Korumak The Bard's Guide to becoming a bard
(with some editing from his PC)
[Tips the bard is a pun, hence "<character> tips the bard"]
From Koru:
So you want to be a bard do ye? Well lad/lass Being a bard isn't as glamorous as ye might think. First, it is an expensive Career goal, so don't think ye will be standing in the Tavern playing away, and the Fenki's will be tossing money at your feet to pay for your lessons. Aye your lessons, you think to be as good as me on your first day, your first week... dare I say your first month.
Being a bard also means suffering through your art. Any fool can sit and listen to a bard, and every one believes themselves to be a critic and the musical expert, and stand fit to judge you on your art. If you got the thick skin for that, well then I Korumak the Bard, will try and teach you how to first start out in the path of scaring rats, as I call it.
First, ye be needing a musical installment, a few. Each one carries a few gotcha's.
Drum:
The drum only does certain "Notes" its the easiest to play. Two types of hard edge hit and a tambourine on "C". Your beats are your notes. (no sharps or flats)
Lira:
Lower pitch more muted, has trouble above high C
Allows Chords
Lute:
Best out of the others
Allows Chords
Tambourine:
Makes the same sound as the drums currently (no sharps or flats)
Pan Flute:
(currently has a system bug) plays High C as Low C, only plays whole notes, and only goes up to its High C. So for now keep any music you write with a " Flute" at the end to keep it strait. No sharps or flats
Got an instrument... well need to go find the trainer and get some training in.
Ok so by now ye have found the trainer, and your ready to make some noise and scare some rats. But not yet. Ye need to get some sheet music first, a blank score. Its only when you have an instrument, Training, and a score can you start on your path to scaring rats.
Now this guide wont teach you to play music, or how to read sheet music. Thats way out of the space allowed per post. Its here to help you get your feet wet, and help you avoid a few gotcha's.
The Sheet editor is... buggy, expect some fighting with it, and some crashes after all it is
First open your inventory.
then instrument in your right hand.
Right click opens the sheet of music, then you have...
Edit, Play, Load, Save
Hit the edit, and the editor will come up.
The icons you see across the top, will help you enter things in. Some are 'Selectable' others are 'Toggle on/off' and others have a pop up dialog. They are pretty tiny icons, and its easy to loose track whats turned on and off on your selected one and the end.
The red line is where your 'entering in or modifying', the long black line is 'where the work ends'
My advice, is to first, Change the name to the name of the song you want to enter. Then change the Timing if you need to then the "Tonality". Tonality is the number of # or flats by the "Treble Staff", -1 is a B flat, -2 has two flats etc. To go sharp its a positive number. Then set your beats per minute. (this is a gotcha, see list at the bottom) Avoid 100+ for now, leave it at 90.
Now save it.
Remember
- C=Timing
- Scrol wheel = Name
- PBM
- Tonalty
- Save
A file will be saved (song name.xml) do not use numbers at the end. It ignores them same with () and [].
Now work on your first measure. Try a simple song, Twinkle twinkle little star, for example. Soon as the first measure is completed, Save it, then on to the next one. Stop around measure twenty (gotcha)
Now your thinking, I'll just hit that play button and see if it sounds right. (click) [your cat goes running for cover at the noise], thats right your level one and thats how your character plays it. Sorry lad/lass afraid your going to have to just put up with it. We do suffer for our art. We suffer off keys, and crashes left and right. ( i was up to 10 crashes a day till i began to work out how the system liked it, now I'm down to 6)
When you play in either edit mode, or outside of edit mode, you will get "Practice Points in your musical instrument" so you do get something back for the pain.
Now you spent an hour working on 'The scariest rat song of them all' you called RATS. Your client crashes, you load it, and the music is missing. Go to load, type the name in, 'RATS.xml' and you got it back. Closing the score, sends it to the server. When you 'open it' it retrieves it from the server.
Once after its done, leave the edit mode off. It is an added protection from an extra 'click' that screws up your score.
There is basically two kinds of music right now. Simple (one note at a time) and With Chords (for the lute and the guitar). The Drums, Tambourine, and Flute, play one note at a time. The other two allow chords. Entering in chords is very frustrating. It takes patience, and by now you discovered you have to have deadly accuracy with the mouse to get that note in the right spot. Song editing, in this bards humble opinion, is the must frustrating thing about being a bard. it doesn't take much to put C to a D, just a pixel off will do it. then you have to kill that chord, insert a new one and go at it again.
