The Tress of Cherishing

The Tress of Cherishing is a devotional form of music originating in The Maligned Devil. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A singer recites any composition of The Fabulous Strategy while the music is played on a aslot. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance is to be moderately soft. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. It is performed without preference for a scale. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to make trills.

• The singer always does the main melody, should feel mournful and uses mordents.
• The aslot always provides the rhythm and should perform expressively.
• The Tress of Cherishing has the following structure: a brief passage and another one to two passages possibly all repeated.
• The first simple passage slows and broadens. The singer's voice covers its entire range. Only one pitch is ever played at a time in this passage. The passage is performed in the tobog rhythm. The passage should be composed and performed using glides.
• Each of the second simple passages is moderately paced. The singer's voice stays in the low register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals. Each passage is performed in free rhythm. Each passage should be composed and performed using glides.
• The rhythm system is fundamentally polyrhythmic. There are always multiple rhythm lines, and each of their bars is played over the same period of time, regardless of the number of beats. The rhythm lines are thought of as one, without a primary-subordinate relationship, though individual lines can be named.
• The tobog rhythm is made from two patterns: the nolsmu and the zaxo. As stated above, they are to be played in polyrhythm.
• The nolsmu rhythm is a single line with seven beats. The beats are named agun (spoken ag), ung (ung), stotho (sto), bor (bo), osm (osm), enu (en) and stol (sto). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - x - x - - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The zaxo rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beats are named ospo (spoken os) and strog (stro). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x'x |
• where ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat and | indicates a bar.

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