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Definitions page. Paragraphs in this page are: Preface Introduction Structure Texture Form Idiom Form and procedure Preface Going forward to Music Systems, we will need to know about issues that generally do not have a place in standard theory. Everything we have learned in the general theory pages seemed like the key objects in music. Now they will take the role of tools which will help to better understand more complex problems. Introduction We already know about the 12 tones in an octave, which is the base "material" in Western Music Theory. We would expect that so few of them produce equally few music styles, right? WRONG. J. S. Bach's Toccatta and Fugue in D minor, Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Wagner's Tanhauser, Debussy's Claire De Lune, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring, all use exactly the same well-tempered 12 tones. But all these pieces look & feel totally different, no? In order to understand more complex issues in Music, we have to think less mathematical and more linguistic. This is because the language is the primary human action that organizes the simplest letter to a complete idea (spoken or written) based on specific laws and rules. So, if tones are like letters, then intervals would seem like syllabs? How are words organized in music? Is there a central idea? How is all this organized in time? Can Music express a question? What is a phrase? Does music have a sentence or a period? A common essay has three parts: prologue, main topic and epilogue. Does music have forms? Questions like this need specific definitions in order to be answered. That's the parent page's purpose. To provide the tools for answering. Structure All the above music piece examples, which by the way are classic masterpieces, present certain rules that produce the whole work from the basic material botto-up. A part of the procedure is the general rules in a specific era and another part is the composer's intervention.
When we leave the personal intervention out, then we are looking to the general set of rules and laws that exists in a place at a specific era. This is called System.
The ratio of the composer's intervention to the collective set of rules defines how much folk or personal the music piece is. So, to return to our examples: Bach's, Mozart's and Bethooven's music pieces belong to the Tonal Music System, which although one, passes among different music eras: Baroque, Classical and Forward Romantic. Wagner's pieces are introducing Panchromaticism and are leading to the Mature Romantic era, while Debussy introduces Pandiatonicism and founds the Impressionistic Era. Schoenberg, Webern and Berg follow the Atonal System, further organizing it with the 12 note method. Texture When a voice or a clear tone musical instrument plays music, what we experience is a sequencial (horizontal) tone progression.
Imagine a percussion music system. There, the tones do not have to be clear. If we hear a complete set of various bongos played sequentially, we will definetly feel a melody, because of the change of tone placement range. The melody does not have to be relevant to a timbre nowdays. We now experience as melody 3 tones played sequentially by a violin, a clarinet and an oboe. But a long time ago this might not seem like a melody at all. The melody does not have to move necessarily. Imagine the 3 instruments above playing the same tone but constantly varying their dynamics. We will then experience timbre change but not tone change. This is a melody too nowdays, allthough it might be denied to be in the past. When 2 events are heard simultaneusly instead of sequentially, then, instead of melody we experience harmony. The sounds produce an assonance and the event is described as vertical instead of horizontal. Because the present music systems favor and organize assonances great concern is put in which assonances will follow the previous ones and how this will happen.
Harmony does not mean only vertical. Remember that in our modern harmony music cources our concern is not only how we will position a voicing, but how the next one will follow as well. In Ancient Greece, Harmony was what we call Melody now. This is not strange at all: Inside a monophonic music system, harmony would be what we would call melody nowdays, because the great concern would be how tones would follow others. Now that we know about assonance and sequence, we can describe the various textures that have evolved, according to how much concern is put on either the horizontal or the vertical "presence" of the one or many melodies that are produced by the musical instruments or the voice.
All other events may be rhythmic. Allthough they add to how melody will be experienced, they do not act as melodies. Eterofony and antifony are children of monophony, where ideas will pass to other melodies but the vertical presence between melodies is not yet strong.
What we mainly experience in polyphony is that the different melodies produce assonances as well as different moments of interesting events among them. So, while we put attention to the voice relevance, the voices themselves succeed in stealing our attention temporarily. This vertical-horizontal effect generates a very characteristic "disorientation", met in polyphony only.
