The Stamen of Fonio-Grains

The Stamen of Fonio-grains is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Inclusion of Bans. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. The music is played on a curidunzov and a sorot. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance slows and broadens, and it is to be in whispered undertones. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. It is performed using the iquur scale and in free rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to use grace notes and play arpeggios.

• The curidunzov always does the main melody.
• The sorot always should feel mysterious.
• The Stamen of Fonio-grains has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a verse and a chorus all repeated one times, a bridge-passage and a lengthy verse and a chorus.
• The first verse is voiced by the melody of the curidunzov and the rhythm of the sorot. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
• The first chorus is voiced by the melody of the curidunzov and the rhythm of the sorot. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage. The passage should be performed using legato.
• The bridge-passage is voiced by the melody of the curidunzov and the rhythm of the sorot. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals. The passage should be performed using staccato.
• The second verse is voiced by the melody of the curidunzov and the rhythm of the sorot. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
• The second chorus is voiced by the melody of the curidunzov. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage. The passage should be performed using legato.
• Scales are conceived of as two chords built using a division of the perfect fourth interval into eight notes. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance. A single note in the fundamental scale is named. It is called xathrato (spoken xa, 1st).
• As always, the iquur heptatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named ohural and ithut.
• The ohural tetrachord is the 1st, the 3rd, the 6th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The ithut tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 7th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.

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