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One of the constants across cultures is music: people make music. They play with rhythm and pitch and loudness–they sing individually and in chorus–they move to the music they make, and make it dance.
I’ve been hooked on music since early childhood. I write to music–characters have theme music, entire books have music attached them as I write them. (Gird: Brahms’ GERMAN REQUIEM. Luap: Zamfir’s best-known work for panpipes and orchestra. Listen to both. Tells you everything about the difference in their character. Or it does to me.)
This past week, I’ve sung a good chunk of Handel’s MESSIAH with my church choir & friends, and the Austin Symphony. My husband sang Vivaldi’s GLORIA tonight with his church choir & friends, and a small chamber orchestra. The GLORIA is definitely a work that belongs in Paksenarrion’s world…but no one there speaks (or ever spoke) Latin, nor is the theology correct there. But the music…oh, yes. Some of MESSIAH could also cross over, but not all of it.
So far, only classical music (in the broad sense) works for me when writing fantasy. Everything else is too connected to this everyday world…the music I write to (at least when writing fantasy, and often otherwise) has to lift me out of the mundane. For me this means harmony (dissonance only to resolve it), intricacy, and really gorgeous shadings. Vivaldi’s GLORIA has all that.
Comment by Darren F — February 17, 2019 @ 8:00 am
Have you ever made the songs of Pak’s world available? Are there chord sheets available? I sing as a soloist in my church and have recentlyvtaken to bringing wonderful fantasy songs to life.
Comment by elizabeth — February 17, 2019 @ 9:04 am
Darren F: Decades ago, when I was writing the books, I also composed the music, but I am lousy at reading music or writing more than a simple melody line (the chords come to me–harmonies come to me–but writing them down is a struggle. At any rate, back then I remember noting some of it down, as best I could, but I’m not sure where I put them. Some were…weird. “The Rule of Aare” found in Gird’s book, Surrender None…I was even able to sing that one, but it’s what my choir director calls “through composed” and it’s a tricky thing. Pushed my voice to its limits. Not sure I could reproduce it now. The marching songs are easier, but though I remember bits of them, I’d need my notes to remind me. So in answer to your other question, right now there’s nothing approaching lead sheets or chord notations for the music I wrote. If anyone else put them to music, I don’t know about it. I should probably ask friends who are serious filkers…they might know. The complete verses were in a notebook that was put somewhere safe and has since disappeared; the computer files from which the printout came were on, um, very old floppy disks that have also disappeared. But the music notes were on music paper…and should be *somewhere* in this house.