Kilrathi Music

The only reference to the Kilrathi having anything to do with music that I can think of at 1 AM is the group of Kilrathi singers from Fleet Action.
 
ace said:
The Kilrathi seem more religious than artistic, so make it sound religious and expell any ideas about microtonality or other academic inventions.

Well, when you think about it, our system of 12 tones is also an academic invention - just the one that happened to prevail in western music on earth. In fact, its actually 'wrong' because of the even tempered scale. A 'seventh' in our system doesn't really exist. The real seventh based on the harmonic series is somewhere between a major 7th and a minor 7th. I've heard western music played on mircotonal instruments where the music was 'rewritten' to make it work based on the true harmonic series - the difference is incredible.

But I'm getting a little off topic here. I didn't necessarily say I was going to use mirco or marco tones (as that becomes extremely complex to deal with). I'm just saying that there is absolutely no reason to assume the Kilrathi came up with the same acedemic invention as we did - a scale of 12 tones per octave.

However it is true - the finger stuff, while interesting is somewhat irrelevant as we have 10 fingers and have a system of 12 tones. However, it is something that should be kept in mind. If they only have 8 fingers, then that potentially can impact on the type of scale they can have based on playability of something when you only have 8 fingers (and probably not much of a reach based on what we've seen). So the Kilrathi physiology in a way also has an impact here.
 
ace said:
The reason we think some things sound good is because we're so used to them, so the more inventive you are, the worse it will sound.

Some people who study aesthetics could disagree. There’s a reasonable case that there are universal standards for beauty on arts, and on music.

Not sure on how this could fit with the Kilrathi, since if this standard would work for just humans or the Kilrathi as well is left more to the imagination of the author.

We could perhaps try compare other aspects of Kilrathi taste, like their architecture and ship design, with our own. And try to apply this to the music.

For example, the Kilrathi likes to build agressive ships. There's Hobbes' comments on Kilrathi culture on WC3. References like those can perhaps fill the blanks when it comes to Kilrathi music.
 
Delance said:
Some people who study aesthetics could disagree. There’s a reasonable case that there are universal standards for beauty on arts, and on music.
Yeah, except that such a reasonable case can only be made for human standards, not universal ones - not having encountered any intelligent creatures other than humans, we can't really assume they'll stick to the same standards.
 
Not only I agree, Quarto, but I said more or less the same thing on the next paragraph. :)

Considering it's a fictional race, it can go either way.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
The only reference to the Kilrathi having anything to do with music that I can think of at 1 AM is the group of Kilrathi singers from Fleet Action.

I wonder if they dance as well. Seriously. I mean, sadly, we never get to see too much about their culture. ("Idiot's Guide To Everything Kilrathi...") I wonder if they have any kind of dances; something similiar to our waltzes or something....
 
TigerNobleHeart said:
I wonder if they dance as well. Seriously. I mean, sadly, we never get to see too much about their culture. ("Idiot's Guide To Everything Kilrathi...") I wonder if they have any kind of dances; something similiar to our waltzes or something....

They do -- it's a group of Kilrathi "singers and dancers". :)
 
I've wondered from time to time, they are more cat like, so would they not hear things that are out the human ears abilty. There could be entire segments of their music that a human couldn't even hear. I don't know. I'm kinda with the idea of stuff simlar to what a Kilgons in Star Trek would do, both war centered socities and both are centered around one being, Sivar and ketles kayless someone I don't remember. Ofcourse that is also to say that Post Red Sea Hebrew music sounds like the stuff that the Samari wrote.
Ofcourse we all know what Sun Tzu said: "There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard."
Your guess is as good as mine.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
They do -- it's a group of Kilrathi "singers and dancers". :)

*LOL* Oh, good one! Set myself up good with that one. :D
Well, Kilrathi engauging in ballroom dancing does seem a tab out of place. <G>.
What about other media? Now, Confed has looked into a lot of Kilrathi programmined and no doubt they have done the same. There has to be some epics that Terrans possess that they would find interesting. We've got some good movies that I'm sure Kilrathi would find comparisions with their own legands. Imagine some Kilrathi Lord watching a bootleg copy of "Gladiator" and loving it...
 
Well guys, I started experimenting. I came up with a synthethic atonal scale and I've been using that. So far it sounds pretty good - lots of percussion, and I'm using a lot of brass. In my orchestra I'm having the woodwinds play sax rather than their own instruments - its sounding... well... interesting. Very asemestrical, and doesn't make much sense in terms of our current tonal system, but I think it sounds pretty good. And this is just one in many experiments. Keep the ideas comming as I'll probably be fooling with a lot more in the future.
 
So in essense you're saying it sounds like most modern dissonant pieces that people try to pass off as "music". ;)

Years ago I did a thesis on dissonant music and it got my prof highly upset because she was a fan of this mordern style of "music". My reports basically described the torture of sitting through concerts with no definable melody and or chords for 75%+ of each piece of music. Of course most of it was with strings and woodwinds, so I'm imagining the more bombastic nature of Kilrathi sagas put to music would sound a helluva lot better than some of the stuff I had to sit through.
 
I for one respect the academic work involved in atonal music and the like, but I can't be brought to enjoy it. Intelectually it may be the cat's pajamas, but aestethically it is kind torturing... Although I do think it may be perfect for "music made by aliens".
 
Only atonal music would be a bad idea, since it isn't pleasent to listen to. I think it should be a mix of "normal" style of music with atonal pieces in the background. For the normal part I'd recommend more primitive, tribal sounding instruments like drums, Taiko, that instrement where you smash two pieces of wood against each other which's name I can't remeber.
 
Well, its atonal, but there's a sense of melody and structure to it. I basically built a synthetic 7 tone scale (I thought about the Kilrathi physiology in doing this - how would thier hands hold an instrument, and what would they be able to do with it), and I'm using a lot of different metrical divisions in irregular meters to really make it asemetrical. There's a sense of rhythm - it sounds like some sort of very difficult, ritualistic tribal dance. I took a page out of Hindemith's book (I've become very fond of Hindemith as of late - its not atonal, the tonal center is just shifting very rapidly) and I'm using a lot of 4ths and 5ths. Along with that I'm using a lot of tritones and minor 3rds.

Don't think of what I'm doing right now as Schoenberg atonal, because its not. Think of it more like contemporary music with an irregular, non-constant meter and a synthetic scale.

Like I said, this is only one in many experiments, so there will probably be more stuff to come.
 
Edfilho said:
I for one respect the academic work involved in atonal music and the like, but I can't be brought to enjoy it. Intelectually it may be the cat's pajamas, but aestethically it is kind torturing... Although I do think it may be perfect for "music made by aliens".

I dunno. Some polish avant-garde stuff is pretty awesome. I dig Penderecki.
 
My opinion:

Stay away from the atonal stuff. Usually, the only people who appreciate it are those who have been deeply immersed in music studies. It just doesn't sound pleasant to the untrained ears. The fact that Weyburn (sic) and his companions are only popular in smaller circles of the musical elite is testimony to that.

I'd suggest listening to the soundtracks for Crimson Tide, Hunt for Red October, and Gladiator, listen to the previous stuff from WC2 and WC3, and try to come up with something tonal but definately martial. Also, the Deis Direi portion of several classical masses are very sinister and could serve as good material.
 
Sphynx said:
Also, the Deis Direi portion of several classical masses are very sinister and could serve as good material.

You mean Dies Irae (Day Of Judgement)
 
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