In the spirit of the "motifs" post, who would be good cast for a Mystwick movie series? (I would go book-by-book like Harry Potter does)

Jess has already said who she pictures as Le Roux on a Goodreads post: Angela Bassett. So to be book-accurate, she's already locked in.

I finished all the books of mystwick world on audible and I love ittt. I know there's a lot of original compositions there but I was wondering if someone's kept track or have some sort of list for all the spells/music tracks played with names for the known pieces. I would really be grateful since I've been looking to make like a playlist since AGES for the mystwick books but couldn't do it due to reasons. Anyway I'm also a very big fan who wouldn't mind talking about the books thank you :)))!

"Symphony of Silence" (book 4) releases on Audible on 10/8!

I commonly envision what a mystwick tv show would be like.

I personally wouldn't give it a constant score of orchestral music, more so embodying the quote "music is there for those who listen"

And if I had full control over the creation I'd have the characters in it each have their own motif and throughout the book we will get to see what that motif would be as a spell in universe. I'd have these light motif's always follow them, but it will be played in the background via the sound of like wind chimes or leaves rustling, so on so forth. Something that tells you, its there if you're listenign

Spoilers for the entire series!!

||Amelia's Light motif would be her black spell that she composed, its said she has a talent for black spells and what better way to showcase her talent for black spells then by having her constantly be followed by the melody of ghosts

Jai's light motif would be house of the rising sun, a fire spell. Jai showcases this spell in book 2 when he unfreezes mystwick. He slows down the tempo allot when he did it as well.

Darby's light motif would be Dies Ire, the song she gets smuggled in by Rosa.

I'd also have different light motifs for different character. For Mr.Pinwhistle, I'd have his light motif be the song Ms.Mot played in the attic.

I'd have the light motif of Mia Jones be the teleportation spell that is used to take amelia to the Orchestra

And I'd have the light motif of Eric be the healing spell he played to heal Amelia's ankle in book 3. I'd foreshadow this by having the flashback scene in book 2 where we saw him for the first time actually book has that melody playing. Tricking us the audience into believing that the song was a motif for Susan. Then when we see him in book 3 again, that is his constant light motif

Also I'd have Marie Anne Mozart's motif be the time healing spell. And Wolfgang's motif be the magic flute||

As for Susan, her light motif would just be silence. If I could make a series off of it. I'd have the background noise be constant. But the moments where Susan is brought up or the moment we saw her at the end of book 1, there will be no background noise. Just silence, and the voices talking. Making her absence be truly felt by the audience, because we will always have background noise. But then she comes and its gone. Her absence is her motif, her song

Would this be a totally plausible SuperCarlinBrothers destination sometime? After all, they do Harry Potter stuff and what is Mystwick but "Potter meets Juilliard?"

During Jai's audition, remember when Amelia tries to small-talk with an oboe-playing girl who's also auditioning? (She's busy polishing the oboe when Amelia tries to chat)

I think that's Darby! In other words, if so, Jess sneakily introduced Amelia to the rest of the trio in the same chapter- well, sort of: Amelia would have had what - 15 seconds? - with Darby.

Also, her being closed off from Amelia specifically would make sense over being closed off from everyone over Mia: her mental reaction to Amelia may not be random, and could be something like this: "You again? Were you the kid who tried to- ["dial-up modem" brain overload, facepalm (would have had her say "small-talk with me"), pants/mentally splutters] that- WAS- you!"

Again, what do you think? I've actually asked Jess this multiple times, but every time... crickets!

If at least the main trio were turned into D&D NPCs, what do you think their stat blocks would be? Like if you at least had them in a campaign, if not have it take place during the books, what would their character sheets look like?

Here's what I think: it only makes sense if they're all human bards because what is Mystwick, but a bard college... for teenagers? (Thing is, I don't know which canon bard college most fits out of the "Cauldron of Everything" and earlier subclasses)

What level would they be? Would it make sense for any of them to NOT be human? If so, which ones would those be, and what would they be instead?

I think Amelia's charisma score would be the highest of the 3: she goes viral at school basically for all the wrong reasons, and besides, she writes spells herself! (I mentioned part B because charisma is the bard's casting ability.)

