The Cyme of Plectrums

The Cyme of Plectrums is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Inefficient Evils. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. The music is played on two exustog, a xus and three lungur. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. It is performed using the barulo scale and in the snosmraz rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to locally improvise and alternate tension and repose.

• Each exustog always does the main melody and should feel tender. The voice uses its entire range from the slicing low register to the crisp high register.
• The xus always provides the rhythm and should be vigorous.
• Each lungur always provides the rhythm and should be vigorous.
• The Cyme of Plectrums has a simple structure: three to four lengthy unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is moderately fast, and it is to fade into silence. Each passage should often include a rising melody pattern with grace notes and often include a falling melody pattern with flattened fifth degree and sharpened sixth degree as well as rapid runs.
• Scales are constructed from twelve notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance. After a scale is constructed, notes are named according to degree. The names are obungasnu (spoken ob), strob (stro), kestraruga (ke), dot (do), obst (obst), omuslone (om) and gul (gu).
• The barulo heptatonic scale is thought of as joined chords spanning a perfect fifth and a perfect fourth. These chords are named ragu and assna.
• The ragu pentachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd, the 5th and the 8th degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The assna tetrachord is the 8th, the 9th, the 11th and the 13th (completing the octave) degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The snosmraz rhythm is made from two patterns: the reraspog (considered the primary) and the buzsp. The patterns are to be played in the same beat, allowing one to repeat before the other is concluded.
• The reraspog rhythm is a single line with three beats. The beats are named exazgong (spoken ex), alazgo (al) and zesnunsura (ze). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | X`x x'|
• where X marks an accented beat, ` marks a beat as early, ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat and | indicates a bar.
• The buzsp rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x |
• where x is a beat and | indicates a bar.

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