Help with musical instruments for fantasy world-building

Is there trade that would allow for wood to be brought in from abroad for musical instruments? In places like ancient Japan, for example, although they had wood, there existed a certain class of instruments of great age and antiquity that they were considered treasures. They were given names, and were considered to house a living spirit. So you might take a page from that, and make the instruments something very, very precious-- not just because they might be constructed from wood, or they might be old, but because they may have a spiritual dimension to them. They may have been carved from branches that had been harvested (either directly or indirectly) from the Tree itself?

You might look at a list of traditional Arabic musical instruments. There's a variety of woodwinds, stringed instruments, and percussion instruments to choose from. You might take some keywords and do a Youtube search for a performance with an instrument that strikes your imagination, and take it from there--- keeping the form, but perhaps modifying its name into something that fits your culture.

If metal is plentiful, then they can have flutes and whistles.

What's the social class for this banquet?

I'm thinking of the Irish pennywhistle. Modern versions have a rubber mouthpiece, but older versions just have a metal mouthpiece. They were very cheap to make because they used easily-available metals and it's basically a tube of metal with six fingerholes, a mouth hole, and a breathing hole (necessary for sound). Hence the name (you used to be able to get them for a penny apiece). If they were small, your melody would be shrill; larger instruments would sound dusky and breathy against the drums.

More expensive instruments might have more workmanship, like an orchestral flute. These might have more "refined" sounds than whistles, but would require more complicated workmanship and better metals.

I saw they have goats and I suggest bagpipes. Stomachs of said goats, coupled with bellows and pipes (called a chanter). You do run into the issue of what they made the chanter and bellows out of, because those are traditionally made of wood. Nowadays we associate bagpipes with traditional cultures, geriatric fraternal organizations on parade, and annoying music, but in mediaeval times you would find them at castle feasts.

Many traditional cultures use the voice for instrumental music, similar to jazz scatting in modern Western culture. Essentially, it's singing, but you use your voice more as an instrument, repeating nonsense syllables. I'm thinking of Tuvan and Inuit throat singing and Irish and Scottish "mouth music," specifically, but I'm pretty sure other cultures use this as well. It would provide melody without using precious resources, and while it sounds like singing, it doesn't sound like a song, per se.

Finally, I second what lonestar librarian said about researching Arabic instruments—those seem most analogous to your setting and there are lots of beautiful ones out there. If you want strings, the rebek or rebab are good starting places.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Seconding all of the above.

Chanting, which is different than singing, has enormous resonance when done properly (and it's easy enough to do). Some chanting is done with accompaniment, but most isn't.

Can they grow gourds? These can be hollowed out to make rattles.

Other possibilities with metal or metal and hides: triangles, castanets, tambourines, chimes, gongs (very resonant, but it might be hard to eat while they're playing), marimbas/xylophones, tympani. Organs might be possible also.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Don't forget that other source of materials for instrument building: oxen, donkeys and goats! AKA leather, sinew and, more importantly - bones for drilling, carving and shaping. Flutes, lyres and harps, the hard bits of bagpipes. Look for books about making simple instruments. If you can make a bass out of a washtub, or a guitar out of a cigar box, who knows what you could do with the bigger bits of bone.

Go for a theremin. It worked for Star Trek. It worked for the Big Bang Theory.

It can work for you.

Plus horns and hooves. There's several ocarina-related instruments that have been traditionally made of horn, like the Gemshorn and Pifana. It's also used for the mouth-piece of various instruments. As for hooves, there's the Manjur--goat hooves attached to a piece of cloth worn around the waist, which makes a rattling sound when the performer shakes their hips.

In regards to bones, there's the instrument called bones which is indeed traditionally made of bone. Then there's bone flutes as was said above, including some types that aren't necessarily what comes to mind when one thinks of flute (e.g. the Chinese Xun). There's bone scrapers and rattles.

Since they've got access to metal aplenty, instruments like the jal tarang and other water drums/related instruments are similarly possible. If they've also got access to glass (def. a possibility with a nearby desert and medieval-level technology), the closely-related "musical glasses"/"glass harp" (predecessor to the glass harmonica) is also feasible. (I imagine that the due to the setting, use of water in those instruments might make it a religious/sacred instrument, including perhaps limitations on who can play it/when it can be played, though)

Speaking of metal (and in case of chimes, glass too): bells. Chimes, yes, but also jingle bells (using perhaps bone in place of wood for the handle) and tambourines (even if the one we're most familiar with uses a wooden frame, variations with metal frames certainly exist), handbells, cowbells and agogôs.

Other metal instruments requiring no wood include jaw harps, trumpets, metal castanets like the qraqeb, zills (metal finger cymbals fastened to the fingers with leather strips) and tingsha (small metal cymbals fastened to each other with a leather strip--these are traditionally more ritual tools than musical instruments as such) and sistrums.

Don't forget plain and simple clapping, either.

While you've specified wood is a no-go, does the same go for canes and reeds? If those are feasible/permitted, it opens up another large range of instruments.

Silenia said:

Plus horns and hooves. There's several ocarina-related instruments that have been traditionally made of horn, like the Gemshorn and Pifana. It's also used for the mouth-piece of various instruments. As for hooves, there's the Manjur--goat hooves attached to a piece of cloth worn around the waist, which makes a rattling sound when the performer shakes their hips.

Click to expand...

Horns and hooves! Good call - I totally missed that!

Here's something similar to the Arabic instrument resource: Native American Instruments

Sound comes from, and produces, vibration. Pick an instrument.

Jeff

There's something called a lithophone. Think xylophone, but instead of being made of metal or wood, the blocks are fashioned out of stone. I would imagine they're pretty heavy to haul around, so no impromptu gigging, but it might work in your context.