The Venerable Play

The Venerable Play is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Unbridled Dale. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A singer recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on a irede. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance should be joyful and is moderately paced. The melody has phrases of varied length throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. The music repeats for as long as necessary. It is performed using the cebela scale and in the upe rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to make trills, alternate tension and repose and play staccato.

• The singer always provides the rhythm. The voice stays in the high register.
• The irede always does the main melody. The voice uses its entire range from the quavering low register to the sparkling high register.
• The Venerable Play has a simple structure: three to four unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is to be in whispered undertones.
• Scales are constructed from fifteen notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1-x-x-x-xx-x-xxxx-xx-x-xO, 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.
• The cebela hexatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th, the 6th, the 9th and the 11th.
• The upe rhythm is made from two patterns: the cede and the fathinu.
• The cede 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 fathinu rhythm is a single line with two beats. The beats are named thili (spoken thi) and fomire (fo). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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