Suggestions on unfinished magical system involving music

[SheRmanZ92]

So I have a little problem about my magic system. It's actually my first time doing something like that but in summary: I was thinking of creating a system of magic in which sound (and music) was the greatest driving force and was so powerful that all organic and inorganic matter depended on it. Animals, humans, plants, elements of nature and even the universe itself were connected with it and all this thanks to sound vibrations, frequencies, intervals, chords and progressions and how they interact with mind and matter itself.

The channeling of magic could be through musical instruments, vocalization (from whispering certain words to the act of singing) and cymatic symbols tattooed or drawn somewhere. Its manifestations could range from curing the flu by some soft melody to energy projection or manipulation of the fabric of reality for seconds ou little hours by a very dense sound frequency. Your type of instrument, melody and material that you would be able to control would depend on the musical elemental assigned to you through the constellation present in the heavens on the date of your birth.

Other issues to consider:

• “All magic is music but not all music is magic”: not all sounds produced in worlds can generate magical effects. Certain notes, words and sequences create different results, including whispering specific words that have some connotation with music (I haven't developed that part very well yet)
• The musical components of children's voices have a sacred aspect, however, they are lost when reaching puberty.
• People with perfect pitch and singing voices gain a lot of social power.
• Emotions, intention, soul purpose (person's character), metaphors and aptitude are the basis for music production.
• Music acquires specific characteristics according to the four worlds, possessing magical power to a greater or lesser extent depending on the amount of sanium lines (energy musical) available. In this way, it is divided into the following manifestations: physical, mental and hybrid.
• The physical manifestations of music are presented in situational issues when invoked using the act of singing, musical instruments, sonaters (prototype of pocket musical instrument that can be attached to the wrist and chest whose power is on a smaller scale and affects only the user himself. And contains a symbol of cymatics. That is, it is used in cases of emergency or for small children who are still learning) and dance.
• I intend to make it a hard magic system and to use music theory, cymatics, chromesthesia, zoomusicology, neuromusicology, astrology and the influence of music on plants.
• Musicians, singers, instrument makers, composers and dancers are coveted in society, as many have only basic skills due to government interference as well as genetic failures. On the one hand, it is positive because it avoids possible large-scale rebellions, however, it becomes more complicated for corporations to hire singers and musicians to rival other governments and help protect against the invasion of creatures of another worlds.

So I wanted to know, how to filter more in the construction of this magical system so as not to overload the reader with so much information and cohesive enough?

Sorry for my english.

 

[pmmg]

I am not really sure what you are needing here.

If you are asking, how can I have all of this, and not have to explain it in one large chunk at the beginning?, then my simple answer is dont explain it all at the beginning. Bring it slowly, and as needed, as the story unfolds. The complex system that underlies the story is just the thing that underlies it. Give me characters to follow, have them do stuff that reveals all of this.

This seems a little along similar lines of how I have seen many anime's introduce their strange world rules. As an audience member, I am willing for stuff to happen that seems fantastical. My expectation is it will make sense later in the greater context of the story.

 

[SheRmanZ92]

I am not really sure what you are needing here.

If you are asking, how can I have all of this, and not have to explain it in one large chunk at the beginning?, then my simple answer is dont explain it all at the beginning. Bring it slowly, and as needed, as the story unfolds. The complex system that underlies the story is just the thing that underlies it. Give me characters to follow, have them do stuff that reveals all of this.

This seems a little along similar lines of how I have seen many anime's introduce their strange world rules. As an audience member, I am willing for stuff to happen that seems fantastical. My expectation is it will make sense later in the greater context of the story.

Thank you, the issues are that I still haven't been able to completely delimit the limitations/barriers of the users, nor how to present this magical system in a calm way that the readers can understand. But I believe that trying little by little by presenting one situation at a time can help.

 

[Queshire]

Mmm... One thing to keep in mind is the limitations of the medium. Music is a cool theme for magic, but since the readers won't actually be hearing what gets played you'll have to simplify a lot of the experience.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

You might want to check out Alan Dean Foster's first book in the spellsinger series. He goes through Jon Tom's road to discovering he has magic through song in the new world he found himself it. Also very funny with his mishaps in casting. He keeps singing songs from our world expecting them to do one thing and something else happens - mostly because he isn't thinking far beyond the title of the song he's singing. But that could be a way in to explaining your concepts. Have your hero cast and fail and work out why he failed. (Especially if he gets shocking results!)

There's also Anne McCaffrey's Crystal Singer. Not so amusing, but she goes into the technical aspects - sort of - of resonances and how crystals can be affected by them or power them.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Stepgingerly]

My books (looking for an agent: working title Resonance!) have a very similar magic system using music. I kept narrowing the scope until the limitations made it interesting. There are definitely many ways to go with this and worlds to build.

 

[CrystalD]

I think just showing how the system works bit by bit would work fine. I like the idea of showing mishaps while casting, that works too. The only way I could think of showing the nitty gritty of your system is having a songcrafter explain it to a non-songcrafter, but I don't find that necessary if the basic concept is portrayed well enough. It's good to have all of that info for your knowledge, but I really don't think trying to fit the lions share of it into your story would work, unless it's going to be a huge aspect of the story. I read a song based magic system recently, and it really just says they sing a song, magic happens. We got the basics of the system, but other than that all we needed to know was song was how magic was channeled in the world. But it's up to you how much or little you want to show throughout the story.

 

[Fettju]

You could have in-story books that monks and story plot-solver come across that explain some of it, like how it is in The kingdoms of thorn and bone.
Maybe a good musician-wizard or what you call it wants to understand how an evil one a century ago managed some magic feats, and finds some old books and a chapter is about him discussing a page of it with another wizard.
In that series there is music magic by the way, the evil skasloi kill enemy armies with orchestras.