//------------------------------// // In tune // Story: Dropped C's Thirty Minute Ponies // by Dropped C //------------------------------// Prompt: "… I think I wanna marry you." Octavia was tuning her cello in the middle of the stage. In less than two hours, she would open the first Canterlot Festival for the Union of Musical Styles, and so, she wanted everything to be perfect. Besides her, a brown, white-maned pegasus was cleaning a guitar, and a little to the right a reddish earth mare warmed up her voice with some trills. Even if she couldn't avoid a bit of a superiority complex, Octavia respected her colleagues. Provided that they played their instruments with their hooves or other parts of their bodies. That's why something had to go wrong. Octavia picked her bow and got ready to play some warm-up exercises. She had barely finished her first note when she felt an uneasy presence. In front of her, a white unicorn with a weird electric blue mane smiled with glee, staring at her just a little too close to her comfort. When Octavia opened her eyes, the other mare didn't wait to talk: "You are Octavia Philharmonica, aren't you?" "Yes," replied Octavia. "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I can't believe this! I am Vinyl Scratch, one of your biggest fa…" Vinyl found a hoof on her muzzle. "Look, I need to warm up and, frankly, I know who you are and I'm just not interested. I can't respect anypony who makes 'music' with machines." Octavia closed her eyes and focused again on her instrument. "But… I…" Vinyl, red as a tomato, didn't know where to look. "When you learn something about real music, look for me again." Vinyl moved away from Octavia and started assembling her gear, muttering in anger. Octavia started her warm up exercises once again. Oh, Celesta… There was just so much beauty in that music that Vinyl couldn't even stay angry. However, her honor had been tainted, so she needed to teach that mare a lesson. Vinyl finished setting up the sample launchpad and, as quick as she could, a keyboard and two envelope controllers. Then she closed her eyes and started counting to the beat of Octavia's music. "One, two, three… One, two, three…" Making some adjustments to her gear, Vinyl smiled with malice. Octavia chained a simple piece with another one in the same beat and key. As soon as she hit the first note, an insidious and thundering kick drum started playing, but she didn't mind it too much. After all, she had to share the stage with a lot of ponies and everypony had the right to test their gear. At least it was playing to the same beat. Little by little, new percussion sounds were added to the piece, giving it new life. Undoubtedly, it had to be that earth mare that was getting ready her drum kit besides the pegasus guitar player. "One, two, three… One, two, three…" Octavia counted to her own beat, getting ready for the chorus. A deep, distorted bass started playing, nailing the switch of the melody and giving it some extra power. Octavia felt her entrails resound with so many simultaneous sounds. It was like playing with a backing orchestra, but wilder and way more aggressive. Also, it was fun. The cellist garnished the piece with some extra filigrees and trills. Before she could even notice it, she was smiling. The sound of a piano that played soft diminished arpeggios made her start to hum. Unfortunately, she knew the magic would end soon. After all, this was her favourite piece, and nopony played it right the first time. Nopony expected that key modulation. "One, two, three… One, two, three…" she counted once again, this time with a little sadness. Playing the first note after the modulation, Octavia lowered her head, getting ready for the dissonance. That's where the craziest, wildest, most aggressive synthesizer she had ever heard began to play. It's sound spun around the room. It raised and lowered its volume, screaming with a bit of a vocal quality. And it was in bucking perfect harmony. In fact, it was playing an impeccable solo, fast and violent, with the precision of a dancer and the subtlety of a missile. Octavia was hearing musical figures that had almost slipped her mind after so many years. Before she could even notice, she was playing harder, getting awash with the musical flow. As the last note died, Octavia opened her eyes and looked for her mysterious accompanist. The pegasus guitar player looked perplexed to the floor. The earth drummer mare hadn't even finished setting her kit up. The xylophonist zebra couldn't have made such crazy sounds and, certainly, Octavia didn't believe a voice could make them either. That's why she turned her neck with a feeling of dread in her stomach. There she was. Smiling with pure malice, Vinyl looked at her eyes and put her hoof on her keyboard, replaying with swift movements the last measures of her synth solo. Octavia let her cello fall to the ground as she got up to get closer to Vinyl. "How?!" "Oh, I dunno, miss 'You know nothing about music'," said Vinyl with sarcasm. "It's nothing special." "But… But… That was…" Octavia felt at a loss for words. "What? It was nothing. Please, it was just a basic 3/4 rhythm, an A minor pentatonic played with a simple bass sample, with some blues notes just to give it some flavour. Left hoof playing arpeggios on the keyboard and right one playing a C minor harmonic solo." Vinyl played a quick demonstration. Her horn flamed in hypnotic blue, moving the sampler's buttons to the beat while her hooves fiddled with the keyboard, fluttering sometimes over the envelope controllers. "Everypony fails the switch to C…" Octavia continued. "I know this piece by heart," said Vinyl. "Before you cut me off, I was trying to say that I'm one of your biggest fans. Listen, electronic music doesn't compose by itself. You don't turn on a machine, feed it some magic and say 'hey, machine, make music'. Machines don't even do nothing ponies don't tell them to do before, and, in this case, it's me giving it the notes they have to play. To do that, I had to study a lot about music." Octavia blinked twice, her face that of somepony whose preconceptions lay battered on the ground. Staring at Vinyl, she shot a quick question: "I - V - VI in G minor?" "G, D, Eb," replied Vinyl without missing a beat. Octavia stared at Vinyl once again and blinked twice again. She wanted to ask so many questions. She wanted to ask where did Vinyl study, how much did she know, how did her machines work and how could she focus on so many instruments at the same time. So she opened her muzzle and asked the first question that came to her mind: "Will you marry me?" Vinyl chuckled. "Mmm… Tell you what. Buy me a drink after the gig and… We might play the first notes to that melody. "But beware. I love improvising."