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[Urist Mchateselves]

In all my years of dwarf fortress I’ve never seen any of my dwarves use the instruments stored in any of my forts’ locations. Ever. Neither have assigned performers and travelling musicians. I’ve seen them occasionally hold dances and concerts, but the instruments are never actually used. Am I doing something wrong or are instruments just bugged?

[A_Curious_Cat]

In all my years of dwarf fortress I’ve never seen any of my dwarves use the instruments stored in any of my forts’ locations. Ever. Neither have assigned performers and travelling musicians. I’ve seen them occasionally hold dances and concerts, but the instruments are never actually used. Am I doing something wrong or are instruments just bugged?

Are you sure you’re giving them the correct instruments?  You’re probably using the instruments that are sold by your civilization’s dwarf caravan (or, worse yet, making the instruments yourself).  Your dwarves don’t know how to use those instruments!  The don’t know any pieces that are composed to use them.  They need instruments from some civilization on the other side of the map that you have no economic relations with and, therefore, don’t get a caravan from!  All of the music they know uses instruments from that civilization!

Edit:

IIRC, there’s a bug where your fortress civilizations’ musical forms and compositions are generated to use the instruments of a different civilization.

[Telgin]

I'm almost sure I've seen them play instruments I've made or bought, but it's admittedly pretty rare.  I've only ever seen them do it in taverns, despite the ability to also store them in temples.

To be sure, you have chests in your tavern and the instruments are in them?  Have you ever seen your dwarves simulate instruments and try to make or buy those instruments specifically?

[Urist Mchateselves]

I'm almost sure I've seen them play instruments I've made or bought, but it's admittedly pretty rare.  I've only ever seen them do it in taverns, despite the ability to also store them in temples.

To be sure, you have chests in your tavern and the instruments are in them?  Have you ever seen your dwarves simulate instruments and try to make or buy those instruments specifically?

I have them in chests, yes. I’ve seen them simulate instruments. As curious cat stated, every single known composition that I’ve checked uses instruments from other civilizations, and no instruments have ever been up for sale in foreign caravans (and by that I mean the one annual human caravan, as elves are at war with us). I’ve never heard of this bug before. I don’t even think that it’s on the wiki (despite its significance).

I’m disappointed that the trouble I went through to produce these instruments is essentially for nothing, but I guess it can’t be helped. Thank you for informing me about it.

[A_Curious_Cat]

I'm almost sure I've seen them play instruments I've made or bought, but it's admittedly pretty rare.  I've only ever seen them do it in taverns, despite the ability to also store them in temples.

To be sure, you have chests in your tavern and the instruments are in them?  Have you ever seen your dwarves simulate instruments and try to make or buy those instruments specifically?

I have them in chests, yes. I’ve seen them simulate instruments. As curious cat stated, every single known composition that I’ve checked uses instruments from other civilizations, and no instruments have ever been up for sale in foreign caravans (and by that I mean the one annual human caravan, as elves are at war with us). I’ve never heard of this bug before. I don’t even think that it’s on the wiki (despite its significance).

I’m disappointed that the trouble I went through to produce these instruments is essentially for nothing, but I guess it can’t be helped. Thank you for informing me about it.

Yeah, I could swear I’d heard about it on the forums, but I can’t find it on the wiki, nor on the bug tracker.

Edit:

The earliest mention of the problem that I can find on the forums is this post from PatrikLundell back in 2016.  The fact that no one has reported it on the bugtracker probably goes a long way toward explaining why it hasn’t been fix…

[Telgin]

Very strange.  The last fort I ran where I believe I saw them using the instruments was admittedly modded, but I'm not sure mods could even affect that.  Not sure DFHack can either, which I do have installed.

[amade]

Just yesterday I spotted my dorfs playing the instruments I made for them, which included a stationary built instrument. I think the really tricky bit is that the dorfs has to play a number that requires the instruments that you supply, and I haven't checked but I think all the players must know the same song. So getting a confluence of dorfs who know the same song to congregate at the same time and have the mood to play the song which happens to be the song which you provided instruments for is very rare.

That said, I noticed that even when they're performing a song for which I've provided instruments for, not all the performers will pick the instruments up. E.g. in the example I mentioned earlier the song was meant to be played with 1 stationary wind instrument plus between 4 to 6 of a handheld wind instrument. One dorf was on the stationary instrument, another on the wind, but the rest simulated the instrument instead of picking up the spare ones I have in my tavern chest.

Another problematic point is the inability to choose which instruments are stocked between multiple locations.

[Urist Mchateselves]

Every single (and I mean every single) performer and citizen that I’ve checked knows musical forms whom exclusively use instruments from other civilizations. I guess it’s just very poorly implemented.

[Überzwerg]

In my current world they all know the right instruments, because I'm not having more than one civilization per race. And they do play them.

[TOTAL_CIV_NUMBER:5]

[aSpatula66]

Ah, instead of using instruments from your dwarven civilization it's using instruments from all dwarven civilizations.


You could probably fix that with raw modding by making multiple differently named copies of the each entity. But that's a hacky fix and only works in new worlds.

[FantasticDorf]

Ah, instead of using instruments from your dwarven civilization it's using instruments from all dwarven civilizations.


You could probably fix that with raw modding by making multiple differently named copies of the each entity. But that's a hacky fix and only works in new worlds.

A alternative is to mod in certain instruments and turn off the procedural behaviour, but seeing there are multiple generated instruments per civ could be considered a unintentional bug/balance issue. If i give the dwarf civ a flute, it will always be a flute across all.