This assonant environment is part of what we call "Harmony" nowdays. When this environment changes, the melody plays a different role inside it but the attention is not taken away from this single melody. When studying omophonic pieces we quickly see that the middle voices do not present melodies. In fact, if solo played, they might seem as uninteresting. But remember that according to the definition, the melody is one and the voices merge therefore lose their autonomy. In general, inside an omophonic system, the top note of the voicing is the melody. Because the bass (bottom note) is what the voicing is structured upon, it still gets attention even if it is not interesting at all. This bass follows certain rules that very according not only to music systems, but also to different eras inside the same music system.
Remember the modern melodies, where not phrases but sole notes pass among instruments, or melodies change their timbre instead of their tuning? The above definition describes the texture met in Xenaki's or Ligetti's (among others) compositions. Now we can see cases where structure as system is the same but texture as voice complexity varies. Let's examine 3 works of J. S. Bach:
Nomatter how many voices are used, tonality is not absent in either of the three examples. Form Music is a fine art and as in all fine arts the artistic result is measured by the quality of the form itself. But what is a form? Non material arts may as well benefit from material ones, like sculpture.
Ok. Too generic, but we are talking about fine arts and music above all. The shape may not be recognized by practical role, or described in words. But words or not, if we identify it, we can sense it as a unity. There are small and big forms in music. Let's see some small ones.
Here we have to keep the Music System behind the music to further understand the definition. In an omophonic music system, a certain assonance can express an idea, while in a monophonic system, only one melody would do that. The theme is named that way if and only if it has a structured role inside the music piece. In most cases we will meet it again, and other ideas inside the piece will derive in a way or another from this idea, following a procedure relevant to the music system.
The motiv is the moving power behind the music piece. It may as well have melodic identity but in most cases like the single-motiv pieces of the Baroque area, the rhythmic characteristic is all that is needed.
The phrase is somehow bigger. Notice though that beginning does not mean "from the beginning" and end does not mean a full stop. The phrase may be organized by a motiv and may derive by the initial idea. A theme may consist of many phrases.
We may have a big sentence formed by phrases dynamically linked, or we may have a more static and symmenric period, formed by 2 sentences relevant to each other considering duration. In periods, we most often encounter the two sentences having different ending behaviour: The first sentence closes in a way that opens the way to the second sentence to come. The method may vary among different music systems. Inside Tonality for example, the first sentence may and to the dominant, asking for the second one to come and finally solve harmony to the tonic. In some cases, the period may have 4 symmetric parts: phrase, 1st ending, same phraze, 2nd ending i.e.: A-B1-A-B2. This form comes from the medieval ages and it is called open-closed ending. Now we can pass to big forms in music. These forms, although having the small ones inside them, they are distinguishable too as unities and in many cases are met according to the location or era - therefore system or style - that we examine. A recursive form: A-B-A-C-A-D-A-F... (rondo) Imagine a traditional fest in an old village: The dancers form 2 circles, or just one with a person or a couple inside. The action would quickly have a binary form: phrase-answer. In these cases, the small group is the more energetic considering changes and the big group usually answers with the same (or nearly the same) verse. The Rondo form is one of the oldest traditional forms. There is relevance in the last part of the classic orchestral pieces. A theme - episode form: The Baroque Fugue form Approaching fugue only as form and not as procedure, we will only see the distinguishable parts inside it. The Baroque Fugue derives from the older western modal system's fugue and is composed by a chain of themes and episodes, where the first and last theme belong to the initial tone and all the themes in-between themes are led by the precedent episodes into different - but not irrelevant- tonalities. We know what the Theme is. What's an episode?
