The Sounds of Worship.

[albinoboo]

I often play music in the to add flavor to my games. In the case or temples or religious ceremonies, I have used the followings

Orlanthi Worship 

Yelm 

  Darkness deities  

Prax

In no way do I claim that these are canon, or even lore lawyers proof but I just use them to add atmosphere. I have never found anything that I felt that fitted with the Lunar pantheon, anyone got any suggestions.   

[Bill the barbarian]

20 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

Prax

I have worked with these gents before, They were billed as The Tuvan Throat Singers of  Mongolia a few times (I was stage tech once in a church, magnificent!) and they are friggin' great! Worth noting that they have a tune that represents the sounds of the mongols riding down upon you and it feels... Real! Truly terrifying and I think this is it, buffering is taking forever so... I will post now... and perhaps edit later

ETA no, not this one but at 1:51 turn it up and imagine for the next couple of seconds having the horde riding down upon you.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Runeblogger]

I loved listening to those songs, Albinoboo. The "uz song" is particularly surprising. Keep them coming if you find more, please. 

As for Dara-Happan/Lunar music, you could use some Roman music. I once attended a small concert by Lvdi Scaenici. This is a group of Italian researchers focused on music in ancient Rome. They first researched instruments and then learned to play them. They assured the public no one has ever found any notes on Roman songs yet, so the songs they play are made up. Still, I think they sound great. There are a bunch of videos on Youtube:

[Joerg]

TLDR: some comments on music for people literate in sheet music and European music theory

I am a bit unhappy with European "classical" (actually Baroque, and what sounded like Russian Romantic) music for Glorantha, really.

I wonder how much the Gloranthans have mastered polyphonic harmony for their music - do they really use chords (or polyphonous choral singing resulting in such), or is melody, counterpoint and rhythmic bass plus any number of percussion the extent of their music?

(To make clear where I come from: One of my A-level core subjects was music, in the sense of analyzing "classical" music, ranging from Bach's Baroque all the way to the 1930ies with late Romantic and twelve-tone music. This wasn't about playing a musical instrument, but about analyzing composition techniques, the structure of classical music, harmonies etc.

I do play acoustic guitar with a basic education in classical guitar, and I did dabble a bit in playing in a band, using the guitar and electric bass, plus I sang in the (slightly demanding) school choir - stuff like Carmina Burana, German Lieder, choral sets of West Side Story.)

I expect quite a lot of Gloranthan music to be mostly pentatonic (e.g. only the black keys on a piano - you can play them in any sequence you want, and it will always sound fairly palatable).

The modern scales of major and minor are only two special cases of the harmonic seven-tone scale which requires two half-tone steps to have both the Tonica (main scale, setting the number of hashes or 'b's for the sheet) and the dominant and subdominant chords as part of the seven tone ladder. There are other scales using only the white keys of the piano starting at other notes than C (major) or A (minor), called "church scales" and named after (lost) Greek scales, e.g. Dorian starting on D and Phrygian starting on E.

Then there are variations on these, like the harmonic minor scale which pitches up the 7 to have a one-half tone step (resulting in using the major chord of the dominant rather than the minor), which results in a three-half tone step from 6 to 7 (common in Spanish guitar music which was of course influenced by Arabian music), and non-European scales like the Arabian one which has a similar three-half tone step between 3 and 4 of the scale, creating that stereotypical Arabian wail in the melody line, and other variants in far eastern scales that I never had any education about. Then there are chromatic scales (12 half tones until the tonica is repeated), and there is the full-tone scale (best known example is the Simpsons theme harmonies - not the melody, which makes rich use of half-tone steps -  with its unconventional harmonics resulting from that).

 

The pentatonic scale goes well with the five elements (and the five elemental souls) of the Theyalans. There are five possible pentatonic scales, pacing the three-half-tone steps differently. I am tempted to assign one each to one of the five basic elements as the tonica, and make the accompanying chords accordingly as major or minor chords.

