The Wholegrain Durum-Grain

The Wholegrain Durum-grain is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Judgemental Confederation. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. One to three singers recite nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a sparongdapo. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance should be vigorous. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the uwakri scale and in the gad rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to modulate frequently and play staccato.

• Each singer always provides the rhythm.
• The sparongdapo always does the main melody.
• The Wholegrain Durum-grain has a well-defined multi-passage structure: an introduction, a passage and a brief finale.
• The introduction accelerates as it proceeds, and it is to fade into silence. The sparongdapo is confined to the crisp high register and each of the singers' voices covers its entire range. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
• The simple passage is extremely fast, and it is to become louder and louder. The sparongdapo ranges from the piercing low register to the crisp middle register and each of the singers' voices ranges from the middle register to the high register. This passage typically has some sparse chords.
• The finale is extremely fast, and it is to be moderately soft. The sparongdapo is confined to the piercing low register and each of the singers' voices covers its entire range. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
• Scales are conceived of as two chords built using a division of the perfect fourth interval into eleven notes. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are vuthrilsim (spoken vu, 2nd), desle (de, 4th) and pethrebinpu (pe, 11th).
• As always, the uwakri heptatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named ohural and equanamsespe.
• The ohural tetrachord is the 1st, the 4th, the 6th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The equanamsespe tetrachord is the 1st, the 3rd, the 6th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The gad rhythm is made from two patterns: the emsor (considered the primary) and the bushcirne. The patterns are to be played in the same beat, allowing one to repeat before the other is concluded.
• The emsor rhythm is a single line with twelve beats divided into two bars in a 6-6 pattern. The beats are named naccak (spoken na), vishages (vi), kungujith (ku), udal (ud), xur (xu) and ibbekur (ib). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - - - x - | - - x x x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The bushcirne rhythm is a single line with twenty-three beats divided into two bars in a 7-16 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x`x - x x x'x | - x - x - x - - x x - - - x - - |
• where ` marks a beat as early, ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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