The Fruitful Pod

The Fruitful Pod is a form of music used to commemorate important events originating in The Soybean-Plant of Lobsters. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A singer recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on two ifave and two toni. The musical voices join in melody, counterpoint and harmony. The entire performance should be made with feeling. The melody and counterpoint both have phrases of varied length throughout the form. It is performed in the slothepanine rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to play staccato.

• The Fruitful Pod has a well-defined multi-passage structure: an introduction and a theme and a series of variations on the theme possibly all repeated.
• The introduction is voiced by the melody of the singer reciting nonsensical words and sounds, the harmony of the ifave and the harmony of the toni. The passage accelerates as it proceeds, and it is to be loud. The singer's voice covers its entire range, each of the ifave stays in the muddy high register and each of the toni covers its entire range from the heavy low register to the watery high register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals. The passage is performed using the izela scale.
• The theme is voiced by the melody of the toni and the harmony of the singer reciting nonsensical words and sounds. The passage is very slow, and it is to become softer and softer. Each of the toni covers its entire range from the heavy low register to the watery high register and the singer's voice covers its entire range. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals. The passage is performed using the ipila scale.
• The series of variations is voiced by the melody of the toni, the counterpoint of the singer reciting nonsensical words and sounds and the harmony of the ifave. The passage is moderately paced, and it is to be moderately loud. Each of the toni stays in the watery high register, the singer's voice stays in the high register and each of the ifave covers its entire range from the eerie low register to the muddy high register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage. The passage is performed using the everinopefa scale.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-three notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxO, 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. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are ifiyo (spoken if, 4th), izeli (iz, 9th), bone (bo, 10th), umamalu (um, 12th), emayethi (em, 14th), ithi (ith, 15th), seyawi (se, 18th), mila (mi, 20th) and ezococa (ez, 23rd).
• The izela heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 5th, the 9th, the 10th, the 13th, the 16th and the 19th.
• The ipila hexatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 5th, the 10th, the 14th, the 16th and the 19th.
• The everinopefa pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 6th, the 10th, the 16th and the 21st.
• The slothepanine rhythm is a single line with twenty-three beats divided into two bars in a 15-8 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - x - x x - x x - - x - - x | - - - x - x x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events