Magic Music - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Music Magic

A type of Functional Magic that works via music: playing a certain song or a magical instrument that causes an effect to happen, instead of using spells or ingredients. The Musical Assassin often uses a particularly nasty variant. Often uses Mind Control.

Recently, ocarinas have become popular for this. Perhaps it's because of its ancient history, or its simple, yet exotic sound. Or maybe it's because Link used one.

Compare with The Power Of Rock and Magic Dance.

Examples:

Anime

There was a magical ocarina in the last Dragonball Z movie.
Violinist Of Hameln, a shonen parody manga based on the Pied Piper about a guy with a BFS version of a violin who fights demons with magical music. Seriously.
In the Ah My Goddess manga and movie, particularly powerful and/or complex magical effects can be accomplished through singing (such as the reversal of a spell with both heavenly and demonic components and the recreation of the The World Tree), often but not always in combination with Hermetic Magic.
In Rah Xephon, both the titular mecha and its enemies the Dolems utilise singing as an attack method.
Macross/Robotech. Say what you will about Minmay's singing voice, anyone who can sing sixty-foot tall aliens into submission has got something going on.
- Macross 7 has this as a fundamental part of the premise. The alien antagonists ("Protodeviln") experience literal pain when exposed to music, due to the protagonist's "Anima Spiritia". Sure, it's not genuinely magical, but you wouldn't know that from the laser speaker pods and light show Fire Bomber puts on. (Fire Bomber is one of the best anime acts to ever come out of Japan, and Yoshiki Fukuyama is a rock god. Even dubbed into mediocre English, they rock. Get their albums.)
- Sharon Apple, the artificial idol from Macross Plus, took control of the Macross' computer network and sang mankind into a blissful stupor. Granted, she was given the tools to do exactly that by one of her creators... while the other, female lead Myung, is stuck trying to fight her.
Diva's song from Blood+. It's beautiful, it's heart-breaking, and it transforms innocent people into horrible bloodthirsty bat-demon-things.
In Pokemon The Movie 2000 playing a specific song on a specific ocarina can heal Lugia, no matter how far away he is.
- In the tenth movie, there was that song that made everyone who could hear it calm, even Dialga and Palkia.
- Pokemon just loves to abuse this trope. Jigglypuff can magically sing pokemon (and people in the anime) to sleep, and the Pokeflute/Pokemon Whistle can magically wake pokemon up. In Gold and Silver, in lieu of a Pokeflute, you can tune to a certain radio station to wake your Pokemon up. In fact, a good number of the sound-based moves in the game are musical.
In Corrector Yui, Yui and her friends Haruna, Reiko and Akiko were rehearsing a song for their School Festival. it becomes a plot point later, when Yui's I Know You Are In There Somewhere Fight speech to a Brainwashed And Crazy Haruna includes her singing the same song instead of fighting her, breaking through Haruna's brainwashing an reverting her back to the sweeet Yamato Nadeshiko she usually is. Later, Professor Inukai uses Yui's singing as a part of his battle strategy against the Big Bad, who is weak against sone specific sounds, and Haruna returns the favor to Yui by singing the song to her when she's about to lose the battle against Grosser, giving Yui her strength back so she can keep on fighting.
The Dantists in the world of Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica specialize in magic music to calm spirits.
In "A Little Snow Fairy Sugar", the Season Fairies control the weather with magical instruments.
Menma in a Naruto filler obtained various effects, including repelling fire and smoke and boosting Naruto's strength, by playing an ocarina.
- Let's not forget Tayuya, who could control three summoned demons and cast illusions by playing tunes on her flute.
Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is this trope incarnate.
All over the place in Seto No Hanayome, as magic music is apparently a mermaid's greatest ability. There's a song that causes all listeners to engage in bloody combat, a song that acts as the main character's Theme Music Power Up, a song that puts everyone to sleep, and a song that causes everyone within earshot to dance uncontrolably. San also has the ability to screech loud enough to cause high powered shockwaves, as can Lunar, Akeno, and Ren.
- There was also that incident when both San and Luna were singing at the same time, which caused all humans present (except Nagasumi) to...well, we don't know, because every single person was covered under a wall of Censor buttons.
The manga version of Pretear gives Sasame, the Knight of Sound, the ability to play any musical instrument—and he also seems to be able to soothe people by improvising songs to sing their feelings back to them.
Azmaria Hendrich from Chrono Crusade has the power to heal anyone who hears the song she sings. In the manga, all of the Apostles have the ability to control the Astral Line through music—all of them are shown singing, except for Joshua, who channels his powers by playing an Ominous Pipe Organ instead.
Aria of Tegami Bachi has the ability to heal people's Heart with music played on her violin.

