Old Albic music
Old Albic music is the music of the British Elves during the era of the Commonwealth of the Elves. Most of our knowledge of this music tradition stems from a treatise on music found in the Tresco Library.
Some basic terminology
The Old Albic word for music is dindis, the corresponding verb ('to play music/an instrument') is dindi; a musical instrument is accordingly a dindil and a musician a dindera. Laras means 'song'; lara is the verb 'to sing', and a singer a larera. A note is a dinding.
Pitches are described as mach 'big', i.e. low, or pich 'small', i.e. high. This stems from the observation that small things usually make high sounds and big things low sounds. Dynamics is expressed with nard 'loud' and sand 'soft'.
Pitch
Old Albic music uses a scale based on the harmonic series, as can be produced by a natural trumpet player or overtone singer, with eight steps to the octave.
| Pitch ratio | 1/1 | 9/8 | 5/4 | 11/8 | 3/2 | 13/8 | 7/4 | 15/8 | 2/1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cents | 0 | 203.9 | 386.3 | 551.3 | 702.0 | 840.5 | 968.8 | 1088.2 | 1200.0 |
| Closest note in 12ET | C | D | E | F/F# | G | Ab/A | Bb | B | C |
| Harmonics | 1 | 2 | |||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | |||||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |||||
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
The sharpened fourth, which is half way towards a tritone, gives Old Albic music a somewhat lydian sonority.
Rhythm
The basic unit of rhythm (tuphus) is a bar or 'breath' (sulus) which consists of twelve atomic units of time (blag, lit. 'blink'). Each note (dinding) is 1, 2, 3 or 4 blegim long. The simplest rhythms, such as 3-3-3-3 and 2-2-2-2-2-2 (the numbers indicate the lengths of the notes) are most common, especially in folk songs, but more complex rhythms such as 1-2-4-2-3 also occur.
Texture
Texture differs between folk music and art music. Folk music is heterophonic. There is one instrument (often a voice) performing the melody, while the other instruments play basically the same melody but embellish it in various ways, and drums mark the fundamental rhythm and sections. Art music, in contrast, is polyphonic and marked by intricate counterpoint, especially four-part vocal music.
Instruments
The most common instruments are the harp (gidir), the flute (siphil), the reed pipe (cran), the trumpet (tradar), the horn (chras) and the drum (tumbur). Flutes and reed pipes come in four different sizes, corresponding to the four vocal range classes (see below). There are also different sizes of drums. Three keyboard instruments are known, the clithigidir (literally, 'key harp'), a stringed instrument similar to a harpsichord; the siphilir (literally, 'flute box'), a simple pipe organ (with just one rank of pipes), about the size of a small upright piano, with the bellows operated by the feet; and the cranar, a reed-pipe organ, which is like the siphilir, except that it has reed pipes instead of flutes.
Vocal music
As in many cultures, vocal music is rated above instrumental music, and the human voice (thema) considered the most expressive and most beautiful instrument. The Elvish music tradition distinguishes four vocal range classes: pichesare 'high woman' (soprano), macasare 'low woman' (alto), pichendaro 'high man' (tenor), macandaro 'low man' (bass). These four voice types are often combined in a voice quartet.
The most highly regarded musical art among the Elves is overtone singing (léalaras, lit. 'spirit-song'). This art usually stuns listeners who do not know what the singers are doing, and has led to the common misconception that the Elves have two pairs of vocal chords (while in fact, their vocal tract is in no way different from that of other humans).
