Interlude 1

  Interlude 1

  Notes by Isaac Milton, recorded on the Star Station

  The residents of the Star Moon, the daimon, are really into music. They can make music naturally with their own bodies! I guess we can too, technically. Female daimon have crystalline arda, whereas the males have these spikes or spines. (And as far as I can tell, this is the only physiological difference between genders.) So they can vibrate their arda, somehow, to make music. For the females with their crystals, it sounds like bells or chimes ringing. And for the males, it sounds more like…reedy? Woody? More biological, I guess, like an insect buzzing. Like a low string instrument. The males generally have a lower range, which is maybe just because of their different arda. But the tone also might depend a lot on their bonded animal. I didn’t think of that until just now.

  But there’s more than just that! Every daimon has a Song (capitalized). It’s like their own personal leitmotif. It’s very important to them. One told me it marks their identity more than their own name. I’ve only heard a few of these special Songs. Each one is a basic melody, not too complicated, but it can be infinitely remixed depending on the mood and the occasion. Apparently, a daimon can hear the personal Song of another daimon and immediately have a pretty good idea of what they’re thinking/feeling at that moment. Because it always changes, each iteration is unique to the situation. More than that, the personal Song describes its owner in some way. Like, it matches their personality. I guess it’s hard to overstate the importance of the Song. It’s like their purest form of self-expression. Singing together with arda, combining Songs in harmony, is something intimate that is only done ceremonially or between good friends who trust each other. A good harmonic matchup can even initiate a romantic relationship!

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  They can produce all kinds of music with their arda, not just their Songs. Most of them also play instruments or sing, but vocal singing is very personal; they almost never do it when others can hear. But I guess they can all sing pretty well? So basically they’re all Elizabeth.

  Culturally, music is intrinsic to many of their activities. They don’t think of “music” as something separate from everyday life. Humans will be like ‘okay, now that we’re finished with that, let’s do some music.’ But for the daimon, music is already a part of everything else. They’ll just start breaking out the tunes any time, no matter what else they’re doing. In fact, as far as I can tell, they have difficulty thinking about music in abstract, theoretical ways. Like I said, most of them play instruments, but even the really excellent musicians have only a vague concept of any kind of musical theory! I’m pretty sure they don’t even have a standardized system of notation.

  Well that’s about it for my initial observations about music. They have a lot of other weird stuff, like their thing with colors and their fixation on earning a second name. But I’ll leave it here for now.