User:IlL/Spare pages 1/79

Owing to the large number of tones in the Zzean language, how Zzeans perform or view as music is significantly different from mainstream Western or East Asian views.

Vocal music

For Zzeans, non-"tonal" elements such as rhythm, ornamentation, and scale choice are paramount for distinguishing singing from normal speech. The boundary between vocal and instrumental music is ill-defined, as pitched instruments can "speak" by imitating the tones of speech, and can sound more "relaxed" or "conversational" by playing in more speech-like contours.

Zzean singing traditions include:

• an intoned singing tradition
• hiphop/rap (speech with stylized rhythm and sometimes autotune)
• a religious chanting tradition with much ornamentation
• something really weird and independent from Cuam music's weirdness

Choral vocal music that uses big block chords is wordless; polyphonic word-ful singing is used in specialized contexts.

Instruments

• a shruti box that plays 5-note drones for guiding singing
• "talking" drums, trombones and fretless bowed strings

Scales

Zzean music is abstractly based on a pentatonic framework, onto which the five tone levels of Zzean are mapped. Seven-note scales are viewed as ways to ornament 5-note scales. However, not all Zzean pentatonic scales are octave-equivalent.