Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

For collaboration between the different artists creating music and sound for vegastrike.
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kensuguro
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Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by kensuguro »

Same thing for the RLAANS

RLAAN

1. What is the brief history of each race that everyone knows about? Something that defines the color of a race.

The Rlaan are ammonia-blooded methane breathers, growing much more slowly
and living at rather lower temperatures than Oxygen-Nitrogen life
(such as Human, Aera, Klk'k etc.). Rlaan civilization is much older
than Human and Aeran civilizations, with their initial forays into
space coming before there were pyramids in Egypt. Fortunately for the
ambitions of other species, the Rlaan progress into space, like
several other aspects of their culture, has been slow and drenched in
structure. A key part of this slowness, however, does not seem to come
from the Rlaan, but from the nature of the jump network itself. The
constructors of the jump network seemed to greatly favor connecting
worlds hospitable to Oxygen-Nitrogen life, often leaving methane or
chlorine breathers with far less juicy selections. Fortunately,
especially in contrast to chlorine breathers, ammonia-methane
environments suitable for further xenoforming are relatively common,
even in the absence of developed life, or life-supporting worlds.

The Rlaan are organized around a dizzyingly complex bureaucracy, that
is perhaps only comprehendible by a being that is possessed of a mind
as parallel and structured as their own. At the head of it all is the
Rlaan Assembly, an apparently representative body, although the voting
methodology is profoundly arcane. It serves to legislate, and does so
tirelessly, even rewriting and appending Rlaan religious texts. The
Rlaan government is disproportionately full of sterile worker-defender
hybrids. Light-weight trends in Rlaan culture are ephemeral and many,
but the fundamental "Rlaan-ness" of their culture is very slow to
change. The pre-FTL isolation of the Rlaan colonies from the
motherworld produced minimal diversification over the centuries of
only trickling radio contact outside of localized trends in landscape
paintings. The Rlaan were the least affected by the nano-plague,
having never crafted a society built around nanites.

The Rlaan's first contact was with the stone-aged Saahasayaay, whom
they decided to co-opt into their empire, if not their society. Their
difficulties with the admittedly hard to like Saahasayaay prompted
them to experiment on pre-sapients when looking to build thinking
living-tools with whom they'd have to interact with frequently,
leading to the construction of the Lmpl and Nuhln. Later contact with
the Humans and Uln, and even later with the Aera, was greeted as a
wonderful opportunity for exchange of ideas, art, and more mundane
goods. The Rlaan found the Uln rather boorish, but certain sections of
the Rlaan population found Humans to be a subject of intense
curiosity, if also a cause of some alarm.

The Rlaan are actually 2 species, their defenders and workers having
speciated some 100,000 or so years ago. This split, a
civilian-military split, is utterly central to their culture and
being. Workers in Rlaan society are completely sacrosanct with respect
to military action or other acts of coordinated violence. To put it
vaguely in perspective (one can't really do it justice in brevity), in
the Rlaan mentality, they view any individual capable of willingly
killing a worker in something like <self-censored for public forum
posting -- let's just say something along the Ed Gein meets Andrei
Chikatilo lines>. Thus, the tendencies of non-Rlaan species to be less
particular about civilian deaths at military hands is profoundly
unsettling to Rlaan, and they are comfortable with such tendencies
only to the degree that they can imagine all members of a society to
be "defenders" which is in turn a very unsettling concept for them as
well. The Rlaan views on civilian death have generally been credited
with reducing the number of genocidal events since Rlaan contact.

2. What is their level of technology

Again, I'm not certain exactly what you were hoping for here. The
Rlaan, like the Aera and Humans are quite advanced by our meager 21st
century standards.

Rlaan curiosity often outpaces their imaginations. Their amassed
knowledge is more a function of the thousands of years of research
than a fundamental talent. What they have figured out, they have
tended to explore in obsessive depth, but often at the cost of breadth
of topics that would have perhaps appeared related to a human
observer. Rlaan mastery over genetic code is unmatched, whereas the
Shapers pursue beauty, art, and perfection in the genome, the Rlaan
produce living tools. However, while the concept of living tool is
clear for Rlaan, they tend to keep some separation between their
biological and mechanical research. It is unclear whether they see
bio-mechanical devices as inelegant, distasteful, boring, or even just
strange, but their pursuit of direct synthesis trails behind that of
humanity. They would rather craft a being designed to use mechanical
tools than integrate those tools and an operator. Research into
non-biological AIs is also quite stunted, but for trivially
intelligible reasons of economics and the adequacy of other solutions
dissuading further research. The Rlaan have excellent energy
generation, heat transfer, materials science, and shield technology.