Basically pentatonic melody lines still can have occasional occurrances of the two other notes, but these needn't be always the major or minor scale, but can alter. That's quite in keeping with the Orlanthi doctrine of "Nobody can make you do anything".

 

Dissonances can be powerful effects in music, elevating the conscious perception of music. I figure that mystical or chaotic-friendly groups in Glorantha will make great creative use of that, but dissonances can also be a measure of struggle (Death, Storm) and Disorder, or even Truth as much as Illusion. Indeterminate intervals or chords may represent Chaos or Raw Creation (especially when followed by well-determined though maybe previously unexpected harmonies, and are a higher extension of Harmony, even when appearing as dissonance to less discerning ears.

Unlike the well-tempered tuning of modern pianos and guitars, there is also the harmonic tuning which results in certain intervals that should be harmonious in a well-tempered scale to sound somewhat off-tune, e.g. the wolf quints that should be avoided on non-well-tempered accompanyments. (In fact, a well-tempered scale is somewhat off-tune from a harmonic scale that uses equal distance shortening of a vibrating string, so-called flagiolet sounds. People with absolute pitch may be slightly uncomfortable with well-tempered scales. If you are playing e.g. cello, there is a distinction between an F-sharp and a G-flat, not enough to register as a tone step, but audible when played wrongly along one another.)

 

I am not quite suggesting to have a composition- and jam-session with a number of musical instruments on some Glorantha convention. but it might be an interesting experiment, if there are other musicians and wannabe composers around. Perhaps rather per hang-out.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Joerg

[albinoboo]

It's Russian Orthodox liturgical music. It's the  only musical tradition that uses the oktavist voice, which is an octave lower than the normal bass. 

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

It's Russian Orthodox liturgical music. It's the  only musical tradition that uses the oktavist voice, which is an octave lower than the normal bass. 

That voice range (or at least something approaching this) is used in a number of Country songs, too (I Was Born Under A Wandering Star, Ring of Fire), and a few of the Romantic (and later) European-style composers demand that range, too. Perhaps even already Mozart with the initial notes of Osmin's revenge aria in "Entführung aus dem Serail". My natural singing voice range was probably best described as bariton in younger years (it has diminished since), and I struggle somewhat to reach those lowest notes, depending on what tuning is used.

One voice mode I haven't commented on yet is the yodel, which is basically a controlled release of tonal control and doesn't necessarily follow normal scales. I expect this to feature in quite a few Gloranthan forms of singing, too, along with stuff like the throat singing or related effects you can get at singing certain vowel shifts from throat to labial. (An example is Annie Lennox's initial sound of the "When" in "When Tomorrow Comes" - or at least it happens to me trying to reproduce that - as the English double-u sound is almost more like a vowel than a consonant.)

[Bill the barbarian]

5 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I expect quite a lot of Gloranthan music to be mostly pentatonic (e.g. only the black keys on a piano - you can play them in any sequence you want, and it will always sound fairly palatable).

 

Interesting you said this, I have found rock and folk rock of the seventies when not using world music to come closest to having the right feel. Needless to say most rock music is in the pentatonic scales.That is 1, 4, 5 notes or Tonic, Dominant, followed by Sub Dominant with a resolution of returning to Tonic. Joerg, bear in mind I am self trained in music and this might be lacking in jargon (or even logic but this is how  see pentatonics).

In conclusion I like playing Sabbath, Barde,  Harmonium (a pair of great Quebecois bands), Michael Oldfield and Tangerine Dream. ELP (the first album.. In the Beginning and Knives Edge work very well). Mizourski's pictures at an Exhibition, the original or  ELP's fine cover. A lot of the Beatles, Pink Floyd are my gods for temple music. Any of the first five albums should have something for any temple.

Now going to classical I like Rimsky-Korsakov, especially Scheherazade. Igor Stravinsky's Fire Bird Suite, and a of of Tchaikovsky. 

I could go on for ever but I will stop there.

cheers

[Bill the barbarian]

Holst''s the planets...

