Welcome to Gaia! ::

Aureus and Argentum were humming along to a tune they'd just heard as they passed down the hallway on their way to one of the common rooms. In relatively good moods, the Twos walked hand in hand. They'd been relatively busy since ascending to stage two and it was nice to be free to move about the city.

They'd actually been stopped by one of the Zeros not too long ago and asked to help the enthusiastic choleric with astronomy. Gladly agreeing the two and found they enjoyed tutoring - it was a chance to delve into the teachings they'd learn and sort of relearn it all as well. It was never good to let things get too rusty, after all.

Now they had been invited to assist one Kallisto with Music. Apparently she'd been preparing to study with Nehna but some scheduling error had come up. The spunky Sanguine had heard them humming and recognized them from the trouble surrounding the spy that had gotten in and had leaped at the chance to discuss those events with them. One thing led to another and bold as always, Kallisto had asked if they wouldn't mind helping her and her boyfriend out.

They'd agreed as she'd come across as earnest and energetic - traits they admired and they both knew what it was like to be so wrapped up in one's studies. They'd been in a similar position once.

"What?" Kallist blinked and shook her head, smiling at him, "I'm sure they can. I made sure to ask - it's tutoring for us and it helps to build their resume for the future." She patted him on the shoulder then gave a brief hug, "You worry too much, Yambati."

Moving to sit down on a nearby sofa, Kallisto sank into it's embrace and sighed happily. They'd been studying hard for the last little while and she was really hoping it'd be finished soon. And that it was all worth it. She gazed at Yambati and wondered how he'd mature... How wonderful he'd appear upon their ascension.

A creak as the door swung open was the only announcement that the twins had arrive. Looking far more regal and refined now, the thirty somethings glanced around before spotting the two. Recognizing Kallisto, they moved forward and smiled warmly, hands held out to Yambati.

"I assume you are the wonderful chap Kallisto was talking about." Argentum dipped a light bow as he offered his hand, "A pleasure to meet you Yambati."

"Likewise." Aureus nodded his agreement and reached forward as well.

"Oh! You're early!" Kallisto tilted her head as she glanced at the clock. Oh well. All the better. Rising so she stood beside Yambati once more, she introduced them, "This is Aureus and Argentum, you remember them? They helped with the spy not too long ago."

Argentum paused and blinked, tilting his head as though thinking. Looking slightly embarassed the twins exchanged confused looks and spoke in unison, "Really? Our apologies."

Kallisto had no idea what they were talking about... she remembered drink... and wrestling but it was really very fuzzy. Quirking her lips and setting a hand on her hip, she shrugged. Oh well. Probably wasn't that important.

"Only doing our job~" Aureus grinned and walked around Yambati to settled into the couch opposite the one Kallisto had been sitting on, quickly followed by Argentum.

"It's fine. We're here to help." The silver twin nodded and crossed his legs as he sat on the sofa, leaning forward, "You wanted help with Music, right? Anything in particular or would you like to start from the beginning?"

Kallisto shrugged as she returned Yambati's gaze and sat down before him, "The beginning's best. I don't know much of anything about music - I tried looking at some music sheets but it was all a jumble to me." She laughed lightly.

The twins smiled in return, "The beginning it is, then. Is it safe to assume then, that you know that music is comprised of notes? These notes are strung together to create different sounds and have various pitches to them." Aureus began, watching as Kallisto hastily grabbed a notebook from he satchel, "These groupings of notes are scales. The distance between two notes in a scale are called scale steps."

Argentum nodded and continued, "Got that? It's a little like painting, you have the various colours and how to mix them determines the end result. Certain mixtures have different results."

"You need to know what it sounds like, not just how to read it." Argentum drew a glowing silvery gold line in the air before him, followed quickly by several others. Then he added the notes. "These are the notes, where they fall on the lines signifies what note it is."

Aureus grinned, and hummed a few of the notes as an example, each one glowing brighter as he matched it then dimming as he moved on. "You need to know both parts." The lines vanished only to be replaced by an altered version of the previous image, this time the notes were arranged in a scale pattern.

Pointing to the spaces between the notes, Aureus smiled, "These are scale steps and this, overall, is a whole tone scale meaning it ranged from the lowest, deepest note to the highest note.

