The Dunes of Dawning

The Dunes of Dawning is a devotional form of music directed toward the worship of Aye the Furs of Heather originally devised by the elf Coce Festivelilacs. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A singer recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on one to five ice, a nithara and two thilama. The musical voices join in melody and counterpoint, harmony and rhythm. The entire performance should evoke tears and is very fast. The melody has mid-length phrases, while the counterpoint has phrases of varied length throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. It is performed using the yaniye scale and in the soya rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to locally improvise and freely adjust the beats. From beginning to end, when improvising, artists should sometimes include a falling-rising melody pattern with flattened sixth degree on the fall as well as mordents, arpeggios and legato and sometimes include a rising-falling melody pattern with glides and trills.

• The Dunes of Dawning has a well-defined multi-passage structure: an introduction, a verse and a chorus possibly all repeated, a lengthy bridge-passage and a chorus and a verse.
• The introduction is voiced by the melody of the nithara, the counterpoint of the singer reciting any composition of The Natural Bud, the harmony of the ice and the harmony of the thilama. The passage is to be loud. The singer's voice ranges from the middle register to the high register and each of the ice stays in the crisp low register.
• The first verse is voiced by the melody of the singer reciting nonsensical words and sounds, the melody of the thilama and the harmony of the ice. The passage is to start loud then be immediately soft. The singer's voice stays in the low register and each of the ice ranges from the watery middle register to the dull high register.
• The first chorus is voiced by the melody of the ice, the counterpoint of the thilama, the harmony of the singer reciting nonsensical words and sounds and the rhythm of the nithara. The passage is to be very loud. Each of the ice covers its entire range from the crisp low register to the dull high register and the singer's voice stays in the high register.
• The bridge-passage is voiced by the melody of the singer reciting The Reason of Glitter and the rhythm of the nithara. The passage is to be soft. The singer's voice covers its entire range.
• The second chorus is voiced by the melody of the singer reciting nonsensical words and sounds and the harmony of the ice. The passage is to be in whispered undertones. The singer's voice covers its entire range and each of the ice covers its entire range from the crisp low register to the dull high register.
• The second verse is voiced by the melody of the singer reciting The Reason of Glitter, the melody of the ice and the rhythm of the thilama. The passage is to become softer and softer. The singer's voice stays in the low register and each of the ice stays in the crisp low register.
• Scales are constructed from twelve notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance.
• The yaniye hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords spanning a tritone and a perfect fourth. These chords are named aro and fena.
• The aro tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 4th and the 7th degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The fena trichord is the 8th, the 9th and the 13th (completing the octave) degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The soya rhythm is made from two patterns: the pama and the mathuva. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The pama rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The mathuva rhythm is a single line with seven beats. The beats are named bulifo (spoken bu), ada (ad), mamo (ma), icithi (ic), arile (ar), opa (op) and eli (el). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x x X - - x`|
• where X marks an accented beat, ` marks a beat as early, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events

• In late spring of 273, The Dunes of Dawning was created by the elf Coce Festivelilacs in Creaturebuds in order to glorify her deity Aye the Furs of Heather after praying to Aye