Chapter 13
Musical Forms
In This Chapter
Dividing music into parts
Looking at a couple of classical forms
Checking out popular forms: blues, country, and rock
Stepping out into atonal music
W
hen we talk about musical form, what we’re talking about, of course, is
the blueprint used to create a specific type of music. For example, if
you wanted to sit down and write a minuet, there is a very specific blueprint
you have to follow to create a piece of music that musicians and other listen-
ers would recognize as a minuet. You can write a blues piece and call it
“Minuet in B,” or “Sad Minuet” — but it wouldn’t really be a minuet. It would
still be the blues.There are many different musical forms, and each one is composed of different
parts that come together to define the whole.Combining Parts into Forms .......................................................................
The division of music into partsis convenient when your composition, like
most compositions, requires repetition of various similar elements. The dif-
ferent parts usually share a major harmonic focus point, similar melody lines,
rhythm structure, and may have other resemblances. Parts can further be
linked to create identifiable musical forms (blues, rock, and so on).Conventional musical theory gives alphabetic labels to the musical parts
within a composition: A, B, C, and so forth. If a part is repeated in a song, its
letter is repeated. For example, ABA is familiar in classical music, with an
opening theme (A) that leads to a chorus or bridge (Part B) and is repeated
at the end of the piece (A again).