The Silken Tone

The Silken Tone is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originally devised by the human Iddim Sabrepuzzles. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A speaker recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a uthra and a quab. The musical voices bring melody and counterpoint. The entire performance is to start loud then be immediately soft. The melody has short phrases, while the counterpoint has mid-length phrases throughout the form. Chords, seldom-used, are sparse -- intervals and single pitches are favored. It is performed in the ramet rhythm.

• The speaker always should sparkle.
• The uthra always does the main melody and should perform with feeling.
• The quab always does the counterpoint melody and should be joyful. The voice stays in the floating low register.
• The Silken Tone has a simple structure: a passage.
• The simple passage accelerates as it proceeds. The passage is performed using the rom scale.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-one notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxx-xxx-xxxxxxx-xxxxxxxO, 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 rom heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 3rd, the 8th, the 11th, the 12th, the 16th and the 20th.
• The rhythm system is fundamentally polyrhythmic. There are always multiple rhythm lines, and each of their bars is played over the same period of time, regardless of the number of beats. The rhythm lines are thought of as one, without a primary-subordinate relationship, though individual lines can be named.
• The ramet rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into eight bars in a 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - | - x | x - | x - | x x'| x - | x x | x x |
• where ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events

• In midspring of 170, The Silken Tone was created by the human Iddim Sabrepuzzles in Visedgripped