The Melodic Cashew-Apple

The Melodic Cashew-apple is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Mores of Exhorting. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A speaker recites The Adventurous Hire while the music is played on a hispkazeb and a zithi. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The melody has long phrases throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. It is performed in the ibalarek rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to make trills, alternate tension and repose and play arpeggios.

• The speaker always should stress the rhythm.
• The hispkazeb always provides the rhythm and should feel mysterious.
• The zithi always does the main melody, should be broad and uses grace notes. The voice uses its entire range from the watery low register to the sparkling high register.
• The Melodic Cashew-apple has a simple structure: three to five lengthy unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is at a walking pace, and it is to be moderately loud. Each passage is performed using the oxuskor scale.
• Scales are constructed from fifteen notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1-x-xx-x-x-x-xx-xxx-xx-xO, 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.
• The oxuskor pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 5th, the 6th, the 10th and the 12th.
• The ibalarek rhythm is a single line with eighteen beats divided into six bars in a 3-3-3-3-3-3 pattern. The beats are named uwakri (spoken uw), xathrato (xa) and furithali (fu). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x x | x x - | x - - | x - x | - x x | - x x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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