System

September 23, 2022 5:13 PM
0 System Team 7 0 System 0 5

Selina Skies

September 23, 2022 5:13 PM
The notice for the second task had offered the following information:

’You will all work on the second challenge simultaneously. Come to the front steps at 9am on Saturday Xth. This challenge will take most of your weekend, so please plan your studies accordingly. Bring your wands.

When the students arrived, there weren’t any obvious signs of what the challenge would be. The gardens looked to be their normal selves. Professor Skies was standing on the front steps, and simply waited for them to gather in a group.

“Hello. Welcome to your second challenge. We have decided to host it in the gardens in order to make adequate space for everyone, though you may choose to go and work in other spaces within the school if you wish.

“Whilst our first challenge tested your puzzle-solving skills, this one will stretch your creativity. You are going to create a piece of music, and the instruments on which to play them. Now, some of you may play a real instrument, and have the transfiguration abilities to recreate them—that’s certainly allowed, but for those who don’t have any such person on the team, you are not at a disadvantage. We are not expecting you to turn in a full orchestra. We’re expecting junk musical instruments, creative use of everyday objects, or use of spells you’ve learned.

“You will have access to a pile of materials. These have been collected from different areas of the school.” This included the kitchens, which had provided pans, cups, glasses and so on. There were mannequins, balls and hoops from the pitch, and all manner of other items which did not immediately scream ‘musical instrument.’ “Some of them may well be usable as they are. Others might require transfiguring or charming to meet your needs.

“There are also several portraits from the MARS music room set up in a small booth to provide consultation about composition and any other musical matters.

“You will have from nine to five today, and from nine until midday tomorrow to complete this challenge. At lunchtime today, you will be required to hand in a plan of the instruments you are going to complete. At the end of the day, you should be able to show a rough outline of your performance. Tomorrow will be for tweaks and rehearsal.

“Each group will perform in a randomised order to the staff and other groups. As well as being graded for challenge points, the three best groups will perform at the concert.

“In a minute, you will be led to a workstation in the gardens.” These were grouped in a large, open area around the central bank of resources. Whilst the work stations looked like they had flimsy, fabric walls, they were charmed to be soundproof. They would also do a good job of providing shelter from the weather, although it was, so far, mild and not particularly rainy that day. Each station was also equipped with drinks, snacks and sun protection (unlikely to be necessary).

“We will bring out a picnic lunch at midday. Are there any questions?”
Subthreads:
13 Selina Skies Challenge Two: Pots, pans, booms, bangs 26 1 5

Valentine Duell

October 02, 2022 5:34 PM
Valentine was uncertain how to feel about this challenge round. She'd listened to Professor Skies give the instructions and had felt a few feelings throughout. On the whole it sounded like a fun idea, they could have some fun making up some instrument similar objects and then hang out practicing with them until something that almost sounded like music was produced. The problems were in the details. The first detail was that Val hadn't had any sort of musical training in her life at all. She certainly wasn't against music, but it just hadn't been something she had done. Which meant she probably wasn't going to be a big asset with making these objects make nice sounds... or trying to create some sort of original musical score. Unless having the objects make random noises counted as original music, but she thought there was probably more to it than just that.

The other detail was that while she had improved, and was still maintaining her position in the advanced trasfiguration class (barely), she wasn't sure how well she would do in turning the pile of things before them into actual objects that could make music like sounds. Now, that in and of itself may not have been all that terrible, except that she was the second oldest student in the group and certainly should be able to do such things with relative ease. She would just have to do her best, there was nothing else to do.

Val did her best to hide all of her concerns behind her normal cheery disposition. She smiled at the group, "Alright, let's see what we can do! Does anyone have any particular musical aptitude and want to take point on a general direction? Other than that we should probably delve in and see what items we can get before everything good is picked from the supply pile. Let's go see what we can find!" With that she headed towards the central repository of resources to see what she could find that maybe looked vaguely like an instrument.
2 Valentine Duell Music, right. 1490 0 5

Xarryn Bavol

October 03, 2022 7:01 PM
Xarryn's team was tied for third, which he though was great! They were doing well and he hadn't dragged them down too much despite having addressed the maze challenge by cannoning his way physically through the hedges to the tallest tree he could find and just throwing sparks from there. Unless the professors were counting the hedges themselves as an obstacle, he hadn't earned the team any points for successfully overcoming anything, but maybe he had at least helped earn them a pretty fast time in gathering everyone together?

