The Vermilion Bride

The Vermilion Bride is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originally devised by the dwarf Erith Diamondlanced. 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 mishak and a esrel. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance should be made with feeling, and it is to be loud. The melody has mid-length phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed using the tosid scale and in the dolush rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to glide from note to note, use grace notes, add fills, alternate tension and repose and play legato.

• The mishak always does the main melody.
• The esrel always provides the rhythm.
• The Vermilion Bride has a well-defined multi-passage structure: an introduction and a passage and an additional passage possibly all repeated.
• The introduction gradually slows as it comes to an end. The mishak covers its entire range from the flat low register to the resonant top register.
• The first simple passage is consistently slowing. The mishak ranges from the low register to the high register.
• The second simple passage is very fast. The mishak ranges from the low register to the high register.
• Scales are conceived of as two chords built using a division of the perfect fourth interval into eleven notes. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance.
• As always, the tosid hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named bidok and zustash.
• The bidok trichord is the 1st, the 7th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The zustash tetrachord is the 1st, the 2nd, the 5th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
• The dolush rhythm is made from two patterns: the emuth and the ibruk. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The emuth rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into eight bars in a 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x | - x | - x | x x | - x | x x | x - | - x |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The ibruk rhythm is a single line with five beats. The beats are named ermis (spoken erm), thoth (tho), thatthil (tha), gostang (go) and libash (li). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x - - X x |
• where X marks an accented beat, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events

• In early spring of 181, The Vermilion Bride was created by the dwarf Erith Diamondlanced in Mellowjumps