The Nut of Grain

The Nut of Grain is a form of music used to commemorate important events originating in The Impartial Great-White-Shark. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A singer recites nonsensical words and sounds. The entire performance is to be moderately loud. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed in the viceva rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to use grace notes and play legato.

• The singer always does the main melody.
• The Nut of Grain has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a lengthy theme and one to two series of variations on the theme and a lengthy coda.
• The theme should be melancholic and accelerates as it proceeds. The singer's voice stays in the middle register. The passage has long phrases in the melody. The passage is performed without preference for a scale.
• Each of the series of variations should be grand and is at a free tempo. The singer's voice ranges from the low register to the middle register. Each passage has mid-length phrases in the melody. Each passage is performed using the iwarivuli scale.
• The coda should evoke tears and slows and broadens. The singer's voice ranges from the middle register to the high register. The passage has phrases of varied length in the melody. The passage is performed using the oyifolewe scale.
• Scales are constructed from twelve notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1--x-x-x-x-x-xx-x--x-x-xO, where 1 is the tonic, O marks the octave and x marks other notes. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance.
• The iwarivuli pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th, the 7th and the 10th.
• The oyifolewe heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th, the 5th, the 8th and the 9th.
• The viceva rhythm is a single line with four beats divided into two bars in a 2-2 pattern. The beats are named moro (spoken mo) and ebalo (eb). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x | x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events