than happy to take credit for having done so.
Mike
According to the old saying, is like dancing about architecture, and that's the feeling I came away with here. I've been playing guitar and singing at my local church for more than thirty years, but I never learned most of the technical jargon that goes along with chord structures and harmonics and that sort of thing. So all the terminology here pushes me away from the story, makes a barrier that I can't quite get through.
The only suggestion I can make that would help me, author, would be to add more of how the music in her head makes Octavia feel. You've got some of that now, but the more you can draw me into her experience, the more the story will resonate with me. And while I didn't mean to make a pun by using "resonate" in this context, I'll be more than happy to take credit for having done so.
Mike
This tops my slate. Congratulations, author. Great research. Perfect establishment of mood, and the last line killed me. I only have minor suggestions.
I think this should be there're or there are. Octavia seems too formal to make that mistake.
Anypony, especially since you use somepony in the following sentence.
Period goes inside the paren, and I strongly disagree with the statement.
What do y'all ponies have against an hr tag, anyhow? :ajbemused:
there’s
I think this should be there're or there are. Octavia seems too formal to make that mistake.
anyone
Anypony, especially since you use somepony in the following sentence.
(There’s nothing musical about two ponies haggling each other ... ).
Period goes inside the paren, and I strongly disagree with the statement.
(lots of newlines in a row)
What do y'all ponies have against an hr tag, anyhow? :ajbemused:
This is a strong character piece about Octavia. We see how she is, in a moderate way, obsessed by these sounds, and how that obsession guides her through life.
I don't know what the chord progression sounds like, and that want and lack kinda hurt my engagement -- perhaps being vague might have been preferable. Declaring that she will marry whomever produces the progression also seems arbitrary and ill-advised, as just anyone could happen upon it by chance. Indeed, though it is implied that Vinyl knows exactly what she's doing at the end, it seems very spontaneous... perhaps Vinyl was watching and waiting, but it's something of a stretch given most characterizations of her I am familiar with, and it is not well-supported in the text here. I sensed a kind of longing on Octavia's part, but the stakes felt very low as it never drove her to do anything except charge across a floor that one time.
D. Up a whole step. Down a major third. Drop an octave. Up a perfect fifth.
I don't know what the chord progression sounds like, and that want and lack kinda hurt my engagement -- perhaps being vague might have been preferable. Declaring that she will marry whomever produces the progression also seems arbitrary and ill-advised, as just anyone could happen upon it by chance. Indeed, though it is implied that Vinyl knows exactly what she's doing at the end, it seems very spontaneous... perhaps Vinyl was watching and waiting, but it's something of a stretch given most characterizations of her I am familiar with, and it is not well-supported in the text here. I sensed a kind of longing on Octavia's part, but the stakes felt very low as it never drove her to do anything except charge across a floor that one time.
Tough for me to read, on the grounds that I know jack shit about music. This is a story about falling in love because of music.
I'm tempted to abstain, but... no, I found enough to like in the character and the elegance of the prose to make me feel comfortable rating it. I wish I could hear the music as you do, author, so I could understand this as it's meant to be understood.
Bottom of my ballot, because Octavia will never marry me. :<
I'm tempted to abstain, but... no, I found enough to like in the character and the elegance of the prose to make me feel comfortable rating it. I wish I could hear the music as you do, author, so I could understand this as it's meant to be understood.
Bottom of my ballot, because Octavia will never marry me. :<
This has such a great hook. It immediately presents a question, and then uses the answer to introduce and develop the primary conflict in a way that keeps the reader curious throughout. Seriously, in my opinion this might be the best opening out of all the entries this month. The overall payoff is pretty straightforward, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, I usually do prefer it when minifics feel cozy rather than trying to reach for something they don't have the space to pull off.
I think my biggest concern is how you handle the transition into the rest of the story after the initial hook scene. Picking us up after a soft scene break with three or four big and bulky paragraphs really puts the brakes on the flow of reading, at least for me.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "What kind of illiterate mess can't get through four paragraphs without whining about it?" And while that's true to an extent, I think it's still worth mentioning that micro-pacing becomes far more important than usual within the confines of a minific. Instead of thinking of it as four paragraphs, I'd like to think of it as 20-30% of the story where not much really happens in the middle. It's not offensive, but at least for me, it certainly took some of the wind out of the momentum of the story and muted its final impact.
But other than this pacing hiccup, I don't think I've got much to say. This was a strong entry, IMO, so thank you for writing it!
I think my biggest concern is how you handle the transition into the rest of the story after the initial hook scene. Picking us up after a soft scene break with three or four big and bulky paragraphs really puts the brakes on the flow of reading, at least for me.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "What kind of illiterate mess can't get through four paragraphs without whining about it?" And while that's true to an extent, I think it's still worth mentioning that micro-pacing becomes far more important than usual within the confines of a minific. Instead of thinking of it as four paragraphs, I'd like to think of it as 20-30% of the story where not much really happens in the middle. It's not offensive, but at least for me, it certainly took some of the wind out of the momentum of the story and muted its final impact.