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Interesting you said this, I have found rock and folk rock of the seventies when not using world music to come closest to having the right feel. Needless to say most rock music is in the pentatonic scales.That is 1, 4, 5 notes or Tonic, Dominant, followed by Sub Dominant with a resolution of returning to Tonic. Joerg, bear in mind I am self trained in music and this might be lacking in jargon (or even logic but this is how  see pentatonics).

In conclusion I like playing Sabbath, Barde,  Harmonium (a pair of great Quebecois bands), Michael Oldfield and Tangerine Dream. ELP (the first album.. In the Beginning and Knives Edge work very well). Mizourski's pictures at an Exhibition, the original or  ELP's fine cover. A lot of the Beatles, Pink Floyd are my gods for temple music. Any of the first five albums should have something for any temple.

Now going to classical I like Rimsky-Korsakov, especially Scheherazade. Igor Stravinsky's Fire Bird Suite, and a of of Tchaikovsky. 

I could go on for ever but I will stop there.

cheers

Yes, quite a few of these use folksy music. What works well too is Irish folk, also in the modernized forms by Clannad or their little sister Enya, especially her soundtrack for the BBC documentary "The Celts".

I am in regular contact with a German music project that produces mood music well suited for roleplaying, Erdenstern. (Among other things, they produced a CD with Dresden-files inspired music for the German release of that game.)

 

When it comes to the Classics, there are a few evergreens, like Holst's The Planets, Tchaikovsky's 1812 ouverture (and for a nice battle-gimmick, "Wellington's Victory at Salamanca" which has two orchestras playing "agains" one another), Stravinsky (both Swan Lake and Sacre du Printemps), Grieg's Peer Gynt heroquest, of course Wagner's ride of the Valkyries (and if you can stand it, quite a few of his arias, too). Personally, I find Bruckner's 8th symphony an excellent backdrop, too. Dvorak's 9th Symphony "New World" and Mendelsson-Bartholdy's 3rd (Scotch) symphony and his Hebrides suite are great, too.

There are quite a few harder rock pieces that wax quite mythological, too. Metallica's The Call of Ktulu (sic) is an obvious choice...

[Bill the barbarian]

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Yes, quite a few of these use folksy music. What works well too is Irish folk, also in the modernized forms by Clannad or their little sister Enya, especially her soundtrack for the BBC documentary "The Celts".

 

Yes!

[Bill the barbarian]

36 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Sacre du Printemps)

It has to be a chaotic area for the dissonance of the pastoral refrains to be offset against the incredibly heavy handed piano ( I have described it as the first industrial music many decades pre Reznor and NiN). Dorastor perhaps, Snake Pipe Hollow. No, the sheer strange beauty of some of the passages would be best set in the Mad Unicorn's realm.

Cheers

[Bill the barbarian]

On 7/7/2019 at 10:58 AM, albinoboo said:

In no way do I claim that these are canon, or even lore lawyers proof but I just use them to add atmosphere. I have never found anything that I felt that fitted with the Lunar pantheon, anyone got any suggestions.   

Might i recommend  Rimsky-Korsakov's  Scheherazade for the Lunar Pantheon, I Know it might fit better in Pamatela, Fonrit perhaps. But is it different and foreign and strange enough to evoke Satraps, Mad Sultans, young girls dreaming of becoming Red Moons and crimson bats.

https://youtu.be/zY4w4_W30aQ

Cheers

Edited July 8, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

It has to be a chaotic area for the dissonance of the pastoral refrains to be offset against the incredibly heavy handed piano ( I have described it as the first industrial music many decades pre Reznor and NiN). Dorastor perhaps, Snake Pipe Hollow. No, the sheer strange beauty of some of the passages would be best set in the Mad Unicorn's realm.

IMO Sacre du Printemps is the perfect accompanyment for the Wild Temple rites. No Chaos required, only raw Creation powers of Arachne Solara (and perhaps some digestive problems after giving birth to Time).

