Musical Elements: Structure

Musical Elements: Structure

Structure in Classical Music

Sonata Form

• Consists of three sections: exposition, development, and recapitulation.
• The exposition presents two contrasting themes in different keys.
• The development explores and manipulates these themes.
• The recapitulation returns to the first theme and key.

Theme and Variations

• Begins with a main theme, which is then altered in a number of varied repetitions.
• Variations may change the theme’s melody, rhythm, harmony, or structure.

Rondo Form

• Consists of a recurring main theme (refrain) and contrasting episodes.
• A common structure is A-B-A-C-A.

Structure in Romantic Music

Song Cycle

• A series of songs connected by a common theme or narrative.
• Typically shares a poetic text and often includes piano accompaniment.

Symphonic Poem

• Also known as a tone poem, it threads together multiple sections to illustrate a story, scene, or concept.
• Avoids traditional forms to articulate a more programmatic structure.

Structure in Twentieth-Century & Contemporary Music

12-Tone Technique

• Developed by Arnold Schoenberg as a method to avoid traditional tonality.
• Involves distributing all 12 chromatic notes equally, to form a tone row.
• The row can be manipulated in retrograde, inversion, and transposition.

Minimalism

• Characterised by repeated, small units of sounds - or musical cells.
• Often involves a gradual process of change or phase shifting.

Aleatoric Music

• Also known as chance music, where elements are left to chance or performers’ discretion.
• Challenges the traditional concepts of musical order and control.