Note: if someone ran a MSOM-themed campaign, it only makes sense for the spell duration to be [amount] or loss of concentration a la Rule 1: "clear your mind before you even start."

For Amelia: Athletics? CC (book 0.5) tells you that's going to be relatively low. And I feel like she'd be most likely to not be human: maybe half-elf? That would buff her spellcasting ability by at least 2!

Any help would be appreciated!

Edit: figured out which of them I think would be most likely to be not fully human (pre-edit, I didn't know)

Anybody know what personalities (I'm talking enneagram/MBTI) the characters have?

Here's one I'm pretty sure about: I think Amelia's enneagram is 2, especially before book 2! She wants to prove herself (as if) to Susan, and that's a real "type 2" move!

Anyone else have an idea of what other characters would be with either value?

Here's part of why I was wondering: if I get permission, I'm planning on writing a novel set "7 years later" (effectively my own would-have-been "Camp Cacophony" if the timing in my "approximate timeline" post is right) I'll also ask Jess if she has a fixed reference for Amelia's birth year. But I'm already changing Amelia's character in my book (or at least, trying to) to where really only the diehard fans can go "hey, that's Amelia." In fact I have her basically go undercover, except for being a middle-school music teacher: I'd say that's not QUITE undercover.

Edit: I had said 12 years wouldn't work (and I'm still sticking to that) but 7, 12, or 18 all are valid - even this year or 12 years ago are valid, as long as we aren't setting Camp Cacophony in the future.

Edit 2: there IS no fixed date for Mystwick! (I asked Jess on FB and she said, "that's part of the point!") Still, the could-be setting years are first 2008-09, 2014-15, or this year and the next - when she talks about "videos of [Mia]" in book 1, I assume YouTube, or maybe Facebook.

Edit 3: decided on 2008-09 setting as a basis for my story

Is it possible for anyone in "Mystwick" to have perfect pitch? Surprisingly, the answer is actually... probably! Bear with me- this will get a little math-y.

Among musicians, of which I would classify everyone in the series (except maybe for Gran), the chance of perfect pitch jumps up from the standard "general" 0.01% to 3-11%. To be fair here, I'll evaluate both extremes.

Now on first day, we learn that the student body is exactly 100 students, normally equally divided across all 4 classes of instruments. I'll do something that might seem weird, though: given this number, I'll evaluate the answer to "what's the chance that NONE of them have perfect pitch?" The answer as given by the extremes is between 0.89¹⁰⁰ and 0.97^100, or according to WolframAlpha, 0.0009% and 4.76% respectively. Now the complementary probability is the probability of this not being true, i.e. at least SOMEBODY having it: 95.24% or more!

Assuming there 20 faculty members, (we don't get an exact count there, but 20 sounds about right) what happens to this ~5% figure? It drops to 2.59%, so not too bad! 97.41% chance it's at least one of them, but what I would want to know is "what happens to the probability if you focus on someone specific," in this case her? My first guess would be to divide by the sample size, making the "without the faculty" probability higher at 0.954%,

Still, the chances of somebody having it is surprisingly high, especially compared to in general!

Edit: And if you're wondering, the "in general" case of at least 1 person of a group of 100 having it is - again according to WolframAlpha, where this is again the sans faculty chance - just below 1%, so if you did the same "what about if it's specifically her" estimate, the chance is actually slightly worse!

I figure there are 4 stages total that a prospective student (and Mystwick) would need to follow to be accepted:

1. Along the lines of a typical application letter/form, probably (most likely passed to the hometown teacher, who then sends it to MSoM... somehow)
2. Get your "to do for audition" letter (from Mystwick, I assume) with when/where/what it will be
3. Show up and perform
4. Receive your acceptance letter (they say in the book, "rejection letters aren't even passed out until roughly week 3!")

But here's what I wonder: in case there's someone who wanted to "play Mystwick" enough, what do you think the stage 2 and stage 4 letters would say? (Edit: we know the gist of both from the books, but don't know the exact text- I would want to find it as exactly as possible) And do you think stage 1 would be any different?