Musicians build music by arranging these scales in different ways. They alter the timing, the arrangement, the specific notes used so you get a moving piece of music."

Kallisto smiled, taking a guess, "The further down it is, the deeper the note is. The higher up, the higher the note. You know the general tone by the location, right?" She glanced at the twins as she scribbled in her book.

"Correct!" Argentum nodded, "You differentiate the notes by their location. If there are two notes," He demonstrated with another figure, this time with two circles a little apart from one another, "on the same line, it's the same note. You place notes at certain intervals called beats. So this first one is a single beat and then the next one is another." He strung more notes on the image and clapped out the beat, "This is the beat..."

Aureus sang out the word beat on time with Argentum's measured clapping, "And that is the note to go with the beat. You combine beat, scales, and notes to get music."

"And to make music you need an instrument - literally anything from your voice to something that makes sound. That's the beauty of music, you can make music from anything." Argentum added as he listed off some instruments, "There are wind instruments that you blow into, percussion instruments that you strike, string instruments and many many more. The easiest one to access, however, is your voice. When you sing, you make music without the use of tools like the flute or drum."

The use of their diagram was really helping the sanguine and while she didn't think she'd have the time, patience, or talent to memorize music like this, it reminded her of the Alchemical shorthand she was learning. A code for something as beautiful as music.

When Yambati asked his question, Kallisto glanced over and nodded in agreement with the question.

Argentum nodded as Yambati mused and then answered his question, "There are a variety of notes. They are set up in accordance to the Time Signature which specifies how many beats are in each measure and what note value constitutes one beat," He indicated the two numbers above each other on the their staff diagram, "For our example, there are four beats per measure. How long a beat is can easily be learned through the use of a metronome...."

And with that, Aureus drew up a simple metronome that ticked from side to side at a steady pace, "And each tick is a beat. A note takes up a certain amount of time within a beat and the basic group of notes most beginners work with are the semibreve or whole note which usually lasts for four beats, minim or half note which is two beats long, the crochet or quarter note which lasts one beat," As he spoke about them, the appropriate symbol would flare into life on the staff, "the quaver or eighth note which lasts for half a beat, and finally the semiquaver or the sixteenth note which lasts for a quarter of a beat."

"The notes don't just signify length or pitch, however. Every note possesses a magical property to it that is used in Bardic Magic." Argentum didn't elaborate, however, and waited for the two before them to absorb the information. There really was a great deal to the technical side of music... too much, really for a single lesson but they'd covered the basics now so there wasn't much left.

Kallisto's notes echoed Yambati's and she frowned slightly. She wasn't that great at math.... Brow furrowing a bit, she opted for drawing several staffs and breaking them up into portions equal to the note they'd been talking about. While that didn't help too much, it at least gave her a visual reference. This was all very much more complicated then she had initially thought - it wasn't just making noise at different pitches. It was like alchemy, yes, but you could see and handle the portions of alchemy where Music seemed far more... difficult and regimented.

Aureus nodded, "Yes, but not exactly the same. There's not set ingredient list or spell list associated with Bardic magic. You learn the effects of the various components of music and then mix them in whatever way you want to get the desired effect. For example, to increase the potency of some divining practices, one might want to utilize a lamellophone for it's potent prophetic properties and a flute for it's ability to enchance meditative states as well as singing in the notes A, F, or G."

"A is good for all strengthening, augmenting, defending and grounding magic - in the case of divining, we would focus on the grounding aspect prior to the divining. F is good for tuning higher levels of consciousness, chakras, energy manipulation, and charging specific parts of the body for extra damage/healing specific wounds - which in general is particularly useful for divining purposes. And G is good for healing in general, clairvoyance, calming magics, and sleep inducing magics. In the case of G, it is the clairvoyant aspect that would be focused on but it is useful in healing as wel, as is the note F." Argentum easily recited the things they used in their own work, they both knew it like that back of their hands and it was always satifying to be able to speak about that which they were passionate about.

When they'd both finished speaking, in unison, they both tapped technoequips and the instruments that had been discussed swirled into being in their hands - a lemellophone and a silvery, dainty flute.