The Sweetness of Saffron
The Sweetness of Saffron is a form of music used to commemorate important events originally devised by the elf Amayi Inchbucks. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. The music is played on a efami, a thiliri and three ali. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance is at a free tempo, and it is to be loud. The melody has mid-length phrases throughout the form. Pitches are densely packed in clusters as music moves from chord to chord. Throughout, when possible, performers are to locally improvise and alternate tension and repose.
- The efami always does the main melody, should be grand and plays staccato.
- The thiliri always provides the rhythm and should be strong. The voice stays in the shrill high register.
- Each ali always does the main melody, should feel heavy and plays staccato.
- The Sweetness of Saffron has a simple structure: a passage.
- The simple passage is performed using the cebela scale and in the etini rhythm. The passage should always include a falling melody pattern with sharpened third degree as well as arpeggios.
- Scales are constructed from twenty-four notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance.
- The cebela heptatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords spanning a tritone and a perfect fourth. These chords are named datha and aweme.
- The datha tetrachord is the 1st, the 8th, the 10th and the 13th degrees of the quartertone octave scale.
- The aweme tetrachord is the 15th, the 16th, the 24th and the 25th (completing the octave) degrees of the quartertone octave scale.
- 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 etini rhythm is made from two patterns: the aratha (considered the primary) and the timafi. As stated above, they are to be played in polyrhythm.
- The aratha rhythm is a single line with twenty-five beats divided into five bars in a 5-5-5-5-5 pattern. The beats are named imeri (spoken im), thuna (thu), arazi (ar), fidale (fi) and tarathe (ta). The beat is stressed as follows:
- | x x X - x | x ! - - x | - - - x x | x - - - x | X x x x x |
- where ! marks the primary accent, X marks an accented beat, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
- The timafi rhythm is a single line with thirty-two beats divided into eight bars in a 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
- | x X x - | x - - x | x x - - | - - x x | x x ! - | - - x x | X - x x | X - x x |
- where ! marks the primary accent, X marks an accented beat, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
Events