Acerba of Cenarion Circle started a pretty fun discussion the other day on her server boards: What type of music would typify various races and cultures of Azeroth? Sure, we all have our soundtracks for when we get tired of the in-game music, and the in-game music itself often has various themes that show again and again music to represent various concepts, but thinking about what music your character would listen to or what sounds you might here around a bonfire at Razor Hill (Well, besides L70ETC) or in a fine mansion in Silvermoon City is a really fun exercise. I'm one who often creates soundtracks for my PnP and MMORPG characters alike in order to understand this, so I find it a useful exercise for us roleplayers, as well.

So what would the cultural music of various races sound like? Tauren, to me, are the easiest to start out with. Looking around their villages and Thunder Bluff, you can see the Native American influences. Even their cultural beliefs and Shamanistic rituals reflect it to some degree. As a result, I can see their music fitting very well as well. I am sure many a Tauren Brave has wooed himself a mate with the Tauren Flute, and I imagine that the Drum Circle is an honored part of the festivities at many a Tauren council or gathering of the Clans.

Dwarves, to me, are definitely users of the Bagpipe. I can definitely see a bonny Wildhammer lass dancing to a highland reel, and when the War of the Three Hammers went down, I am certain the Bronzebeards marched forth with their pipers playing Ironforge the Brave.

Now Trolls are already a pretty musical bunch. You can even see their drummers drumming away in some villages. Tribal drums are certainly right up their alley then. I'd also venture to guess that the Darkspear might drag out the Steel Drums for all those rocking beach parties they must have.

Gnomes love tinkering with machines, so I have a feeling they'd make music with them too. Since they're also pretty quirky, I'm thinking we might get some synthesizer music that would be worthy of Devo. Maybe we'll even be able to get those cool red hats as a drop in Heroic Gnomeregan. Of course, they could also just go straight into Techno. How about a little Shake That? We also know that Rohan the Assassin is looking for a job in the Gadgetzan Discotheques. Do you think Gnomes and Goblins compete at DJing with as much fervor as they do at Engineering, maybe?

From here, the music, at least for me gets harder to pin down, but you can still brainstorm some ideas and come up with some amusing or insightful thoughts. Humans, I think, would be the most likely to produce bands like Dragonforce. Really, they're probably the only ones cheesy enough to do it (I mean that in a good way, totally!). Of course, I could always see a battalion of Human Paladins marching to war with a little Wagner. On the Horde side, everyone knows that the Forsaken are Metal. We're talking really metal here, the type of growling, screeching Death Metal that would barely sound like music to most. Actually, they probably have an advantage listening to it too, since their eardrums are half rotted away anyway.

So what do you think? What type of music do you expect various races and cultures make and listen to? Can you think of specific songs that sum up certain races as well?

Tags: bagpipes, bronzebeard, death-metal, devo, disco, dragonforce, drum-circle, flute, forsaken-are-metal, ironforge-the-brave, l70etc, music, pnp, shake-that, steel-drums, techno, wagner, war-of-the-three-hammers, wildhammer

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