A Tall and Small Collection | S2

Making a Musician

Ashlynn was absolutely jittering with excitement. How could she be so silly? It had been around for years! How come she only just heard about it? This was going to be the greatest thing ever, especially for Dorian.

Ashlynn hurried into her apartment and pried her shoes off of her feet and left them at the front door. By the sound of it, Dorian was playing music on the counter, singing at the top of his lugs.

Maybe it was Ashlynn's fondness of the Borrower family, but in her opinion Dorian had true talent. Now that they were mending fences, Ashlynn felt like she could step up and help him reach his full potential. It was possibly a risk, and maybe she should've talked to Soren about it first, but she was too excited to care. At the very least, she needed to show this to Dorian.

"I'm home!" she called. "Dorian? You there?" Ashlynn threw her bag onto the couch, making sure it was safe to do so, and fished her phone from her purse, practically skipping to the kitchen when the device was in her hand. The teenage Borrower was standing on the kitchen counter, song just ending, and instinctually turned and looked up in the direction of Ashlynn's voice.

"Hey," he said with a smile. "Welcome back. Is... everything okay?"

"Yeah," said Ashlynn eagerly. "More than great actually."

"Big news? Should I grab Soren and Rey? Well, maybe just Rey. Soren still might be out. You look like you're getting ready to burst," said Dorian, seeing the light in Ashlynn's eyes. She was obviously eager to share whatever it was.

"Well, yes and no. It's mostly news for you. Well... less of news and more of a surprise. A surprise for you! Well..." Ashlynn sputtered and tripped over her words, making Dorian chuckle. "Here. I'll just show you." Ashlynn stepped up to the counter and swiped open her phone before clicking on an app she didn't know existed – Garage Band.

Ashlynn propped up her phone against the wall and let the program load. Dorian watched Ashlynn excitedly tap away at the screen and adjust it so that he could clearly see the device which was almost as tall as he was while laying on its side. He wasn't sure wat had her so worked up, but he was curious enough to walk across the counter and find out. He hadn't seen Ashlynn this excited about something in a while.

"Okay, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I played around with it after one of my co-workers showed this to me on his phone," said Ashlynn. Dorian, still confused, hoped some useful information would be on the screen. There were loads of boxes with names like "test" and "curtain call." It wasn't until Ashlynn clicked on "test" and hit the play button that he realized what it was.

It was a music app.

Ashlynn hit the play button at the top of the screen and the song started. It was pretty simple. There was a drum sequence that was pretty repetitive and a piano and guitar duo. He listened to the music and ran it through his song repertoire. He didn't recognize it.

"What song is this?" he asked after it ended abruptly. "Is this what you're so excited about?"

"You'll be excited about it in a second," said Ashlynn. "I wrote it."

"What?" he asked. "You... play? How? You were at work."

"No, not at all," said Ashlynn. "This app lets you write music."

Dorian's confusion instantly melted into pure excitement.

"What? How?" he asked, now eagerly facing the device wondering how to work it.

"Super easy," said Ashlynn. She proceeded to click a few buttons and gave Dorian a quick rundown tutorial of what she understood about the app. Things like how to change the speed – tempo – of the instruments as well as how to change the key the instruments played in. She even showed him how to add tracks for multiple instruments.