Comic Books

Blockheads is about a young rapper who bends reality with his magic rhymes.
The Fiddler, Golden Age baddie from DC Comics.
The Pied Piper, Flash foe from DC.
Phonogram, featuring magic through the medium of Britpop.

Film

The Harpists from Kung Fu Hustle fight using a guzheng, or Chinese Harp. They can manipulate the vibrations into shapes such razor sharp swords capable of cutting through stone.
Music repels the Blue Meanie invasion in Yellow Submarine. Especially during All You Need is Love, where the lyrics to the song take physical form as they are being sung.
Sarah Sanderson sings to get the kids of the town to come to her so she and her sisters can suck the life/youth out of them in Hocus Pocus.

Literature

In the Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster, the Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like An Eagle" is one of the most powerful magic forces in the universe. It summons the elemental personification of the universe itself, but decreases the lifespan of the universe slightly each time it's used.
- Generally, the titular Spellsingers are mages who work their magic by singing and playing musical instruments. And there is our protagonist, Jon Tom, who is an American student spirited away to this world and who sings rock songs to produce unpredictable results.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, making this Older Than Print.
Several characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth stories, including The Silmarillion, could achieve magical effects through singing, including Tom Bombadil, Old Man Willow and Lúthien Tinúviel. It helps that Arda, the world of Middle-earth, was literally sung into existence through the Ainulindalë (Music of the Ainur), so anyone with the genealogical and lyrical oomph can do a lot of subtle and overt magic.
- Finrod the elf dueled with Sauron by chanting songs of power. Finrod lost.
And of course Tolkien's inspiration, the sage Väinämöinen of the Finnish national epic The Kalevala.
- And indeed all magic in the Kalevala is done through singing. A natural choice, as the entire epic is done in poetic verse designed to be sung, accompanied with playing of a kantele (a wooden harp).
HP Lovecraft used this trope in The Music of Erich Zann. Though strange, bizarre or unearthly music often features in his works, this is the only case of the music itself having power.
- The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross plays on this; Bob's girlfriend, Mo, carries a Zann-model violin that she wields like a weapon. In an amusing Shout Out to Hunter S. Thompson, the violin has "THIS MACHINE KILLS DEMONS" written on it.
  - Wouldn't that be a Shout Out to Woody Guthrie?
In Being a Green Mother (the fifth book in Piers Anthony's Incarnations Of Immortality series), the character who becomes Gaea discovers she can control nature with a particular song. (In the next book, another character learns that same song for... other purposes.)
Narnia:
- In The Film Of The Book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Tumnus literally plays Lucy to sleep with a Narnian lullaby (and a really neat flute); the effects are more psychological and ambiguous in the book.
- The Emerald Witch uses magic music (and fire) to work her More Than Mind Control in The Silver Chair.
- Aslan creates Narnia with a magic song in The Magician's Nephew. This may have been inspired by Middle Earth, as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were good friends.
L.E. Modesitt, Jr. wrote a series named The Spellsong Cycle in which, if you sing it, it happens, but the energy to make it happen comes from your body. Being accompanied by instruments or other spellsingers helps you do more impressive things without passing out due to exhaustion or starving to death. Most people in that book's universe never learn how to sing, because most wizards don't like having potential rivals around.
In Neverwhere, there is a tune which causes anyone who hears it to give money to the person playing it. Of course, they end up nearly killing the guy, but still...
- The Magnificent Bastard who taught it did warn that a little went a long way... and picked up a second favor for teaching the street musician the counter ditty.
In Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series, it's made explicit that, although Blue's magic can be invoked simply with rhyme, the spells are dramatically stronger if sung (and stronger still if he uses a musical instrument before reciting his chosen spell).
- Most of Piers Anthony's books use this trope. His Xanth novels feature triplets named Melody, Harmony and Rhythm, who can "sing and play things real". This can mean anything from turning a girl into a sentient castle to time travel, and they can even identify (though not counter) the magic of the Demons, Xanth's equivalent of gods. Nona, from the Mode series, is fated to overthrow her world's rulers; she can convert others to her cause with a song. Later, she teaches a dragon to stun rats by singing, allowing it to feed on them instead of villagers and completely overhauling a planet's social structure (although Nona didn't come up with the idea). And, as mentioned above, Being a Green Mother in the Incarnations series is magic music incarnate. (Pun intended. What do you expect from an Anthony fan?)
