Re: Playing the banjo (Was: Latin help)

caeruleancentaur wrote:

> Does anyone want to share his or her conlang words for musical
> instruments and other musical terms?  I'm always looking to enrich
> the Senjecan vocabulary.  I had a heck of a time coming up with a
> word for "music."
See my Zireen Music page for some names of musical instruments, along
with MIDI fragments of Zireen music illustrating some of their tuning
systems.

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/music/zireen-music.html

The romanization on that page is simplified for a non-conlanger
audience. Actual Yasaro words:

tsúvri [su:_F.z`i] "suri" (hammered dulcimer)
kelámra [kE lO~_F.z`a] "kelora" (harp)
veilá [vi:_R.la] "vila" (reed organ)
ketalnáh [kE.ta:_R.na] "ketana" (marimba)
théira [t_di:_F.z`a] "thira" (flute)
raivá [z`ai_R.va] "raiva" (panpipe)
jamá [j\a_R.ma] "yama" (mouth organ)
vúña [vu_F.Ja] "vunya" (rackett)
tamúkal [ta.mu_F.ka:] "tamuka" (drums)

Not mentioned on that page is the "pilina", an instrument resembling the
steel drum; its name in Yasaro is "piléina" [pi.li:_F.na]. But its
tuning system "nai pilina" does get a mention. A work in progress
featuring the pilina is at this link:

http://home.comcast.net/~teamouse/pilina.mp3

Yasaro has an extended vocabulary of note names for different pitches,
like the "do re mi" of the diatonic scale but much more elaborate. Each
of the many tuning systems has its own set of note names. The tuning
system "nai lemba", for instance, has a 10-note scale:

pa   1/1
tha 16/15
veñ  8/7
riñ  5/4
ja  21/16
tañ  7/5
mu  25/16
ca   8/5
ju   7/4
leñ 15/8