Like "Crystal Singer", "Dragonsong" features a young woman with great musical talent. Beside fishing, its focus in Pernese society is the arts and education, in contrast to the military and political focus of the original trilogy. In this the action at Harper Hall rather than the Weyrs is akin to McCaffrey's own experience. At Radcliffe College, Harvard, she majored in Slavonic Languages and Literature. From her teens through her thirties, before she turned to writing full-time, she pursued musical avocations: piano lessons, voice training and performance, and assisting in amateur production of musicals and operettas.