The Queen of Ensorceling
The Queen of Ensorceling is a form of music used for entertainment originally devised by the human Nek Tunnelknits. The form guides musicians during improvised performances. The music is played on a ospram. The melody has short phrases throughout the form. Only one pitch is ever played at a time. It is performed using the agtha scale and in the stalcon rhythm. Throughout, when possible, performers are to play staccato.
- The ospram always does the main melody and should feel mournful. The voice stays in the crisp high register.
- The Queen of Ensorceling has the following structure: an introduction and three to four brief unrelated passages.
- The introduction is at a hurried pace, and it is to become louder and louder.
- Each of the simple passages is slow, and it is to become softer and softer.
- Scales are constructed from thirteen notes dividing the octave. In quartertones, their spacing is roughly 1-x-x-x-x-x--xx-x-xx-x-xO, 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. Preferred notes in the fundamental scale are named. The names are dik (spoken di, 5th), tunem (tu, 7th), ramet (ra, 8th), icmon (ic, 9th) and ozi (oz, 11th).
- The agtha heptatonic scale is constructed by selection of degrees from the fundamental scale. The degrees selected are the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th, the 7th, the 9th, the 10th and the 12th.
- The stalcon rhythm is a single line with thirty-two beats divided into eight bars in a 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4 pattern. The beat is stressed as follows:
- | x x X x | - x - x | x - - - | x - x - | - x - - | x x x X | 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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