The Messiah of Beasts

The Messiah of Beasts is a devotional form of music directed toward the worship of Sorlok Rocshudders originating in The Chromite of Loyalty. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. The music is played on three stirut, two idam, a ngtad and a ovot. The musical voices join in melody and counterpoint, harmony and rhythm. The entire performance should be spirited. The melody and counterpoint both have short phrases throughout the form. Pitches are densely packed in clusters as music moves from chord to chord. It is performed using the ong scale and in the kistek rhythm.

• The ngtad always does harmony.
• The ovot always provides the rhythm.
• The Messiah of Beasts has the following structure: an introduction and a passage.
• The introduction is voiced by the melody of the idam, the counterpoint of the stirut, the harmony of the ngtad and the rhythm of the ovot. The passage is at a walking pace, and it is to be soft. Each of the idam covers its entire range from the wispy low register to the strident high register, each of the stirut ranges from the strident low register to the raucous middle register and the ngtad stays in the strident low register.
• The simple passage is voiced by the melody of the stirut, the harmony of the idam, the harmony of the ngtad and the rhythm of the ovot. The passage is half the tempo of the last passage, and it is to become louder and louder. Each of the stirut stays in the raucous middle register, each of the idam stays in the strident middle register and the ngtad stays in the raucous high register.
• Scales are constructed from eighteen notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxxx-x-x-x-xxxxxx-x-xxxO, 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.
• The ong heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 5th, the 6th, the 7th, the 8th, the 12th and the 13th.
• The kistek rhythm is a single line with four beats. The beats are named lesul (spoken le), sak (sa), odulimozsen (od) and nebulursed (ne). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x - X`|
• where X marks an accented beat, ` marks a beat as early, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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