The Bewildering Plays

The Bewildering Plays is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Persuasive Sin. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. A chanter recites nonsensical words and sounds while the music is played on two oslu. The musical voices are joined in melody. The entire performance is moderately fast. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. It is performed using the ost scale and in the osmze rhythm.

• The chanter always does the main melody and should be spirited. The voice ranges from the low register to the middle register.
• Each oslu always does the main melody and should feel mysterious. The voice stays in the sweet high register.
• The Bewildering Plays has a simple structure: three to four lengthy unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is to be soft.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-four notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student.
• The ost heptatonic scale is thought of as joined chords spanning a perfect fifth and a perfect fourth. These chords are named ogo and slulasp.
• The ogo pentachord is the 1st, the 3rd, the 7th, the 12th and the 15th degrees of the quartertone octave scale.
• The slulasp tetrachord is the 15th, the 19th, the 21st and the 25th (completing the octave) degrees of the quartertone octave scale.
• The osmze rhythm is made from two patterns: the ustrok (considered the primary) and the uto. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The ustrok rhythm is a single line with four beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - - x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The uto rhythm is a single line with eight beats. The beats are named nol (spoken no), dab (da), agun (ag), ung (ung), stotho (sto), bor (bo), osm (osm) and enu (en). 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.

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