A Word About Form .....................................................................................
While the idea of composing within a formmay feel claustrophobic and non-
creative to some musicians from the outset, it’s form that ties a piece of
music together and keeps it from feeling like aimless noodling. In short, form
isbeginning, middle, and end. It’s a map to follow when trying to put a song
together. All art is built on shape, and music is no exception.For example, if you want to write blues music, you need to write within the
constraints of the blues form. Again, here’s where sitting down at an instru-
ment and just playing around with chord progressions works wonders for
creativity. Humming along with a couple of bars of I-IV-V/I is half the work of
writing a solid blues song. It’s similar with pop music — there’s a conven-
tional formula for that, known as the Intro ABACBCBform, as you can see in
Chapter 13. Just playing around within the constraints of a form can give you
some great basic ideas of how you want to put your song together.When you’re working with pop songs, even instrumental ones such as those
performed by bands such as Tortoise and Trans Am, you work to arrange the
song under some version of the pop form, such as (Intro ABACBCB) or one of
the other traditional patterns of songwriting in the pop genre.Many classical forms are actually several musical forms stuck together, such
as symphonies, rondos, and sonatas. In these forms, it’s almost as though
you’re writing several smaller pieces of music and putting them together into
one big piece. In one piece of music, remember, you can even have multiple
time signatures and multiple key signatures. In these kinds of classical music,
having an engaging opening sequence is even more important, because the
beginning and the ending are even more responsible than in other forms for
tying the music together into a coherent whole.Beginnings.....................................................................................................
Imagine someone listening skeptically to a new CD. He puts it in the player
and presses Play. Within three seconds he wrinkles his nose and skips to the
next track. Five seconds later he sighs and skips to the next one.That scenario illustrates how crucial the beginning of your music is. But even
before the beginning is the title.138 Part III: Harmony and Structure