The Heather of Pepper-Plants

The Heather of Pepper-plants is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Clocks of Disloyalty. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. Three chanters recite nonsensical words and sounds. The entire performance is slow, and it is to be in whispered undertones. The melody has phrases of varied length 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 glide from note to note and play arpeggios.

• Each chanter always does the main melody and should feel calm. The voice ranges from the middle register to the high register.
• The Heather of Pepper-plants has the following structure: an introduction and three to five unrelated passages.
• The introduction is performed in the vuthrilsim rhythm.
• Each of the simple passages is performed in the kungujith rhythm.
• The vuthrilsim rhythm is a single line with thirty-two beats divided into four bars in a 8-8-8-8 pattern. The beats are named desle (spoken de), pethrebinpu (pe), uthrogumat (uthr), sorot (so), pumdom (pu), dos (do), aheda (ah) and ofing (of). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x 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.
• The kungujith rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beats are named udal (spoken ud) and xur (xu). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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