Edited July 8, 2019 by Joerg

[Bill the barbarian]

10 minutes ago, Joerg said:

IMO Sacre du Printemps is the perfect accompanyment for the Wild Temple rites. No Chaos required, only raw Creation powers of Arachne Solara (and perhaps some digestive problems after giving birth to Time).

Okay, that would not only work but would fit into the temple theme of the topic!

https://youtu.be/GwcUSshWhlw

Edited July 8, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Joerg]

9 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Okay, that would not only work but would fit into the temple theme of the topic!

It would be more of the nature of a movie (or TV series) score than the actual music (or cacophony) produced by the participants. But that goes for all orchestral music, IMO.

Like I said, I would be interested in a collaboration of combining composition and runic theory to experiment with melodies that might result from Elemental (or Dara Happan, or Lunar) liturgy, with weird ideas how the Powers and possibly the Form and Condition runes may be introduced as compository elements. (For comparison, the sacral choir-and-orchestra passions by Bach have symbolic musical elements that are evident mainly as graphical elments in the score (when combined from the different instrumental voices into an organ original or a piano transcript for choir study purposes), like crosses formed by the various notes over the beats.)

A bit like the cooking book project by Claudia Loroff. Purest geekery, though.

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Joerg

[Bill the barbarian]

2 minutes ago, Joerg said:

A bit like the cooking book project by Claudia Loroff. Purest geekery, though.

 

Entirely, but having seen what can be done with music, number and religions (Bach and St Mathew's Passion or Jesu Joy of Man's desire come to mind). In any case I would love to hear the concept when finished Joerg. Let me know.

Cheers

On 7/7/2019 at 10:58 AM, albinoboo said:

I often play music in the to add flavor to my games. In the case or temples or religious ceremonies, I have used the followings

In no way do I claim that these are canon, or even lore lawyers proof but I just use them to add atmosphere. I have never found anything that I felt that fitted with the Lunar pantheon, anyone got any suggestions.   

Truly apologizing for the geekery. 

Sorry

[albinoboo]

I went with the countertenor baroque  piece because in part because it sounds unfamiliar to most of my players and the baroque courts of absolutist   continental   Europe fit philosophically with the celestial court. The Orlanthi is a form of worship used in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, again similar to the Orlanthi and becasue the payers are not going to be familiar with it. It's the deep voice of the oktavist that I imagined booming out in perfect darkness that creates the link with the Uz in  my head. I avoided Clannad/Enya becasue I dont want my players latching on to thinking that the Orlanthi are celts. I'm not saying I'm right, but this is just my personal thinking

My general reason for picking something are:

Does it fit philosophically

Does it sound unfamiliar

Is it   reasonably possible for the target culture to have the technical know how  to build the instruments.

 

I have used this one for Lhankor Mhy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=locW-9S00VU&list=RDxG4kcf_1DgE&index=2

Esrolian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PfRSr0F9eM

 

[albinoboo]

3 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

 

Truly apologizing for the geekery. 

Sorry

No apology necessary, I'm interested in other people's ideas

[Sir_Godspeed]

I believe this has been posted on this forum before, in some other context, but this always struck me as some kind of performance a Dara Happan noble might commission for a gathering at his residence, but really, it would probably fit anywhere in Central Genertela, and would probably be somewhat archaic by the Third Age.
 

Here's a non-vocal piece, ostensibly a religious hymn:
 

Just to be clear, I don't want to discourage people from using more modern and familiar music in their vision of Glorantha (or more modern and familiar music as mood-setters), but I think these pieces serve a decent role of conveying ways in which Glorantha probably is both pleasant and weirdly alien to us, through the "odd" sounds of the instruments, and the progression in the melody, which doesn't quite fit with how modern audiences instinctively "know" chord progression to go, if that makes sense.

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

I went with the countertenor baroque  piece because in part because it sounds unfamiliar to most of my players and the baroque courts of absolutist   continental   Europe fit philosophically with the celestial court.

Good reasons, but like I said, European orchestral music creates an associative disturbance for me when presented as in-world produced.

