The Fruitless Tulip

The Fruitless Tulip is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Citizen of Confederacy. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A speaker recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a tade. The musical voices are joined in melody. The entire performance should be merry. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the uki scale and in free rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to use mordents, play rapid runs, locally improvise and modulate frequently.

• The speaker always is to fade into silence.
• The tade always does the main melody and is to start loud then be immediately soft.
• The Fruitless Tulip has a well-defined multi-passage structure: an introduction and a lengthy verse and a brief chorus all repeated one times.
• The introduction is very fast. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage. The passage should often include a rising-falling melody pattern with glides and legato.
• The verse accelerates as it proceeds. This passage is richly layered with full chords making use of the available range. The passage should sometimes include a falling melody pattern with glides and staccato.
• The chorus is fast. This passage is richly layered with full chords making use of the available range. The passage should sometimes include a falling melody pattern with flattened sixth degree as well as arpeggios and legato, sometimes include a rising-falling melody pattern with grace notes, often include a rising melody pattern and often include a falling-rising melody pattern with grace notes, trills and arpeggios.
• 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 uki heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 5th, the 7th, the 10th, the 12th, the 17th and the 19th.

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