The Cymose Spathe

The Cymose Spathe is a form of music used to commemorate important events originating in The Charismatic Group. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. The music is played on a ortut and a imth. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance is to fade into silence. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. It is performed using the shudash scale and in free rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to make trills and modulate frequently.

• The ortut always does the main melody and should be melancholic.
• The imth always provides the rhythm and should perform sweetly.
• The Cymose Spathe has the following structure: a theme and one to two series of variations on the theme possibly all repeated.
• The theme is moderately fast. The ortut stays in the rich low register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
• Each of the series of variations is very fast. The ortut covers its entire range from the rich low register to the rippling high register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-two notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxxxxxx-xx-xxxxxxxxxxxxO, 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 othdo (spoken othd, 5th), ithut (ith, 7th), iquur (iq, 8th), ibalarek (ib, 9th), uwakri (uw, 12th), xathrato (xa, 16th), furithali (fu, 19th) and vuthrilsim (vu, 20th).
• The shudash heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 4th, the 7th, the 11th, the 13th, the 16th and the 19th.

Events