3. What is the level of their development as a race? (in parallel to our world: developed country, developing country, etc) Maybe their primary industry would give us some insight. OF course, without making things up as you go. Just from what all players should already know.

Rlaan levels of industrialization are exceptionally high, and
remarkably uniform. Prior to meeting the Uln and Humans, the Rlaan did
not expand their borders far beyond what they considered a developed
system, instead pumping resources into their thin fringe of border
worlds until their border systems were developed enough to prompt
another colonization wave. Thus, ignoring the war ravaged Rlaan/Aeran
border, the Rlaan have the densest, most populated, most developed
worlds of any species as a whole. Only the Andolian worlds exhibit a
comparable degree of robust development.

However, the growth rate for the Rlaan is slow, and their worlds,
though developed, were never rich, as often being moons as actual
planets. In order to keep pace, both militarily and in expansion of
domain, with the faster moving species, the Rlaan are driving their
economy heavily. However, especially as one gets further from the
active Rlaan borders, the Rlaan standard of living is quite high,
itself a drag on the economy, with demands for luxury and other
non-essential items, and significant portions of the population
pursuing tasks that, at least to a human eye, seem tangential to
productivity. Additionally, there is the weight of the bureaucracy
itself, growing atop the Rlaan economy, and exacting its costs in
inefficiencies.

4. In what sort of social/cultural context the race enjoys and consumes music in. (strong contrasts: "when vacuuming the house", or "during ritualistic sacrifices" will do)

The Rlaan mind is highly parallel, but thinking is rather
structured. Rlaan art and music have some similar properties. There is
a tendency to see what, to a human may appear a noisy superposition,
but to a Rlaan, picking out components in parallel, is actually a set
of concurrent images or sounds. Rlaan invest significantly in arts and
entertainment, though the particulars of how they do so are often
influenced by their religious interpretation affiliation of the
moment. Art, both in image and sound, permeates Rlaan culture, with
individual construction and composition of art and music being even
more popular than mass consumption of the art and music of others, to
what is generally considered the grand democratic detriment of Rlaan
tastes. Cut-stitch-overlay, is a dominating aspect of both Rlaan art
and music, creating superficially complicated constructions out of
several almost numbingly simple pieces. One of the most common Rlaan
artforms involves remixing the work of others, splicing together video
and other sensory clips and then synching them to one's own musical
recordings.

Rlaan music is not generally a commodity considered suitable for
export, and what the Rlaan choose to import is often only dubiously
considered music. Comparisons are often drawn between Rlaan music and a contest between hyperactive carillon players, or other euphemistic expressions regarding many bells being rung at once. What one would consider wind instruments are notably lacking from traditional Rlaan arrangements.

5. Also, in terms of ship/aircraft design, do we have a database of
the most current images? (with the new engine) I think that's the
most significant "characteristic" that the player actually comes
into contact during game play that defines a race/faction, so I
think it's best to use that as a guideline.

The Shizu and Zhuangzong are good Rlaan small military craft. The Taizong slightly less so, but still good. The Ruizong and Shundi are good Rlaan capital vessels. Rlaan stations and civilian vessels are still works in progress.
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Post by kensuguro »

My take on the rlaans:

darn smart, old, people. structured, and hard headed. Great technology. Also an underlying military structure. They're "parallel" thinkers.. which I interpret as doing / understanding several things at the same time. Perhaps a mix of 2 songs, or 3 songs, with same chord progression, may be interesting. and they also like sample manipulation. It might also be interesting to do everything as unison, since these people process multilayered information in parallel, perhaps they might like it when everything is in unison.

I'm still not too sure what sort of emotions drive these guys. Maybe we can do noise / soundscape / texture collage type, music concrete inspired stuff. But very very structured and orderly. Anyhow, I'm getting mostly methodological ideas, and I think we need a little more insight into the race's more intimate emotions.
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Post by klauss »

kensuguro wrote:Perhaps a mix of 2 songs, or 3 songs, with same chord progression, may be interesting. and they also like sample manipulation. It might also be interesting to do everything as unison, since these people process multilayered information in parallel, perhaps they might like it when everything is in unison.
Problem is... can something like that be done in a way that doesn't sound too alien to humans? Like a cacofonic cluster?
I think Schnittke did some experiments on those grounds, but I can't say I got it - went right over my head, a polite way of saying that I didn't like it.

