Vorin Musical Instruments and Modesty

[Rask]

In Vorin cultures music is seen as feminine. Not as exclusively so as reading and writing, people aren't excessively scandalized to see Hoid with his flute after all. But the vast majority of musicians in Vorin lands are female. This does fit with the general feel of what arts are supposed to be masculine and feminine but it presents a problem. Most musical instruments require two hands to play, I cannot picture anyone being able to play a harp for instance with one hand covered in cloth, even if they are simply wearing a glove.

Some instruments one could manage to play gloved if one practiced that way, for instance the Organ, Piano, Harpsichord and the like. A Hurdy Gurdy is an instrument operated by pressing keys with one hand and working a crank with the other, I could see a Vorin woman playing one of those. One could play a bowed instrument such as a Violin, Viola, or Cello left handed, that is, operating the bow with the covered left hand and the strings with the right, but this would take a lot of extra practice.I am not familiar enough with the woodwind family to say how practical playing a flute while gloved would be, if anyone can shed light of this then by all means do so. 

I could also see special musical gloves being made for female musicians, designed to make it easier to play certain instruments. One other solution to the modesty problem is to have the musicians obscured behind a curtain while they play, invisible to onlookers. I could also see Vorin instruments being made with special vales attached to obscure the left hand while playing. 

Does anyone have any more ideas for what kinds of instruments would be practical for Vorin women to play?  

[+robardin]

The Vorin "feminine arts", which include music as well as art and writing, go hand in hand (well, hand in safehand) with the concept of modesty in covering the left hand, such that the ideal application of those arts are done with one hand.

So... What music can be played with at most one hand free?

The only passage in the Stormlight Archives where a woman speaks of personally playing music was very early on, in TWoK Ch. 5, when Jasnah asks Shallan about her musical skills (the very first area she evaluates her in). Shallan replies, "I have a good ear, Brightness. I'm best with voice, though I have been trained on the zither and the pipes." (Jasnah then asks Shallan to sing the refrain from a ballad, "Lilting Adrene" - I guess there were no zithers or pipes at hand.)

To play a zither, one could grasp a pick through the safehand's sleeve, or use the right hand to pluck while a sleeved left hand presses or slides on the strings to make notes; this is a technique used to play one of the oldest zither type instruments in our real world, the Chinese guqin. In watching that video clip, I could imagine the player's left hand being covered in a loose sleeve, and still managing to play (or holding some kind of tool through the sleeve that facilitated things).

It's pretty hard to imagine someone playing any kind of fingered pipes with one hand covered by a sleeve. Panpipes, then? Though in our world there is such a thing as a one-handed bagpipe player who cannot use his left hand, and it's kind of funny to imagine Alethi "pipes" being Scottish Highlander pipes, so storm it, that's what I'm going to picture in my head from now on.

Edited January 18, 2020 by robardin

[Rask]

it never occurred to me that they would use a pick to play a stringed instrument. Good thinking! 

[Paalm Tree]

Triangle. 

Also as a oboist who trys to wear a safe glove, it is impossible to play with a normal glove on. This is also true for most wind instrument, gloves are just constricting. I think this would be even worse with their safehand sleeve. 

But triangle would work. And slide whistle

[Knight of Iron]

Drums could be done one-handed

Also I have spoken to a friend who plays trumpet and they say that the trumpet could be played one-handed, as the other hand is just for support.

[claramatilda]

15 hours ago, Paalm Tree said:

Triangle. 

Also as a oboist who trys to wear a safe glove, it is impossible to play with a normal glove on. This is also true for most wind instrument, gloves are just constricting. I think this would be even worse with their safehand sleeve. 

But triangle would work. And slide whistle

I'm trying to imagine Lighteyes like Jasnah looking very proper while using a slide whistle... 

For stringed instruments, even if you used your freehand to pluck, it would be very hard to press down the strings with your safehand without muting them. If you used a your safehand (and a pick) to pluck then there would probably still be the same problem. (Since a havah, which a proper lighteyes would wear, has very long sleeves)

First post, yay!

[+ILuvHats]

16 hours ago, Knight of Iron said:

Drums could be done one-handed

Not well. Few percussion instruments can be played one handed. Timpani, snare, drumset, keyboard instruments (i.e. marimba, xylophone, vibraphone), crash cymbals, and many more all require two hands. Vorin women could still play most of them, though, as long as they used a glove. Which might be what you meant? I'm not sure.

Edited January 18, 2020 by ILuvHats

[Rask]

Come to think of it marching band players often where gloves while performing. So any marching band instrument is potential fair game. 

[Paalm Tree]

 

1 hour ago, Rask said:

Come to think of it marching band players often where gloves while performing. So any marching band instrument is potential fair game. 

Yes, but woodwinds usually have to wear fingerless gloves, is that too scandalous?

Brass players should be fine though.

Edited January 18, 2020 by Paalm Tree

[+ILuvHats]

14 minutes ago, Paalm Tree said:

Yes, but woodwinds usually have to wear fingerless gloves, is that too scandalous?

Most definitely. I can only remember one instance in the books when women wore fingerless gloves, and it was at a disreputable bar. Pretty sure it was during a Szeth interlude in WoK. So I imagine it's the equivalent of a showing a lot of cleavage. Probably not proper during concerts or what not.

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Paalm Tree said:

Yes, but woodwinds usually have to wear fingerless gloves, is that too scandalous?

Fingerless gloves are usually worn by females of ill repute.

