The Meditation of Learning
The Meditation of Learning is a devotional form of music directed toward the worship of Monom originally devised by the dwarf Ducim Kingdomring. The rules of the form are applied by composers to produce individual pieces of music which can be performed. A chanter recites any composition of The Reticent Wonders while the music is played on a mishak and a kudar. The musical voices bring melody, counterpoint and rhythm. The entire performance is to be loud. The melody has mid-length phrases, while the counterpoint has phrases of varied length throughout the form.
- The chanter always does the counterpoint melody and should be spirited.
- The mishak always does the main melody and should perform sweetly.
- The kudar always provides the rhythm and should stress the rhythm.
- The Meditation of Learning has the following structure: three unrelated passages and a coda.
- Each of the simple passages is fast. The mishak ranges from the low register to the high register and the chanter's voice ranges from the low register to the middle register. This passage features only melodic tones and intervals. Each passage is performed using the tosid scale and in free rhythm. Each passage should be composed and performed using glides.
- The coda is very slow. The mishak is confined to the crisp middle register and the chanter's voice covers its entire range. This passage typically has some sparse chords. The passage is performed using the bemong scale and in the agek rhythm.
- 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.
- As always, the bemong hexatonic scale is thought of as two disjoint chords drawn from the fundamental division of the perfect fourth. These chords are named alak and sedil.
- The alak trichord is the 1st, the 9th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
- The sedil tetrachord is the 1st, the 6th, the 8th and the 11th degrees of the fundamental perfect fourth division.
- The agek rhythm is made from two patterns: the nokzam and the emuth. The patterns are to be played over the same period of time, concluding together regardless of beat number.
- The nokzam rhythm is a single line with seven beats. The beat is stressed as follows:
- | - x - x X x x |
- where X marks an accented beat, x is a beat, - is silent and | indicates a bar.
- 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.
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