Music in Urcea: Difference between revisions

Throughout its history, Urceans have been an extremely musical society, embracing not only the Ecclesiastical tradition of {{wp|Gregorian chant|polyphonic chant}} but also folk songs and storytelling. Urcean traditional music was the organic development of these trends, creating a genre and style based on the use of fiddles, harps, accordions, and, later, guitars and snare drums. Urcean traditional music has remained vibrant and retains many of its cornerstone aspects, such as instrument choice and semi-nationalistic themes in its storytelling. It has heavily influenced various modern music genres, such as country and roots music. It has occasionally been blended with styles such as rock and roll and punk rock. Urcea has also produced many internationally known artists in other genres, such as rock, pop, jazz, and blues. The rhythmic and lyrical styles of traditional music have deeply influenced Urcean music at large, distinguishing it from [[Sarpedon]]ian [[Latinic people|Latinic]] traditions.

The earliest record of music in Urcea comes from {{wp|Gregorian chant}} and various other religious arrangements suitable for mass. Rising from the 9th century, polyphonic Church music was the primary and most regular way that the early Urcean people experienced music. Consequently, many people in the Medieval period received their musical training - however basic - to serve in scholas for mass. In most communities, the rural parish was the gateway to the experience of the divine and the experience of music, and many peasants had the opportunity to learn to sing, to carry a tune, and for the lucky few, the ability to learn how to read the earliest forms of musical notation. From the legions of rural peasant scholas came the very first minstrels, or musical entertainers. Minstrels typically traveled around the nearest county, providing entertainment in taverns and, more rarely, at court. These minstrels played instruments like the lyra, wooden flutes, and various other chordophones. Their songs were typically story-based, recounting real world events, such as military campaigns and the lives of various sovereigns, through the medium of musical entertainment. While secular music was typically looked down upon by civilized society, minstrels were tolerated so long as they didn't stray into salacious topics for their music, beginning a long history of "best practices" guidelines for Urcean cultural productions. Many of the songs played and invented by minstrels would become repeated and, in many cases, distorted, by groups of workers singing during the manual labor required of nearly every task in the Medieval period. It reduced the boredom of repetitive tasks, it kept the rhythm during synchronized pushes and pulls, and it set the pace of many activities such as planting, weeding, reaping, threshing, weaving, and milling. Working people and peasants also recounted minstrel songs or original songs at family gatherings and Christian feast days as a way to entertain guests. The songs invented by minstrels were also passed along by oral tradition in this period, retaining some cultural memory of historical events and passing along cultural memory and legends. These early folk songs were rarely recorded in notation, as the need to transcribe and copy songs by hand precluded their preservation; only liturgical and ecclesiastical songs survived in the written medium, given the lengthy time and effort that only monks could provide. Those early songs that did survive were typically transcribed due to the song being widespread, memorable, and about a momentous historical event, such as the Tale of Father Lucás at the Glen, a song about the victory of [[History_of_Urcea_(1214-1402)#Great_Interregnum|King Lucás II at the Battle of Glens Falls in 1401]].

The invention of the {{wp|printing press}} was a pivotal moment in the development of coherent styles of music in Urcea, as what were once local developments that lasted the lifetimes of single minstrels could become lasting accomplishments, catching the ear of the wealthy and peasant alike. The Renaissance period in Urcea also lead to diversification of music types. Wealthy young privilegiata - and some optimates- began writing compositions for larger groups of musicians as well as for new instruments like the harpsichord. These composers wrote Church music as well as compositions for court and, in some cases, even composed music for minstrels to purchase. While there was no central music industry, individual minstrels and composers began to make a living selling compositions. Individual minstrels entered a decline by the beginning of the 1500s, as there were more avenues for the freemen and [[Social class in Urcea|privilegiata]] to hear and write music outside of the context of Church, and additionally, finding a trained transcriber to record their music was difficult and expensive. Despite the relative availability of music compared to previous eras, sheet music remained rare and expensive due to the rarity of transcribers outside the Church. The music of the vanquished class of minstrels remained, however, in the imagination of the rural populations, who continued to pass down versions of their songs from generation to generation, though by the 1550s most songs that remained in the rural consciousness were so distorted and, in some cases, deliberately altered that they sounded and read nothing like the songs initially received. The decline of the minstrel lead to the growth in popularity of the composer among the [[Social class in Urcea|privilegiata and optimates]], while the freemen took an interest in the new phenomenon of the so-called bardic-band, part-time locals who would gather to play music in one-off arrangements using songs that they had received from popular memory or songs that they had purchased from the city or courts. New instruments were making their way into the hands of rural bands as well, influenced by the music of the courts. The violin entered popular usage in Urcea in the 1540s, and it became the primary lead instrument of court music for the next few centuries. Older court violins were acquired by rural musicians, who developed a style vaguely resembling the style of the modern fiddle and other non-conventional styles of playing the violin. For the first time, violins were joined by the common lute, the most popular instrument in the home and in the tavern. Rural tavern band music remained story-oriented, though new stories relating love stories appeared. The sense of loss, a later staple of country music, made some appearances in these rural songs according to historians, loss brought on by the fighting of the [[Great Confessional War]] and the chaos of [[The Anarchy]]. The sense of loss as a central theme remained a staple of rural music. During the era of the war, rural music diverged into two forms, which initially retained nearly-identical instrumentation for a time. The first style was what is known as traditional music, which included stories about the Kingdom, the King, the troubles the Kingdom was undergoing, and how the peasant and family related to current events. A common song type during this period was that of a farm being raided or a love story ending with the singer, a man, "going off to fight cavalry", a euphemism for going to war without chance of return. This traditional style was considered a continuation of the earlier minstrel style, but it retained the musical developments of the era. The second style, referred to broadly as "proto-folk music", related more to the individual than to greater themes; it involved love stories without reference to war or political happenings, as well as the aforementioned sense of loss due to the hardships endured as part of the human condition, which was the focus of the proto-folk style. Both styles retained their [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] heritage, with the traditional form of music including an appeal to God to end the Kingdom's hardship while the proto-folk form included either appeals to end the personal hardship or an acknowledgement of fault for the hardships incurred. Many of the proto-folk songs of the period retained a moral, offering that the hardships incurred in life were due to a negative action taken rather than the regular hardships of life, though not all songs retained this element. Between the two styles, instrumental compositions were often shared during this early period of their existence. Later, by the early 1600s, the two genres would begin to diverge musically; maintaining the element of "labor song" and songs sung in the home, compositions of proto-folk dropped the use of flutes and fifes, while the traditional style retained them.

The reemergence of both popular and court theater in the 17th century gave rise to new genres of music. Unlike the two popular styles, the music of theater valued virtuosity and technical excellence, but unlike court styles of music, it also valued improvisation and individual flourish and used many of the same inexpensive and easily available instruments used in taverns and at home, such as the various predecessors of the guitar as well as flutes and other similar instruments. Many theater productions - which could last from two to four hours - required music of some kind to be played in the background for some or all of the play. Consequently, this not only continued to improve the stamina and skill of the musicians but gave them a proving ground of sorts to try new methods and develop new styles of playing. Though these "theater men" - a relatively small professional group of musicians - did not, themselves, revolutionize either popular rural genre, those who heard them were greatly inspired. Old theater songs and styles of play originating from urban theater swept through the countryside as both genres acquired some of the new elements. Since the music of plays did not feature any singing, improvised lyrics were often attached to them in rural areas, and many different songs arose during the early to mid-17th century using the same tune but vastly different lyrics.