I just wanted to toss an idea or two.
Much of the music in Vegastrike is REALLY good; but in my opinion "not different enough". Much of it is in fact
VERY much music of the 2000's; not a shadow of a doubt about it. Ambiance, New Age. whatever. Much of it
even has bass and drums. What are the chances that 1 or 2 thousand years from now we will like the same kinds
of music we like today? Zero, I'd say.
But the problem is, what to do?
For the solution is not, as may be the tendency of some, to say "let's just have sounds; no harmony; no rhythm;
no constraints"; because that has been the philosophy of the 20th Century; --not even of the 21st. Complete
freedom from any notion of music is the natural reaction to having been subjected to too strict rules, for a
while. If you were living in the 22nd Century, and all musical structure had in fact been abolished, you'd
probably be looking for structure, rather than seeking freedom from it. Freedom from structure is a fashion and
a bias like any other fashion or bias.
Getting rid of ALL biases; not just popular pet peeves, takes a bit of philosophical discipline and an open mind.
Personally, I believe music not only needs structure, but IS structure; but musical structures in the 4th millenium
may be completely unlike anything we hear nowadays, or have ever heard before.
Starting from the most basic assumptions commonly made: That "music" *requires* 12 notes in the octave, a
semi-tone apart, that being a frequency ratio of 1.059... and infinite decimals --the 12th root of 2. Our present
day scale is very new, and it violates the most sacred rule about what our ancestors considered musical intervals.
Since the dawn of history, harmonic tone ratios were fractional numbers; NOT irrational ones. It so happens that
dividing the octave in 12 equal ratios happens to hit numbers that are pretty close to the Pythagorean scale.
The Pythagorean scale was based on frequency ratios that were rational numbers, alright; but ONLY involving
powers of 2 and 3: 4/3 for major 4th; 3/2 for perfect 5th; 9/8 for major 2nd; 81/64 for major third, etceteras.
But music wasn't always the slave of Pythagorean taste. Even ancient Greek music wasn't. It took a lot of killing
to get rid of all scales except Pythagorean, mostly in Middle Ages.
Ancient Greece had 7 basic scales and variations, NONE of them Pythagorean, or even close.
- Dorian (11)
- Phrygian (12)
- Lydian (13)
- HypoDorian (14)
- HypoPhrigian (16)
- HypoLydian (18)
- MixoLydian (20)
For example, the notes in the Dorian scale's octave were tuned like
Harmonic or Major:
- 11/11 (one --the tonic)
- 12/11
- 13/11
- 14/11
- 16/11
- 18/11
- 20/11
- 22/11 (two --the octave)
Modal or Minor mode:
- 11/11 (one --the tonic)
- 11/10
- 11/9
- 11/8
- 11/7
- 11/6.5
- 11/6
- 11/5.5 (two --the octave)
And so on.
Plus many others, like Ptolemaic, and I forget the many names.
India had 104 different scales that were sanctioned by the Vedas, and who knows how many
that were not. The Indian musical system is completely different from the Greek: They had
a collection of musical ratios, "shrutis", that numbered 66 in the octave.
Musical scales were small collections of these shrutis, without a common numeric base, but
seemingly random assortments.
The funny thing is that we have NO IDEA what any of the hundreds of ancient musical scales
sounds like. We've just never heard them; period. Why? Because they are almost lost...
The 12-tone, equal tempered western scale has, because of its cheap simplicity, eclipsed
all we ever considered music. Like a McDonnald's franchise on steroids.
This is a pity.
But there are groups of musicians out there dedicated to "microtonalism". There are softwares
you can get to compose and render microtonal music. And there's tons of theory and philosophy
of music to read.
I recommend the book "Genesis of a Music" by Harry Partch.
At minimum, you could take... the Aera have 8 appendages? How about writing Aera music in
the HypoPhrigian scale (base 16), and using rhythms based on 8 beats; and structure that often
spans 8 bars between chord changes? (and 64 between modulations?). Just tossing ideas.
And maybe the Arlaan like hexagons and the number 6... How about Phrygian scale (base 12)?
As for humans, maybe purists would play MixoLydian instruments (base 20), as 5 is the number
of man.