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I wanted to know if there is an official ruling on original works versus existing materials. For example, I have a bard, she sings songs as a street performer, up until now, I have only used songs I actually wrote. However, I would like to add a few existing pieces here and there for more variety. But, I don't want to infringe on any laws or rules in existence. What are the rules on this in Amia?

Thanks in advance!

go for it, imo. If there are any that are published or something (in the Library section, or the like), free game.

Last edited by Bini on Mon, Jul 02 2012, 16:15 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Existing materials as in things created in the real world and used in the real world?

If that is the case, I'd say do it, but be mindful not too use something that might break immersion or make an allusion to something that isn't exactly part of the FR lore.

Oh, I thought meant like, songs by other bard players.

Yeah, use common sense. Don't run around saying "I KNOW THIS IS CRAZY BUT CALL ME MAYBE."

Silent2001 wrote:

Yeah, use common sense. Don't run around saying "I KNOW THIS IS CRAZY BUT CALL ME MAYBE."

Get it right, it's: Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy! But here's my number, so call me maybe!

Also, I just made a bard. I'm doing this next time you are DM, Silent. In party chat so you can't run, too.

Well, of course it would have to be relevant to our setting, but I have seen other servers disallow any existing works that you don't have official rights to. Just checking the rules here.

Silent2001 wrote:

Yeah, use common sense. Don't run around saying "I KNOW THIS IS CRAZY BUT CALL ME MAYBE."

How about....

"Its Tyr'sday Tyr'sday, gotta get down on a Tyr'sday..."

I don't think anyone would yett about copyringt infringement if you used something written outside Amia IG. And if someone do, they are idiots and should be ignored.

It is only copyright infringement if you use it to benefit financially at the copyright holders expense. Quite impossible on Amia, so you are safe.

If there's a rule against it, I need to be immediately banned, because my street performer character has been using RL songs slightly adapted to the FR for months.

Lizzy..... thanks, I will send anyone who gives me trouble after you first

Thanks to everyone for their input!

-B

I sing songs. I sing songs that I've written and songs that other people have written.

It's a matter of aesthetic. Do what feels natural. Even classics can have a thorny twist if your character has the right voice for it.

Just don't let the record companies know.

Lizzie wrote:

If there's a rule against it, I need to be immediately banned, because my street performer character has been using RL songs slightly adapted to the FR for months.

Bans.

But using RL songs is fine. Just be careful with what you use. You don't want to use a song that has words like "Riding in my Chevy" or "Going to Chicago" or "Thank the lord Jesus." I think you get the picture.

I steal old folk songs. *nods*
And some homebrewn ones. Those bards need to start exchanging their works as well so they can spread more!

Gunz wrote:

"Thank the lord Jesus." I think you get the picture.

Ilmater died for your sins, bro.

Yeah, there's no real problem with using real world lyrics. Just make sure they fit.

Folk usually works really well.... this is also one of the very few times that I'll suggest wikipedia as a good site. They've got a lot of listings for things such as 17th century songs which contain a lot of lyrics that can be easily adapted (if they need to at all) for FR and Amia.

Any good ways to get past the text-based communication barrier and get people to understand how a song really sounds?

Because that's what made me STOP play my bard - Everything sounded like a fucking poem.

Very_Svensk wrote:

Any good ways to get past the text-based communication barrier and get people to understand how a song really sounds?

Because that's what made me STOP play my bard - Everything sounded like a fucking poem.

Yes. Learn how to read and write music and make sure your audience can as well. Boom, you can express the general chord progression, meter, and probably even the melody.

Very_Svensk wrote:

Any good ways to get past the text-based communication barrier and get people to understand how a song really sounds?

Because that's what made me STOP play my bard - Everything sounded like a fucking poem.

Hold the phone. Poetry /is/ expressed in sound.

Every comma, every period suggests a rest. Line break, spacing

If you want someone to hear you play, you have to craft that son of a bitch in such a way that they /will/ hear it.
It isn't too tough with the nwn chatbox. Of course it cuts weird in certain areas, but work around it.

My suggestion is to write your songs out in your journal portion of your taskbar, observe how they read and the reactions you get from other people. If you can think of something a little bit stronger, changing a word, moving a comma, then do that.

I've always been satisfied by just describing the mood of the song in plain English. A song might be slow, mournful, and elegiac; it might be lively, rollicking and danceable; maybe it's martial and majestic. Whatever.

And, also what Gunz said. Even a little bit of musical knowledge can go a long way. Describing something as being in major vs minor key, or as ending on an unresolved chord, can go a long way towards making the piece come alive. Words like staccato, a cappella, coloratura, glissando... that's good, evocative stuff, I think.

