Big Book of Music

[Navi]

The following is a condensed overview of music as I have come to learn over the course of my 20 or so years of playing. I ope it's useful for anyone who's interested in developing a musician in or out of game, as well as Rias who has expressed interest in this sort of information for music mechanics. If I miss anything, feel free to add to it.

Scales, Keys, and Chords:

Scales are comprised of notes. Notes are just designated frequencies of vibrations. The first scale most musicians learn is a chromatic scale, which is a linear progression from one note to the next. For example. C, c sharp, D, D sharp, E, F, F sharp, G, G sharp, A, A sharp, B, C. You might have noticed that E sharp and B sharp are missing. This is just a weird musical notation thing and isn't really worth focusing on for the purposes of this overview. Generally in western music scales are patterns of 7 different notes, with an 8th one being the octave of the root note. For example, the C major scale is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. However, scales are really just mathematical formulas that describe patterns of frequencies. One other thing, when I say C major scale, I'm also saying the key of C. Keys are just a way to explain what collection of notes we're using in music. They can be made up of how ever many notes the musician wants, so long as there is some sort of pattern. Some really interesting bits about scales. If you know a major key scale, you actually know 7 other scales as well. However, these are more accurately described as modes. A mode is a scale that is played at a different starting position. For example, if we take the C major scale as before, but start from the D note, so D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, we get an entirely different sounding scale than if we played the scale from C to C. Each of these modes has a different name. They are as follows starting with the first root position:
Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. I highly recommend looking up the origins of each of these names, as it is all really interesting history.
To put this all into perspective, you may have heard of a major scale and a minor scale. It's easy to think of these as different scales, but really they are both part of the same scale. If we take the C major scale, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C, and move to the 6th mode, or the Aeolian mode, we are now in the natural minor scale for the key of C, which is also the A minor scale, which is A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. It's pretty cool. This is why before I mentioned that if you know one scale, then you know 7 scales. Being able to continue the scale pattern as far as the instrument you are playing allows is important to mastering it.
However, There are far more scales than 7. For example, there is also a harmonic and a melodic minor scale that don't show up in any of the modes. There is also a pentatonic scale, which is actually several pentatonic scales. You can think of these like a stripped down major scale that only keeps the notes that all complement one another, regardless of what they're played over, so long as everything is in the same key. As I mentioned before, a scale is really just a pattern of frequencies, or notes, that repeats, so there's kind of no limit to combinations. That being said, we've had hundreds of years to trial and error what sounds good and what doesn't to most people. This is reflected in pop music.

Some of my favorites are the harmonic and melodic minor scales, as well as the blues scale.

Along with scales come chords. These are a combination of notes played simultaneously to achieve a desired sound. In general, these notes spread across the scale of the key the musician is playing in. For each key, there are 7 chords. This is pretty advanced, but if you take the key's major scale, then take the first, third, and 5th notes that show up in that scale, you get the first major chord. This is where it gets kind of mind bendy, if we move to the second mode, which we said is just the major scale but started from the second note of that scale, then take the first, third, and fifth notes from that, we get the second chord of the key. This results in a pattern of chords for each major key as follows. Major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, minor diminished. Let's take the key of C for example. Starting from C, we have C major (C, E, G), D minor(D,F,A), E minor(E,G,B), F major(F,A,C), G major(G,B,D), A minor(A,C,E), and B minor diminished(B,D,F). If you can play all of these chords, congrats, you have all of the chords you need to compose in the key of C. These are also known as triads, as each of them is made up of three notes.
It is also worth noting that for obvious reasons, some instruments are not capable of playing chords unless there are multiple musicians. Flutes, horns, and recorders cannot play chords, but they can play the notes of the chord in an arpeggio, which is just playing the notes in order. I could go on and on about chords, but this is a good spot to stop I think.