- Another Piers Anthony book, The Gutbucket Quest, involved a musician transported to a parallel Earth where music and magic were the same thing. The plot involved going on a quest for a magical electric guitar and invoking the loa of Voodoo with the power of Rock and Roll to defeat a corporate demon. (Simple, straight-forward storytelling - gotta love it.)
Rhapsody (the main character of Elizabeth Hayden's Symphony of Ages series) is a Singer, meaning she can use magic channeled through her voice... possibly (the effects of her voice and the definition of "Singer" seem to vary from scene to scene, let alone book to book).
In the Cordwainer Smith short story The Fife of Bodhidharma, the fife can cause either serenity or madness, depending on how it is played.
The necromancers' bells in the Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix can do some dangerous stuff. Different bells give different effects, and the effect also depends on how the bell is played. One of the bells kills everyone who hears it — including the player.
- More significantly in a setting with functioning necromancy, it sends them "deep into death," killing all but the most powerful victims Deader Than Dead so they cannot return, and at least delaying the return of the rest longer than other methods.
The Arthur C Clarke story The Ultimate Melody revolved around a scientist attempting to reproduce the primal tune from which all music is derived. He succeeded, but on hearing the song, caught it in his head for the rest of his life, rendering him catatonic. On discovering him, his assistant shut off the machine playing the tune, and it was dismantled before it could be reactivated; the assistant was immune to the effect due to being tone-deaf.
One of Robert Rankin's novels features Christeen, sister of Christ (written out of The Bible by the Church), a singer whose voice cures injuries and illness.
War For The Oaks by Emma Bull ends with a duel between the lead singer of a rock band and the Queen of the Unseelie Court for the fate of the city. By this point, the singer's discovered how to use her music to fuel the "glamour" that faeries can use naturally.
The Wayfarer's Redemption series by Sara Douglas has magic by music. Its only limitation being that you can't heal anyone unless they're on the brink of death.
In Douglas Adams's The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the bombastic rock band Disaster Area hold a concert which is predicted to cause enormous environmental damage to the desert planet which hosts it. That's not quite what happens. You could say this is not exactly magic, the events probably having been affected by a large Improbability Field, but it's hard to tell the difference even at a microscopic level.
The main character in The Bedlam's Bard series by Mercedes Lackey is a Bard.
In Mike Carey's Felix Castor novels, the main character gets rid of spirits with cantrips played on his tin flute. However, he has to "get the feel" of the ghost first by spending time around it and learning its habits.
In In the Company of Ogres by A. Lee Martinez, the fish-like sirens can use a variety of songs to do things, the main one for seducing people, but there are others, including a song rarely used that can destroy almost anything in its way.
In Tamora Pierce's Protector Of The Small series, there is a scene where Numair Salmalin uses a flute tune called the Sorcerer's Dance (stated by Word Of God to refer to the Sorcerer's Apprentice music) to move boulders in order to improve the fortifications of a fort.
In Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts novel First & Only, the Chaos forces they face use drums for summoning.
- In Necropolis, the Chaos forces use chanting to try to corrupt their opponents.
In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Horus Rising, Horus's forces come upon a system where xenos transmitters are broadcasting recognizable music.
In Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles Of Prydain the bard Fflewddur Fflam carries an enchanted harp. His music is not normally magical, but in the last book, The High King, he uses the harp to keep the party from freezing to death. It starts to play by itself when he burns it, giving them the courage to finish the journey.
- The harp also tends to stretch its strings whenever its owner stretches the truth. As Fflewddur is a born storyteller, many broken strings ensue.
In China Mieville's King Rat, an evil Pied Piper uses music to wrest control of whole classes of animal, by taking control of those animals' totemic leaders. He also uses music to control humans. And that's before he gets the idea of cutting a mix tape, so he can control more than one creature-type at a time....
In Lord Fouls Bane from The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower uses singing to control the boat he is riding down a river.
Other than just being a exquisitely made instrument, the lowest note on Morgon's harp shatters steel in the Riddle Master trilogy by Patrica Mc Killip.

