I've been working intermittantly on a story for the past 14 months (well, it's up to 80,000+ words, so maybe it's becoming more of a book) which is an exploration of an imaginary world and the nations in it, the principal one of which is simply called "the Land." It's very episodic, a series of connected mini-narratives, rather than bare exposition, because that's just the way my mind works. I'm a storyteller and I think in characters and plot-lnes.
Recently, I got thinking about the place of music in the Land, and I wanted to see how original it might turn out to be. The following short excerpt is what my brain spun out.
Here's the set-up: Thorin Dionlinn is a young accountant/finance specialist from the Republic of Hillmount, posted for a year to his nation's embassy in the Capital of the Land to broaden his experience. The Ambassador takes him along to meet the Lord of the Land at the Citadel shortly after the Lord returns from the summer's military campaign, and Thorin finds himself invited to a reception/party to take place a few days later. He's strolling around the ballroom, wondering how to meet people and trying not to be a wallflower, when his attention is drawn by the sound of musical instruments.
He moved toward the sound of music under an artificial arbor along one wall. A traditional trio was seated on woven cushions, playing traditional tunes on traditional instruments. Well, "tunes" wasn't quite correct. Neither was "composition." The ancient music of the Land -- tagresha, he knew it was called -- was always improvised, at least in theory. There were various expected themes and turns, but nothing was written down and a musician tried never to play exactly the same melody twice. Thorin observed the group with interest. The players gave the impression of being ordinary people who played together for fun, not as virtuosos, nor even as professionals. He wondered if that were affectation, or some sort of reverse snobbery on the Lord's part.
The man in the middle held a sort of flute, though it was larger than the flutes Thorin had seen at home. He was blowing through a double reed at one end, a technique that looked horribly difficult to a non-musician like Thorin. The sound he produced was rich and mournful and reminded Thorin of tall trees in the deep forest.
On one side of the flautist was an older women with some kind of stringed instrument laid across her lap. She was drawing a bow strung with what looked like hair with one hand across the strings while damping and rubbing them with the dancing fingers of her other hand, producing a higher-pitched singing effect in counterpoint to the reeded flute. The two melodies wove around each other in perfect balance.
On the other side, a young man about Thorin's own age was strumming a large, deep-toned instrument, a hollow, round-bodied soundbox with gut strung across it and frets at the neck. Rather than playing a melody, he was laying down a rich bass background for the other two -- a canvas on which the other musicians painted their notes. The whole effect was engrossing, almost hypnotic at times. And it dawned on Thorin that, given the rule against repetition, you couldn't even ask them to play a particular passage again. Catch it now or you would miss it forever. He stood silently, listening, for some minutes.
"Beautiful, isn't it, sir?" He looked up with a start to find a middle-aged woman -- lady, by the rich material of her otherwise plain dress -- watching his face with a warm smile. "I could see you were caught up in the experience. Is this the first time you've heard tagresha?"
"Yes, Madame. I'm from Hillmount and we have nothing like it there. Our music is quite different. I've heard tagresha described, but I never really understood what they were talking about." He slowly shook his head. "When you concentrate on what they're doing, though, . . . well, it's amazing."
They moved aside a stride to allow two newly arrived couples to approach the trio closer. From their rapt faces, Thorin guessed they were devotees of the style. He turned back to his new companion. "Do you think these are the Lord's regular musicians? Do they perform regular concerts somewhere? I'd like to go and hear them again."
"Oh, I don't think so. The woman playing sisser is a cook in the kitchens here. A very good one, too. The gentleman in the center playing the aubum is a greengrocer. Carries the best artichokes in the Capital. The younger one I'm afraid I don't know, but he's a Guardsman posted to the Citadel last season." She smiled again at his obvious surprise. "Tagresh, you see, is often played by trios that come together unexpectedly and unplanned, just as the music itself never repeats. Which means the selection of instruments will vary, too, although there is always a higher voice, a lower voice, and a background voice. Listening to it is always a new adventure. So is playing it."
So. What do you think? I tried to invent names for the instruments that sort of described them by the sound of the words themselves. Obviously, they resemble certain instruments in our own world (the possibilities are physically limited) and you should be able to picture them in your mind (I hope).
The lady who explains the music to him, incidentally, is Madame Prokien, the Lord's Head of Household, and "possibly the second-most powerful person in the Citadel, during peacetime," as a new acquaintance tells him a little while later. And Dionlinn's first experience of tagresha is shortly followed by some much more modern music and the dancing that goes with it, after the Lord and the older generation generally have retired for the evening.
Source by emkay99
Mens Hair Styles 2015
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