OOC: skip to the end for a summary.
Towards the end of the final section, Kwabba-an looked out into the crowd. It was quite evident from her features that she was studying the faces of those who were looking at her. Once she made a complete survey, she started over. As she did so, the timing of her drumming diverged from that of her strumming developing a polyrhythm that slowly diverged more and more, until it reached the point of maximum asynchronism, and began to converge again. When the two rhythms converged, she let them stay in sync for the final measure, in which she gave a final reiteration of the main theme and ended on a satisfying note.
They're ready, she thought as she stood and took another brief bow.
Or at least as ready as they'll ever be.
The ant anthro deposited her instrument and its accoutrements into its case, then approached the heavy object that had remained leaning against the wall since she had dropped it there shortly after she arrived. The mysterious object was wrapped in dirty cloth but it was still easy to see that it was roughly as tall as she was, cylindrical in shape, and looked like it was about as big around as her arms could reach. She pulled it away from the wall and unwrapped it, revealing that it was a section of tree trunk complete with bark on all but along one side. The side that was without bark had been planed flat to form a fretboard. Narrow strips of metal ran around the entire circumference of the trunk providing frets above which altogether too many strings were suspended by a fixed plate at one end of the log, and a tilted plate at the other end. The tilted plate had a pair of handles attached to it, though it seemed to lack any kind of hinge mechanism. Though what was still effectively a five foot section of log would normally weigh a substantial amount, Kwabba-an hoisted it with ease, plugged it into her largest speaker, and walked back to her stool.
"This is the first instrument I ever made," she held it over her head for the crowd to see. "It has twenty strings, one for each of my fingers. Aside from that, it's a bit rough around the edges."
Kwabba-an giggled quietly at her own joke, then looked down and considered her stool for a moment. She then tentatively started to set the instrument on top of it. The shape of the stool began to distort under the weight, and she quickly lifted the instrument away from it, then set the stool aside and sat cross-legged on the floor, setting the instrument across her lap, but off-centre so the end with the handles was closer to her. She pressed the fingers of her left hands down on the strings so they pressed against the frets and used the fingers of her right hands to pluck at the strings.
At first, it was a fairly simple melody that just happened to play across a wide range of notes. Once again, her voice filled the air to accompany the sounds of the instrument. But this time she sang in a language that she was sure nobody in the audience would recognize. It was a language punctuated by a clicking sound that she made with her mouth. Despite this, her singing was not simply meaningless sound. The tone of her voice was one of happiness, and the look she wore on her face reflected this.
As the song progressed, she began to incorporate more embellishment into the music. The high frets of her instrument allowed her to bend the notes quite deeply by pressing the strings, thereby elongating them and changing their tone. She began to use this to make the notes warble, and she started to make the music dance and play and suggest the notes that she actually meant, rather than playing them outright. For some time, she continued to sing without this embellishment, but before long her voice started to warble as well. As she did so, the tone of her voice changed to one of pleading.
Suddenly, she struck one of her right hands across all twenty strings and at the same time, her other right hand grabbed one of the bridge's handles and twisted it. The bridge, being a simple plate of metal, twisted under her immense strength. This elongated the strings unevenly, tearing the instrument out of its careful tuning.
She continued to play, but what had been wholesome, familiar chords before were now painfully dissonant. The intricately woven tapestry of her music unraveled. One by one, each of her fingers stopped frolicking across the strings until eventually only her singing continued. Her voice carried on but was full of sadness now. All of her energy seemed to drain away, but she continued to sing breathlessly, desperately.
Just as it seemed like the song was reaching its end, she hung on to what was apparently the penultimate note and used a single finger to pluck the main melody one note at a time on a single string. After a pause, she answered the instrument's call with her voice, still sad but together with the plucked notes the melody turned hopeful. Finally, the song drew to a close again, and on the final beat she struck two notes on her instrument while she sang a third, creating another dissonant chord, but one that she corrected by slowly bending one of the notes until it fell into place in the final resolution.
Kwabba-an looked out at her audience for a long moment. She pushed the instrument out of her lap. She stood up. She spoke.
"Thank you, I think that will be all for tonight," she said quietly and then bowed one last time.
OOC summary: Kwabba-an plays the song of her people.
Bonus, here's a crude schematic of her instrument (with only half as many strings as it should have).