The Compositional Rice

The Compositional Rice is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Freeman of Supplying. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A singer recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a vus and a apuwshrenol. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The melody has mid-length phrases throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. It is performed using the aheda scale and in the vope rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to syncopate.

• The singer always does the main melody, should feel tender and uses grace notes.
• The vus always provides the rhythm and should perform sweetly.
• The apuwshrenol always provides the rhythm and should bring a sense of motion.
• The Compositional Rice has the following structure: an introduction and a passage.
• The introduction accelerates as it proceeds, and it is to be in whispered undertones. The singer's voice stays in the middle register.
• The simple passage gradually slows as it comes to an end, and it is to be moderately soft. The singer's voice covers its entire range. The passage should be performed using glides and frequent modulation.
• Scales are constructed from twelve notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student.
• The aheda pentatonic scale is thought of as joined chords spanning a perfect fifth and a perfect fourth. These chords are named ithut and uwakri.
• The ithut trichord is the 1st, the 6th and the 8th degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The uwakri tetrachord is the 8th, the 9th, the 12th and the 13th (completing the octave) degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• 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.

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