The Azure Laces

The Azure Laces is a form of music used for entertainment originally devised by the elf Itha Visedmother. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. The music is played on a corowa and a thimire. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. It is performed using the datome scale and in the otoga rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to glide from note to note, make trills and syncopate.

• The corowa always does the main melody and should be triumphant.
• The thimire always provides the rhythm and should feel heavy. The voice ranges from the warm middle register to the muddy high register.
• The Azure Laces has the following structure: one to two passages and an additional passage possibly all repeated.
• Each of the first simple passages is moderately paced, and it is to be loud. The corowa stays in the rippling high register and the thimire ranges from the warm middle register to the muddy high register. This passage typically has some sparse chords.
• The second simple passage is very slow, and it is to become louder and louder. The corowa ranges from the raspy low register to the muddy middle register and the thimire ranges from the warm middle register to the muddy high register. Chords are packed close together in dense clusters 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 datome heptatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named adi and thili.
• The adi tetrachord is the 1st, the 3rd, the 4th and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The thili tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd and the 8th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The otoga rhythm is a single line with thirty-two beats divided into six bars in a 4-6-6-6-7-3 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 x | - x x |
• where ` marks a beat as early, ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events

• In early spring of 269, The Azure Laces was created by the elf Itha Visedmother in Oaktongue