Song Reveal Party

What do you mean you don't like music? Listen up, young man, you will do like everyone and pick an instrument or I pick one for you. What about something simple and light? A flute, or a violin perhaps?

The first instrument

If a person has on average eleven different instruments in their lives, none are as important as the first one. In a society where the Song is everything and not being able to invoke it is socially and technologically crippling, it is not a choice to make carelessly. When a child is around eight years old or so, they are taken to a specialized shop that only sells first instruments.

Most of them are made of cheap materials and designed in order to dim the strength of the resonance. Since children don't know how to control their Song and keep it in check, it is primordial to not let them use a real one too early. The intended poor craftmanship of the first instruments serves as a safeguard since those kinds of instruments cannot channel a Song correctly and create many interferences.

Despite these precautions, it is not uncommon for these instruments to become scratched, burnt or sustain explosions. Cheap and robust, they are easily replaced but the very first one is special and often kept as a token of either the raw power of innate control of a child, whichever inflates the most their parent's pride.

The first play

The first play is as important as the instrument. It is then that the Song with which the child will have the most affinity appears. When playing a basic score that does not invoke any Song, it is the innate resonance of the body that is given form and manifest. Some families will make things fancy, but in general only relatives and close trusted friends are invited. This is for two main reasons: to avoid putting useless stress on the child and anticipate the event of the innate Song being a heretic one, which happens way more often than the statistics would make it seem.

Wealthy families like to put their offspring under the spotlight in fancy Song reveal parties where the child performs seemingly for the first time in front of hundreds of strangers. It is an open secret that during these parties, no one is playing for the first time. The consequences of having a heretic child would be so dire that a first party is put together in secret, and if the Song is inappropriate, the child is taught how to dissimulate it and replace it with a legal Song.

Since children are not able to properly control the effect of their Song, they often blew things up, start fires or trigger unexpected catastrophes. Thus, at least three musicians stay close to the party's star ready to help should anything bad happen. This practice used to be common sense but not enforced, however after too many accidents, it has become illegal to hold such a party without at least three musicians on the lookout.

Since not all families have skilled enough musicians or even attendees, several enterprises offer their services of "Party Safeguards". They send from three to seven musicians specialized in damage control and protection to watch the performer while the rest party in peace. And for a premium price, they are told to look the other way if they hear a Song not quite approved by the Canticles. Trust is key in this business, even if it means keeping secrets from the dreaded Inquisition. As long as they don't ask.