The Backbone of Plumes

The Backbone of Plumes is a devotional form of music directed toward the worship of Anithamefive the Fire-agate Bull-shark originating in The Obsidian of Apples. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A singer recites The Crumbly Slaughterhouse. The entire performance is consistently slowing. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed without preference for a scale. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to locally improvise, play staccato and spread syllables over many notes.

• The singer always does the main melody and should feel mournful. The voice stays in the middle register.
• The Backbone of Plumes has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a brief passage and an additional passage possibly all repeated and a finale.
• The first simple passage is to become louder and louder. The passage is performed in the viceva rhythm.
• The second simple passage is to become softer and softer. The passage is performed in the seyawi rhythm.
• The finale is to fade into silence. The passage is performed in the teze rhythm.
• The viceva rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beats are named moro (spoken mo) and ebalo (eb). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The seyawi rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beats are named mila (spoken mi) and ezococa (ez). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The teze rhythm is made from two patterns: the ebecari and the wonethu. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The ebecari rhythm is a single line with eight beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - - - - - x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The wonethu rhythm is a single line with four beats. The beats are named bolo (spoken bo), ocaquica (oc), slothepanine (slo) and feri (fe). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events