The Incense of Sisters
The Incense of Sisters is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originally devised by the elf Iyathi Rocksbeached. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. One to six chanters recite nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a thimire. The musical voices bring melody and counterpoint. The melody and counterpoint both have short phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the cebela scale and in the thuna rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to alternate tension and repose and play staccato. The voice uses its entire range.
- The thimire always does the main melody and locally improvises.
- The Incense of Sisters has the following structure: a brief theme and one to two lengthy series of variations on the theme.
- The theme is voiced by the melody of the thimire and the counterpoint of the chanters reciting any composition of The River of Beaching. The passage should evoke tears and is very slow, and it is to become louder and louder. The thimire covers its entire range from the wispy low register to the muddy high register and each of the chanters' voices covers its entire range. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
- Each of the series of variations is voiced by the melody of the thimire. Each passage should be spirited and is very slow, and it is to be soft. The thimire stays in the wispy 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 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 aratha (spoken ar) and imeri (im).
- As always, the cebela heptatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named ifife and fathinu.
- The ifife tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 6th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
- The fathinu tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 5th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
- The thuna rhythm is a single line with twenty-nine beats divided into three bars in a 9-10-10 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
- | - - x x - x - - - | - - - - x x - x - - | x - x - x x x x x - |
- where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
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