I wish I could comment more, but I'm not very awake - I got up two days ago (roughly), and tomorrow awaits me a similar pair. Besides, if I did stay awake, I'd better be doing schoolwork as it's due for tomorrow :shock:
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Post by Zeog »

klauss wrote:Problem is... can something like that be done in a way that doesn't sound too alien to humans? Like a cacofonic cluster?
I don't think a cacophonic cluster is necessary. A fugue or something polyphonic would probably do and create enough sensation of "many things going on at the same time".

I'm not so sure if the Rlaan have a such a great command of emotions, as humans do. They seem more like being without any intuition but purely head driven, being trapped in their own hierarchical structures and ways of thinking, a slow way!

BTW: Did you know that a Rlaan would sell its fourth appendix for an original Yoko Ono album? Maybe this gives an insight into their view of beauty.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

I have a few other ideas that might work for expressing the parallel processing of the Rlaan mind:

- Medieval church polyphony used a lot of parallel 4ths and 5ths and not very many thirds, causing a very hollow, empty, "reverent" sound.. A good web based tutorial on how to compose in this style is at: http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/13c.html

- Polytonality and/or polychords and/or polyrhythm.. by having different musical material/chords/tonality in different registers the ear divides them up by register
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Post by kensuguro »

church music does sound like an interesting choice.. taking into consideration of the rules and laws and all the stuff the old church had to deal with, and we probably have end up with a similar structure as the Rlaans. Musically you're talking about gregorian-ish music, yes?

I don't really want to get into the details of recreating real church music though, so I think it'll be safe to say we can start off at that, and then mutate it into something else.

Also, to clarify, what I meant by running different material in parallel, was just having things that have obvious timbre difference (also breaking the stereo field) and combining them into one. So, I think it's easy to keep harmonic integrity.

Plytonality / polyrhythm stuff I think is just going to take time to compose, and in the end, just sound confusing.. doubt it's worth the trouble in this context.

I do think the gregorian-ish sound is very noticable, and fits well within the context. So we just need to flesh out the idea a bit so we don't end up with a normal gregorian piece that makes people think of medieval times. For example, obviously, you wouldn't want to do this with an organ, or strings, or chorus, anything too directly related to the times.. What do you think?

Also, while it's important to start thinking of form / structure/ methodology, I think at the current point, we should continue to focus on the "image" that we will be working around. More at the inspirational level. I want to encourage a workflow where the team first shares ideas about concept and ideas about the image first, and then shift focus on execution.
Last edited by kensuguro on Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

kensuguro wrote:church music does sound like an interesting choice.. taking into consideration of the rules and laws and all the stuff the old church had to deal with, and we probably have end up with a similar structure as the Rlaans. Musically you're talking about gregorian-ish music, yes?
Yup, exactly
kensuguro wrote:Also, I don't think parallel as in 4ths and 5ths moving in parallel is the nuance we're looking for. Isn't it more like parllalel "many streams coming in at the same time" kind of parallel?
Actually the vast majority of it is in contrary motion, not parallel.. I should have said empty 4ths and 5ths.. The biggest differentiators between the medieval styles and modern styles were - the 4th was considered a consonance rather than a dissonance - parallel 4ths and 5ths, while definately not the preferred motion (contrary and oblique motion were preferred) was permitted, not as many thirds in the music, so it doesn't sound as "triadic".. and it's based of course on the church modes. Nowadays the 4ths being consonances and the relative scarcity of triadic harmony makes the medieval music somewhat "alien" compared to what we hear nowadays.
kensuguro wrote:Plytonality / polyrhythm stuff I think is just going to take time to compose, and in the end, just sound confusing.. doubt it's worth the trouble in this context.
OK.. I had never really composed polytonal pieces before.. but I thought I'd throw the idea out there anyway
kensuguro wrote:I do think the gregorian-ish sound is very noticable, and fits well within the context. So we just need to flesh out the idea a bit so we don't end up with a normal gregorian piece that makes people think of medieval times. For example, obviously, you wouldn't want to do this with an organ, or strings, or chorus, anything too directly related to the times.. What do you think?
I agree completely.. perhaps use of synthesized instruments.. string sections I think are fine depending on how they are handled.. brass and woodwinds in general don't evoke the church as long as what you are writing doesn't sound like Bach/Handel.
kensuguro wrote:Also, my underlying intent is to keep musical constraints and form constraints to a minimal ("inspired", not "direct execution").. but the pitfall is, things may get a little out of hand. So the other route would be the more specific execution / "composing exercise" way of doing it.. where you really sit down and try to compose in a certain style. Good for school prep, but I don't think it's too effective in terms of results.. That's my stand point.. more ideas welcome.
I think largely the medieval style can be boiled down to: polyphony; perfect 4ths are consonances and considered points of rest, though not as excellent as the perfect 5th; thirds and sixths are used less than today causing a fair bit of non-triadic harmony, and when they do occur, they are often just used in passing to some other consonance rather than in parallel as the featured interval; and church modes..