[The Awakened Salad]

I think the safehand sleeve basically rules out most instruments that require two hands. I’d say piano and other keyboard instruments are off the table. It would be too restrictive trying to play big chords or make large jumps. And it would most definitely get in the way of scale runs or arpeggios. A glove might work, depending on how flexible it is. I’ve tried playing piano with gloves on before, just to see if I could, and it was manageable. However, as people have said above, I don’t know if the use of the left hand would even be socially acceptable in Vorin culture. 

As for strings, if played left-handed it might work with a glove, but the bowing hand needs to be very flexible as well, so again, the gloves would have to be non-restrictive. 

Maybe there are some in-world instruments we don’t know about too?

Edited January 19, 2020 by The Awakened Salad

[Paalm Tree]

Is it possible to create an instrument using fabrials? I have no idea how this would work, but could it be a possibility?

[Rask]

Someone definitely needs to ask Brandon about this. And drums could be played while were a glove or sleeve if one were to use drumsticks, though Lighteyes do look down on drums as a rule. 

[Bookish Ocelot]

Left handed violins exist (bowed with left hand). Maybe use fingerless gloves? Gloves made of a very thin fabric could also work. I think a safepouch would make it impossible to play most instruments. A safeglove could maybe work, but it would have to be very flexible and tight to the hand (no random folds).

[+robardin]

I did a text search of the Stormlight Archives books so far to see what was described as being done with the safehand while wearing a formal havah (described as contained in a buttoned sleeve) to have some examples as to what a Vorin lighteyed woman of rank might be able to do with it in general, in an intentional and public way.

While traveling to Kharbranth on the Wind's Pleasure, Shallan "held her sketchpad with her safehand, hidden fingers wrapping around the top".

Multiple times, Shallan is described as holding onto a backboard for her sketching with her safehand, and Navani or Shallan as closing doors or grabbing a ship's railing with the safehand, through the sleeve. Even holding a lit sphere in the safehand to be able to see while doing something with the freehand.

After accidentally (and uncomprehendingly) Soulcasting the goblet in her room to blood, Shallan "went to her knees and grabbed a shard of the broken glass pitcher in her safehand through the fabric of her sleeve", then cut herself on the right arm with it to make it look like a suicide attempt. (Instead of using her freehand to cut her left arm.) Similarly, in the chasms with Kaladin, she grips her satchel through the fabric of her safehand sleeve. So it's loose enough to grab things securely, even with a safepouch also inside the sleeve.

And Navani is able to toggle on a mechanism through her safehand sleeve that releases legs from the painrial when she demonstrates it to Renarin. (This is before she later moves on to wearing a glove to do her fabrial work.)

What can we discern from all this? Well, clearly one can grip objects through a safehand sleeve, and press things or hold things down, but not manipulate something that requires individual fingers.

In terms of what Shallan says she was taught to play, a zither (which is laid flat to play) can be played with the left hand pressing down and possibly plucking occasionally; fingering a two-handed flute with holes seems like it'd be right out, but a pan flute would be OK.

That, or perhaps playing fingered flutes/pipes is only done in all-women settings, as the Vorin safehand modesty thing is only with respect to being in public or in the presence of men (at one point in Oathbringer, Shallan was fine with Paloma entering her room with food while she was "exposed" but not when it turned out to be Adolin, who she accuses of having knocked "in a feminine way" because he used one hand instead of two to do so. LOL.)

Other than that, stringed instruments that require horizontal fingering of strings on a fretboard like a violin or guitar might be awkward to play well with a loose safehand sleeve, but not a vertical style instrument like the erhu, or a cello or bass.

Brass instruments and drums would likely be considered "masculine" to the Alethi, due to their martial association (trumpets and horns being used to sound plateau runs and incoming attacks, as they were in our own world). And maybe they have ensembles of ardents for any large scale orchestral arrangements.

[Bookish Ocelot]

I have asked some of my orchestral friends, and the general consensus is that yes, you could probably play a violin-like instrument wearing a glove, provided the glove was thin enough. 

[+robardin]

19 hours ago, Ookla the Ocelot said:

I have asked some of my orchestral friends, and the general consensus is that yes, you could probably play a violin-like instrument wearing a glove, provided the glove was thin enough. 

A glove, yes... So for darkeyed women, no problem. But for a lighteyed lady expected to wear a formal havah (with the buttoned over sleeve for the left hand), less so

Edited January 22, 2020 by robardin

[Bookish Ocelot]

button the sleeve over the instrument! *taps forehead*

[+robardin]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Ocelot said:

button the sleeve over the instrument! *taps forehead*

Now that I'd like to see!

[The Awakened Salad]

5 hours ago, Ookla the Ocelot said:

button the sleeve over the instrument! *taps forehead*

*Tries to button a sleeve over a grand piano*

[Bookish Ocelot]

5 hours ago, The Awakened Salad said:

*Tries to button a sleeve over a grand piano*

I was thinking more about violin/guitar/flute things that a sleeve could be buttoned around. 

[jamesbondsmith]

I'm kind of imagining a Vorin harmonica player, playing the stereotypical blues licks while sitting in a cart.

[Failsafe]

Alternatively, two handed instruments could be done with two people. Logistical disaster but probably pretty entertaining so...

[DiePie]

On 1/21/2020 at 4:31 PM, robardin said:

Brass instruments and drums would likely be considered "masculine" to the Alethi, due to their martial association (trumpets and horns being used to sound plateau runs and incoming attacks, as they were in our own world). And maybe they have ensembles of ardents for any large scale orchestral arrangements.

I believed its mentioned in the prologue of WoK that the Alethi didn't like that the Parashendi brought drums since for whatever reason they didn't like them (though like all good Alethi) didn't care nearly as much after a stiff drink or 2