SALAEN,
YLFFERHIM
FOLK
MUSIC |
Salaen (Ylffer:
"music") is an
Ylfferhim folk music related to, but extensively different in form that
found in the Zeiphyrian and
Auturian Forests.
Like the more folk music of the more southerly forests,
Salaen is made up of chromatic scales that contain not
just semitones, but because elven hearing is
more accurate they can further divide pitch into quartertones,
found between each tone and its respective semitone. However unlike other
elven folk musics, the actual tunes are not
created around chromatics, but around a scale that consists of tone, tone,
semitone, tone, tone, quartertone, tone, quartertone,
semitone. This gives the music a more "normal"
sound to human ears
than that of the
Quaelhoirhim,
but it sounds slightly shimmery as the pitch wobbles slightly. Traditionally the
first note of this scale is either G, A-flat, or E, though some tunes exist
which do not utilise these keys.
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Also unusual about Ylfferhim music
is that the melody instruments are all wind instruments and themselves are not
carefully crafted to make quartertone sounds
as in other elven cultures. Instead,
elven players of traditional melody instruments learn to
"bend" the note that they are
playing [listen
to the bending example]. Normally air is
expelled from the throat; to bend the note, air is forced from the throat toward
the roof of the mouth and then out, accompanied by a slight change in mouth
shape, which results in a slight change of pitch. In the example given
the player has bent the note a semitone to make the change audible to
human ears.
The two main melody instruments are the Shyratam, a seven
holed instrument with a hole at the back, which is capable of playing pieces
in scales starting at any given note, and the Theratam, a
reed instrument, more common in the west of the
Quallian, with six holes. It is keyed,
so that is plays only pieces
written in scales with one particular note. The Shyratam only has a two octave
range, while the Theratam's pitch is altered by the intensity of breath, and
thus can play about four (depending on the players lung capacity). There is a
slight difference in the sound of the note produced by the two, due to the
materials they are crafted from. The reed crafted Theratam gives a thinner, more
delicate and more haunting sound than the Shyratam, which is crafted from
branches of the Adlemir, and thus is more
solid sounding. In the example, The Shyratam plays first, then the Theratam to
demonstrate this [listen to the
comparison example].
The Ylfferhim, like some other
elven tribes do not use drums. Accompanying
instruments are usually the Mohar, a many piped instrument, whereby pipes are
arraged side by side in chromatic sequence forming a kind of arc shape. The note
is produced by blowing arcross the top of the instrument. They have a beautiful
light sound, however, the movement from one pipe to another makes
the sound disjointed and therefore unsutible as a melody instrument
[listen to a Mohar example or to
Mohar example 2].
The Agelom plays chords, a distant relative of the lute that is found in
numerous other elven cultures.
It has six double strings streched over a cavity
that is the sound box, flanked by a scratch board to procect the instrument from
the movement of a pletrum, usually carefully made from rock or wood.
Tunes are of three varietes, Mohan are fast, rather mornful tunes, where long
notes are bent to quartertones to signify, as in
Ylfferhim speech, intimate
personal involement, as though the musician is singing about himself or about
his audience, depending on where the bending of the note is placed. For example
Ylfermohan is the song of Treanais [listen
to this song] after she lost her love, and is
played by many a musician suffering similar circumstances.
Lophger are fast, rousing, and triumphant, and are very common in
Quaelhoirhim
culture too, so are probably the oldest of the forms. They are therefore much
more chromatic in nature.
Cantalai are elven lullabys, and may often have words. Many say that Cantalai
are perhaps the most beautiful music in Santharia.
"Salaen Music", performed by
Wren Format: MP3/WAV, Length: 5-15 seconds. Click the following links to download the short meldodies: Bending Example (123 KB), Shyratam/Theratam Comparison Example (212 KB), Mohar Example (46 KB, low quality), Mohar Example 2 (232 KB), Song of Treanais (159 KB). ![]() |
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Information provided by
Wren
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