The Songs of Cavorting

The Songs of Cavorting is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Portals of Strength. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. The music is played on two udiz, a nelzur and a imust. The musical voices bring melody, counterpoint and rhythm. The entire performance should bring a sense of motion and is moderately paced, and it is to be very loud. The counterpoint melody has long phrases throughout the form. Pitches are densely packed in clusters as music moves from chord to chord. It is performed using the izeg scale and in the ngarak rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to play rapid runs and syncopate.

• The imust always does the main melody.
• The Songs of Cavorting has the following structure: a lengthy introduction and a passage.
• The introduction is voiced by the melody of the imust, the counterpoint of the nelzur and the rhythm of the udiz. The imust ranges from the resonant low register to the crisp middle register. The passage has mid-length phrases in the melody.
• The simple passage is voiced by the melody of the imust and the rhythm of the nelzur. The imust stays in the resonant low register. The passage has phrases of varied length in the melody. The passage should be composed and performed using glides.
• Scales are constructed from twelve notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. 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 ontak (spoken ont) and tosid (to).
• The izeg pentatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords spanning a perfect fifth and a major third. These chords are named nicol and emar.
• The nicol trichord is the 1st, the 6th and the 8th degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The emar trichord is the 9th, the 10th and the 13th (completing the octave) degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The ngarak rhythm is made from two patterns: the thatthil and the ugog. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The thatthil rhythm is a single line with seven beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x x x x x x |
• where x is a beat and | indicates a bar.
• The ugog rhythm is a single line with three beats. The beats are named ish (spoken ish), robek (ro) and olmul (ol). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events