The Festive Style
The Festive Style is a form of music used for entertainment originally devised by the elf Lulo Naturalfliers. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. One to five speakers recite any composition of The Natural Shell while the music is played on a darala and a mevena. The musical voices cover melody, harmony and rhythm. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the aratha scale and in free rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to alternate tension and repose.
- Each speaker always should feel mysterious.
- The darala always should perform expressively.
- The mevena always should evoke tears.
- The Festive Style has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a theme, a brief bridge-passage and one to two series of variations on the theme possibly all repeated.
- The theme is voiced by the melody of the mevena, the harmony of the darala and the speakers. The passage is very fast, and it is to be soft. The mevena stays in the nasal high register. This passage is richly layered with full chords making use of the available range. The passage should be composed and performed using locally improvisation and staccato. The passage should often include a falling-rising melody pattern with glides and often include a falling melody pattern with sharpened third degree and sharpened second degree as well as legato.
- The bridge-passage is voiced by the melody of the mevena, the rhythm of the darala and the speakers. The passage accelerates as it proceeds, and it is to be moderately soft. The mevena stays in the nasal high register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
- Each of the series of variations is voiced by the melody of the darala, the harmony of the mevena and the speakers. Each passage is slow, and it is to fade into silence. The mevena stays in the strident low register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
- 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 thuna (spoken thu, 1st), arazi (ar, 4th), fidale (fi, 7th) and tarathe (ta, 9th).
- As always, the aratha pentatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named eyo and fela.
- The eyo trichord is the 1st, the 5th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
- The fela trichord is the 1st, the 5th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
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