Musicland
(1935, dir. Jackson, W.)

Having seen various instruments in orchestra, here's a suggestion as to how they might work together in that sort of group:

Violins: Anything a violin can do, more violins can make better. They, along with the other stringed instruments, are the team players of the musical world. They're flexible, and an orchestra's complement of them can create some incredibly strong spells.

Woodwinds (Flutes, Oboes, so on): These guys do the orchestral odd-jobs. There usually aren't as many of them as there are of the violins, and they do better with the less overt magic. They round out an orchestra. Also, orchestras usually tune against the oboe, as it gives the most perfect A note.

Brass (trumpets, horns, et cetera): These guys do one thing and do it well. Their power is incredible, and is more geared towards destructive uses than the rest of the orchestra. If an orchestra wants to add sheer force to a spell or to use it to knock down a building or something, they can't do much better than give big roles to their brass section.

Drums: Drums are the rare-but-powerful kind of instrument. There's usually only one per orchestra, though when a Drumline is put together, however, it's an awesome sight/sound. Drums set the beat everyone else plays by, and their powerful tones permeate all the music. They go more for boosting their allies than direct attack, although use of cymbals carries great destructive force.

Piano: Discussed in an earlier post. They're another one-per-orchestra instrument. A piano's incredible versatility can back up a whole song.

Harp: Yet another one-or-two-per-orchestra. A Harp's magic is soft, but utterly pervasive. It's a bit like gravity, really.

Here in Brazil we have a percussion instrument called berimbau. It's a one-stringed instrument composed of the following parts: a large wooden bow, a steel string and a hollowed out and dried gourd. You would also need a wooden stick, a small coin or rock and a shaker.

To play it, you need to hold the bow in one hand between the two middle fingers, while holding the coin/rock between your index finger and thumb. You must also rest the gourd, which is found at the bottom of the bow, against your chest. In your other hand you hold the stick and the shaker.

To produce a sound, you strike the string with the stick. The shaker accompanies the stick. You can also move the coin back and forth throught the string to change the pitch. Finally, moving the gourd back and forth from your chest produces a wah-like sound.

This instrument is traditionally played during the practice of capoeira, an afro-brazilian martial art/dance.

They are used in several musical productions, after all.

When exactly are you setting this? I mean, if it's a medieval-ish High Fantasy setting, then 80% of what we've been talking about becomes anachronistic. It's all very well us talking about, say, a band of enormously muscular barbarian mercenaries all wielding jazz clarinets and dressed like Acker Bilk, but in a medieval setting there are no clarinets. And we're all sad.

What might be interesting, from a conflict setup point of view, is to set your story during the 1950s, with the rise of rock and roll. Then you basically have three camps:-

#1: The rock and roll mob, the young upstarts struggling to get recognition for their work from the older, more established magicians.

#2: The classical orchestral musicians, who are a bit more conservative and close-ranked than the egalitarian rockers and see themselves as guardians of an ancient tradition.

And finally, #3: The folk music crowd, on bagpipes and tin whistles and bodhrans and all the trappings of really ancient musical traditions, who just want to get back to nature and possibly drink some mead.

That's what I'd do, anyway. =]

I think everyone else has got how a piano actually works down, so I'll go more with how they might be used, along with player personality stereotypes. If you already have an idea of how pianos will work, then feel free to ignore the following two paragraphs.

Pianos would, I think, be a really versatile jack-of-all-trades type thing, as well as a day-to-learn-lifetime-to-master instrument. They're really powerful, but not good with battle, because they're complicated to play and really, could you imagine lugging a giant piano out into a battlefield?

Pianos would, however, be far better for civic use, because of the wide variety of things they could do, and when there's no war, there's usually no immediate deadline when you need to get the spell completed.

Piano players are, of course, associated with elegance and class, and sometimes snootiness. I think that they'd be loners and pretty rare, because usually there's only one piano in a given musical group, and pianos are expensive.

I think I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'll reiterate on this post so no one has to hunt around.

While individual instruments have different strengths and weaknesses, magical songs will do the same thing no matter what plays it. The only thing that differs is degrees of success. For example, a violin will do very well when hypnotizing someone, while a tuba... won't.

So here's where you guys come in! Think of your favorite songs and imagine what magic they might make. Feel free to go crazy: effects can range from hypnosis to creeping vines to shock waves. Songs can also vary. Bach? Sure. Daft Punk? Sure. Gregorian chants? Sure. Anything goes: I can always tone down or amp up an effect if I think it's necessary.

Have fun!

-Alleb

Ohhhh, I wonder what power a uke would have. x3

Um... The uke has four strings (GCEA) and you play it by holding down the strings on the frets to create higher notes. It is similar to a guitar. There are two for,s of playing, one/two string picking, and strumming. On my left hand, the one that holds the notes, I generally get large callouses on the edge of my pointer finger (I have one right now, it's exactly where you'd tap a screen on an iPad) and smaller ones on the edges of the middle, ring, and pinky. The thumb holds up the instrument and helps create enough pressure to make a clear note. The thumb gets extremely sore after playing.
On the other hand, the playing hand, it's extremely common to get blisters on your thumb and on the pointer finger, the two that do the most on that hand. If you get a blister it's hard to play while you have the blister.
Also, fun fact: ukulele means jumping flea

Please accept this handy-dandy article on Akan drums and healing traditions.

