The Cymose Custard-Apple

The Cymose Custard-apple is a devotional form of music originating in The Mores of Exhorting. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. The music is played on a ulcor and a ithgek. The musical voices bring melody and counterpoint. The entire performance is to be moderately soft. The melody and counterpoint both have short phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the ohug scale and in the xur rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to locally improvise and modulate frequently. From beginning to end, when improvising, artists should always include a rising-falling melody pattern with sharpened second degree on the fall.

• The ulcor always should stress the rhythm, uses grace notes and plays legato. The voice uses its entire range from the flat low register to the pure high register.
• The ithgek always does the main melody and should perform sweetly.
• The Cymose Custard-apple has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a brief introduction and a theme, a brief bridge-passage and one to two series of variations on the theme.
• The introduction is voiced by the melody of the ithgek. The passage is slow. The ithgek is confined to the flat low register. Chords are packed close together in dense clusters in this passage.
• The theme is voiced by the melody of the ithgek and the counterpoint of the ulcor. The passage is at a walking pace. The ithgek is confined to the crisp middle register and the ulcor covers its entire range from the flat low register to the pure high register. Chords are packed close together in dense clusters in this passage.
• The bridge-passage is voiced by the melody of the ulcor and the melody of the ithgek. The passage is fast. The ulcor covers its entire range from the flat low register to the pure high register and the ithgek ranges from the crisp middle register to the strident high register. This passage typically has some sparse chords.
• Each of the series of variations is voiced by the melody of the ithgek. Each passage is fast. The ithgek ranges from the flat low register to the crisp middle register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
• 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 ohug hexatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 4th, the 5th, the 6th, the 8th and the 11th.
• The xur rhythm is a single line with four beats. The beats are named ibbekur (spoken ib), ocgothrom (oc), ingdaspod (ing) and gad (ga). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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