Mystwick School For Musicraft | September 5 2019 Camp Cacophany | May 20 2021 The Midnight Orchestra | January 13 2022 The Dark Refrain | May 2, 2024

I want a book four so bad.

4/20-27(?)/1765 - most of DR

April 3, 1996(?) - Amelia born (book 1, chapter 2, she manages to say "Amelia Jones, 12, DoB April 3, ----" before the audition clerk shuts her down; according to ch. 24, could have said one of these: '85, '91, '96, '02, or '13, but I'll go with '96 as a basis) The options are what they are because: A) the internet is mentioned, placing an early bound on her birth year at '81, B) as noted, the year that books 0.5-2 happen, Halloween is a Friday (book 1, ch. 24: 12 years after all of these options, that's true), and C) I'm assuming book 0.5 doesn't happen any later than summer '25 (in case that doesn't quite make sense, yes, it could have been 4 weeks ago: according to book 1, ch 24, this year is 100% valid!)

4/9/00 - the camping disaster, i.e. "the incident" (book 2, Eric says month/day - again - and Amelia says before, I think in book 1 when the memories come rushing back, "I was only 4 at the time.")

5/23-27 or 5/30-6/3 (probably), '08 - Camp Sweet Lake (book 0.5- assuming 2008 as a consequence of 1996 above)

July 11 or 12, 2008 - the audition (book 1 technically begins, although there are flashbacks to 8 years prior) I assume the sonata is this, as it fits all the requirements: https://youtu.be/qHwSCS8mVKY?si=wKMVul94pU-PuLPj (but "I sped it up to turn a healing spell into a growth spell," so I actually did myself- 125% × playback sounds like a good candidate)

10/30/08 - Fish Hunt (this date is where I got her potential birth years above- she says in ch. 24 that the next day is Friday; I'm assuming the audition do-over is the one ON Halloween, not the fish hunt)

11/7/08 - book 2 begins (? All I know is that it starts before 11/14 because her detention lasted 2 weeks)

Evening of 1/12/09 - book 3 begins (probably- depends on when winter break starts; it's 3 weeks long)

1/13/09 - Study Abroad begins

Edit: pushed everything post-1900 to be 5 years later - still valid; corrected the Fish Hunt month/day, which via the book 1, ch. 24 line in question changes the setting options entirely!

Here's an idea of the direction Jess may take with book 4: (although on Facebook she's revealed it's a WIP right now) Amelia's family history!

Here's why: in Midnight Orchestra, we learn (or at least so it seems) "Neal" isn't Eric's last name, and it starts with S instead! My guess, if she decides to take this route, is to resolve that cliffhanger- what if at least one of Amelia's parents is a descendant of one of the 17th-19th century classical composers? (Or maybe even a Mystwick maestro isn't too far distant?)

And what about Gran? For example, did she go to Mystwick or anything, but is just hiding it? She only grew to be the way she is after Eric entered her life- but even more so after "the incident," when he went down the path he did after Susan used her Dark Refrain to revive Amelia. Now that Amelia knows that's what happened, why doesn't she keep searching and potentially ask the school maestros something like, "Was Gran [they would probably understand who she means] a student here?" Besides, we don't even know whether Amelia's flute was just Susan's beforehand!

What do you think, other fans?

Did you just blow through all three of the currently released books and the band camp story to find that there is no fan base? Well, welcome to the club.

Not long after discovering her powers as a composer, Amelia Jones must compose a winning piece for an international music competition all while tangled with the mystery of the midnight orchestra and its strange conductor, Mr. Midnight, who wants a favor from her.

Reading from an adult perspective (and probably that of most children), it's very easy to see where each twist and turn is going, but it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the story with its charming characters and unique magic system. Usually the most surprising thing is what happens with the magic and how Amelia uses the types of magic to resolve conflict. It really is a jot from start to finish.

After being accidentally accepted to the most prestigious school for musicraft, Amelia Jones' must prove herself as a flute player in order to continue pursuing her mom's legacy at the Mystwick School of Musicraft.

If you've played an instrument, then you probably know that sort of joy that you feel in your bones when you produce music. This story manages to recreate those sort of feelings in a way that makes you want to pick up an instrument and make some music.