Now, to answer your question: I played piano for about ten years, but have fallen out of practice because college. In order to get the best sound out of the instrument, you have to relax your arms (especially the wrists) and curl your fingers a little. Piano music covers a whole range of emotions and moods--majestic, spooky, joyful, sad, romantic, elegant, even angry. My private teacher told me that I had to feel where the breaths were in the piece, if that makes sense to you.

I also sang in my school choir since eighth grade. After concerts, my chest and throat were always kind of sore. Singing is all about breath control and using your diaphragm, not your throat. My high school director was also on us about showing some enthusiasm during concerts; he referred to our neutral expressions as "axe-murderer faces".

So as you may (or may not) know, pianos are precussion instruments. The noise is created by having hammers drop on strings. (Kinda like guitar strings, but a bit stronger.) There are usually 2 pedals on a piano, the damper pedal, which lets you play in more muted tones, (good luck finding one that makes a substantial difference,) and the... sustain pedal? Something like that- which removes the damper, so the notes go on and on.

I usually think of the piano as the catch-all instrument; it's easy to use, but it forces you to learn how to read notes. I have had times where I've slipped up and played the note next to the one that I meant to play, so that's a thing to look out for. And the worst things about them are: one, they are never tuned properly, two, when they aren't tuned properly they sound just wrong enough to bug you, but not much else, or notes make a weird buzzing noise, and three, you can't take them with you.

Also, your villain.

Long, flexible fingers are very helpful when playing the cello, because of the sheer range of notes that one can play. You play it sitting down, with your fingers in various positions on the fingerboard, depending on what notes you want to play, then you drag the horsehair bow across the strings, similar to a violin, but a cello is bigger and held differently. Most cello players have learned at least two different clefs (bass and tenor). Some know more. It's a very versatile instrument, and even the basics can be taught in about a thousand different ways, and general consensus is that it's very difficult to play, and will definitely destroy the nerves and joints in your hands (back injury also looms rather threateningly from all that hunching you have to do to reach the high notes).

Cellos can be associated with harmony, good fortune, healing, and pleasure, particularly when appearing in dreams.

The players themselves, at least in my experience, are a snarky bunch, imaginative, practical, and tend to be the least impressed by anything that happens to the orchestra. They're also high achievers, and rather lonely.
To cellos, violas seem uptight and aloof, bass players are bat-feces insane (but awesome), and violinists are either chill or hated enemies - there is no in between. All inter-ensemble rivalries go out the window when the band shows up - that rivalry is INTENSE.

(Disclaimer: All of the third paragraph is based on generalizations of my own, admittedly limited experience. Please nobody take offense!)

Anyway, hope that helped. Good luck with your novel - I'm participating in NaNo myself!

I sing. I was part of my high school chorus, people at church have wanted me for the choir, and I've never met anyone, online or off, who didn't say they liked my voice when I heard it.

Now as for my own voice, I'm good at talking and singing very quickly and very loudly. As for the drawbacks? Well, try talking for like half an hour. Mouth get dry? Short of breath? Same with singing. I also know how to play a keyboard, although I can basically only play one track at a time. I can figure out most songs by ear, though. Anyway, what you really need with a keyboard is dexterity and knowledge of exactly what key you're playing in. Get your ring finger just one key off, and the whole thing sounds a discordant mess.

But all that's beside the point.

YOU'RE MAKING A MUSICAL MAGIC SYSTEM. I cannot begin to describe how amazing that is, please please please tell me more.

(also I've been marathonning Doctor Who and my brain is running like the Doctor's mouth)

Ocarinas can make it rain, summon horses, open telepathic links with your friends, turn day to night and back again, take you back in time, teleport you places...
Now let's talk about the violin. I never played it particularly well myself, but I knew a man who was, to say the least, quite good at it. He mentioned that there are two ways to play a violin - the classical violin, and what's known as the fiddle.
They're the same instrument, but not many people can play both ways.
Classical violin is mostly associated with sadness and mourning - slow performances with a ton of vibrato. The fiddle is much more cheerful - a dancing instrument, lifting the spirit. And it takes a lot of mastery to play both well.
As far as how it works... well, you have a bow, made of wood and horse hair, and you run it over the strings on the body of the violin. The vibration from that is then amplified by the hollow in the body. You choose notes by putting your fingers on the strings near the top of the neck of the violin. You can tune the strings with a number of pegs at the top of the violin. Vibrato is where you wiggle your fingers on the string, which mixes notes together a bit.

Piano is a lot easier to play if you have long fingers; means you can stretch for some of the more difficult chords. And you'd better hope your fingers aren't slippery when you play, or that's asking for a disaster. :P

I don't know about other players, but for me, I learn my pieces by muscle memory, so if I mess up with my fingering, it can throw me off pretty badly. I've learned to hide my recoveries over the years, but just one slip can be scary.

French horn is played like other brass instruments; you put your mouth on the mouthpiece, purse your lips, and make a raspberry noise. Since the horn has a small mouthpiece, you have to purse your lips more than you would for, say, a trombone.




This here is a nice shint single horn (top) and a double horn (bottom). The double horn has a thumb key, whereas the single horn has a thumb hook to hold the horn. Since the double has an extra key, that means a lot more tubing, and it's consequently a lot heavier than the single horn. Single horns tend to be the go-to instrument for beginning horn players, since the double horn has a lot more key combinations to memorize for the different notes. Not to mention the double horn can be played as either an F horn or a B flat horn, while the single horn is F only.

(Also, random fun fact, the French horn was actually invented in Germany. :P)

There's also a triple horn, which I know combines F, B flat, and alto F into one instrument, but I've never played one myself, so I won't get into discussing that one. :)