Quote from: Catelf;649979There is more artists and groups that is or has been as influential as those few you mentioned, but also really tons of artists and groups that may not have been as influential, but still important for culture.

As for the general lack of them, ... well, after reading "Order of the Stick", i half-jokingly blame it on D&D's original use of Bards ...

Joking aside, one has to think about the crude and fully incorrect use of the word "race" in a lot of fantasy-settings, probably due to the ... ehrm ... "southafrican origin" of Tolkien.
No, i'm not interested in bashing here, i just think that legacy is important when viewing the worlds in Fantasy.
Why?
Rock comes from blues, and blues came from ... was it "Negro spirituals" they were called .. ? I have no idea what they may be called today, if they are called something different, but since your whiny-ass bitching was the first reply, you took over the whole thread.

My point is, "rock" in D&D, along with those who played it early on, would probably have come from Orcs.
Also, that would have messed up the whole idea with the D&D-style Alignments ....
And we can't have that now, can we?

Anyway, Worlds that do not have the "Tolkien-legacy" i mentioned before, should have no problem having artists and groups that perform to the pleasure of onlookers.
So, why do they seem to lack in that area ever-so often, too?
I'd have to say Literature.
How often is artists of importance really described in Sci-fi and Fantasy?
... Not very often.

Because I haven't addressed this yet: You're a fuckhead. Please go back to Tangency and cry there. The vast majority of your post had absofuckinglutely nothing to do with this topic.

Quote from: danbuter;653723Don't confuse him with facts!

Yeah I can't stand some of the crap that stands for logic with the SJ crowd.
Tolkien is South African, that explains everything about Middle Earth!
Light is Good, Dark is Evil, Racism!

Like Pundit said, Light has been associated with Good and Dark for Evil before the time of the Pyramids.  There's a reason Ra is god of the sun and Set the god of night and it has nothing to do with black people:

Homo Sapiens is Diurnal, and we can't see in the Dark.  That's it.
Night is the time when predators hunt us and we die, so we huddled in our caves around our fires, waiting for the dawn, telling stories about the things out in the dark.

Now you want to say Africans were discriminated against because they were the "Evil color", sure that was part of it, but since the Light/Dark dichotomy is a Jungian archetype, it's really stupid to say Black is Evil.  Orcs are Black, therefore Uruk Hai are black people.

Hey I know, let's get going with the "Dark Side" of D&D again, shall we?  I never did get an explanation about how D&D, more then other media is the perfect media for Stormfront.  :rolleyes:

Because wizard controls the quadruple of production means that the rest of the party does.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;650011When we talk about popular bands/performers in the modern era, it's important to acknowledge the importance of recording technology.  If exposure to Elvis had been limited to live performances, he'd likely never have developed a national following,  let alone an international presence.  I was born in 1979; without recording technology my only exposure to his music would have been from 'impersonators' who sing their rendition of his half-remembered songs.

So a standard fantasy world is unlikely to have such singular popular artists.  And even if you had an Elvis in your hometown, you'd probably get tired of the same concert every Friday night.  Instead of becoming a rabid one band fan, you'd crave variety.  The 'wandering minstrel' concept is thus further supported.

As far as cultural attitudes toward popular music, I think it's worth considering, especially in regards to instrumentation.  For example, brass instruments require a sophisticated mining/metallurgy culture, so they may be most appropriate for Dwarves.  Elves may prefer string instruments and breezy woodwinds.  Humans like to use instruments from many different cultures.  Once you decide that Hobbtits like jug bands and hobgoblin hordes include a massive marching drum line pounding in unison, you have some interesting ideas about how music and culture impact each other.

I think it can have quite an impact on how a group is perceived and played. Dwarves whose music is Gregorian chants feel very different from ones whose music is Ragtime.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;650015Exactly - this is why we know nothing about the works of Thomas Tallis, or Bach, or Mozart, since after they died, no one ever played their music again.

No one alive has

Quoteheard

Mozart play. Plenty of people born after Elvis died have heard him sing.

Quote from: KenHR;650221Notation is a recording technology.  As is the printing press.