If it was simplified to something like that it could probably be handled without the composers needing to spend months studying medieval music in detail.

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Post by kensuguro »

I think this is cooking up some interesting ideas. I think we can build on the gregorian idea, keep some of the rules, change some of them so it doesn't sound too similar. I think much can be done with the sound palette.

The church image did get me thinking.. since the rlaans are quite successful, and have a long history, I would supposed things get ritualized, and build up to have a heavy importance, and a certain amount of boredom.. you know, how rituals get over done and the original meaning gets buried somewhere along the way kind of thing? I would imagine something like a huge, vast sound field, lots of people.. almost like a chinese emperor / dynasty thing. (just visually)

Now warp that into outer space.. keeping the gregorian harmony theme.. long 4ths and 5ths, probably not too complex in terms of movements. Maybe spice it up with interesting pad sounds that have complex timbre.. Huge HUGE sound field.. But these guys probablys sound boring, just "ritual" music that's just there because it's there..

anyway, ideas.
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Post by klauss »

Them being alien, maybe change the preferred consonances.
Prefer 6ths, accept 5ths?
That might sound interesting. Mostly because of the hidden 7ths you'd have lying around.

Also, no less than 6 voices would make an interesting piece, maybe. But somewhat constrained. It will need lots of timbral variation, to avoid monotony.

What about percussion? Doesn't sim to fit, right?
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

klauss wrote:Them being alien, maybe change the preferred consonances.
Prefer 6ths, accept 5ths?
That might sound interesting. Mostly because of the hidden 7ths you'd have lying around.

Also, no less than 6 voices would make an interesting piece, maybe. But somewhat constrained. It will need lots of timbral variation, to avoid monotony.

What about percussion? Doesn't sim to fit, right?
Problem with those consonances you chose is they are standard in tonal music.. from the renaissance until today sixths and thirds have been preferred. I think the medieval sound is sufficiently "alien" to us already becuase of the perfect 4th above the bass having been considered a consonance in those times (which just sounds kinda wrong to us today because we are so used to tonal music).

I think percussion could work.. just because we may be using those rules does not mean that we would have to make the music sound solemn... I could see all kinds of special instrument effects being used to bring about the alien aspect..

As well today we have the full orchestral complement to work with to give different timbres, which the medieval composers never had.

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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by Psycodeine »

I have an idea that I think I can cook up, giving both the Gregorian and the modern feel. It is a combination of Moog basses in the high ranges for the strings effect (using 4ths-6ths). I also have an organ synth that will give the church effect. Sounding more modern might pose a difficulty. It has to be slow, but modern music tends to be faster. Some kind of slow bass synth, with a fast drum beat that is twice the speed of the actual song (song is still slow, creates push-pull effect). If we really wanted church music, there could always be a re-harmonized hymn, or gospel harmony (less solemn, more urban feel). This wouldn't be too complicated, but mind you, it make take a little work. Or perhaps a slightly faster, but less "progressive" tempo? There also has to be a lot of pads, ethereal to get the choir effect. I'm sure FL can do all this stuff (Sytrus, Helix, DSK Analog Matrix, DSK Ethereal VST's). I suggest (more like) 12 voices total to get the desired song.
BTW: Won't go for the slow gospel effect until I can get a copy of the gospel chords books, might take a while.
- Also, I have two songs that might suit the RLAAN taste for battle. They might not be exactly what we're looking for, but they were ideas anyway.
Click Here to go to my music website. Then go to the player and listen to Rap Battle I: "Vanilla", and Rap Battle I: "Royale". Each are different harmonizations of the same song. The vanilla version gets a little boring, and so does royale, but royale varies a little more (and gives a more dramatic effect). They're both 5 minutes, I don't recommend listening to all 5 minutes of each song (just get a feel for them). And these are just rough ideas, so I want feedback.
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by SCghst1 »

