# Ice Meltwater v3b — The Cascade (moto-perpetuo canon)

`ice-meltwater-v3b` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take B is the BOLDER reading of ice-meltwater (flowing melodic house, the catalog's most continuous line, HORIZON spine, D major 92). It reframes the piece as a MOTO-PERPETUO CANON: the lead is a perpetual-motion pluck line in flowing 16ths (a note every ~2 rows — the line never stops, the most continuous in the catalog), a HORIZON contour that rises 1-2-3 to a crest on the 5 and brushes the 6, then keeps RUNNING downhill instead of landing. The pitched bubbleBlip is promoted from garnish to a SECOND MELODIC VOICE: a canon of the lead three rows behind and a diatonic fourth lower — the same water finding the next channel down the slope, two rivulets braiding (downhill momentum rendered literally). The bed is a bright D-major pad wash + a rolling sub (the body of water moving) + the SAME pitched trickle woven in (ch3) so moving water is audible standing still — but it is PITCHED chord-tones tumbling high->low, never a water-foley noise bed (correction 3); every percussion sound here is a struck one-shot, no continuous noise anywhere. struckPiano is BRIGHT (sun on ice — articulate, present; warm would muffle glacial light) and only doubles the line's CREST notes at L2. Activity L1 (ch4-5) = the perpetual-motion lead + its pitched-blip canon (the braided trickle). Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: the bright piano crest-doubling AND a high celesta sparkle on the off-16ths (the cascade catching light). Danger L1 (ch8-9) = the flowing line gone APPREHENSIVE: the continuous 16th motion stays but thins to a single wary rivulet leaning the diatonic vi (B-minor shadow) over a low pulse — real material, the player feels the water rising, not near-silence. Danger L2 (ch10-11) = the surge, a GENUINE intensity jump at a FASTER danger tempo (speed 5 vs 6): kick surge-hits on the downbeat (water level FELT, not foleyed), a low descending rush figure crashing the ensemble in, and a driving shaker run on the 16ths + hat motion — new rhythmic+melodic material and higher density. Dread is abstract: the vi-lean, tempo, density and the descending rush — never a literal flood/water-noise foley (that is the game's SFX + ambient domain). Fully diatonic D major (the vi-lean is in-key, not chromaticism).
