The Prim Tones
The Prim Tones is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originally devised by the elf Fela Whiskeredbasis. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. The music is played on a corowa. The entire performance is to be very loud. The melody has mid-length phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the cebela scale and in the arazi rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to play staccato and play legato.
- The corowa always does the main melody and should perform expressively.
- The Prim Tones has a well-defined multi-passage structure: a first theme, an exposition of the first theme, a lengthy second theme, an exposition of the second theme and a synthesis of previous passages.
- The first theme is fast. The corowa stays in the muddy middle register. Chords are packed close together in dense clusters in this passage.
- The first exposition is fast. The corowa stays in the muddy middle register. Chords are packed close together in dense clusters in this passage.
- The second theme gradually slows as it comes to an end. The corowa ranges from the muddy middle register to the rippling high register. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage.
- The second exposition is very slow. The corowa ranges from the raspy low register to the muddy middle register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals.
- The synthesis is slow. The corowa ranges from the raspy low register to the muddy middle register. This passage is richly layered with full chords making use of the available range.
- 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 arazi rhythm is a single line with thirty-two beats divided into four bars in a 9-11-6-6 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
- | x x x - 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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