I think that the song Bliss.ogg was AWESOME for Rlaan (I'm pretty sure i only heard it in the systems with the unpronounceable names). I even recoded it for my iPod! So if whoever made that song could possibly make more of similar quality that would be amazing!
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by Fendorin »

a hand made music :DivShare File - Rlaan Rough test.ogg
i "did the music if you can call that music when i m tryed my english prononciation..

it should be Rlaan?? i don't know
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by MC707 »

The only problem I see with Rlaan music is the fact that they lack creativity. I somehow link that with music...
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by Turbo »

Fendorin wrote:a hand made music :DivShare File - Rlaan Rough test.ogg
i "did the music if you can call that music
it should be Rlaan?? i don't know
It reminds me of the Rlaan voices, the instruments sound alien, and the combination of different sounds seems to be something a 4-armed beast could play. So I vote YES.
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by CLoneWolf »

Turbo wrote: It reminds me of the Rlaan voices, the instruments sound alien, and the combination of different sounds seems to be something a 4-armed beast could play. So I vote YES.
Seconded, IMHO too, it matches the Rlaan voices nicely. Now, give him feedback also on his Shaper comm sample so he can work on that too ;) (I didn't comment on it, not being native myself :mrgreen: )
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by Turbo »

CLoneWolf wrote:Now, give him feedback also on his Shaper comm sample so he can work on that too ;) (I didn't comment on it, not being native myself :mrgreen: )
I did. I said it sounded great except that he should speak more slowly.
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by SCghst1 »

If you guys know what bliss.ogg is by Falik(?) thats the artist in the tag).. is an awesome interpretation of Rlaan music to me and their backround. i could see the Klkk and the Confed's thinking it is annoying, but it being majestic to the Rlaan. Honestly i even re-encoded it to MP3 for my iPod its so good!
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by TBeholder »

Fendorin wrote:a hand made music :DivShare File - Rlaan Rough test.ogg
i "did the music if you can call that music when i m tryed my english prononciation..

it should be Rlaan?? i don't know
Sorry, can it be downloaded anywhere else? For me, DivShare fails (after countdown, if js is on) for some reason.

Also, how about this one? Funny, with clicking sounds, alien meowing and all. "Doppler Shift" by klangwuerfel-records (Raumklang)
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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by Falik »

SCghst1 wrote:If you guys know what bliss.ogg is by Falik(?) thats the artist in the tag).. is an awesome interpretation of Rlaan music to me and their backround. i could see the Klkk and the Confed's thinking it is annoying, but it being majestic to the Rlaan. Honestly i even re-encoded it to MP3 for my iPod its so good!

"Annoying"? lol

Thanks!

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Re: Music Brainstorm: RLAAN

Post by Azereiah »

Quick concept here, hope nobody minds the topic bump.

What instruments would the Rlaan have been likely to invent first?
We had percussion first, which is relatively straightforward - bang any given object with any other given object. It's simple, but it's also a spontaneous discovery. Someone heard a pattern somewhere, then banged rocks against wood in that pattern until their entire family/tribe knew how to make patterns with impacts.

From what I know of them, if there were a musical instrument, I'm thinking that it wouldn't be so much a new invention or new use for an invention as a steady progression - perhaps working in a unison that makes for a pleasing pattern to them. From there, they identify the pattern and create other objects that can also make that pattern. They wouldn't use outright percussion as readily as humans do, I suspect. More sounds of life, stacked together, with genres defined by methods of creation - outright recording and manipulation of worldly sounds, the use of artificial sounding devices, and the use of computers for it.

Remember - we're working with an alien species that doesn't even speak in the same manner that we do, so their culture is also going to be completely alien in such a way that our own minds don't immediately draw a comparison. But we also want to make it sound beautiful in its own strange way. It's like being raised on nothing but gospel and walking into a melodic death metal concert.
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