I am hardly familiar with "world music" like that Indian piece you suggest for Esrolia. At the very least, the instrumentation here is what I would feel comfortable with for Dara Happa, and the lack of vertical harmonies beyond two or three accompanyment lines by different instruments that are so pervasive in European "classical" music (even when dissolved in ladders in the string and reed sections). (Note that I find it a bit hard to express this competently in English, as all my music terminology is wired in German language - most of my mistakes in terminology come from inept translation rather than ineptitude in music theory.)

I am dubious about choral harmony brass fanfares as used by Hollywood in the sandal movies, too. We have been trained to associate these with Romans or Hebrews, but the actual instruments of those times would have sounded quite different.

3 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

The Orlanthi is a form of worship used in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, again similar to the Orlanthi and becasue the payers are not going to be familiar with it.

Orlanthi are Celts?🙄😛

I missed the percussion and the pipes - not necessarily the bordun bassos of British or continental European bagpipes, but maybe the dual aulis pipes of the classical Greeks which enabled the flutist to play a melody and a simple harmonic or counterpoint on his own. For percussion and similar sound-rather-than-melody instruments we know about rattles and bull-roarers, and I would imagine Orlanthi liturgical singing to clash with a racket of percussion and a choral hum of bull roarers. (Drums of goatskin are the instruments of Darkness, though.)

3 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

It's the deep voice of the oktavist that I imagined booming out in perfect darkness that creates the link with the Uz in  my head.

Uz certainly have volume to put behind their songs, but think also of the Wagnerian "fat lady" soprano valkyrie when it comes to uz vocal ranges. Their main melody instruments could be timpani made of skins stretched over various sizes of beetle shells. At one "Jugend musiziert" (youth playing classical music) event at my school I witnessed a guy playing an etude for timpani - he had three of those things, modern ones with pedals to switch between different states, but he even managed to play a glissando slowly raising the pitch of that instrument.

I own a bodhran, and I am aware of a couple of techniques to alter the pitch of that (unfortunately I need almost a litre of water to tune it down to even a mth odest boom). But yes, Hombobobom, that's how uz melodies are played.

The vocal range of an individual uz might surpass that of professional human singers and might be on par or even exceding the Diva from Fifth Element. Her resonance body certainly does (except for jungle trolls).

3 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

I avoided Clannad/Enya becasue I dont want my players latching on to thinking that the Orlanthi are celts. I'm not saying I'm right, but this is just my personal thinking

Certainly a point, given the Anglophone interpretation of the term Celt which differs a lot from the continental European one.

 

3 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

My general reason for picking something are:

Does it fit philosophically

I'm not so sure about that. While baroque music was produced for the absolutist courts, it just happened to be the avantgarde of musical development from the renaissance, with the first widespread use of polyphonic harmonies (at least in Europe, and to my knowledge - in our courses, Baroque was the historical foundation for music, and most of the discussion of folk music happened as explanation for Dvorak's 9th symphony ("New World") and how mostly European folk elements entered those sounds that we now associate with Hiawatha etc.)

I don't know how much of that will be available in Dara Happa or Carmania (and by extension to the Lunars). The hydraulic organ was a mainstay for Roman gladiatorial games, much as it is for NHL ice hockey (yes, there are other forms of hitting roughly round objects with sticks), and it might have pioneered vertical harmonies. But then, Captain Nemo's organ on the Nautilus (copied as Davy Jones's in Curse of the Caribbean) might be best placed in Mostali wheel-paddled floating castles (and the Phantom of the Opera piece, too).

3 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

Does it sound unfamiliar

That carries a lot of cultural differences. For me, Tango music will be indeletably linked to Scandinavia and Finland rather than Argentina since my stays there. Peruvian reed-flutists and players of guitars of all sizes (could be replaced by russian balalaikas of all sizes) are part of the German pedestrian zone experience, and German medieval reenactment music like Corvus Corax has been co-opted by the Dark Eye community among German roleplayers (ugh).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWlJbHtROQQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuxZ9_JFb94

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJbNnVzhii8

 

3 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

Is it   reasonably possible for the target culture to have the technical know how  to build the instruments.

