Addendum

The ideal fantasy plot: A guy gets into 3-5 fights. He loses either the first or second.

Fantasy Struggles

Is the hardest part of writing fantasy pretending that dancing is cool? Or is it paring down your ideas to match the complexity of those employed by the multimillionaires of KISS? Probably the dancing. Most of us, if we're honest, will admit that The Elder sounded a little too complicated.

Addendum

We won't be able to ask them to rate poets, though. Any intelligent species capable of navigating the well-starred plain will have long since ditched poetry.

Reasons to Strive for Peaceful Relations With Aliens

1. Lack of annihilation
2. Technology exchange
3. Alliance against meaner aliens
4. Asking them which decade has the best music
5. Trade
6. Collaborative planetary development

Province of the Muses

A hundred earthly kings and princes convened for the concert of the musician, a legend though alive, who had returned from the divine court after receiving superhuman instruction. His first chord caused all to shiver.
After hundreds more, the listeners suffered not shivers but rather impatience. One among them, a crowned head known far and wide for his unwillingness to feign affection for the arts, asked how long this first composition could possibly be.
"Eight years," the musician answered.
Because of that, the earthly kings and princes understood what before they had only been told, that the things of gods are not meant for man. In their piety, they slipped away.
Finis

The Three Kinds of Interplanetary Science Fiction

1) Everybody listens to the same bands
2) Every planet has its own bands
3) Every region on the planet has its own bands

Obviously there's going to be some galactic superstars and some local specialties, but in a normal week, seven of the top ten songs the average person hears are shared X far.

Future Studies

After a certain point, the primary concern of the spaceship-focused social sciences will be sound. Having the crew go mad from extended silence, having the crew go mad from a stale playlist, and having the crew come to blows over who gets to pick which 8-track gets played are only a few of the undesirable outcomes necessary to consider.

On Originality

People do covers of songs all the time, but if I ctrl-c ctrl-v Lucian, people say I should make up my own material, like an ending. What's that all about?

The Quintessential Fantasy Reader Experience

Waking up in the middle of the night and thinking, "I don't really know what a madrigal is. I only kinda know." It doesn't have to be "madrigal," but it often is.

The Harsh Truth

Poetry is what you do when you can't play an instrument.

Addendum

Maybe we can trick everybody into wearing VR setups for augmented literary experiences. Imagine hearing public domain music which kinda fits the text, all the while having your vitals monitored via your VR bodysuit so we can shock you if you start to fall asleep.

Science Fiction Verisimilitude

Be sure to include bits where people talk about how all music today sounds the same and is bad. The crude, unsophisticated author will play this off as an occasion for ridicule, but the thoughtful author will understand that the statement is universal because it's always true.

Addender

Everything will be more popular than ever. Because there will be more people. That may sound obvious, but do you think it is?

Addendum

And if anyone tries to tell you the future will have nothing but techno, tell him not to be fooled by the name. Every space colony will have its own choir and they'll compete for cyber prizes. Rockabilly will be more popular than ever.

Don't Make This Mistake!

Some people think that fantasy worlds shouldn't have rock and roll! Don't be one of them!

Addendum

But they're so portable! All right, lyres are back.

The Danger of the Classics

I know the old stories are full of lyres, but nobody likes them. We have to give up on lyres.

Addendum

"space tenor"

Altos and Tenors and Whatnot

Will the people of the future discover a new one? Will they genetically engineer people with different vocal chords? The answer is yes, by the way.

The Main Thing Star Trek Probably Got Wrong

A space cruiser should have its own band. Maybe they had that in some episode, but the point is, put a band on your space cruiser.