The episode is described this way because it is part of the longer form which presents many of unique episodes. If it was met only once as a part, then it would be called otherwise (i.e. bridge). A three - part tonal form: The Sonata form The Sonata form is the first 3-part form we meet in this page. The 3-part structure is well by the Tonality: Tonic-Dominant-Tonic. Here we have three stages that follow the scheme: Relaxation - Tension - Relaxation. These different feelings derive by the Tonal System's harmonic functions and are in a way "expanded" to the whole Sonata form. As a musical form, the Sonata took place in the baroque era (1600-1750) and quickly took the form of the Trio Sonata, played by two melodic instruments and a basso continuo (bass and harmony) usually formed by a cello and a harpsichord. I am describing the sonata form of the classical era. The classical Sonata form has the following parts: Presentation - Process - Representation. Instead of one theme to be presented, 2 of them are. The themes have to be relevant but not dangerously same and in this case different motives generating the themes help doing so. 1st part: Theme 1 - Bridge - Theme 2 in the tonality of the Dominant. 2nd part: Process 3rd part: Theme 1 - Bridge - Theme 2 in the original tonality. Here we see that the bridge has to have a unique part as music and as form. There is no episode-like returning. The process duration differs according to eras of the Tonal System. First processes would seem like big bridges. Later processes may take over the theme parts themselves. Hearing Bach-Handel-Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven sonatas would help understanding the different eras as well as the different composers' disposition towards the Sonate form itself. A Three - Four part macro-form: The Sonata The Sonata is the long form that has inside the previously presented "Sonata form". The Sonata form is usually the first part of a Sonata. The parts are: 1) Allegro - Sonata form 2) Andante - Lied 3) Menuetto & Trio 4) Presto - Usually rondo. Small piece forms: A-A-B-A , A-B-A-C , 12 Bar Blues. Small music pieces are met in many contemporary styles: Jazz - Rock & Roll - Blues etc. The concept of the form to the whole piece is versed:
This technique comes directly from popular, folk and traditional music of the past and particularly in Jazz, the whole procedure is expanded by solo playing inside the form. The modern way of describing a Jazz piece is usally: Head in Solo repeating the form Solo repeating the form ... Arranger's chorus (optional) Head out When lyrics are present, the head in also includes the lyric verses. In forms that permit it, like AABA, the arranger's chorus or a half solo is played in AA and head out occures in last BA. It is not uncommon to have also: AABABA when playing a piece without solos in order to hear again the B part. Pick an lp and see how many Beatles songs are played that way. Sometimes, the small AABA or ABAC piece that is played today is the Refrain of a bigger piece composed for musicals. In this case, we think of itm as the B part of the bigger piece, or as the "verse", where the first part is considered to be an "intro". For the 12 Bar Blues it is worth mentioning that they present a 3-part 4-bar combination. This probably derives from a 3 part "Theme-Repeat-Ending" form idiom, originating from the Blues lyrics. The ABAC small piece form relates to the previous A-B1-A-B2 form that we have already seen in the Sentence-Period paragraph. A is played, then an open ending (B), again A and finally a closed ending (C). Idiom Inside Music Systems and often eras in a single music system, some things aside system begin to be used more systematically than others. In many cases, we may find certain forms or melodic complexity to be something like a "signature" to an era, characterizing it as much as the music system does. This is called Idiom.
As form: Madrigals, Frotollas and Villanellas thrived in the Renaissance era. Fugues, Suites, Trio Sonatas and Operas thrived in the Baroque era. The Sonata thrived in the Classical era and later. All classical symphonies are sonatas. As texture: The Remaissance era was purely polyphonic, still modal. The Baroque era was equally polyphonic and omophonic, but tonal. The Classical era is characterized by omophony taking over polyphony, still tonal. Form and procedure When a certain "way" of making music takes place but does not explicitly make a form, then we say that this is more a procedure than a form. The procedure is still difficult though. When writing a Fugue or Sonata, we will think every step in the procedure of making it, from the system and the theme up to the whole piece. In other words, the procedure itself will torment us anyway. An example of a procedure that is less of a form is the Canon.
This procedure generates the feeling that the first voice is trying to "escape" and generally gives a "hunting" feeling. The canon was a form in the Modal ages, but when adapting to the Tonal System of Baroque, started playing a part inside various forms (Fugue, Suite etc.). By then, the canon itself started being more a procedure than a form. Of course we still have Canons, but it is the procedure property that discriminates the Canon in Baroque and later. What happened generally in the Canon situation in Baroque, happened to Fugue in the Classical era and later. Because of the domination of omophony and the creation of even bigger forms, as polyphony retreated, polyphonic parts were usually inside forms like Theme and Variations. The Canon and Fugue remained as procedures for polyphonic parts creation. |