Just remember the following are
toggles and it varies depending on whats selected as to what is on or off:
Rests
Note insert (will always insert a quarter note, to change it un-toggle note insert, select the note, then select its type)
Sharp (makes the note you add a sharp) [There are no Flat's, for an D flat, its an C sharp, unless its marked on the tonality)
When you save it, it will "Clean up the measures" so if you have a 4/4, and 5 quarter notes, the 5th gets chopped off. Also if you have 4/4 and 3.5 (a dotted quarter note) it will drop in a rest. It insert a eight note into a quarter note space. Select that rest, and hit the quarter note. Save, and it should pop up with two eighth rests, then do what you need to do.
You also can't have lingering notes.
Say you have a 4/4 whole note that lingers into the first two beats of the next measure. To enter it in, put the whole note, and rests for two beats in the next measure. Putting in the second note will sound odd.
Chords
As of this moment, the implementation is only for "Treble", thats the tech speech. For you, your chords are read as a NOTE attached to that note. Everything is counted off the melody line. So you cant have a "C major" chord that lasts the whole measure and quarter notes in the staff. It will play that chord as a quarter note.
To my knowledge atm, the only written songs, are those by other characters. The files are saved in MusicXML 2.0 format, but only use the Melody/treble. All of the editors we have found use the treble and base sections to save their work, so you cant, at this moment use an external editor, to know you at least got the score right. There are a few people working on trying to make it so you could use an external editor, to at least compose it, then simply load it. But for now your stuck with the editor.
Gotchas
The Loop glitch
Some times a bard plays, and the song loops forever, even after he pops off line, and back. to fix, walk out of the sounds area, wait a second or two and go back. If it is still there, go out farther.
The 20th Measure
The Dev's know about it and are working on it. when you write and get out to the 20th measure, the editor starts acting very funky. (I'm a system administrator, not a programmer, or a developer sorry) so for now keep your songs less than 20 measures.)
Base Display
Some times the display will make the notes look like they fallen off the face of the earth, especially in the base staff, below low c. It will play right though, just doesn't look pretty. Nothing you can do about it.
BPM
Right now, 90-95 is the safe area. When you go above 100, only the faster systems will play it. All the slower system gets is a ton of static. Yes I know most songs are written in the 120-180 bpm's. Just deal with it. If another player is complaining about hearing noise, then their system isn't fast enough, and the solution is to slow the bpm (beats per minute down)
Simple Vs. Chords
Simple music is one note at a time. This is pretty easy to enter in, and you should work on those songs first, to get a hang of the editor. In game they tend to be the cheapest, because of how easy they are to enter. Chorded songs take knowledge of the Bard "Transposing" or copying it from sheet music. These are generally more expensive, because mostly of the high frustration in getting them in there. The upside, is that the character seems to do better with chords and it makes it more reconcilable what song their playing.
Public Domain/Traditional vs Copyrighted music.
This is a sticky one. Public domain and traditional music are free of copyright issues, so you can play them at home or at work, etc to your hearts content. Copyrighted music is much more sticker. The sheet music for it is even more difficult to locate, and its a legal gray area. Me personally, if your going to put in that, don't trade those. Just trade the public Domain, traditional ones, and if you wrote music and want to trade it, thats your choice as the composer.
Religious Music
I'll do my best to try and not offend. There is a ton of gospel sheet music out there. Christianity does not exist in Ylikam, so 'the old rugged cross'/'Onward Christian solders'/'amazing grace' simply don't fit the era, let alone the world. Try to avoid it. I tend to use old Irish traditional songs, and change the words up. It fits, isn't overly religious, and least likely to offend someone with delicate sensibilities.
Renaissance music is great as long as its not a 'religious' song, things like 'Wild Rover','Young maiden','Scottsman' and 'old chariot' work well.
Practicing
So you got your first song in there. Find a spot, your going to be there for a while. When your character plays, he can't move. He can talk, actions etc, but he cant move, cant turn and cant sit. You can practice around other bards and chat, my recommendation is if one person plays the Lute, another plays the drums. Ask the drummer to change his bpm to match your song. So it doesn't generate too much noise.