But other than this pacing hiccup, I don't think I've got much to say. This was a strong entry, IMO, so thank you for writing it!
I wish that I knew music as lovingly as you seem to write it. I think an understanding would grow my fondness for this fic a lot more. That said, I think you've got a wonderful hook here and lovely ending, with a middle that could do some more service to the premise than it does.
It's well established in the WriteOff lore that I am absolutely musically illiterate. And yet...
And yet.
I followed this from start to finish like I had a hook in my mouth. I don't understand the technical notey bits, but Octavia's love for her music is crystal clear, and the steps she takes to scream "find me, see me, understand me" as quietly as she possibly can resound like a church bell.
I have heard no colors, but I know this rainbow is beautiful all the same.
And yet.
I followed this from start to finish like I had a hook in my mouth. I don't understand the technical notey bits, but Octavia's love for her music is crystal clear, and the steps she takes to scream "find me, see me, understand me" as quietly as she possibly can resound like a church bell.
I have heard no colors, but I know this rainbow is beautiful all the same.
So as much as it's not a great look if this turns out to be my only real comment this round, but mainly because I see a lot of other people lamenting that they don't know enough music theory to interpret the musibabble—I do, at least terminology-wise. The progression as described is ambiguous, but interpreting it as riffing in minor pentatonic over major seventh dominant seventh (Edit: I really should have been more awake) chords, you could get some basic jazz/blues style out of it. I'm imagining cello over guitar in Octavia's mind, and synth lead over pads in Vinyl's.
I actually found it immersion-breaking just because the way it's described in the story doesn't… feel like how I imagine most musicians operating? If absolute pitch sense were a given for ponies with musical cutie marks, that would cover some of the distance, and if the cultural context made art a lot more conservative (which doesn't jibe with the feel of canon for me), that would cover some more, but I can't imagine that sequence being all that special at least the way I want to hear it; it's just a bluesy I–IV opening!
I'll be very curious to see what the author says about it and whether they actually meant something else.
I actually found it immersion-breaking just because the way it's described in the story doesn't… feel like how I imagine most musicians operating? If absolute pitch sense were a given for ponies with musical cutie marks, that would cover some of the distance, and if the cultural context made art a lot more conservative (which doesn't jibe with the feel of canon for me), that would cover some more, but I can't imagine that sequence being all that special at least the way I want to hear it; it's just a bluesy I–IV opening!
I'll be very curious to see what the author says about it and whether they actually meant something else.
>>GrandMoffPony
>>No_Raisin
>>Baal Bunny
>>Trick_Question
>>KwirkyJ
>>Posh
>>Bachiavellian
>>Flashgen
>>Rao
>>Light_Striker
Thank you to everyone who commented on this story. It was an exercise that I've never been fully comfortable to try, but I'm really happy I went through with it.
Before the round started I said something about having an issue with both of my entries, but while this story was up, and before anyone commented, I decided the only thing I "didn't like" about it was that it might not be to everyone's taste. But I likes it. And, lucky for me, some of you liked it too. Thanks for lending me your thoughts and reactions; I will probably only expand this a little before posting to fimfiction.
If you're interested, you can find the chord progression here. Like Light Striker pointed out, it's quite basic. I think I'll lean on the fact that it's not finished in the final version.
And, if you liked this, and you're interested in reading an actual published novel, the style of which I was trying to imitate, I can't recommend Richard Powers' Orfeo enough. I think it strikes the perfect balance of character passion and a subject that not everyone is familiar with (music and science, in this case). It's super great.
As are all of you.
See you next round!
>>No_Raisin
>>Baal Bunny
>>Trick_Question
>>KwirkyJ
>>Posh
>>Bachiavellian
>>Flashgen
>>Rao
>>Light_Striker
Thank you to everyone who commented on this story. It was an exercise that I've never been fully comfortable to try, but I'm really happy I went through with it.
Before the round started I said something about having an issue with both of my entries, but while this story was up, and before anyone commented, I decided the only thing I "didn't like" about it was that it might not be to everyone's taste. But I likes it. And, lucky for me, some of you liked it too. Thanks for lending me your thoughts and reactions; I will probably only expand this a little before posting to fimfiction.
If you're interested, you can find the chord progression here. Like Light Striker pointed out, it's quite basic. I think I'll lean on the fact that it's not finished in the final version.
And, if you liked this, and you're interested in reading an actual published novel, the style of which I was trying to imitate, I can't recommend Richard Powers' Orfeo enough. I think it strikes the perfect balance of character passion and a subject that not everyone is familiar with (music and science, in this case). It's super great.
As are all of you.
See you next round!