Vitae Memorandum

35-Instrumental Preparation

The four of them had spent time going over some of the documentation that was recovered from the factory, searching for anything useful for their new ideas. By mid-afternoon, they finally approached the smith to go over everything in detail.

"You all do realize how crazy this whole thing sounds, right? Making strange instruments never seen before out of Fortress-style stuff. Instruments typically need to be very well tuned, or they would sound like garbage. Practically nothing we have on the fortress is even useful for anything like this, they've cared about things more practical than music." The smith came back at them right away with the bad news.

The smith looked over all of them suddenly feeling defeated and sighed. "You're really lucky I specialized in wood working before coming out here. It's not like I'm ignorant to how a bunch of musical stuff is made, but if you're going to be using your 'Terran' ambitions in this, keep in mind that the best we can do is something from before my Fortress days. It has to be that simple, or it's not going to happen. From there, maybe we can reinforce it a bit with Fortress metals, if we can make sure it has the right effect. Qheria's shield should show you at least that I'm familiar with how that metal can ring." The smith still didn't really like this idea. It just didn't seem practical enough, making musical toys when there were more important jobs at hand. Well, the more important jobs were still the four girl's ideas too. Ideas came from somewhere, maybe this would help.

Thanrie was first to speak up at this. "That's fair. Yes, so.. considering the norm around here and the familiarity of instruments most of the others would have, I can see a standard drum set is probably a good place to start. The main parts are similar enough to percussion instruments around here, for the main drum. A hollow barrel, wooden felt mix probably, would be fairly similar to the normal. We could try and set up the pedal, it shouldn't take much for special design. Snares would be fairly similar, depending on what we have on hand. Could maybe even go with a slightly Japanese-styled drum, without much difficulty. The cymbals.. I don't think those exist yet, but I can certainly tell you that we easily have the material required for it already." Thanrie was considering a standard three-piece drum set for herself, with maybe some added pieces for audio variations. If they were lucky, she might even get a hi-hat.

Qheria was trying to reflect on what she knew of the Celesi musical scene. "I believe we have an assortment of string instruments. Most of what we have though.. it's more like harps and lutes, but rather than anything with a lighter sound, I was hoping for something a little more.. distinct. On Earth, it was called a bass. Probably an acoustic bass, given what we have to work with. I'm more of a fan of using my own hands anyway, almost as much as my other memories. I wouldn't be against a double bass, but that might be too complicated, it's rather big." Qheria doubted she would have the materials for a standing instrument, plus such a thing might be harder to play. The lack of electrical parts made most of this difficult.

Lwyn considered Qheria's statement, generally at a loss for musical norms. While instruments had passed through the Inn, she didn't get much opportunity to marvel at them. "Well, a string instrument could be cool. I've always loved the violin, maybe we could do that? It's like Qheria's idea, but a lot more simple. Though, we would have to come up with a violin bow.. that should be okay, right?" Lwyn's idea to use a bow made Thanrie cringe out of history. Still, it wasn't exactly like the kind of bow she used to use, and she was even now using a crossbow. The principles were based on the same concept used in both, so making such a tool shouldn't be overly ambitious. It would still be very new.

Mhyl pondered for a second, and then made her own attempt in English, after having been updated by Lwyn on things so far. "I've never actually seen any instruments in Celese. But on earth, I've always loved the piano. Can we do something like that?" Mhyl's idea almost had Thanrie slip from her chair. There was NOTHING simple, small, or easy about a piano. Also, nothing like it actually existed in all of Celese. Making it small would require electrical innovation. Making it otherwise would be a complex arrangement of hammers over some really complicated parts in what was effectively a larger box than the double bass Qheria had been hesitant about.