The Blooming Blossom
The Blooming Blossom is a devotional form of music originating in The Hubristic Cohort. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A singer recites any composition of The Attentive Consciousness while the music is played on a ngonero. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance is to be in whispered undertones. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. It is performed using the shudash scale and in the vope rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to use mordents and match notes and syllables.
- The singer always does the main melody and should be spirited.
- The ngonero always provides the rhythm and should perform sweetly.
- The Blooming Blossom has a well-defined multi-passage structure: an introduction and a theme, a lengthy bridge-passage and a series of variations on the theme.
- The introduction is fast. The singer's voice stays in the low register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
- The theme is slower than the last passage. The singer's voice stays in the middle register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
- The bridge-passage is consistently slowing. The singer's voice ranges from the low register to the middle register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
- The series of variations is twice the tempo of the last passage. The singer's voice stays in the middle register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals. The passage should be composed and performed using syncopation.
- 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 shudash pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 6th, the 9th, the 14th and the 18th.
- The vope rhythm is made from two patterns: the gad and the udal. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
- The gad 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.
- The udal rhythm is a single line with seven beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
- | x x - - - x x |
- where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
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