These recordings are the first time one of the great Tondish musical traditions has been heard outside of Tond.
The Performer
S’Arik Dãelil
is a recognized master of the tembuk. One of the leaders of the Sawarsh style
of performance, he was raised in the southern Emb Lands by his musician family
and trained for nine years at the Great Klemon. He now gives concerts all over
the Emb Lands, and has over one hundred students.
The Instrument
The tembuk is a tuned percussion instrument similar to a marimba. It has wooden
keys and is played by striking with various small mallets, but it also has
metal (usually bronze) resonators for each key. These vibrate sympathetically
with the note struck, adding a metallic “reverb” to the sound of the
instrument. The higher register in particular stands out like chimes; these
notes are reserved for climactic moments in the performance lest they overwhelm
the other sounds.
Similar instruments are found throughout Tond (particularly
in the Sherványa
territories, where the onomatopoeically-named ketatang is a major part of the
Nocturnal Music) but the Emb tembuk is by far the largest, covering nearly five
octaves. Its keys are arranged in five banks (like the manuals of an organ),
one octave (twelve notes) each, progressing from lowest, nearest the performer,
to highest, farthest away.
The Music
Emb classical music is modal and often improvisatory, thus it has more in
common with Asian classical musics than their Western counterparts. Harmony and
“chords” are unknown, but the solo performer often adds his own fragmentary heterophonic
accompaniment in different octaves. Meter is free; there is no recognizable
pulse. The scale is more or less the familiar chromatic scale, though the Emb
division into “keys” and “modes” is somewhat different than music outside of
Tond.
This is music for active listening, not for dancing. It is
often performed at formal concerts. Incomprehensible to the non-Tondish at
first, the music will nevertheless reveal itself immediately to be in more than
one style.
Bolsã are modal pieces, based on ancient melodies. When played on the tembuk, the melodies are slowed down and decorated (and sustained) with irregular tremolo. A subgroup are the sanosã, which use the compositional and performance techniques of the bolsã repertoire but are based on variously rhythmed and accented single pitches, sometimes with a hint of bolsã melody as a kind of coda. In both styles, the high notes (called ewaz or “stars”) are used sparingly to great effect; their first appearance in a concert is seldom without notice.
More esoteric are the esremsã pieces. These appear to the casual
listener to be nothing more than random notes. More careful listening reveals
that on one level, these pitches are in fact random; that is, they have no
discernible pattern; but on another level they are carefully chosen. Esremsã music is
derived from the Emb concept of lagofã (“backing off and finding”); in the
mystical Emb interpretation of the pan-Tondish Shar-Lan religion, one is to
assume the mindset of a small child and trust Shar (the Tondish deity) to show
what to do. In the performance of esremsã music, this takes the form of
exploring the instrument as if one has never seen it before, playing notes and
savoring their sounds without linking them to any others. The audience attempts
to assume the same frame of mind, listening without preconceptions or
expectations. Despite this highly-concentrated casualness, most esremsã pieces
are composed: the existence of “multiple” esremsã confirms this, where phrases repeat
later (in double, triple, or even quadruple patterns) while further
“explorations” are occurring.
A collection of bolsã, sanosã, and esremsã, lasting
for about an hour, makes a sanso or “concert”. Usually the performer begins
with bolsã and esremsã styles being very distinct, but the musical
forms gradually merge as the bolsã simplify and become more concentrated,
changing into sanosã, while the esremsã become more complex and move into the
“multiple” styles. During all of this, the master musician also takes into
account all four of the Tondish “aspects” of created reality, attempting to
both remind the audience of their beneficial natures while avoiding their
detrimental features. Thus, kullándu (“fire”) is said to link to the “burning”
creative aspects of the music itself, but without discordant notes (or “enemy
tones”) that would indicate fiery destruction; likewise, tándáalis (“stone”)
indicates the immobile parts of the music (its form and set pitches) without
large, ponderous sounds or motifs that would indicate earthquakes or
landslides. Lórnáalis (“air”) is shown by the imagination of the artist and the
distance between himself and the audience (though this is the most dangerous of
“the Four”, the abode of spirits, and the Emb are careful to avoid any ideas of
“manifesting”); Kewándii (“water”) is shown as the flow of notes in time, while
avoiding loud rushes of sound that would indicate floods.
These philosophies make the music more interesting on a deeper
level; however, they are unlikely to be appreciated by the non-Tondish
listener. It is my advice that one assume the attitude of lagofã, whether or
not it is understood completely, and simply sit back and take in the music
without ideas or preconceptions.
Okay, this is a fascinating thought experiment, but what is this
music really?
It's part of my "Another This World" series. I’ve been messing around with electronic music, musique concrète,
and field recordings. I ran some Gregorian chants through a MIDI plug-in and
set it to produce a virtual marimba. Adding deep reverb resulted in this
mysterious music. The MIDI, interestingly, picked up overtones and resonance of
the cathedral recording space, and rendered them as the fragmentary heterophony
and “stars” I mentioned in the Emb music. I’m having fun listening to the
result, but the original chants are copyrighted material so it is unlikely I
will be able to post any of it for the public. Maybe the reader, if curious,
can try it themself.
As for the Emb, they are a civilization in my imaginary world of Tond, the setting for my series of fantasy novels. To read those books, follow this link or read this blog's sisters, The Fronds in Tond and the BookWords Blogg (book reviews and fun for "werd nerds"!) Although I don't play anything resembling a marimba, "S'Arik Dãelil" (Mr. Eric, son of Dan) is a reasonable rendering of my name in the Emb language.
Update: 6/22/2026
I am currently looking into "fair use" laws as a way to post a little of this "Emb" music online. In the meantime, if you want to try the same kind of remix yourself, here are the instructions.
1. Find a recording of Gregorian or similar Medieval liturgical
chant. It is important that you find one that was recorded in a very resonant,
echoing cathedral or other space; the reverberations of high overtones (not
actually sung in the music!) will be processed into the “stars” I mentioned
above. (Medieval singers sometimes wrote of instances where angels sang along
in liturgical music; this may be literally the case but it may also be that the
singers heard some of these reverberations. Or both.) My particular favorite recording
(and the one I used for the Emb music) is the album Hispaniae Musica:
Altspanische Liturgie, available legally for free download here.
2. Upload one or more tracks to a website (such as this one) that converts audio files to
MIDI. After the conversion is completed, set the instrument to “marimba”.
Download the result, or if there is no download button, record it onto a
digital recorder from your computer. Note: at this point, the track will sound
quite dry and uninteresting. The reverberations from the original recording
will appear to be missing but there will be “stray” high tones that seem to
appear at random above the lower notes.
3. Open the file in Audacity. Adjust the volume level and use noise
reduction if necessary (I found there was quite a bit of white noise in the
background at this point).
4. Now comes the part where the music is transformed. Still in Audacity,
add reverb, with most of the controls set on maximum, as in this screen shot. This
will result in the virtual “bronze resonators” I mentioned, and the higher
pitches will stand out like chimes.
However, adding this reverb will result in an extremely high
volume level with a lot of distortion. Readjust the volume back to tolerable
levels (if you click on “Amplify”, the setting should already be to reduce it
back to the level it was before the reverb).
