Questions tagged [music]
This tag should be used for questions related to the significance of music or its influence on those who can hear it.
62 questions
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What effect will a planet’s narcotic atmosphere have on sound of music at rave parties?
I have a tropical (higher average temperature and smaller, more evenly-distributed continents) habitable (for humans) planet. Apart from one thing: it has the following atmosphere:
I still want ...
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Choral music for variable-gender choirs
For Western humans, choral music is arranged with higher-pitched voices and lower-pitched voices singing different parts.
Even non-Western music is often listed as being arranged for the standard SATB ...
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What effect do caves have on music played in them?
Fantasy beings such as dwarves and goblins are often shown playing music underground. However, reading the Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder, he claims that the only sounds that carry well ...
user108321
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How to recreate a "land" harp that can work in the deep sea?
Once again, I am asking questions based on my as of yet defined highly-evolved, human-derived "merfolk". But this time, I'm going towards deeper waters-- let's say about 5000 meters below ...
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Would it be possible to make a brass/wind instrument with a jet engine as the source of airflow?
As the title says, basically. Could you have some kind of musical instrument powered by a jet engine?
It could be an organ, or a tuba, or whatever, it doesn't matter.
I'm understanding and open if the ...
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Instruments in a Desert Society
I am creating a desert country with humanoid people inhabiting it. I would like to see what kinds of instruments they would have. Their technology level is around a mid-1800’s level.
Many musical ...
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Definite pitch designs only, what musical instrument and class of musical instruments would be easiest to design if the world reset?
I saw a couple other threads with slightly similar questions. But I want to stress with this one, that the focus is what instrument and instrument family would be the easiest to build anywhere in the ...
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What sort of music could octopi play?
It can be really hard to distinguish between sounds and find the source of a sound underwater. How could an octopus musician play music with defined notes that are not blurred (significantly) or ...
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How do I design a musical instrument?
I am creating a tundra-nomad inspired culture, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to design instruments that will seem believable for these people and also be unique when compared to the real ...
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Using a Musical Instrument to Repel Wildlife
I have a setting where a nomadic man lives alone in a forest. Presume the wildlife is similar to a typical subtropical or temperate forest. I had the idea that before he sits down to cook, he would ...
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perpetual music geo machine
while traveling the world merchants have noticed the sound of many melodies repeating through night and days, in some regions melodies shift tone or speed based on the time of the day, and each region ...
user88682
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Would a "Hunting Horn" be feasible in a realistic world?
Meet the "Hunting Horn" from Capcom's "Monster Hunter" franchise.
While the source video games undoubtedly take liberties, the idea of a large, handheld instrument that plays ...
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How many notes can devils play with their horns?
Everyone knows the trope of horned humanoids with a pointy tail on their back and two horns in their head.
''It's just not a person with a tail and two horns, it's something completely new and inhuman!...
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What type of lullabies would a D&D-style dragon sing to their eggs - particularly ice dragons? [closed]
D&D style dragons come out of the egg knowing languages meaning that they had to learn it somewhere. I'm not interested in that. What I want to know is, that assuming Dragon lullabies are like ...
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Why would there be any use for sea shanties in space?
I understand that sea shanties were a type of work song, and often used to help sailors operate in sync with each other. They've survived as an art form, but so far as I know they don't have any ...
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Making a portable fire flute with thermoacoustics
Preliminary context
Before we start, sit back and relax, and let me have you a cup of context : Last month, While wandering on the netdom, I wondered how I'd add some cultural interest to my medieval ...
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Is an instrument that increases in loudness the farther away you get from it scientifically plausible?
Even though this is filed under the "reality-check" tag, I'm looking more for semi-plausible explanations as this is almost assuredly impossible using real world physics.
In my world people ...
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Sound Waves as an Organism’s Energy Source?
A while ago, I posted a question about musicians with weaponized instruments guarding a palace. I thought it would be interesting if they also had access to some sort of poison that they could use to ...
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Can a modern company effectively take ownership of Beethoven's 10th symphony? [closed]
Let's say someone discovered a collection of dusty papers in the attic of a tavern that Ludwig van Beethoven stayed at in the late 1820s. It is a complete manuscript of the supposedly unfinished Tenth ...
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Is there a way to make a high pitched musical drum instrument that only can be heard by a dog?
I want to make a musical instrument specifically for my dogfolk or other high pitched sound species that can't be heard naturally by humans.
I also want to know if is there a way to make a drum that ...
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Reasons for Musical Culture to have tritave equivalence as opposed to octave equivalence
Why would a musical culture, perhaps on another planet, perceive the interval of 1:3 as equivalent as opposed to 1:2?
Factors on any level are welcome, whether it be a specific culture that has ...
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Ceremonial flute choirs as a predecessor to the orchestra, how plausible is this?
So, I was just thinking, maybe, instead of having singing choirs in my culture I'm building, I should have woodwind choirs for the same purpose, Ceremonies. My Keplerians do have this tall, woody ...
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How to rock the universe without provoking intergalactic war?
Even in the distant future stupidly loud rock metal is being played and enjoyed by many humans, even those that finds it irritating still recognise it as a form of music alright... officially it's ...
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What qualities define a cultural style of music?
For context, I'm working on a music style generator for an online tool that procedurally generates fantasy cultures.
I want each culture to have a distinct musical style. I have very little idea of ...
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Could a language based on absolute pitch develop music?
