# Desert Noon v3b — the mirage reading (struck piano, pitched heat)

`desert-noon-v3b` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

The BOLDER second reading of bone-dry noon (A minor pentatonic, 60 BPM; danger at 76 BPM). Where a faithful take is a soft-pluck line over a hollow pad, this one re-instruments the desolation around a STRUCK PIANO (tone WARMEST — bleached, mellow noon, the opposite of glare) playing the TREAD family tune (§7.5: state the head, restate it an octave up, long rests — a half-remembered walk dissolving). The retired glare-noise bed (correction 3) becomes PITCHED heat: a 'mirage' device — a struck tone answered a perfect fifth above on caveCelesta/glassBell, going nowhere, dissolving into silence (light shimmering off hardpan, never a hiss). dryClick woody ticks are the bone-dry pulse of the land. Calm (ch0-3) is bed only: one hollow pentatonic pad tone per bar, a thin breathing high fifth, sub on bars 1/3, and the darkDrone sun-hum in short bloom-release arcs — warmth, not menace, never a held tone. Activity L1 (ch4-5) is the struckPiano tune + ONE caveCelesta mirage-echo a fifth up. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS new material, not volume: a low sustained warmPad counter-tone under the walk AND the high glassBell mirage glints interleaved with sparse dryClick ticks — the heat shimmering and the land ticking. Danger L1 (ch8-9) is unease/the approach (correction 2 — real material, not near-silence): the walk gone apprehensive, a far kick heartbeat and a dry tick-pulse over a darkening A drone that presses in with distant booms. Danger L2 (ch10-11) is a GENUINE intensity jump for active flee at the faster 76-BPM danger tempo: the dry ensemble crashes in — a doubled driving kick, stoneTom thuds like ground giving underfoot, dryClick RUNS thickening, and a dry shaker/hat rattle. Heat pressed into rhythm, density and speed — never a chromatic darkening, never a literal dust-devil/vulture foley (that belongs to the game's SFX + ambient soundscape). Fully diatonic A minor pentatonic throughout; the only color is register and silence.
