FORM Of Music

The overall shape or architecture of music is referred to as its musical form. We will begin with a brief discussion of form in Western art music, and then compare this with an example of form in non-Western music.
A: Classical Form in Western Music
There are several possible reasons why composers of Western art music, which is also called classical music, have tended to pay so much attention to musical form and to build relatively complicated formal structures. One reason is that the widespread use of Western musical notation came to influence the composition of the music itself. The basis of this notation is a staff of five parallel lines. Each line and space between lines represents a different pitch, so the arrangement of notes on the staff allows musicians to take in the entire piece and to compare different sections of the music at a glance. This kind of formal art music has tended to serve as the focus of an event, as in a concert hall or salon, or as a means of directing focus, as in a royal court or church. Given its importance in these settings, the music must hold the audience’s attention. Imbuing music with the repetitions and variations of a story is a standard way of doing this.
Audiences familiar with traditional Western tonal music will resist music that is too repetitive or too complex. A balance in between keeps the listener absorbed in fresh material, at the same time reassuring the listener of the coherence of the piece through the repetition of earlier parts. Variety may be introduced by contrasts in musical elements such as melody, the prominent musical sequences within a piece; rhythm, the durations of patterns and notes that create forward movement; harmony, the combination of notes sounded at the same time; and key, in Western music, the tonality produced by seven tones in a recognizable relationship to a central tone. Repetition of these elements may make the music more unified or coherent, as with the return of a melodic or rhythmic pattern heard earlier in the piece.
Beethoven’s Sonata in C major op. 53 (1803-1804) is a clear example of the simultaneous use of old, new, and modified material in music. Throughout the piece there is a repetitive pattern of longer and shorter notes: long-short-short-long-long. The first 19 notes fall into a pattern of 5+5+5+4, based on this long-short pattern.
The first five notes of this melody descend, establishing the melodic pattern, or motif (also called motive). The next five notes are similar to the first in rhythm, but different melodic direction: something old, something new. The third set of five notes is identical to the first set except that it is heard in a lower octave, or register, tilting the balance more toward repetition. The final four notes are similar, but not identical, to the second set, creating again a counterbalance of old and new. The same melody can be heard again in the first and second halves of the piece, in a lower register than the ornamental tones that first and with greater embellishment accompany it. At first hearing the melody may not be recognizable, but it is definitely there beneath the surface, helping to unify the music.

Musical form can and usually does exist on more than one level in Western classical and popular music. The sequence of the statement of a musical idea, or exposition, the competing statement of a contrasting idea, or development, and the return of the original or a variation of either idea, or recapitulation, constitutes the primary pattern of form in Western classical and popular musical cultures.
B. Beyond Western Classical Form
The formal processes described above are found to some extent in music worldwide, but they are not universal. One reason for this is that not all music is intended for the concert stage. For example, music has been used throughout the ages for important rituals, and some cultures carry on these traditional rituals today. In many rituals the music acts as a powerful lens, focusing and uniting the emotional and spiritual energies of the assembled people. Rather than having sections of contrasting or varying ideas, music with this communal function is often purposefully repetitive so that the group members’ voices and movements can join together in an intense, and sometimes even trancelike, union.
Much ritual music contains subtle repeated and varied melodic ideas, but the most obvious and powerful characteristic tends to be a strong, repetitive rhythm. For example, in one instance of healing music of Malawi, the first thing heard is an exciting, driving beat produced by wooden sticks being struck together, represented in the figure below as red squares. This beat is joined by a drum playing at triple the rate of the struck sticks; this triplet is represented in the figure by the small gold diamonds.
The Malawi example contains a formal element similar to one in the Beethoven sonata discussed earlier, but it is quite subtle. In the vocal part of this ritual music a slightly varied version of the melody returns. The percussive rhythmic foreground of the music, however, is definitely prominent.