The Fruitless Oat

The Fruitless Oat is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Citizen of Confederacy. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A chanter recites nonsensical words and sounds. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed using the toipe scale and in the ako rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to make trills.

• The chanter always does the main melody, should be graceful and is to be moderately soft. The voice stays in the high register.
• The Fruitless Oat has a simple structure: three to four unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is moderately paced.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-three notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxO, 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. Every note is named. The names are toki (spoken to), oq (oq), dotip (do), kotoq (ko), kiqo (ki), ituq (it), piaki (pia), edo (ed), qahpa (qa), ej (ej), at (at), iadok (iad), poqin (po), oti (ot), nuod (nuo), ojip (oj), toad (toa), paciyq (pa), oaf (oaf), ted (te), qeqok (qe), akoi (ak) and op (op).
• The toipe hexatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 5th, the 8th, the 14th, the 17th and the 22nd.
• The ako rhythm is made from two patterns: the kiki and the fiepo. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The kiki rhythm is a single line with thirty beats divided into four bars in a 9-8-7-6 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x x x - x - - - | x x x 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 fiepo rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into two bars in a 8-8 pattern. The beats are named ezok (spoken ez), qapoaq (qa), akoaz (ak), kidoi (ki), jed (je), dokot (do), otep (ot) and ked (ke). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - x - - - x x | x x x - - - x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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