would reveal or describe the character’s plans to lead a completely different
life — which, in the case of Don Giovanni, has disastrous consequences.In many of Hank Williams’s songs, the middle is used to lyrically describe
exactly how much agony the main character of the song is in, building on the
idea presented in the beginning of the song. “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Ramblin’
Man,” and “Cold, Cold Heart” are just three Hank Williams songs that follow
this exact pattern. Here we could easily speculate that Mr. Williams came up
with the catchy title, fiddled around with basic chords and got an idea for a
tune to go with it, and developed the song’s middle based on fleshing out the
idea of a “cheatin’ heart.” Sounds simple, eh?In classical music, the middle section serves as a counterbalance to the
beginning. The middle is where you change keys and/or tempo, defining a
clear break from the opening section of your piece. If a piece of classical
music has a loud, forceful beginning section, then the middle section is often
quieter and more subdued to provide stark contrast to the opening. Consider
Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Conversely, if the music starts out
slowly and simply, then a good way to present contrast is — can you
guess? — to have a forceful, complicated middle section, as in Frederic
Chopin’s Étude in A Minor (op. 25, no. 11).As in storytelling — and pretty much any kind of narrative, from fairy tales
to Hollywood movies — the beginning establishes a baseline situation; the
middle takes us on a journey away from that baseline, employing change and
adventure; and the ending brings us back to another baseline, which is usu-
ally at least slightly different from the beginning.Endings ..........................................................................................................
Even television jingles have a beginning, middle, and ending. The ending of
anything should be a satisfying conclusion to the piece. Musically, you proba-
bly want your songs to end in cadence, or resolving to the I chord (as dis-
cussed in Chapter 10) just because that is an aurally satisfying way for a
piece of music to end. Lyrically, you want to try to either answer some of the
questions posited in your beginning, resolve the situation(s) developed in the
middle, or even just have the song’s narrator or main character give up and
move to something else. It’s just like in literature — at the end of the story,
something has been resolved.Chapter 12: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings 141