Nadnerb's Question of What Went Into Forbidden Memories

I'm curious, given the synesthetic properties of the music (at least for Octavia) in this story, what kind of music you imagine this being like. Another question, something I wonder about with every music-centric story I read, is if you have any musical training yourself. It's always interesting to see what side certain depictions of musicality come from. - Nadnerb

Oops! I meant to answer the most interesting part of Nadnerb's question! I was about to leave this as a comment, but then I reviewed it seeing its TL;DR length, so I'm going to do something that I don't plan to make into a habit and answer it in a blog post. Oh and before we go any further...

I'm glad you liked the song bits as they were my favorite part to write, and probably what I put 70% of the focus on when going back writing and rewriting. That's how I experience music myself in a way. Since music is integral to Octavia's life, I heightened her experience and appreciation for what goes on in her head. I do the same, to a lesser extent, as a lot of ideas for writings or drawings come from what I visualize when I listen to a song. Every original character I've made at some point gets a song or three assigned to them in my head as one of their themes. It is an audible reminder of who they are as I'm writing them so I can stay in character as I explore how they react and what they say. I usually favor songs without lyrics or, if they do, don't require me to pay attention to the underlying message as the character's interpretation of the song is what gives it meaning.

Back to the synesthesia thing. when I listen to a song, I do what most folks I assume do with art they love and assign their meanings and feelings to it. You know, how two people can look at a painting and see two entirely different things. I do the same with songs I listen to while I write, I grab a song that is easily repeatable without me noticing it and listen to it for hours and hours as I maintain try to maintain the mood it puts me in. This usually leaves me listening to video game music since it is designed to repeat in the background to set the mood. For Forbidden Melodies, I listened to a LOT of Zelda and one from Final Fantasy Tactics. I'll list them below. Keep in mind, these songs are usually extended from 10-30 minutes already before I pull it up on Listenonrepeat.com, so that repeat count actually means something!

Sky Keep: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Repeated 18+ times (Listened to this song on my iPhone on repeat when brainstorming while driving)
Spirit Temple - Legend of Zedla: Ocarina of Time Repeated 10+ Times (Listened to this song on my iPhone on repeat when brainstorming while driving)
Tower of the Gods - Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (ZREO Arrangement) Repeated 10 Times
Hyrule Castle - Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Repeated 6 Times
Hero's Theme - Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions Repeated ??? Times (Count says 93 from listenonrepeat, but I also listened to this while writing Unraveling a Rainbow. Used for Silent Era inspiration)

So most of these counts are all basically in one sitting of listening while writing. If you read Unraveling a Rainbow, most of the links I throw for mood music is what I was listening to while envisioning the scenes and characters. If it was an animation, you'd be for sure those song would be playing in the background of Unraveling, but not here for Forbidden Melodies, which leads into the second part of the first question.

So, how do I go about this without offending folks... I guess with being honest. Beware flame-war kindling as we are about to get religious up in this hiz-house!

Forbidden Melodies was inspired first and foremost by a joke from Unraveling a Rainbow when the OC changeling Chromina offers to play it while hooked up to a heart monitor. It was then inspired by church hymnal music in conjunction with the cornerstone of how I write Princess Celestia and Princess Luna: They are NOT goddesses. Admiration can easily turn into devout worship, so I went with the idea of how Celestia would respond to a song of worship written about her the same way I and other church-goers sing to glorify God and Jesus. Let's just say my inspirations are treading a dangerously thin line of sacrilege as I used Gloria Patri and other hymns to initially inspire the work. Because I wasn't comfortable with completely re-purposing hymns from church to worship an immortal sunbutt pony, so I decided to leave it a bit vague in "classical music" and what went on in the Silent Era as to tread the very edge of ruffling religious feathers with parallels to the Celestial Light and real-world religion.

Whew... okay, pitch forks down people. The talks of religion and politics is mostly over now.

As for what I picture the song to be like? It's obviously intended to be a full orchestral arrangement, but with the limited instrumentation used here, a piano, tubular bells (AKA chimes), a clarinet designed for pegasi, a cello, and a tenor voice, I decided to not link any music that could at least correlate to the work. As far as the emotional feeling I wanted to evoke, here are two songs give you an idea of how different they were in intent and execution. Now these are NOT how I imagine the songs going, just their emotional mood!

Grand Maestro Glissando's Second Movement - Hellfire: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Octavia Melody's Second Movement - Deliver Us: Prince Of Egypt (Specifically Moses's mother Jochebed's parts)

And for the final part. Yes, I do have a history with playing musical instruments, though I haven't played one since 9th grade of High School. After my mom caught me playing by ear on her piano, she had me start taking lessons for about a year and a half or two years. From there, I went to the alto sax and played that until marching band killed my love for the instrument as I don't like sports (which was what marching band was basically centered around) and I don't like being outside with a metal instrument in 100 degree weather in the middle of the Texas heat. Screw that!

So I hope that answers that and you have some fun with some of the videos I've linked. This should be the last blog post I make for Forbidden Melodies for a while until I revise it with some rewrites, but I got other things to do first. For instance, seeing the clock, I am going to be late for work because I wanted to answer this as precisely as I could. SHOOT!

- Lord Regulus