The Walnut of Choirs

The Walnut of Choirs is a form of music used to commemorate important events originating in The Hubristic Cohort. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A singer recites any composition of The Calculating Verification while the music is played on a wogu and a ipukom. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance should stress the rhythm and is very slow. The melody has mid-length phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. Throughout, when possible, performers are to locally improvise, play arpeggios and match notes and syllables.

• The singer always does the main melody. The voice ranges from the low register to the middle register.
• The wogu always does the main melody. The voice stays in the sparkling high register.
• The ipukom always provides the rhythm. The voice ranges from the strident low register to the raucous middle register.
• The Walnut of Choirs has a simple structure: a lengthy passage.
• The simple passage is to become softer and softer. The passage is performed using the ohural scale and in the imesathi rhythm. The passage should sometimes include a falling melody pattern with staccato, often include a falling-rising melody pattern with glides and staccato and always include a rising melody pattern with flattened fourth degree as well as glides and staccato.
• Scales are constructed from eighteen notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xx-xxx-x-x-xxxxx-x-xxxxO, where 1 is the tonic, O marks the octave and x marks other notes. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are equanamsespe (spoken eq, 2nd), oruslumcopo (or, 4th), othdo (othd, 5th), ithut (ith, 6th), iquur (iq, 8th) and ibalarek (ib, 16th).
• The ohural heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th, the 6th, the 9th, the 11th and the 13th.
• The imesathi rhythm is made from two patterns: the ingdaspod and the xur. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The ingdaspod rhythm is a single line with nine beats divided into three bars in a 3-3-3 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x - | - x x'| - x - |
• where ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The xur rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into eight bars in a 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 pattern. The beats are named ibbekur (spoken ib) and ocgothrom (oc). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x | x x | x - | x - | x - | x - | - x | x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events