The Teal Paddles

The Teal Paddles is a devotional form of music directed toward the worship of Zepave Fishweather originating in The Robust Berry. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. The music is played on three icithi. The entire performance is moderately paced. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed using the datha scale and in the nanotha rhythm. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to play legato.

• Each icithi always does the main melody and should sparkle.
• The Teal Paddles has the following structure: a theme and one to two brief series of variations on the theme.
• The theme is to be very soft. Each of the icithi ranges from the wispy low register to the rippling middle register. The passage should be composed and performed using glides.
• Each of the series of variations is to be soft. Each of the icithi covers its entire range from the wispy low register to the sparkling high register.
• Scales are constructed from twenty-four notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxO, 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. After a scale is constructed, notes are named according to degree. The names are fathinu (spoken fa), thili (thi), fomire (fo), fela (fe), aweme (aw) and yaniye (ya).
• The datha hexatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 4th, the 9th, the 13th, the 17th and the 21st.
• The nanotha rhythm is made from two patterns: the atho and the mathuva. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The atho rhythm is a single line with sixteen beats divided into two bars in a 8-8 pattern. The beats are named datome (spoken da), lari (la), aratha (ar), imeri (im), thuna (thu), fidale (fi), tarathe (ta) and cuthefi (cu). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x'x x - - X - | - x - X x x - x |
• where X marks an accented beat, ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The mathuva rhythm is a single line with thirty-one beats divided into five bars in a 3-5-4-11-8 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x - | - - - - x | - x - x | x x x - - X x'- x - x | - - - - x - x - |
• where X marks an accented beat, ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

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