The Rhythmic Sweetnesses

The Rhythmic Sweetnesses is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Mahogany Mine. 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 lavath and a isden. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance is to fade into silence. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. It is performed using the gost scale. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to add fills.

• The chanter always does the main melody and should be delicate.
• The lavath always does the main melody and should be lively.
• The isden always provides the rhythm and should perform with a light touch.
• The Rhythmic Sweetnesses has the following structure: a lengthy passage and an additional passage possibly all repeated.
• The first simple passage is at a free tempo. The chanter's voice ranges from the middle register to the high register and the lavath stays in the gentle high register. This passage is richly layered with full chords making use of the available range. The passage is performed in the lisig rhythm.
• The second simple passage accelerates as it proceeds. The chanter's voice stays in the low register and the lavath covers its entire range from the dark low register to the gentle high register. Chords are packed close together in dense clusters in this passage. The passage is performed in free rhythm. The passage should be composed and performed using mordents.
• 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. After a scale is constructed, the root note of chords are named. The names are feb (spoken fe) and berim (be).
• As always, the gost hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named gatal and emar.
• The gatal trichord is the 1st, the 6th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The emar tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 4th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The lisig rhythm is made from two patterns: the thatthil (considered the primary) and the ibruk.
• The thatthil rhythm is a single line with three beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | X x x |
• where X marks an accented beat, x is a beat and | indicates a bar.
• The ibruk rhythm is a single line with three beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | X x x |
• where X marks an accented beat, x is a beat and | indicates a bar.

Events