The Flowery Spelt-Grain

The Flowery Spelt-grain is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Clocks of Disloyalty. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. Two singers recite nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a pepet and a duni. The musical voices join in melody and counterpoint, harmony and rhythm. The melody has mid-length phrases, while the counterpoint has phrases of varied length throughout the form. It is performed using the xathrato scale and in the ujel rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to syncopate, alternate tension and repose and play staccato.

• Each singer always should feel mysterious and glides from note to note.
• The pepet always should be fiery.
• The duni always should be melancholic.
• The Flowery Spelt-grain has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a lengthy introduction and one to two lengthy passages and another one to two passages.
• The introduction is voiced by the melody of the singers reciting nonsensical words and sounds, the melody of the pepet and the harmony of the duni. The passage accelerates as it proceeds, and it is to become softer and softer. Each of the singers' voices covers its entire range, the pepet ranges from the wavering middle register to the wispy high register and the duni stays in the quavering high register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
• Each of the first simple passages is voiced by the melody of the singers reciting nonsensical words and sounds, the counterpoint of the duni and the rhythm of the pepet. Each passage is very fast, and it is to be very loud. Each of the singers' voices ranges from the low register to the middle register, the duni stays in the raucous low register and the pepet covers its entire range from the wavering low register to the wispy high register. This passage typically has some sparse chords.
• Each of the second simple passages is voiced by the melody of the duni, the counterpoint of the singers reciting nonsensical words and sounds and the harmony of the pepet. Each passage slows and broadens, and it is to become louder and louder. The duni stays in the quavering high register, each of the singers' voices stays in the low register and the pepet covers its entire range from the wavering low register to the wispy high register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
• 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.
• As always, the xathrato heptatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named deh and equanamsespe.
• The deh 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 2nd, the 10th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The ujel rhythm is a single line with twenty-seven beats divided into five bars in a 7-4-5-5-6 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x x x`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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