I keep a sheet thats nothing but quarter note C's, (its the tambourine sound) so Korumak can play drum beats on request, and can play along with another bard. Just have to change the BPM on the fly. If you get two bards playing the lute, next to each other, it sounds a mess all right. Also everyone can switch to drums and well you got a drumming circle.
You most likely want to favor certain spots. Korumak favors Harnquist's place, mostly so I watch people coming by etc. being stuck in one spot, is a bit of a limitation. After all, at 30 I'm still hitting lots of off keys. I'm leveling up to where I can play what is written. its a pet peeve of mine.
My advice, if your going to solo practice, pick a spot, where you can see something other than the court yard, and if your going to practice hard, stick close to where you can get to your trainer with in 10 minutes or so. When you get tired of seeing the courtyard, change spots.
Its a catch 22, no one wants to be around someone playing 'bad music' in real life people just fly on by you not making eye contact. Yet you have to 'practice' to get good. Also you don't want to sit in a dark corner and hit "play" all day when you practice either, or sit and suffer through bad notes. This is an MMORPG, we want to role play too. So find a spot thats being trafficked a lot, so some times other players will stop sit and listen and you can role play with them to break up the monotony. (hopefully they will tip... Koru has seen it happen before)
Trading music
This is where the bards separate. Each have different idea's none of us is sure which is going to pan out for our characters. Korumak, trades music, he doesn't buy it. He does sell it to those who want to buy it, and the PC simply lack the musical knowledge to transpose, or doesn't want the pain and effort of doing so. The reason he trades is simply put to get the most variety of music out there. So we all aren't playing simple songs, twinkle twinkle etc. The more music out there, the more variety the better.
Selling music
Some bards are selling their works. Either there transposing from sheet music, and selling it to other up and coming bards or selling copies of what they have.
Dhara came up with a great concept, that she uses a "book" to keep her list of songs to show her customers.
Also note while you can look at another persons sheet music (if they dropped it on the ground), you cant play it. You have to have it in your inventory.
Yes there is a way to 'cheat that' See my part on the PC honor system.
Transposing / making your own
Google is your friend, there are lots of great sites out there with free sheet music. I tend to think of the name, and use Google images, and spot it that way, if its what I am looking for, go to the site. Found one with markings saying Cm, F, G, say its written for the guitar? Well yes most of the time you can use it. Just have to look up what the chords are on sheet music and match it up. Personally I would not use the song editor in the system to compose. I would use another composer program, work on it till i got it right, then copy it over by hand, note by note.
Me personally, I am horrible about composing. Playing is a whole other story. I had a weird child hood where the first serious musical instrument I learned to play was a electronic pipe organ (not a keyboard/piano). [I tell you chicks really dig organists <sarcasm>] I went on to dabble with the guitar, recorder, tin whistle, hand drums, keyboard and a few others. It became clear, I could play, had a nack for it, but because i loved music, and listened to tons of it, every attempt at composing, came up with another tune. Even now most pop/modern rock bores me. So my taste in music is way out in left field.
The honor system
Here lets separate PC from character, and strictly talk PC to PC here. Yes you can blatantly steal music just by looking at the sheet. But we don't do that because we are good people, doesn't matter if your playing an evil bard. I'm talking to you the person reading this guide.
We don't 'keep or steal' another persons tune because we can. If your character wants to make a copy for himself... RP it. If your getting handed a scroll to look at, return it. nothing worse than spending 2 hours fighting the editor, and your character shows it off to another, and he grabs it, copies it, hands it back saying he's not interested, then you hear him playing the song the next day.
How to copy music:
Method one: Dropped music
Examine it. Save it. you will get a "Saved to Song Name.xml" blue text that vanishes. Load up your generic score sheet, load the name plus .xml. open editor, change the name, save, then close.
Method two: Traded
You put your song in the give, they put their song in their give, both accept. open your new song, save it. open your generic music, load, change the name, save. Then you initiate transfer again, and send them their copy and they give you yours back.
Why? if you received a song outright, you cant edit it. if you want to make any corrections you will have to buy another sheet, save the received song, load it into the new sheet, to make your corrections.
** tips, always keep 1-3 generic sheet music scores that you bought, these let you edit and give something to paste into. I tend to keep about 1-4, mostly with me transposing songs on 1-3. Remember you cant buy a generic score sheet and hand it to someone for them to copy to. Only you can edit your score sheets.
