Focus on music in a pre-recording society

[Aidan of the tavern]

Hi friends.

I couldn't decide whether to put this in research or world building. Anyway, I want to create a fantasy society which has a strong cultural focus on music. Obviously as a typical fantasy society this is before sound recording technology. I'm thinking about how to design it, and was just wondering if you know of any historical societies for me to research, where music played a big part before recordings. Have you written any similar cultures yourself?

 

[Trick]

Ireland's history is rich with music and it may serve you well to research it's evolution on the emerald isle. I know little of music in general but I know my ancestors were creating music before they developed they're Ogham script. Music and tales go hand in hand there, thus the massive amount of oral history and tradition.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm with Trick on this. Music isn't that hard to transmit. In fact, it's an aid to memory. Early bards were able to remember so much material they literally could tell tales that lasted across days. Admittedly, it was probably more like improv jazz, but the core story line still had to be there. I see no trouble with extended that to include magic in various forms, laws, tribal narrative, etc. Add to this communication between villages by drums and you have plenty of room for music.

You could build on top of this, though. You could consider all that "popular" music in the same sense as "popular" religion. Highly local, customary, informal, malleable. You could put a layer over the top of this that would be "scholarly" music. This would be music written down, read and performed only by the literate (you could restrict this even more to the "musically literate"). Heck, you could even invent specific instruments for this. Or you could have a form of magic that only works with scholar's music. You could even invent a kind of spell that records and plays back!

The possibilities are endless here. I think you're on to something. But to address your original request: I don't know of any pre-recording societies to research. If I were to embark on the research for myself, I'd start with tribal societies, probably non-european.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

Ireland's history is rich with music and it may serve you well to research it's evolution on the emerald isle. I know little of music in general but I know my ancestors were creating music before they developed they're Ogham script. Music and tales go hand in hand there, thus the massive amount of oral history and tradition.

Ah yes, good point. Maybe I should look back to my ancestors here, thanks.

I'm with Trick on this. Music isn't that hard to transmit. In fact, it's an aid to memory. Early bards were able to remember so much material they literally could tell tales that lasted across days. Admittedly, it was probably more like improv jazz, but the core story line still had to be there. I see no trouble with extended that to include magic in various forms, laws, tribal narrative, etc. Add to this communication between villages by drums and you have plenty of room for music.

You could build on top of this, though. You could consider all that "popular" music in the same sense as "popular" religion. Highly local, customary, informal, malleable. You could put a layer over the top of this that would be "scholarly" music. This would be music written down, read and performed only by the literate (you could restrict this even more to the "musically literate"). Heck, you could even invent specific instruments for this. Or you could have a form of magic that only works with scholar's music. You could even invent a kind of spell that records and plays back!

The possibilities are endless here. I think you're on to something. But to address your original request: I don't know of any pre-recording societies to research. If I were to embark on the research for myself, I'd start with tribal societies, probably non-european.

Magic and music eh? That could actually be an interesting avenue. I like the idea of the distinctions between musicians, scholar music and that kind of thing, there could be the bards, who draw from a kind of canon of traditional songs, and performers, whose purpose is based on entertainment. Ah, you've got the old creative mind going now, thanks for your help .

 

[Butterfly]

A (sort of) couple I've come across

Les Six - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

First Viennese School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look at chamber music, it might give you some ideas.

Chamber music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia