The Pistillate Monkey-Pot
The Pistillate Monkey-pot is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Citizen of Confederacy. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A singer recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on two iz. The musical voices are joined in melody. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. It is performed using the opoq scale and in the fiepo rhythm.
- The singer always does the main melody and should evoke tears.
- Each iz always does the main melody and should evoke tears.
- The Pistillate Monkey-pot has a well-defined multi-passage structure: an introduction and a passage and an additional passage possibly all repeated.
- The introduction is slow, and it is to be loud. The singer's voice ranges from the middle register to the high register. This passage typically has some sparse chords. The passage should be performed using locally improvisation. The passage should sometimes include a falling-rising melody pattern with flattened fourth degree on the rise as well as mordents.
- The first simple passage is moderately paced, and it is to be very soft. The singer's voice ranges from the low register to the middle register. Chords are packed close together in dense clusters in this passage.
- The second simple passage is at a walking pace, and it is to become louder and louder. The singer's voice stays in the middle register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals. The passage should be performed using locally improvisation. The passage should sometimes include a rising-falling melody pattern with trills and sometimes include a falling-rising melody pattern with sharpened second degree on the rise as well as glides, trills, rapid runs and staccato.
- 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 opoq pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 2nd, the 11th, the 14th and the 19th.
- 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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