Music, Modes, and Lore

Have a new general feature to suggest, or think one should be tweaked? Share your ideas here.
Post Reply
Navi
Posts: 350
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2020 7:07 am

Music, Modes, and Lore

Post by Navi »

So a lot of what we know about ancient music is rather vague in terms of finding out where it all originated. It’s also gone through several evolutions to arrive at what we hear today in music. The short and sweet of it is this though.
There were several styles of music native to various cultures in and around Greece. They each had their own unique sound and inflection, but if all were played in the same key would just start and end on different notes. For example, the C major scale is C D E F G A B C. This is called the Ionian mode, if you were to play in the same key, which is C, but start and end on the note D, so D E F G A B C D, then the mode is called Dorian. Of course like I said, these names are all mutated, expanded upon, and changed from what their original names and structures were to what we call them today. For a list of all the names and some examples of how they sound, the following link can shed more light on it. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-musi ... cal-modes/
The next link goes into more detail as to what the modes actually are and does a pretty good job of explaining it in a simple manner with visual diagrams and the like.
https://www.musictheoryacademy.com/unde ... sic/modes/
As for the idea, there are two parts, mechanics and lore. Lore wise, each of the various nations might have their own unique style of music with names given to each one, or various modes, no reason why some can’t share a couple different ones. This would just help enrich the world lore and introduce some more culture into it. Along with different modes belonging to different cultures, different cultures could share the same modes, but have different styles of playing, so one might be known for a certain strumming style, while another culture with the same mode might play it in a finger picking style. Mechanic wise, whenever music performance gets introduced, the idea would be that certain modes and styles of playing would really connect well with certain people and their culture, while those same styles might really annoy or put off people from other cultures. So similarly to how story telling works, you would have to observe the crowd, kind of get a feel for what kind of people you have in the crowd, then compose some phrasings, or multiple different modes to satisfy your listeners while also judging which style to play it in.
Obviously, no matter how well you put a piece together, if you don’t play well then you’re not going to score very well with your listeners, so definitely have some music playing checks in there for good measure. Maybe have some culture’s music be very complex and technical, so hire checks are involved, while others like hillfolk might have some more folky easy going simple styles and lower checks. I’d say also having specific types of instruments be characteristic, but if music is going to be a generalized thing, I don’t see any reason to do this, unless you want people lugging around 5 different types of instruments and being able to play all of them equally well.
Anyway, here’s my rambling thoughts and ideas on the future music system!
If you'd like some help coming up with different styles of playing for different instruments I'd be happy to do more research on that. Just give me a list of the types of instruments you'd like, so woodwinds, brass, bowed instruments, or strummed instruments etc.
wander without wanting, thrust into lands unknown. the shadows shift and change, and the worlds with them.
I'm not a soldier but I'm fighting
Can you hear me through the silence?
I won't give up 'cause there will be a day
We'll meet again
Post Reply