Rhythm:

In music there's a few different areas that determine what your music sounds like. These are the type of scale, the rhythms used, and the styles or techniques used. Rhythms are pretty easy to understand, but difficult to apply and are probably the one thing that a musician will need to practice endlessly. Essentially, rhythms divide time. If you hear the phrase 4 4 time, which is written as 4/4. It means 4 beats per bar, with the quarter note getting the beat. Quarter notes are what you get if you divide the measure into fourths. There are also 1/8 notes, 1/16 notes, 1/32 notes, 1/2 notes, and whole notes. Musical notation can get pretty crazy with things like dotted 1/8 notes, and we won't get into those here as I'm not particularly well versed at reading actual musical notation. There is one other bit of information that is required, which is the tempo. This is how fast beats are played. If we say 60 beats per minute, that's one beat every second, so a single measure of 4/4 time would take 4 seconds. This is generally pretty slow. In my experience, slow rhythms are more difficult to play than fast ones, especially without someone or something else keeping time. This might all sound pretty simple, and you might think what's the big deal, but just like with scales, there's an endless combination of rhythms that can be played. For example 9/8 time, which is 9 beats per measure, with the 8th note getting the beat. Try dividing time into 9 parts, and you'll quickly understand how this can become difficult to manage. That being said, mastering the basics is relatively easy to do, and most people who are not musically inclined can't even pick out things like 9/8 music. It's one of those things that the more complicated you get, the less appealing it becomes to most people. Still, among musicians, it's a way to flex.

Styles and Techniques:

The last part of this little book of music will discuss styles and techniques. These will vary across instruments, but basically how you play the notes can determine the feel of the music. Some basic techniques are staccato and legato. You may have heard these words before. Staccato is a terse sound, you could think of it as a ta ta ta ta sound. The edges of each note are well-defined. Legato is the opposite, it can be thought of as a la la la sound, where the start and end of each note are less defined. One other technique that spans across many different instruments is vibrato and tremolo. Vibrato is raising and lowering the pitch of a note, for wind instruments this can be as simple as fluttering between two different notes, or slightly bending a note on a stringed instrument. tremolo is quickly raising and lowering the volume of a note, which is rather difficult to do on stringed instruments that aren't bowed. A couple other techniques that are more instrument specific are slides, bends, and hammer ons for stringged instruments like guitars, and growls for reed instruments. Slides and hammerons are pretty self-explanatory, you slide from one note to the next, hammer the next note with your fretting hand rather than picking it with your strumming hand, and bend the string with your fretting hand to the next note instead of fretting it. Growling is also rather self-explanatory, while blowing into the mouthpiece, you hum as well. This is the growling sound you hear when you hear some saxophone musicians. There are some techniques that actually require other bits and pieces for the instrument. For example, in horns, there are things called horn mutes that go into the openings of the bells, which change the sound of the horn completely. If scales and rhythm are the main ingredients of music, then styles and techniques are the spices and seasonings that keep it interesting. Some musicians spend much of their time developing their own styles of playing, while others simply learn to copy others, and really achieving the first requires the latter. I haven't included many techniques outside of ones for stringged instruments because I'm most familiar with those. If anyone has any others to add, feel free to add them.
If you are planning to make a musician in game, it's good to include these three elements in your emotes. Not saying you have to, I've seen plenty of roleplayers get by just describing it as best they can. Though, the effort is appreciated by musicians and can even help others imagine the music in their heads.
I do hope this has been helpful to anyone who is interested in playing a musician in game, and for Rias who has expressed an interest in music mechanics in the past.

[Dahann]

Hi Navi
I love your idea, and think the information you've put together is amazing!

I just have a few small comments/clarifications:

- I am not sure about learning the chromatic scale "first".. As you pointed out, the chromatic scale is just playing all possible notes in a row, which has a droning feel and is less frequently utilized in composition. I would argue the first scale should be C major (all the white keys on the piano, starting with "C"). Many simple melodies use C major and so it is an excellent entry into the study of music for children and novices alike.
- even if the other modes use the same notes as the primary scale - one does not intuitively "know" how to use them, as soon as they learn the root scale. I would argue there is more learning to be done (if this ever gets implemented into the mechanics of the game)
- (at the professional level, starting with chromatic early makes more sense, since it's the basis for all possible scales, chords and combinations)

- Some instruments are locked into a scale - for instance some cheaper harmonicas, some flutes etc. This makes it necessary to have a different harmonica if you have a C major harmonica and you want to play a song in D major for instance. Lyres, which are small harps with few strings, are also "locked" into a scale, but they can be tuned to a different scale between songs by tightening or loosening the strings.

- For string instruments, tuning is important. The strings have to be under the perfect tension (this can be adjusted by turning the knobs on the neck of the instrument). The instrument gets out of tune gradually over time, more so with changes in temperature (going outside during winter and then back in) and with playing.

That's all I can think of for now.

Best
D

[Jilliana]

I don't have anything to add specifically but I just wanted to express my appreciation for the information given here from one musician to another.

I hope music mechanics becomes unique and special thanks to the material given here.