Layout: Roll Solfège Dice, Draw Cards

Up the ladder, down the ladder. Castings are based on ascending or descending diatonic scales: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti going up; do, ti, la, so, fa, mi, re, coming down. Ascending castings build upward: Musician’s Die, diatonic scalepoints, cards, bottom to top. Descending castings build downward: Musician’s Die, diatonic scalepoints, cards, top to bottom. 

At left, diatonic scalepoints in an ascending casting—the cards go above the Solfège Dice. At right, diatonic scalepoints in a descending casting—the cards go below the Solfège Dice.

 

Opposing traffic. When a chromatic scalepoint appears in a casting, it’s actually a note from another scale traveling in the direction opposite the casting. In the ascending casting at right, for example, the diatonic scalepoints mi and do are traveling upward from the Musician’s Die, with the cards above them. The chromatic scalepoint se, however, is traveling from the opposite direction—it’s coming down, so the die goes above the card instead of below it. 

In the descending casting below, the diatonic scalepoints ti and re are traveling downward from the Musician’s Die, with the cards below them. The chromatic scalepoint me, however, is traveling upward, so the die goes below the card instead of above it.

In a nutshell: diatonic scalepoints move in the direction of the casting; chromatic scalepoints move in the opposing direction.

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