Doesn't save the performance though.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;650414The Bard class as a jack-of-all-trades doesn't represent historical bards very well, but then again in the D&D environment nothing really does.

I guess that brings up the question whether it makes sense to have a historical equivalent of a Bard be a playable class in an RPG.  At first blush, it seems to me that a Bard would make a good NPC class --somewhere between a noble and the common folk, and able to move between both groups easily-- and could even be a vital as a sage at times.  

Hmm.... The Bard as Sage sounds even more promising.

Add to it the guy who knows everyone, and you have a source for all kinds of rumors as well. Not only do bards know all the old legends, they also know who has been up to what with whom, since they talk with everyone the meet, and they travel around so they meet a lot of people.

Quote from: apparition13;653952Add to it the guy who knows everyone, and you have a source for all kinds of rumors as well. Not only do bards know all the old legends, they also know who has been up to what with whom, since they talk with everyone the meet, and they travel around so they meet a lot of people.

Though I don't think this fits the definition of 'protected role'.  All PCs could keep up on all the NPCs - most don't.  But if they do, they can drive the adventure in some pretty amazing ways.

That does bring up the point that bards could be protected if they had enough dirt on the right people. They could also be targeted by assassins if they tried to use their info on the wrong person.

I think an interesting campaign, featuring lots of politics, could come of this if a player randomly picked up rumors, especially rumors no one was supposed to know about.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;654133Though I don't think this fits the definition of 'protected role'.  All PCs could keep up on all the NPCs - most don't.  But if they do, they can drive the adventure in some pretty amazing ways.

I'm thinking of the informant who always knows what's going down.

Or even Castle in the early episodes, when he always knew someone because he had met them doing the research for a book. Actually Castle would make a pretty good bard. He's dabbled in a lot of things, including shooting and lockpicking, he's familiar with a lot of people and a lot of sub-cultures, he's widely read, etc.

I think of it as an ability rather than a product of roleplaying. Make a roll, if you succeed, you know someone/something relevant. Other players can access the internet (through roleplaying), bards are the internet.

Quote from: apparition13;653952Doesn't save the performance though.

It's a distinction without relevance to deadDMwalking's point, such as it was - the influence of music is not limited to live performances, as compositions can be performed widely, both during and after a composer's lifetime.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;654203It's a distinction without relevance to deadDMwalking's point, such as it was - the influence of music is not limited to live performances, as compositions can be performed widely, both during and after a composer's lifetime.

This response was to KenHR's post that notation is a recording medium. So is writing, but a transcript of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech doesn't convey the power of the oratory.

As for music, as far as I'm concerned, it's the performance that counts. I love Segar's version of "turn the page", I hate Metallica's. I love Clapton's original version of Layla, I hate the accoustic one he did in the '90s. I've seen several performers more than once, and I've walked out of some concerts thinking that was okay, and others by the same artist feeling electrified.

By the way, re. deadDMWalking's point about not having "rock stars" pre-recording, I've heard of Sarah Bernhardt, and she's an actress known for her stage work over 100 years ago. In her heyday in the late 19th century everyone had, and if she was showing up in town to do a play it would have been SRO in spite of the fact no one there would have seen her previously. That's how big her reputation was.

Quote from: apparition13;654235As for music, as far as I'm concerned, it's the performance that counts.

One does not need to hear Mozart himself perform his music to appreciate Mozart's music, however.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;654203It's a distinction without relevance to deadDMwalking's point, such as it was - the influence of music is not limited to live performances, as compositions can be performed widely, both during and after a composer's lifetime.

Then methinks you missed my point completely.  

Quote from: deadDMwalking;650011When we talk about popular bands/performers in the modern era, it's important to acknowledge the importance of recording technology.  If exposure to Elvis had been limited to live performances, he'd likely never have developed a national following,  let alone an international presence.  I was born in 1979; without recording technology my only exposure to his music would have been from 'impersonators' who sing their rendition of his half-remembered songs.

Please note that Elvis was known as a performer - he didn't write most of his material.  Likewise, we celebrate the peformances of people like Aretha Franklin singing Respect - despite the fact that Otis Redding sang it first.  Baby One More Time made it to the top of the Pop Charts in the United States and many other countries.  Do you really think it would have had the same success if it were performed by Max Martin (who wrote the song).  