Live Action TV

A sketch from British TV comedy series That Mitchell and Webb Look had a man being given a green clarinet which, when played at someone, caused them to dance and sing an embarrassing truth about themselves. He used it to live a life of luxury, until another person was given a red tuba which caused... well, an unfortunate comeuppance.
In an old The Kids In The Hall sketch, Satan is driven back into Hell by the "Holy Trinity" of guitar chords (E-A-B, or the opening chords of Smoke On The Water).
The series Threshold involved, as one of it's actual plot points that we are (as usual) not making up, an alien audio signal that was able to alter the genetics of anyone who happened to listen to it.
The Outer Limits: In "Music of the Spheres", the titular music is a signal from space which, in addition to being extremely addictive, ends up causing a series of dramatic physical transformations in listeners. Notably, unlike most Brown Notes, the changes the music causes ultimately turn out to be beneficial.
Power Rangers occasionally summon their Humongous Mecha with music. The Green Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had a dagger that doubled as a flute, and Power Rangers Ninja Storm's Samurai Ranger had a guitar that could be used to bring in a mammoth zord.
In the BBC series Merlin a witch, magically disguised as a famous singer sings a song that causes the entire court of Camelot to fall into an enchanted slumber so she can assassinate Arthur. Luckily Merlin instinctively recognises the magic and covers his ears in time.
Most seasons of Kamen Rider only use music as incidental sound effects during transformations or special attacks, but Kamen Rider Kiva has a violin-playing protagonist, and one episode had him playing the mystically-created violin built by his father to force himself into shapeshifting.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with the episode Once More With Feeling. A musical demon causes the entire town to be a musical. Doesn't seem to bad, until it's revealed one uncontrollably spills their deepest secrets in songs sooner or later. And sooner or later, you will dance and sing yourself into a fiery death (the demon is stopped before more then a handful of Sunnydalians burn). Relatedly, the demon claims to have given the inattentive Roman emperor 'his very first fiddle', thus also dovetailing with the trope.
Used in Warehouse 13 when a group of bank robbers commit crimes by playing a specific song that sends the listener into blissed-out ecstasy, then taking the money while they're incapacitated.
Emma from Heroes has this power; so far we've seen her use her cello to summon people she is thinking about and make a crack in her apartment wall.

Music

The Bells Are Ringing by They Might Be Giants.
The Walls Came Down by The Call.

Myth And Legend

No matter what the medium, mermaids are almost universally given magic singing voices:
- The unearthly singing of the sirens in Homer's The Odyssey. These weren't originally mermaids (they're supposed to be part-bird), but over the years, their association with the sea (and the Latin word for mermaid, sirena) made them into mermaids.
- The attack songs in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch.
- Seto No Hanayome's mermaids.
The trumpets that when blown made the walls of Jericho fall down, in The Bible.
- Had nothing to do with the fact they were trumpets; it was a case of faithful obedience. In theory, the Lord could have told them to do the Hokey Pokey, and the walls would have still fallen if they'd done so just as He told them to.
The Irish legend of the harp of Daghda, which could cause pain, laughter, or peace through music.
And let us not forget Orpheus, who sang so well he (almost) restored his wife to life.
- And made the ~~Furies~~ Kindly Ones weep.
And of course there's the Pied Piper, who used his piping to first lure the rats of Hamelin to their deaths, then later to abduct the children of the town after the people refused to pay him for his services.
In the Swedish legend of the Hårgadance a mysterious fiddler turned up one day in the village of Hårga during a celebration and started playing a song on his violin that made everyone dance enthusiastically. Too late, the people realized that the man, who they now saw had a goats leg, was the Devil himself. They were hoverer unable to stop dancing and kept doing so while the fiddler led them up the nearby Hårgamountain. There, he kept playing until everyone had been killed and their bodies torn to bits by the intense dancing. The top of Hårgamountain is still flat to this day because of the wild dance.

Opera

Tamino's flute and Papageno's glockenspiel in Mozart's The Magic Flute.
- The Queen of the Night casts spells, arguably, with her dazzling coloratura passages.
Many, many witches, wizards, sorcerers, and sorceresses sing incantations.