For those that are arguing that without vocabularly, it isn't considered a language:
From Wikipedia: Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and use of complex ...
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Can I call music from the mid 1900’s to real life present day ‘classical’ without getting sued? [closed]
In addition to not getting sued, I also want my work to come off as standing on its own. I wouldn’t even worry about it if not for the fact that one of the battleships in the legion is captained by a ...
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Anatomically correct diegetic singing princess
I recently watched Wifi Ralph. There is a scene where
Didn't want to read the spoiler? No problem, here goes an explanation. Diegetic music is a part of the soundtrack for audiovisual work that is ...
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Steam-powered organ
Today I visited a two hours long organ concert (man, it was amazing) and weird idea have popped up in my head: organ powered by steam instead of pressurized air. This also made me thinking that it ...
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How to play music during post apocalypse
So it's 3 years after the apocalypse, there are 2 characters that are living in the wild, I want them to be able to listen to music (any type), but they don't have any electric power.
They need to be ...
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Could typically electronic sounds be generated mechanically?
I was thinking about our history of music, came upon electronic music and started musing about all the possibilities of modulation and such.
I then thought back to a previous question of mine, "How ...
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Parrots for tone-deaf people where magic is performed through song (followup)
In my previous question: Magic for tone-deaf people in a world where magic is performed through song it was suggested by Ynneadwraith (many thanks by the way) that animals that produce music would ...
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Magic for tone-deaf people in a world where magic is performed through song
In a world of magic, spells are songs. They aren't easy to sing and becoming truly proficient requires a similar amount of time and effort as it does to become an opera singer on Earth. Of course some ...
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Does harmony have to be invented?
The oldest known musical instruments are a set of bone and ivory flutes from around 42,000 years ago. Paleolithic tribesmen undoubtedly played these instruments gathered around the campfire, as an ...
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Universal translation and nonsense lyrics
I've been drafting a science fiction story that places a lot of emphases on the vastness of culture. One way technique I've been using is language and the hassle of translation. Earth has abut 4,500 ...
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In modern day combat, what would warrant singing during battle?
Cicad the singer is having a downtime in his career.
Over the millennia, Cicad sang anywhere from royal courts to farmers' cottages and have been rewarded with many, many hand-claps.
But to keep ...
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What could cause Mozart to be a common name? [closed]
My Keplerians, a humanoid race that looks similar to humans on the outside but is not human, have a futuristic civilization on 1 planet and a stone age civilization on a similar planet. The futuristic ...
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Everyone on starship enjoys classical music. But why? [closed]
This could be rather meta question itself, because you can allways say: Public domain. Yes, I am aware, that most of sci-fi movies have to pay intellectual property fees, so having your crew enjoy ...
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How could a musician get continent famous without radio or instant communication? [closed]
In the 26th century, 500 years after a nuclear apocalypse, most modern technological marvels, like radio, television and telephone have been wiped out. Which means, if you want to find out what’s ...
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Is it possible to create a giant, water-powered music box?
On another world, there is giant ravine leading into a cave where a sentient species live (Let's call them Cavers). They have limited access to materials; the only resources they have are rocks, ...
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Music from the Stars - How would a star-sound-machine work?
In my fictional setting, part of the civilization has a strong astronomical alignment. Religion and Science are hard to distinguish and new scientific discoveries strengthen it´s faith in the heavenly ...
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How do I write a spell for mermaids? [closed]
I am writing a world in which humanoids are turned into merpeople via a song-spell. Any ideas on how do write one? I would like it to be in a different language, maybe a mix of Tolkien Elvish, Latin, ...
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What would an instrument adapted to playing dodecaphonic music look like?
Suppose that there was a culture that naturally developed a musical system/tradition that us western Earth people would call a "loose" interpretation of dodecaphony or 12-tone music (https://en....
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Why do most of us love music? [closed]
Why do some of us enjoy music? And how did it even started in the first place? It somehow just appeared with us and stayed in most of our existence. We all can't escape music. It shows up on radios, ...
user42916
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How to Design Wind Instruments for a Race With Snouts
Wind instruments--such as flutes, panpipes, and even glass bottles--are able to create sounds due to air being blown over the top of or into an opening on a given instrument. This is largely possible ...
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How to use sound to replace signage
Background
In an environment with little visibility/short line of sight, in a roughly medieval setting, people who wish to represent their business and guilds etc., choose do so using sounds/music. ...
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Is playing electronic music on a custom set of instruments a feasible way of live performance for a culture?
I love electronic music in various subgenres, and I really often wish I could see the tracks performing on instruments in a way that makes it much more theatrical and visually appealing.
Of course, ...
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Other, non-synthetic materials for drum heads besides animal skins
I am writing about a race that uses almost no animal products (nothing that kills the animal; dairy products, eggs, cast-off deer antlers, wool, and honey are fine, and the verdict is still out on ...
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Can an AI and a human sync together with music
Related
Now let's look at a different version:
Humans fight against robots.
In order to level the playground, every human has an AI "conductor", who helps by forming plans and then transmitting it ...
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How to synchronize squad tactics against robots with music?
Back in my story, organic beings and AIs fight together against a frightening enemy, one that threatens everyone's freedom and chance to overcome their flaws and achieve a peaceful world.
However, in ...
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Is there a reason why similar or the same musical instruments would develop?
In a lot of fantasy world's the instruments used are the same or very similar to our own, the real reason why is obvious: the creators would have to create a music system from the down up which is ...
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