The Mirthful Pregnancy

The Mirthful Pregnancy is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Nation of Meeting. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. One to four chanters recite any composition of The Shin of Ferns. The entire performance is fast. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed using the stalcon scale. Throughout, when possible, composers and performers are to use grace notes.

• Each chanter always does the main melody and should perform with skill. The voice stays in the middle register.
• The Mirthful Pregnancy has a simple structure: three brief unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is to be loud. Each passage is performed in the shibbi rhythm.
• Scales are constructed from twelve notes spaced evenly throughout the octave. The tonic note is a fixed tone passed from teacher to student. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are ani (spoken an, 5th), shato (sha, 11th) and almef (al, 12th).
• The stalcon hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords spanning two perfect fourths. These chords are named ilpi and dik.
• The ilpi trichord is the 1st, the 4th and the 6th degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The dik tetrachord is the 8th, the 10th, the 11th and the 13th (completing the octave) degrees of the semitone octave scale.
• The shibbi rhythm is made from three patterns: the tikbo, the seggu and the musda. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
• The tikbo rhythm is a single line with five beats. The beats are named apu (spoken ap), sluste (slu), itlud (it), eman (em) and oth (oth). The beat is stressed as follows:
• | x x x - X |
• where X marks an accented beat, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The seggu rhythm is a single line with four beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x x - |
• where x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
• The musda 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.

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