That pretty much reduces strings to the variety of the Indian ones in your Esrolia piece, or Chinese ones, or the stuff used by Corvus Corax.

Dulcimers, psalters (or the Finnish version Kantele), variations of lute or citar, or the hurdy-gurdy are all within the technological capacity of Gloranthan cultures when it comes to string instruments. Orchestral string groups should still be beyond the corner. They might appear as an interim between string and percussion, the Rummelpott. (No English language page available)

Harps are canonical, but the number of strings may be as low as the Greek lyre, or no more than a small Celtic harp. The resonance body might be ivory from huge tusks (dragon, mammoth, elephant) or horns (e.g. triceratops).

Reed instruments will either be reed flutes or rather squeaky and probably amelodious stuff. Flutes of clay, bones and wood are more than possible (there are  bird bone finds on Neanderthal sites with holes spaced in harmonic distances, suggesting that these early Europeans already had music).

Bagpipes aren't exclusively island Celtic. They are as common in hispanic and old German music.

What we call brass instruments may be such where brass is produced, but are more likely to be made of horn or shells. Brass and terracotta cymbals and bells are a thing.

Basically, of the European symphonic orchestra, the mainstay (the string section) is the one I doubt the second most in Gloranthan music, after the pianoforte and its cousin the cembalo. The reed organ as some form of mechanized pipes should be existing in the Holy Country and in the Lunar Empire.

 

The folk or popular music we associate with these instruments may be misleading from our various cultural backgrounds. The Harry Lime theme isn't the only kind of music you can play on this kind of instrument, and doesn't have to point to Vienna in the early days of the Cold War, as the biblical psaltery associated with King Solomon is hardly different, perhaps slightly less sophisticated in the resonance body.

[Bill the barbarian]

11 minutes ago, Joerg said:

That carries a lot of cultural differences. For me, Tango music will be indeletably linked to Scandinavia and Finland rather than Argentina since my stays there. Peruvian reed-flutists and players of guitars of all sizes (could be replaced by russian balalaikas of all sizes) are part of the German pedestrian zone experience, and German medieval reenactment music like Corvus Corax has been co-opted by the Dark Eye community among German roleplayers (ugh).

 

I was going to mention how all over baroque and medieval music the d&d crew are. Forget Gregorian chants and the Medieval Babes.

[albinoboo]

12 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Forget Gregorian chants and the Medieval Babes.

Never, that Eleanor of Aquitaine was a real hottie

[g33k]

I had always imagined the Hombobobom crowd favoring really big drums...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9OS4okZ0c

 

There are bigger drums, too... a Korean Cheongo seems to hold the current record, but I can't find any performance vid's, only tourists getting to pound it a few times...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM61rC2rZwM

 

I envision troll-made drums even bigger... maybe with dinosaur-hide?

[Bill the barbarian]

Now here is a song of a type that I  could easily guarantee has been song in this temple, I could even take the truth spell of the greybeards on this,  A song of this type has bee song in The Temple. 

 

Granted, that temple is on Salt Street... In Pavis... and is now called by the unwashed "Gimpy's", us old grognards still hoist a few at The Temple. I swear!

https://youtu.be/UMV34CwNMY0

There are better versions, but this has the lyrics...

Cheers

Edited July 9, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Bill the barbarian]

First heard this when we had successfully set up the Jasper Heritage Folk Festival for the very first time way back in '85, at the Bedfrod Inn in the basement of the Baptist Church. It was led by Mr (Gordon?) Bell and the rest of us bellowed God damn them all! at the top of our voices. I can still feel the goosebumbs!

This might be one of my favourite bits of music of all time! Right up there with Ode to Joy, the Brandenburg Concertos. La Sacre Du Printemps,  Harmonium, Harmonium or Dark Side of the Moon (et al)!

Edited July 9, 2019 by Bill the barbarian