The Tone of Drumming

The Tone of Drumming is a form of music used during marches and military engagements originating in The Tress of Bewildering. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. One to two singers recite any composition of The Song of Sparkles while the music is played on a ime and a leye. The music is melody and rhythm without harmony. The entire performance is to be moderately loud. The melody has mid-length phrases throughout the form. Never more than an interval sounds at once. It is performed using the eyo scale and in the amama rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to alternate tension and repose.

• Each singer always does the main melody and should be triumphant. The voice ranges from the low register to the middle register.
• The ime always provides the rhythm and should feel heavy. The voice uses its entire range from the floating low register to the liquid high register.
• The leye always does the main melody and should be grand.
• The Tone of Drumming has a simple structure: three unrelated passages.
• Each of the simple passages is very slow.
• Scales are constructed from thirteen notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1-x-x-x-x-x--xx-xx-x-x-xO, where 1 is the tonic, O marks the octave and x marks other notes. The tonic note is fixed only at the time of performance.
• The eyo hexatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 4th, the 5th, the 7th, the 8th and the 10th.
• The amama rhythm is a single line with nineteen beats divided into four bars in a 7-4-3-5 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
• | - x - ! x - - | X x x x | x'- x | x x - x X |
• where ! marks the primary accent, X marks an accented beat, ' marks a beat as late, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.

Events