In my experience, Gunz is accurate. If you are a musician yourself and your audience is also musically inclined, hit them with just enough details to let their imaginations do the work so that you don't risk a gaffe if you're dealing with someone with a critical ear/eye.

The other alternative is to allow language to do it for you. Poetry is itself musical language, but you can put the sound of a song into a person's head with the simpler application of allusions. Elorathall did it for me recently simply by suggesting the parallel of the mandolin and water/civilization. In tandem, you also wind up with something good, too.

If you want to communicate with absolute precision what your song sounds like in the textual game universe, you're utilizing the wrong medium and not playing to your greatest strength: the imagination of other people.

I have a few other tricks and tactics, but those are my little trade secrets.

Here's an example of music and silence through language, deconstructed, to hopefully give second thoughts about putting down all you musician characters who passed yourself off as simple lowly bread-eating poets. This is a song that Samrael sings a lot by Tom Waits, (an excellent poet) called You Can Never Hold Back Spring.
First read the lyrics and tell me if you can hear it, and then listen to the song on the link below. The ABCBA is just to illustrate how the rhythm is working.

You can never hold back spring, (Pause) A
You can be sure that I will never (Line break for length)
Stop believing. (Full Stop)

The blushing rose will climb, (pauses for build) B
Spring ahead or fall behind, (pauses for build)
Winter dreams the same dream (Line break again for length or shift)
Every time. (Full stop)
Baby you can never hold back spring.

Even though, you've lost your way, (Pauses for build. This is the bridge) C
The world is dreaming, dreaming of spring. (Notice repetition also creates lift.)

So close your eyes, (Pauses for build.) B
Open you heart, (Pauses for build)
To the one who's dreaming (Line break)
Of you. (Full stop)
And you can never hold back spring.

Remember everything that spring can bring, (pause) A
Baby you can never hold (line break)
back spring. (full stop)

Baby you can never hold back spring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgeZEdbv_m8

Anyway. This isn't to be flashy. I'm just trying to show you that the way you position your words means everything to the musical ear, I see a lot of people toss commas around like, a sputtering, car, engine. And it does something to the reader and listener that you might not have originally intended.
But, also that you can capture music and timing with the right devices. That's how poetry do.

Ha! I caught you in game on that one and named it!

That's a good example of a modern song that works perfectly.

P.S. Tom is also a excellent musician.

Hey, I just met you
And this is crazy
her's my matron
So stab her maybe

Gunz wrote:

Ha! I caught you in game on that one and named it!

That's a good example of a modern song that works perfectly.

P.S. Tom is also a excellent musician.

That wasn't me. The keyboard has been drinking.

My bard made a shitload of money doing that.

Suckers.

Lally wrote:

My bard made a shitload of money doing that.

Suckers.

Where's the Like button when you need it.

I've used RL songs too, just being mindful of setting... and popularity, though as I write more I started carving more and more out of Em's repertoire. I especially had to use some RL songs for her tavern singing, those are wicked fun to write... but difficult to find the desire to write several songs like it.

And honestly, even if you perform a song... and it comes off like a poem (the way mine usually do, I imagine) Then so be it! Playing a little music along with a tale or a poem is kind of what a bard -does-. As for how I have been meaning to illustrate how the songs I perform sound is to somehow gather the time and courage to sing them myself and put 'em on the forums for public knowledge (and scrutiny). Some day. One day. Maybe.

BARDZ RULE.

Does performing have to be music. I have an idea for a street magician that uses presditigitation to tell stories and generally entertain. Is that allowed, and had it been done?

That's a neat idea! Just call it sleight of hand, legerdemain or something else of that sort, to avoid confusing his prestidigitations with the pnp spell prestidigitation.

Actually i was planning on using some of the light effects from the spell. Also looking into silent image and ghost sound. Figured of all the pnp spells these would be the easiest to rp and wouldn't be yelled at for using. As long as i put that i know them in my bio.

Prestidigitation can't create light, because that's already the purview of another cantrip. As for ghost sound though, I recall more than one of Amia's most famous bards using it during performances, so you're headed down the right track.

Your right, i read it slightly wrong. So i guess i will add dancing lights to that as well.

The only song you need:

Doom doom dooooooom, doomy doom doooooom, doom doom doooooom doooom doom dooooomy dooooooooooooooooooom.

Performing does not only have to be music. It can be dance, acting... I've used it for seduction, too.

Everybody knows already. :wink:

Bobo_Underhill wrote:

I've used it for seduction, too.

Well crap, I've been using grapple.

That should not have made me laugh, but it really did.

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