by Lady Emily
The first music was undoubtedly played by our Fae ancestors, for our oldest histories allude to many instances where humans were entranced with the haunting melodies of fae-like music. Since then, we have learned the ways of blowing wind over reeds, of striking on hollows, of tightening and plucking strings. Still, music was quite different centuries ago than it was today, for in the early years, there was no concept of song. Indeed, it is supposed that the first music was simply played on impulse, and the melody played tonight would be quite different than the one created tomorrow. Some instruments, like the Moor Flute of Mirim, are still played in that tradition, and don’t quite sound right when played in a measured beat or set melody. The player simply lets the notes flow outward, however they come.
Tribal peoples, we know, eventually began to see the music as a language, and created songs, committed to memory and passed down through the generations, which recorded historical events, were used for ceremonial purposes, or were believed to have a magical effect. But the concept of actually creating a written language of music was not conceived until nearly a thousand years ago, by a man named Lucius.
Lucius was a famed musician in his day, and attracted many who wished to learn from him his ways of playing music. As the numbers of prospective pupils became too great, Lucius grew frustrated. His personal journals, housed in the Museum of Masalla, make his feelings clear.
I am overwhelmed beyond fatigue, aching to spread the passion of my music, and bound by the limits of my physical self. Its seems I sleep more than I teach these days, for the weariness steals upon me all the swifter. What I need is some means of delivering my teachings without the necessity of my presence. I need a way to communicate song. I need a language of music, so that my pupils might be given scribed copies of a similar melody and rehearse it for my critique.
He locked himself away for the space of a passage, and emerged with a system of musical writing which has remained virtually unchanged, even today.
Music, using my 'Language of Music', can be written just as a storyteller might scribe out a story. And just as every storyteller tells the same story with different inflections, gestures, and tones, so shall each musician play each song differently, creating their own variances of speed, loudness, and depth of sound.
His system, then, was not intended to constrain the musician, but to act as a guideline so that a given melody could be spread far and wide on sheets of parchment. Still, each musician would interpret the writing in their own manner, and even today the skill of a musician is seen in their ability to take a piece of music and change the written language into something unique and beautiful.
Various people, as time went on, attempted to add certain elements to Lucius’ Musical Language, markings meant to tell the musician when to play softly, when to make certain notes crisp, when to draw out a tone. But invariably such additions were considered an insult to skilled musicians, who did not want someone telling them how to play a certain song. Where was the joy in music if you heard the same song by two different players and the song sounded the same both times? It has always been thought that the musician’s interpretation, and not simply the music itself, is important.
Interestingly, Lucius’ language never inspired authorship, as our normal writing has. Musicians have long considered music the gift of Adrian, God of the Arts, and the general consensus is that a song comes to a player, and is not created out of the player’s mind. Thus songs are never marked with the name of the first player, but instead are considered the property of all.
