The Songs of Iradae and Lan'tha

I think the strangest thing I ever had to get used to was the music. There's this... mathematical problem, with music, that I've gathered. Basically you have this note, and you should be able to arrive at the exact same note by different directions. But you can't. The Stenza worked this out thousands of years ago and started playing around with, well, playing those end results together. And some of it works, in their view, so it's all over their religious music.

— Ta'zhen discussing unions, The Girl Who Ran Away With ET

This is the Gregorian Chant of Stenza music, these pieces are literally thousands of years old.

In the aftermath of the Battle with the Stone Menace, during the long and complicated process of establishing the Unified Stenza Clans, many traditionalists were concerned about the possible establishment of a "canon" of chants and An'o that purported to represent the entire history of the Stenza people. Some even cynically suggested that all the material would come from Strares Droga. However, Iradae the Lawgiver recognized the folly of such a plan and ensured that each clan could maintain its own history and traditions.
Among those traditions were the vast library of songs about Iradae, Lan'tha, their relationship, and their creation of Mudewei and all life thereon. Each droga is known to have at least one version highly specific to them, and during extreme events these are among the most important materials saved by the Clan of the Lost.

History

Most of the modern songs of Iradae and Lan'tha were first composed following the discovery of the union several thousand years ago (roughly contemporary with Delen the Thinker, for more information see Sunrise Drum). The union was thought to have special significance as it pertained to musically describing or symbolizing the divine couple Iradae and Lan'tha, and it was very common to structure songs on the subject to build toward these unions before drifting apart again in a reflection of the movement of the two celestial bodies across the sky. (The logical accompaniment involves two An'o performers representing the couple moving across a designated "floor" or stage in a similar fashion.)
However, early innovations in the area led to works that focused heavily on the union (and thus the relationship), or hardly featured the union at all, sometimes seeming like two separate works played simultaneously and only thematically related in content (i.e. the creation of Mudewei). Cropping up in the milieu occasionally are works about pups, which focus more on being light hearted and free form; works about war with their appropriate seriousness and/or martial quality depending on the time of composition and how it affected the clan (and sometimes verging into War Song territory works about the Sandibari and other southern life; and works about specific geographical features or seasonal patterns (including the Snow Warrior).
All clans have a mytho-history surrounding the origin of many of these pieces, often claiming they were inspired by the gods by some means or another. Many are overtly stated to have originated in the trance state one can enter performing an'o. Many others are less directly divinely inspired, most likely originating when musicians began playing around with the new phenomenon of unions.

Execution

It should be noted that as with all forms of Stenza music, pup contribution is both inevitable and expected, and so flexibility is at the core of almost all Stenza music. That being said, because of the general structure of the songs of Iradae and Lan'tha and their focus on unions in particular, they are among the most consistent pieces in the Stenza repertoire. Many are dependent on leading up to and then gradually away from the union, and too many changes to that system could cause the piece to fall apart. Others, which are less dependent on this structure, have their own which can vary from quite accommodating to incredibly sensitive to disruption.

Components and tools

The central instrument to almost all songs of Iradae and Lan'tha is the Sunrise Drum, an instrument so linked to the genre that playing them for other things is considered unheard of or preposterous.

Primary Related Location

Mudewei