Tabletop RPG

Bard classes are also popular here, based on the original Dungeons And Dragons bard.
In In Nomine reality is essentially conceived as a Symphony, the setting's "magic" consists of manipulating the Symphony in a couple of different ways, the most predominate and direct, used by angels and demons (and some special humans) are Songs, which are basically specific melodies which (when coupled with Essence expenditure) produce special effects, anywhere from healing, to blowing stuff up, flying, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The less experienced have to actually vocalize the Song (as well as performing specific movements/gestures) the more skilled can just invoke them mentally. The use of Songs creates "disturbances" in the Symphony which can be tracked down to their source (both the place and the person) by anyone with supernatural abilities who is close enough and perceptive enough to "hear" them.
In 3rd Edition Dungeons And Dragons, Bards can not only play magical music, but can also cast spells — but unlike any other class, every spell they cast has a vocal component, and also unlike any other class, they cannot cast silent spells as a bard even if they would have the ability to do so otherwise.
- The 2nd Edition sourcebook Player's Option: Spells and Magic introduces the Song Mage, who faces the same restrictions.
- Supplemental 3rd Edition material results in new ways to "spend" bardic songs, alternate bardic music to learn, ways to further combine music and magic, prestige classes like the Virtuoso and Lyric Thaumaturge, new instrument types, and bayonets to suit lutes, flutes, and fiddles of every size.
- The 3rd Ed Dungeon Master's Guide features a number of magical music instruments, such as bells, lyres, drums, flutes, and pipes that have helpful or harmful effects. Satyrs' pipes are especially fun.
The premise of Jazz Voodoo from Beyond The Storm: Shadows of the Big Easy.
In Shadowrun/Earthdawn, Thayla's singing was so beautiful it could keep the Horrors at bay.
Don't forget all those monsters with hypnotic songs, like harpies or cloakers.
In "Ars Magica" the Enchanting Music ability fits the mold as do the "Holy Music" (Holy) Method and the magic of the Hyperborean Hymnists. Certain applications of Performance Magic and the Enchantment (Faerie) Method also work.
Pavane of Slaanesh ability (and it's big brother, the Grand Pavane) of Chaos Daemons in Warhammer40000 is described as magic music that forces those who hear it start dancing and fall under the daemon's controll.

Video Games

Most spells in The Legend Of Zelda series require Link to use an instrument and a certain tune to cast them. This is most explicit in Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker, with several varieties of magical effects available through music, but nearly every game has at least one example of Magic Music, most often as the Warp Whistle.
- Taken to the full extent of the trope in Link's Awakening, where the 8 Instruments of the Sirens were required to wake the Wind Fish and leave the island.
- Also used in Twilight Princess to summon the Golden Wolf, who teaches you combos.
- It was obvious that Spirit Tracks would go with this Trope ever since it was revealed that the game's Japanese name was "Earth`s Whistle". The "whistle" was recently revealed to be the Pan-flute like "Spirit Pipes", which are played by using the touchscreen and microphone in tandem. They work almost identically to magic instruments from earlier games.
- Spirit Tracks also has a spirit bass. And a spirit banjo... thingie. And a spirit flute, and a set of spirit drums, and a spirit clarinet, and to some extent... a pair of spirit vocal cords. Which are held by Gage, Steem, Carben, Embrose, Rael and Zelda respectively.
Elena in Grandia 2 sings a song that seemingly lifts the spirits of everyone in the world, brings Ryudo back from oblivion, and gives the heroes the power to defeat a dark god.
Music has some magical effects in the Pokemon universe, such as the ocarina in the Lugia movie, the Sing attack that puts foes to sleep, and the Pokeflute, which can awaken any sleeping Pokemon, even a Snorlax....
- Not to mention that the Ocarina actually reappears in the 4th generation of the games as a rare event-item, that unlocks the battle and chance of catching Arceus.
The 5 Instruments of the bard from Romancing Sa Ga 2 they are required to meet with the Iris race.
Mystearica "Tear" Grants from Tales Of The Abyss does this, ending with The Grand Fonic Hymn.
- Some of Tear's major spells are just pieces of The Grand Fonic Hymn as well.
An ocarina and its music were also the source of your power in the Jade Cocoon games.
In La Mulana, an ocarina is required to speak with the Sages.
The Bard's Tale
MMORPGs tend to be hungry for new classes, and often feature a bard class who uses this.
The Adventure Game Loom is all about this.
The herons' galdrar in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.
- And before them, the bards's music and dancers's dances.
Edward in Final Fantasy IV can inflict damage on enemies, as well as confuse them and put them to sleep, with his harp-playing. He can't be considered a terrible musician; just one that knows his audience, given in the DS remake he can learn Life's Anthem, which rapidly restores the HP of the party as long as he isn't interrupted. And then there's the songs available to the Bardsong Augment...
- Hurdy in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 is pretty much the moogle version of Edward, including the ability to hide. His abilities are a mixed bag, the best being a song that restores mana. Learning that song is another matter... Fortunately, he can learn other jobs like everyone else.
- Edwards revamped abilities are likely inspired by the Bard class of Final Fantasy V, which could use several useful songs, for instance to speed up the other party members, restoring mana over time or dealing heavy damage to undead enemies.
- The Bard class has existed for a while in FF, including FF 3 and FF Tactics; in fact, Hurdy's ability list, other than Hide, is taken practically verbatim from FF Tactics.
  - Final Fantasy X 2 has the Songstress class, which is a pop star combination of the standard bard and dancer. It combines magic music to buff the party and magical dances to screw with the enemy.
  - It makes sense in English versions, where it's renamed to "Songstress".
The magic system in Brütal Legend, the upcoming game by Double Fine Studios of Psychonauts fame, is based around playing solos on an enchanted electric guitar.
In Ar Tonelico, the all-female race of Reyvateils was created with the ability to create various magical effects through their songs. This includes things like healing, creating elemental bursts, summoning beings to attack, or even (on the upper scale of things) creating entire continents.
In Kingdom Hearts, Demyx (the Melodious Nocturne of Organization XIII) uses a blue sitar that's bigger than he is to summon water-clones. It also makes for a really effective club.
Luna from Lunar: The Silver Star has special moves that all revolve around her singing ability.
The Sound Stone in Earth Bound.
- The Eight Melodies (Queen Mary's Song) from Mother/Earthbound Zero, is an interesting example of this trope. While you learn each melody from some really interesting places (including a singing cactus), the song itself is not magical. The real power of the song comes from the memories associated with it, which is why it only has an effect on Queen Mary and Gigyas.
This trope is the central mechanic of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure. The heroine Cornet controls her puppet army by playing her magical trumpet.
The girl in Tombs & Treasure for the NES could create various magical effects, primarily directing the sun's rays and turning flesh to stone, by playing a set of golden panpipes.
Legend Of Mana lets you cast spells using magical instruments. Each instrument has its own spell, and you gain stronger ones through Item Crafting using elemental coins and a variety of materials.
In Infinite Undiscovery, Capell obtains a flute from a claridian named Saruleus, which allows him to play music that can dispel illusions among other effects.
- It's just a pity that the one song that really counts, the one that stops them from hitting the Lunar induced Berserk Button, turns out to be pretty ineffective unless played constantly, which is impractical.
Ricardo from Shadow Hearts: From The New World can play songs with his guitar for various effects, from casting positive status effects on the party, sans himself. More songs can be composed when Ricardo find new items as his inspiration.

