Musical Form

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Introduction

Musical Form, the orderly arrangement of musical elements in time. Because music takes place in time, its form unfolds in time. Repetition and contrast are the two fundamental characteristics of musical form, even in simple pieces such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (the two halves of which begin identically but end differently).

In music, repetition arouses in the listener both a remembrance of what was heard and an anticipation of what is to come. This is true both of recognizable details and also of subtler patterns that are only subliminally recognized. Also, every musical system has conventions that are explicitly or implicitly understood by listeners, and these conventions have an effect on the interpretation of what is heard, remembered, and anticipated.

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Common Formal Patterns

Musical form can be analyzed from several levels of detail. Overall formal patterns are often described in terms of the major sections within a piece. For example, the melody of “America” has two contrasting sections (one beginning “My country, 'tis of thee ...” and the other beginning “Land of the pilgrims' pride ...”); this form can be represented by the letters AB. Another song, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” has three sections; the first and last (“Twinkle, twinkle ...,” at the beginning and end) are the same, but they contrast with the middle section (“Up above the world so high ...”). This form can be represented as ABA.

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Sectional Patterns

Sections of a composition can be related to one another in four ways, the first three of which utilize the principle of repetition: (1) exact repetition; (2) variation (repetition with some aspect changed—elaborations added to the melody or alterations of the harmony or rhythm); (3) development (components of the original section, such as a melodic fragment or a rhythm, are taken apart and recombined in new ways to create a new section); and (4) contrast (the new section is markedly different from the preceding one). These relationships provide the basis for musical forms that are found either universally or within particular cultures and historical periods.

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1

Repetition and Variation

Simplest among formal patterns are the repetitive formulas of the psalm tones of Gregorian chant and of various tribal chants. In strophic form, the music is repeated for each stanza of a song; in strophic variation, the music is varied with each stanza. In instrumental music this latter approach produces the variation form, as in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Variations on a Nursery Tune, K. 265 (the tune is that of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”). Variations need not be based on an entire melody, however; often a series of chords or a short motive or phrase provides the unifying element. Most jazz improvisations, for instance, are variations created to fit the harmonies of a given melody. In non-Western melody types (see Mode), such as the raga of Indian music and the maqam of Arab music, variations take the form of improvisations on the motives and patterns associated with the particular raga or maqam.See also Chaconne; Passacaglia; Variation.