One of the unique things Mabinogi offers is the ability to play and create music. Warning, this is going to cover pretty much all musical things in Mabinogi.
What do you mean? Are there instruments in game? There are! Here is a list of the instruments Mabinogi has:
String Instruments-Lute
-Mandolin
-Battle Mandolin
-Lyre
-Ukelele
-Hand Chimes
-Electric Guitar
-Cello
-Violin
-Harp
Wind Instruments-Flute
-Whistle
-Chalumeau
-Tuba
-Roncadora
Percussion Instruments-Snare Drum
-Cymbals
-Bass Drum
-Piano
Microphones-Wireless Microphone
-Standing Microphone
Special Instruments-Bass Drum of KindnessWhen played, this makes characters around you clap.
-Chalumeau of MelancholyThis makes players around you cry.
-Cymbals/Lute/Mandolin/Ukelele of EnthusiasmUsing these will make others around you dance.
-Flute of DespairPlaying this enacts the "Doomed" gesture.
-Love WhistleThis will cause others around you to do the "I Love You!" gesture.
-Tuba of RespectThis makes players around you salute.
Instruments for Quests-Music Bottles (Music Bottles are preset notes, these bottles are labeled with one of the following letters:A,B,C,D,E,F, and G)
-Siren's Flute (Obtained from a quest, later used for the skill "Enthralling Performance")
-Ice Flute (Used in a dungeon rather then for a quest)
Only Humans can use the Ice FluteDemonic Instruments-Demonic Gloomy Sunday
This is currently the only Demonic Instrument in the game. In order to use it, you must have Master Bard talent. It is also the only instrument that can be special upgraded. The name is fancy, but it is a Mandolin.

Regular Mandolin:

Battle Mandolin:

There are also different versions of the instruments, they don't do anything special, but they look fancy.
These are called
Solar Glory Instruments. The ones that have a Solar Glory version are:
-Violin
-Piano
-Lyre
-Electric Guitar
-Cello
-Standing Microphone
To give you an idea of the Solar Glory difference, here is a comparison:
Regular Violin:

Solar Glory Violin:

There are more kinds of instruments in the game, but again, the only difference is the appearance.
Now that we have the different types of instruments, let us move on to the Bard skill set. The Bard class is a buffer class, but can be used for enjoyment, too.
Comments
-Playing Instrument
This is the first skill you are most likely to learn, you can obtain it by simply equipping an instrument. This allows you to play music. You can play it as default music, or with a music scroll. (Will go into detail about music scrolls shortly).
-Musical Knowledge
This skill allows you to play music with less fails. If you rank this skill to rank 9, and have composing at rank 9, you have a chance at creating Magic Music. Being able to play Magic Music however, takes at least rank 5 of both Musical Knowledge and Playing Instrument. (Will go into detail about Magic Music shortly as well).
-Composing
This lets you create your own songs, or paste an already created song onto a [b]Score Scroll[/b]. Increasing the rank of your composing skill increases the amount of characters you can fit onto each line of a scroll. (Be patient! Almost there!)
-Enthralling Performance
This skill lets you bewilder monsters. Upon using this skill, monsters will have a light purple circle over their heads and follow you if you walk. This is the only skill that allows you to walk while playing,but drains Stamina very fast so be ready once the skill cancels because after you stop playing, the monsters will all attack you! The skill does not work on monsters who are already targeting a player, regardless if it is you or not. Up to rank 9 you can only use wind instruments for this skill. It is best you keep and use the Siren's Flute for this. Once you rank it to rank 9, you can use both wind and string instruments, and at rank 5 you can use wind, string, and percussion.
Restrictions include:
-Bass Drum
-Music Bottles
-Cello
-Piano
-All Microphones
-Dischord
This is the only attack skill in the Music skill set. Once you load Dischord, you can select and enemy and hit them with it. The target will turn a dark purple, showing they are poisoned. Dischord poisons and slows your enemy down for a few seconds. The poison damage does continuous damage for a few moments.
-Encore
This is 1/3 skills that came out with Diva, or, the Starlet Talent. Encore resets the cooldown for all music skills.
-Fantastic Chorus
2/3 from the Starlet update. To properly use this skill, click it to use it, then use one of the buff skills. (Will be listed below). This creates a green or red circle on the ground, depending on which buff skill you use with it, and the circles have varying effects. This is also good to use for pleasure, if you are playing solo and want a vocal part of your song played as well, you can use this skill with your score scroll equipped, and if you have anything in the "song" section, it will sing for you while you play.
For more detailed information on this skill, please see the Mabinogi Wiki page here:
http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Fantastic_Chorus
-Song
This is the third skill that was brought by Starlet, and it lets you sing! It is exactly like "Playing Instrument", but instead of an instrument you use your voice. (Character pre-made voice of course). You need to use a microphone in order to sing, up until rank 5 of the skill. Then you can sing with nothing in your hands, or another item in your hands.
Onto the buff skills! YAY!
-Battlefield Overture
This skill increases your, and your allies attack (Min/max damage), and your critical hit rate.
-Lullaby
Granted not really a buff, but still useful!...This puts enemies around you to sleep. It works even if they are aggravated, but enemies can only be put to sleep once! The amount of time they are asleep increases as you rank the skill.
-Enduring Melody
This increases defense and magic defense, protection & magic protection, MP recovery speed, and Stamina recovery speed.
-Vivace
Increases magic charging speed, alchemy charging speed, and attack speed.
-Harvest Song
Boosts production & gathering rate and increases gathering speed.
-March Song
Increases player and pet movement speed.
All buffs apply to party members, in order for other people to have the buff, they must be in your party.
That is all the skills, we made it! BIGGER YAY!
Moving onto the few things I mentioned earlier in this guide, now....
Score scrolls are sold by NPCs, the General Shop ones. They come in various colours, and they are 30 gold each, with 100 plays available per scroll.
Scrolls will look like this:
In order to use these scrolls, you need to have the composing skill. With a scroll in your inventory, you can use the composing skill, and it will open up the scroll on your screen. Once you make a scroll, it will have a "Grade" on it. This just refers to your rank of Musical Knowledge, and the difficulty the song is to play.
Checking the "Hidden Chords" box will prevent you, and anyone else from seeing the song notes
The different spaces are for different parts of the song. In Mabinogi, music is read as MMLs (Music Macro Language). You can find various MMLs already made by other people and copy/paste them into the scroll (be sure to not take credit for work that is not yours!) or use a handy and neat program someone made called 3mle to make your own music, or convert a song into MML that has not been converted already.
You can find 3mle in the composing scores option, now avail wit hthe Music Q update. More on Music Q further in the guide.
You can find a separate, detailed guide for MML and 3mle here:
http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/User:LexisMikaya/MML_101_Guide
Here is another guide, with basics:
https://forums.mapletip.com/index.php?/topic/118306-mabinogi-3ml-editor-tutorial/
Onto the magics!
Magical Music
As I mentioned earlier, in order to create magic music, you need composing and musical knowledge to be at least rank 9.
In order to play magic music you need musical knowledge to be rank 5 and instrument playing to be rank 5. Along with granting buffs, magical music shows off glows when you play.
Types of Magic Music:
Recovery
-MP
-HP
-Stam
This type of music recovers one of those three every few seconds of the song to you and party members.
Buff
-STR
-INT
-Will
-DEX
-Luck
This magic music increases one of the above for you and your allies.
Berserker
This music prevents your allies from being knocked down during combat.
If failed, your allies become weakened.
Berserker:
Failed berserker:
Again, in order for others to feel the effects, they must be in your party
Jam Session
Jam Session is an "action" that allows you to play music with others! You can play a duet, or organize a huge group with up to 8 players!
In order for this to work, you need to be in a "Jam" party, and the [b]party leader has to load the skill last![/b]
Here is a link with instructions on how to obtain Jam Session, as well as a bit of info on it:
http://mabinogi.wikia.com/wiki/Jam_Session
Music Q
Music Q is a bard update, the main changes are now instead of just having an 8 player jam party, you can have up to 16 players.
The leader of the party will have a headphone icon above their head. This icon activates Pure Music Mode, which prevents
any sound in the area other than the party music.
Music Q also brings a new action, Freestyle. To obtain this action you just equip an instrument. Upon using the action skill,
you will be prompted to hit f1 after a three second countdown. This doesn't do anything if you fail, hitting the f1 key
is for an animation. You fail the animation if you don't hit it on time.
A big music note will appear next to a person using freestyle. You can equip an instrument without a score scroll to join
the freestyle jam. This lets you automatically play whatever scroll the jam leader is playing. In order to play freestyle,
you have to hit the wsad keys within the time limit given. The more combos you get, the longer the key patterns are.
Music Step
If you achieve a combo of 5 in freestyle while playing with someone else, you will get a musical buff. This buffs your
playing effect and gives you a music note trail when you run. It lasts for one hour.
However, when using freestyle there is a chance you can buff the region you are in with Caibre's Blessing. This gives
extra experience for freestyle jamming, and if you use freestyle when a blessing is on, the music note beside you turns golden.
You can obtain a Caibre Bugle if you get up to 5 combo, that when used enhances your Music Step buff, giving you +3 music buff effect for three hours,
and turning your trail into a gold one.
Renown System
The Renown System is a new system brought with Music Q. In order to access the renown menu, you have to go into your
character window and click the "Renown" tab.
Under the renown tab you will see levels of renown for Nele, Yvona, and Briana. If you hover over the npc picture
you will be given a list of requirnments on how to level up the renown for each one.
Leveling the renown is worth while, because each npc gives you a different buff. Nele gives you increase in critical hit rate,
Yvona gives increase in critical damage, and Briana give extra shadow mission experience.
Bard Board
This is a new addition which can be accessed through the menu tab. Here, players can post their songs for everyone to listen to, and if they want,
transcribe. Transcribing basically lets you copy the MML onto a scroll so you can play it whenever you want to.
Hope this helps, and have fun!