As he listened to the instructions for the second challenge, he thought maybe he might be a little more help here. He had listed sea shanties among his list of talents during their meet and greet, and even if they wanted to go in for a different style of music, he was still born into a cruise ship that basically existed to entertain people. A lot of the skills carried over.

Val opened the discussion with a question about qualifications. Xarryn was quick to respond, "I know a bunch of sea shanties!" Admittedly, many of those were designed to be sung acappella as the singers hoisted sail in time to the rhythm, and didn't exactly meet the criteria of Improvised Band that Professor Skies had tried to encourage, but most of the shanties had gotten musical accompaniment added later, and the Wind Harness' cruise itinerary always included several music nights to keep their passengers happy. "And I can play a pennywhistle!" he added, to identify his instrumental talent.
1 Xarryn Bavol Does anyone want to do sea shanties? 1560 0 5

Leviosa Scurlock

October 08, 2022 1:42 AM
Challenge one had been dreadful, and very unfair, and not well-suited to people of a proper disposition. That was the line Verdillia and her sour grapes had maintained ever since the results came out. Of course, she didn’t want to seem bitter or mean in public, so it was mostly in private that she had vented these thoughts, which meant that Levi had heard plenty of them. Which said something about what Verdillia thought about her… Things that Levi already knew her sister thought, because she’d said them plenty of times directly, so it shouldn’t have hurt so much when it was only indirect, and when Verdillia was obviously just being a sore loser but… But Levi didn’t get to be the first or the best or the anything very often. Verdillia was older, which meant that she was always one step ahead. She got to go to school first, and every time Levi mastered a skill from tying to her shoes to casting her first charms, it still felt like being miles behind because Verdillia had done those things ages ago and moved onto bigger, brighter things. Levi knew most of that was just age, and she was every bit as good as Verdillia had been at her age, but sometimes it was hard not to feel like she could never do anything truly unique or impressive. For once though, she was the one ahead, and Verdillia just had to go and diminish it. Levi wondered whether it was being bottom or being beaten by her little sister that was getting to Verdillia more… She liked to think it was just the former, and that Verdillia just wasn’t thinking about how her remarks could be hurtful. Whilst that wasn’t great, unintentional meanness was still better than deliberate malice.

Whichever it was though, Levi was determined to keep outdoing her. She made her way to challenge two, wand gripped firmly and jaw set ready to bring all her fierceness to… making junk instruments. Huh. That was a very different thing to the first challenge. Which she perhaps should have realised, as obviously they didn’t want to just test the same skill over and over. Music wasn’t one of Verdillia’s strengths, and Levi really hoped she didn’t embarrass herself by trying to play violin in front of everyone. She wanted to beat her sister, but she didn’t want her utterly humiliated. Or to have to listen to her performance. She also wanted Verdillia to do well enough to climb the leader board and stop trash talking the whole experience – for both selfless and selfish reasons – just so long as she didn’t end up higher than Levi herself.

She followed her team to their work area, although their stay there was short lived as Valentine seemed to think that getting straight into examining the junk was the best way.

“I took some lessons in a couple of instruments, but nothing really stuck,” Levi admitted. She had enjoyed the dance and painting sides of ‘being a well-rounded lady’ more than the music, though even those she found a little staid and stuffy. She wanted dances where she could really move her body and be lively and free. She wanted paints splashed boldly across the canvas in ways that showed feeling rather than form… She wondered what the musical equivalent of that would be. Something loud and little wild? That might suit them well… It also seemed like the kind of thing Xarryn was suggesting.

There was wood of all sizes and shapes in the pile, from neatly sawn and square planks to huge, rough branches. She pulled a short but substantial stick, holding it out to Xarryn.

“Would this work?” she asked. “Do you think we’re allowed to use a song that already exists and just change the words? So, we could use one of Xarryn’s sea songs but make it all about the Sonora life,” she asked. That sounded like a rule check that they’d have to run past an adult, as the word ‘composition’ had been mentioned, but it was worth seeing if everyone else liked the idea first.

“Could this be a handbell?” she suggested, turning over a small cup. “And would that sound nice with the whistle? Maybe we could make a few in different sizes – that way we’d either be doing a charm and a transfiguration, or at the very least, a more complicated transfiguration, so that might be good for points?”
13 Leviosa Scurlock One hundred percent yes! 1545 0 5