Webcomics

One of the trademarks of the Heterodyne family in Girl Genius is their way of "Heterodyning," or humming in a very complicated way which helps the Spark at work to concentrate. While not music that causes magic by itself, certainly a side effect and assistant to the Sparkiness.
In The Challenges Of Zona Mentl, a second-rate busker from our world finds himself, like Jon-Tom in the Spellsinger series, transported to a magical world where he finds that his skill at and knowledge of modern music has devastating effects both on the ladies and on his enemies

Western Animation

The Smurfs love magical music. One episode had the Musical Smurf playing a magical bagpipe that put all the other Smurfs into comas. Indeed, the original Smurfs movie, The Magic Flute, was about them cutting down a huge tree to carve a tiny little magic flute.
Dare I remind people of the Saturday morning cartoon Hammerman?
In South Park's Imaginationland trilogy, it's necessary to sing the Imaginationland song to travel from the real world to Imaginationland.
The power used by Floatzart, a villainous ghost from Filmation's GhostBusters.
"Mugic" is one major aspect of the Chaotic universe.
The Nelvana film Rock & Rule involves the Mick Jagger/David Bowie-esque villain searching the world for the one voice that can sing a tune to invoke a Cosmic Horror.
The magical effects of the Foreigner Belt in Aqua Teen Hunger Force are activated by reciting certain lyrics from Foreigner songs.
- It doesn't work so well when Err the Mooninte tries using Loverboy lyrics.
The villainess of Barbie And The Diamond Castle uses a flute to work evil magic spells, including mind control and turning people to stone.
The Music Meister/Sings a song that the world wants to hear/Lets not fight, lets get along/For our hypnotic profitier.

Real Life

Not just The Kalevala, traditional Finnish magic in general consisted of spellsongs that were either sung or chanted, depending on the context. This makes sense, because most spells were essentially short stories relating the mythological origin of things like fire, iron, living things and such, because knowing the primordial nature of a thing was thought to give power over it. As such, spells were passed down by teaching them as songs, often as part of larger epics or stories, with the poetic meter ensuring the fidelity of the oral transmission. Notably, sages also apparently engaged in contests of magical knowledge which were conducted by singing as many spells as they could remember; many thousands were recorded in the 19th and early 20th century.