The Date of Strawberries

The Date of Strawberries is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Beak-Dog of Dregs. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A chanter recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a namak. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Pitches are densely packed in clusters as music moves from chord to chord. It is performed in the tasnugmutkud rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to add fills and alternate tension and repose.

• The chanter always provides the rhythm, should be passionate and is to be loud. The voice ranges from the low register to the middle register.
• The namak always does the main melody, should feel mysterious and is to be moderately soft. The voice stays in the sonorous high register.
• The Date of Strawberries has a simple structure: a passage.
• The simple passage gradually slows as it comes to an end. The passage is performed using the gaxog scale.
• Scales are conceived of as two chords built using a division of the perfect fourth interval into eleven notes. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are tekug (spoken te, 1st) and barulo (ba, 9th).
• As always, the gaxog hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named ragu and uturo.
• The ragu trichord is the 1st, the 7th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The uturo tetrachord is the 1st, the 4th, the 9th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The tasnugmutkud rhythm is made from two patterns: the ulong and the doram. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The ulong rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into four bars in a 4-4-4-4 pattern. The beats are named exusp (spoken ex), ozu (oz), dusmorabur (du) and kulu (ku). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x x - | x - x - | x - - - | x x x x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The doram rhythm is a single line with three beats. The beats are named ellusmesmuk (spoken el), langkaz (la) and reraspog (re). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x x |
• where x is a beat and | indicates a bar.

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