The Groats of Bitter-Oranges

The Groats of Bitter-oranges is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Tireless Megalomania. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. The music is played on a zongosno and a exzaku. 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 in free rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to play rapid runs, locally improvise, syncopate, alternate tension and repose and modulate frequently.

• The zongosno always does the main melody and should bring a sense of motion.
• The exzaku always provides the rhythm and should be passionate.
• The Groats of Bitter-oranges has a simple structure: three unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is moderately paced, and it is to become louder and louder. Each passage is performed using the odo scale. Each passage should sometimes include a falling melody pattern with glides, mordents and trills, always include a rising melody pattern with sharpened third degree as well as glides, mordents, arpeggios and legato and often include a falling-rising melody pattern with glides and arpeggios.
• Scales are conceived of as two chords built using a division of the perfect fourth interval into eleven notes. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are kestraruga (spoken ke, 1st), dot (do, 6th) and obst (obst, 7th).
• As always, the odo heptatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named zuxaz and bagurod.
• The zuxaz tetrachord is the 1st, the 6th, the 8th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The bagurod tetrachord is the 1st, the 4th, the 8th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.

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