I got my first real five string

Me and some guys from the guild,

we had a band and we tried real hard.

Dengo quit;

Tistann got married.

I should have known

we’d never get far . . .

In WoW one cannot learn to play an instrument, but in Lotro one can.  My lore-master has taken up the lute, which is very cool.  (Although her only other option was clarinet, which is decidedly uncool, so she didn’t have too many options.)  My minstrel, not surprisingly, has a much broader variety of instruments available to her, including **harp** (yeah!) – but she’s still too destitute to afford one, so we’ll have to revisit that later.

Once you have your instrument, you can play it using the numbers on your keyboard, which apparently correspond to notes on the diatonic scale. 

1  2 3 4 5 6 7 8

C D E F G A B C

So, for example, the first verse of Camptown Races obviously would be played as 5 5 3 5 6 5 3 , 3 2 3 2.  (Note: be sure to enter /music first and have your lute equipped as, if I remember correctly, a ranged weapon, before you attempt this.)

One thing you may notice about playing an instrument on Lotro, or at least playing the lute (we’ll see whether it applies to other instruments as well), is that you instantly become a rock star as soon as you begin playing, even if you’re just tapping randomly on the keyboard.  Toons will immediately gather around you and dance, clap, and otherwise indicate how wonderful you are.  It’s pretty entertaining, and if anyone gets scary you can just log out for a while.

Moving to Maine

Well, I apparently it’s not really Maine, and I’m not saying it’s a “move” either.  But I’ve been quite confused lately when my guildoes types things like “I’m in ME,” “Relocating to ME,” etc.  I found out that this is really referring to “Middle Earth” (at least I think).  And, it’s in reference to Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO, heh), which we have been discovering little by little during its beta run, and is now in release.

Lotro is similar enough to WoW that it’s not too painful to move from one to the other, but I have to admit it’s felt a little frustrating at times functioning in the Lotro world as a noob when in WoW I almost never stop to think anymore (unless something really fun is going on).  I guess this means that I’m not having enough fun or finding enough “challenge” in WoW atm, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the fault of WoW, at least not entirely.

 

(WoW is most fun played in groups, but pugs can really suck J so you need your group with you.  Since our tank ran off to Noo York Citee or somethin’ for a while, where apparently they don’t have The Computer much less The Internet, we’re kind of in a bad way.  So, we’ll get back to talking about Trinket (aka, Ula’s white kitten, duh)- at another time.)

 

For now, here’s a look at my guys:

 

This will probably the main – Liadan the Lore-Master (a MAN) shown with combat pet raven Fiasha.

 

There is also Bilba the Minstrel (a hobbit), however, her pic will need to wait until a future post.

I’m burnt so we’ll pick up this topic, where we left off, next time.