The Tone of Pods

The Tone of Pods is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Freeman of Supplying. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. One to two speakers recite nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on three enagal and a pis. The musical voices bring melody and counterpoint. The entire performance should be melancholic, and it is to start loud then be immediately soft. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to use grace notes.

• Each enagal always does the counterpoint melody.
• The pis always does the main melody.
• The Tone of Pods has the following structure: a brief introduction and three unrelated passages.
• The introduction is very fast. The passage has short phrases in the counterpoint melody. This passage typically has some sparse chords. The passage is performed using the ofing scale and in the naccak rhythm.
• Each of the simple passages is at a free tempo. Each passage has long phrases in the counterpoint melody. This passage is richly layered with full chords making use of the available range. Each passage is performed without preference for a scale and in the jonal rhythm.
• Scales are constructed from twelve notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student.
• The ofing hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords spanning a tritone and a perfect fourth. These chords are named pumdom and vuthrilsim.
• The pumdom trichord is the 1st, the 4th and the 7th degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The vuthrilsim tetrachord is the 8th, the 9th, the 11th and the 13th (completing the octave) degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The naccak rhythm is a single line with thirty-two beats divided into four bars in a 8-8-8-8 pattern. The beats are named vishages (spoken vi), kungujith (ku), udal (ud), xur (xu), ibbekur (ib), ocgothrom (oc), ingdaspod (ing) and gad (ga). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - - - x - - - | x - x - - x - - | x x - x - x - x | - x x - x - x x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The jonal rhythm is made from two patterns: the vope and the ehim. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The vope rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into two bars in a 8-8 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - x - x x - - | - x - - - - - - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The ehim rhythm is a single line with four beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x x x |
• where x is a beat and | indicates a bar.

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