The difference between a composer or songwriter and a performer is enormous.  I've mentioned bofore that I have young children.  I've watched some of the special features on our Little Mermaid DVD.  I assure you that Alan Menken singing Under the Sea would have given the movie an entirely different tenor than Jodi Benson's performance.  

Even a composer (like, say, John Williams) is known for their composition, and not their performance.  Besides the fact that it'd be impossible to perform the Star Wars score individually (it's written for Symphonic Orchestra), it doesn't really matter if he's a virtuoso on the piano - that's not what he's famous for.  I don't think it'd be fair to compare John Williams as a performer against Rachmaninoff as a performer - but as composers, certainly.  

****
In regards to famous individuals - yes, I absolutely agree they could happen - whether in stage or music.  But they'll tend to TRAVEL.  

Quote from: deadDMwalking;650011So a standard fantasy world is unlikely to have such singular popular artists.  And even if you had an Elvis in your hometown, you'd probably get tired of the same concert every Friday night.  Instead of becoming a rabid one band fan, you'd crave variety.  The 'wandering minstrel' concept is thus further supported.

As I said earlier:

Quote from: deadDMwalking;650245Wrote my last response from my phone, as also this one.  The examples were all for their performances,  not their compositional talent.  Composers are not usually known as performers.  Mozart was an amazing pianist, but he couldn't perform a string quartet on his own.  Beethoven needed a full orchestra for his symphonies (and possibly a choir).  If the specific performance is what is celebrated, not the song or composition, you need recording technology.

So, to reiterate - reading the lyrics of Luck Be a Lady captures nothing of the 'essence' of a Frank Sinatra recording.  Sheet Music of Beethoven's 9th does a better job - but that's because it's not a single performer it's capturing but instead 'blue prints' for re-creating a performance - but even that is limited by assuming you have the TALENT and the DIRECTION necessary to reproduce the 'performance' adequately.  Surely you're not foolish enough to argue that there's no difference between a High School band performance of Stars and Stripes Forever and that of the Marine Corps Marching Band - the notes and arrangement might be the same, but that's only a piece of the total.

Quote from: danbuter;654138That does bring up the point that bards could be protected if they had enough dirt on the right people. They could also be targeted by assassins if they tried to use their info on the wrong person.

I think an interesting campaign, featuring lots of politics, could come of this if a player randomly picked up rumors, especially rumors no one was supposed to know about.

In certain cultures storytellers were feared by the powerful since they could come up with incisive and unpleasant ditties about people who crossed them. Admittedly not feared a whole lot, but it was the medieval equivalent of a viral smear campaign.

Quote from: Catelf;649979There is more artists and groups that is or has been as influential as those few you mentioned, but also really tons of artists and groups that may not have been as influential, but still important for culture.

As for the general lack of them, ... well, after reading "Order of the Stick", i half-jokingly blame it on D&D's original use of Bards ...

Joking aside, one has to think about the crude and fully incorrect use of the word "race" in a lot of fantasy-settings, probably due to the ... ehrm ... "southafrican origin" of Tolkien.
No, i'm not interested in bashing here, i just think that legacy is important when viewing the worlds in Fantasy.
Why?
Rock comes from blues, and blues came from ... was it "Negro spirituals" they were called .. ? I have no idea what they may be called today, if they are called something different.

My point is, "rock" in D&D, along with those who played it early on, would probably have come from Orcs.
Also, that would have messed up the whole idea with the D&D-style Alignments ....
And we can't have that now, can we?

Anyway, Worlds that do not have the "Tolkien-legacy" i mentioned before, should have no problem having artists and groups that perform to the pleasure of onlookers.
So, why do they seem to lack in that area ever-so often, too?
I'd have to say Literature.
How often is artists of importance really described in Sci-fi and Fantasy?
... Not very often.

That is all very ridiculous.

Besides, orcs come Scandinavian mythology, they have no relevance/relationship to African peoples.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;654265Please note that Elvis was known as a performer -

So was Mozart, though...

I listen to music while designing a dungeon or spaceport.