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"The principal function of form is to advance our understanding. It is the organization of a piece that helps the listener to keep the idea in mind, to follow its development, its growth, its elaboration, its fate." —ARNOLD SCHOENBERG

Key Points

  • Form is the organizing principle in music; its basic elements are repetition, contrast, and variation.
  • Strophic form, common in songs, features repeated music for each stanza of text.
  • Some music is created spontaneously in performance, through improvisation.
  • Binary form (A-B) and ternary form (A-B-A) are basic structures in music.
  • A theme is a melodic idea used as a building block in a large-scale work and can be broken into small, component fragments known as motives. A sequence results when a motive is repeated at a different pitch.
  • Many cultures use call-and-response (or responsorial) music, a repetitive style involving a soloist and a group.
  • An ostinato is the repetition of a short musical melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic pattern.
  • Large-scale compositions, such as symphonies and sonatas, are divided into sections, or movements.

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