Music

Music in CoE can be played by Bards to grant surrounding characters bonuses, such as recovering vitality instead of sleeping, increased vitality, energy, strength and endurance. Players will use their keyboard to play an instrument, and even record sheet music and to play back later.

Caspian suggested in one of the January Q&A sessions that music may be linked to animal taming in some way.

Skills
Ref.:

"We're looking at a musical, Guitar-Hero style challenge for musical skills, but key-pressing may be randomized to prevent automation."

The skills required to perform music are sub-skills of Musical Arts skills and are part of the Art Skills skill-tree.

The skill required to compose and write musical compositions are a dedicated skill called "Musical Composition", and this is part of the Scribing skill of the Lore Skills skill-tree.

Musical instruments
In CoE you can create different types of instrument researching appropriate technologies, this means that at the beginning, we won't see modern instruments. However, more modern instruments may be possible in the future.

Rituals
Music can play an important role in various rituals. Some rituals may even require their own specific instruments, like the Festival of Passage.