The Vinous Olive

The Vinous Olive is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The System of Gorillas. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. Three to six chanters recite nonsensical words and sounds. The entire performance is to be moderately loud. The melody has mid-length phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed using the ohural scale and in the anar rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to use mordents, play rapid runs, locally improvise and play staccato.

• Each chanter always does the main melody and should perform with feeling. The voice stays in the low register.
• The Vinous Olive has a simple structure: three to five unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is extremely fast. Each passage should often include a rising melody pattern with flattened second degree as well as glides, often include a rising-falling melody pattern with sharpened second degree on the rise as well as glides, often include a falling-rising melody pattern with flattened third degree on the rise and sometimes include a falling melody pattern with legato.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-four notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student.
• The ohural pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 6th, the 11th, the 15th and the 21st.
• The anar rhythm is made from three patterns: the sorot (considered the primary), the uthrogumat and the ocgothrom. The patterns are to be played in the same beat, allowing one to repeat before the other is concluded.
• The sorot rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into two bars in a 8-8 pattern. The beats are named pumdom (spoken pu), dos (do), aheda (ah), ofing (of), ujel (uj), bushcirne (bu), emsor (ems) and naccak (na). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - x x x x - x | x x x x x x - x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The uthrogumat rhythm is a single line with twenty-one beats divided into four bars in a 5-6-4-6 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x x - - | - x x x x'- | x x x x | - - x x - x |
• where ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The ocgothrom 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.

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