The Sienna Petal

The Sienna Petal is a form of music used to commemorate important events originating in The Lilac of Praise. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A speaker recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a nemo. The musical voices are joined in melody. The entire performance becomes frenzied as it proceeds. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. It is performed without preference for a scale. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to glide from note to note and make trills.

• The speaker always should be jumpy.
• The nemo always does the main melody and should feel agitated.
• The Sienna Petal has the following structure: a lengthy introduction and three to five lengthy unrelated passages.
• In the introduction, the nemo covers its entire range from the wavering low register to the strained high register. The passage is performed in free rhythm.
• In each of the simple passages, the nemo stays in the strained high register. Each passage is performed in the abure rhythm.
• The rhythm system is fundamentally polymetric. There are always multiple rhythm lines, and the beats are always played together, even if one rhythm line completes (and then repeats) before the other is finished. The rhythm lines are thought of as one, without a primary-subordinate relationship, though individual lines can be named.
• The abure rhythm is made from three patterns: the oma (considered the primary), the upe and the arazi. As stated above, they are to be played in polymeter.
• The oma 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 upe rhythm is a single line with eight beats. The beats are named amama (spoken am), thafatha (tha), etini (et), ile (il), atha (ath), alo (al), aveya (av) and mafina (ma). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - x X x - - x |
• where X marks an accented beat, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The arazi rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into two bars in a 8-8 pattern. The beats are named fidale (spoken fi), tarathe (ta), cuthefi (cu), cede (ce), otoga (ot), dinade (di), ele (el) and timafi (ti). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x X x x x - - x | - - - - - x - - |
• where X marks an accented beat, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events