The Sweet Luxury

The Sweet Luxury is a form of music used for entertainment originating in The Disloyalty of Crypts. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A speaker recites any composition of The Larks of Teaching while the music is played on a odsnen and three gasnasp. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed using the usnusp scale and in free rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to use grace notes, modulate frequently and spread syllables over many notes.

• The speaker always should perform with skill.
• The odsnen always provides the rhythm and should be fiery.
• Each gasnasp always does the main melody and should be jumpy. The voice uses its entire range from the watery low register to the strident high register.
• The Sweet Luxury has a simple structure: three brief unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages accelerates as it proceeds, and it is to become softer and softer.
• Scales are constructed from eighteen notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxxx-xx-x-x-xxxxx-x-xxxO, where 1 is the tonic, O marks the octave and x marks other notes. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are ekxox (spoken ek, 4th), asmuk (as, 5th), ok (ok, 11th) and slulasp (slu, 12th).
• The usnusp pentatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 5th, the 10th, the 13th and the 17th.

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