The Orchard of Musicians

The Orchard of Musicians is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Indispensable Tubes. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A chanter recites any composition of The Milk-Opal Tar while the music is played on a vabitnis and a ukostin. The musical voices are joined in melody. The entire performance is to fade into silence. The melody has long phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the imkekir scale and in the ozlomig rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to alternate tension and repose.

• The chanter always does the main melody and should feel mournful.
• The vabitnis always does the main melody and should be fiery.
• The ukostin always does the main melody and should be vigorous.
• The Orchard of Musicians has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a theme, a bridge-passage and one to two series of variations on the theme possibly all repeated.
• The theme accelerates as it proceeds. The chanter's voice ranges from the middle register to the high register and the ukostin is confined to the reedy top register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
• The bridge-passage accelerates as it proceeds. The chanter's voice ranges from the middle register to the high register and the ukostin is confined to the reedy top register. This passage typically has some sparse chords.
• Each of the series of variations is fast. The chanter's voice covers its entire range and the ukostin covers its entire range from the fragile low register to the reedy top 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 eight notes. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student.
• As always, the imkekir hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named un and afonan.
• The un tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The afonan trichord is the 1st, the 5th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The ozlomig rhythm is made from two patterns: the elomamar (considered the primary) and the rekom. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The elomamar rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The rekom rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into eight bars in a 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 pattern. The beats are named ozisash (spoken oz) and tamosh (ta). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x`| - x | x - | x - | x - | x - | - x | - x |
• where ` marks a beat as early, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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