The Buckwheat-Grain of Citrons

The Buckwheat-grain of Citrons is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Soybean-Plant of Lobsters. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. Three chanters recite The Reckoning of Blooms while the music is played on three temi and three ifave. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance slows and broadens, and it is to be moderately loud. The melody has long phrases throughout the form. The music is broadly layered with chords spanning the range. It is performed using the everinopefa scale and in the viceva rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to make trills, alternate tension and repose, modulate frequently, play legato and spread syllables over many notes.

• Each chanter always provides the rhythm and should be strong.
• Each temi always does the main melody and should be grand.
• Each ifave always provides the rhythm and should feel mysterious.
• The Buckwheat-grain of Citrons has the following structure: three to five unrelated passages and a coda.
• In each of the simple passages, each of the temi covers its entire range from the watery low register to the heavy high register, each of the chanters' voices ranges from the low register to the middle register and each of the ifave stays in the eerie low register.
• In the coda, each of the temi stays in the watery low register, each of the chanters' voices ranges from the middle register to the high register and each of the ifave covers its entire range from the eerie low register to the muddy high register.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-three notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxO, where 1 is the tonic, O marks the octave and x marks other notes. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are ifiyo (spoken if, 4th), izeli (iz, 9th), bone (bo, 10th), umamalu (um, 12th), emayethi (em, 14th), ithi (ith, 15th), seyawi (se, 18th), mila (mi, 20th) and ezococa (ez, 23rd).
• The everinopefa pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 6th, the 10th, the 16th and the 21st.
• The viceva rhythm is a single line with four beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - - x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events