Singing
Use the custom shortcuts, the button ones.
* Korumak clears his voice then begins singing in a deep voice
/say "Oh this is the first line of the scariest rat song, followed by the second line so softly off key...."
/bow
Good rule of thumb, no more than 4 lines. We don't want to flood main, or any extra windows we opps into. Singing is optional. Personally I have about 4 songs that I put words to. Play the song, then click the short cut. If your going to play the song over and over again, just do the lyrics the first time. If you want to say "/me sings it again" thats fine, saves on the flood. Just remember to keep it in theme.
Now Koru tends to not sing, unless theres a Fenki around that he is trying to impress, or when he is playing his curse songs, and then just when someone new comes by and lingers. The rest of the time its "Sings it again".
If your going to do a second verse, use a separate button. Just try and keep the flooding to a minim. If there is a way to 'pause' in between the "Say"'s I haven't found it yet.
Syncing....
Its very painful, but can be done.
First make sure, your both the same BPM, and same timing 4/4 etc, work out the math. You can "Score" the same song about 20 different ways. I have one thats 6/8 while another person had the same song at 3/4 and we still had trouble.
Once your mathematically in sync (bpm timing etc) Have a third character give a count down, 1, 2, 3, 4, and go. When you see go, press play. 90% of the time your going to be off due to reaction time, and system lag. but every once in a while they will sync.
Best way is for one person to play, and the other to beat a rhythm. Like I mentioned earlier I have one score thats 4/4 and i can change the BPM on, theres nothing but C notes, so the other person can click start at the right time and it appears Koru is tapping out to the beat of the music.
Character notes
The Evil Bard
Can it be done... oh yes. Make sure to separate PC from character. If you want your character to 'steal' music from another, talk to the other PC outright and check with them first. Personally if I spent 2 hours working on a piece, and bob the evil bard grabs it, and splits, I'll be super pissed both in and out of character. If you talk to them and they are for it, give them a chance to go get a blank sheet, load it in there, so they definitely have a 'pc backup' of it, that they wont have to worry about, and then RP the theft.
There are evil bardic things to do. One is to sabotage another bards reputation. Bards live off their reputations. An evil bard tends to sing satires and parodies a lot usually hurtful to another character/race. IE making fun of "Hard headed Krans" or "Flee infested Fenki's" etc.
The Bardic Curse
Right now theres no magic system evolved with being a bard. But even in the old Irish days, the bards had one weapon available to them. The curse. The curse is a song story or parody, normally an insult, to harm the reputation, and social status of another person. "The king farts when he gives orders", and sometimes our right lies, like "He slept with his sister and his mother, and looks forward to the family reunion" Usually the sharper and more cutting the better. But bear in mind the server and G-PG rules.
Last but not least... TIP THE BARDS! (the music lessons don't get cheaper)
Method 1: give them Tria, or other items, (Korumak is still obsessing about the fez, and hasn't found any hats yet)
Method 2: If you see a dropped helm, thats the 'sign' to tip the bard.
Method 3: The sack. Drop coins in it, then remember to "/guard off" it. and tell the bard your tipping him (so we know to pick it up and guard it again)
Remember when we are stuck in one spot and cant turn around when we play so don't be surprised if new users come up nose to nose to you trying to figure out if your an NPC or not.
* Korumak says "I have no quests for you"
-----
Now hopefully lad/lass ye are now more knowledgeable about getting yer feet wet to go scare some rats. While there may be guilds for us as individuals, we bards belong to our own guild, much closer than "warrior to warrior" who may have shed blood on the battle field. Our battle field, is the cities and taverns, and in peoples hearts and minds. Our battlefield is day to day, practicing our art. Only another bard will understand our trials and tribulations to get where we are, cause they have been there, facing friends and loved ones as they too suffered with our poorly played music in an attempt to make it sound wonderful. The warriors get peace, to relax, but with us, the 'fight for hearts and minds' doesn't end. Music will be the last thing heard in the universe. In this we bards are different from the others. We each share a love of music. Remember that as the days grow long, yer fingers bleed, and your tail gets sore for beating the drum all day.
And remember, Those that tip the bards, when they get to heaven, they get to be first in line. ('corse for some of yah, that might not be a good thing
)
Korumak The Bard
