Next to polyphony, form is the most neglected element in music performance. Here, also, the ear player has a decided advantage. The long rows of similar-looking notes encourage the note player to plod along without regard to the form of the melodic line, which exists in the sound but not in the sight of the music. The ear player grasps the form immediately. We call attention to it here that we may note the refinements which depend upon complete comprehension.

Repetition

In its smallest manifestation form is simply the repetition of two or three notes. Thus in Three Blind Mice the second phrase"See how they run"which is an exact repetition of the first, gives us a unit of form. If a person did not recognize that repetition, he would not remember the piece. And the next two phrases are a repetition of the first two slightly higher. Simple as this appears, many beginners do not catch it; they fumble around, experimenting with notes which move in another direction. Most players scarcely notice such a phrase; they remember it without conscious attention. Those who fail to catch it must make the effort consciously, or they are compelled to remember the entire section as a series of unrelated notes. This is difficult and unmusical. Such players do not play by ear and probably never enjoy music in any form.

Visual Form

Form may be caught by the eye; many note readers see the repetition on the page. In like manner, ear players may recognize the repetition by the way it looks on the keyboard, when they first happen to strike it right; but this is not true ear playing. The fingers often remember such repetitions; but the only musical way is by the ear.

Just as the poorest ear player is limited by his inability to recognize these smallest units, so the advanced player is limited by his inability to recognize the larger units. We are fortunate if our ears pick up these large units of form with­out conscious effort; but no matter how good we are, eventually we must direct our conscious attention to form.

equence

Composers employ a surprisingly small amount of variety in form. There is the exact repetition, which we have just noted. There is the repetition in sequence, where the unit is repeated one note higher or one note lower each time it recurs. It may be repeated several tones higher or on an entirely different portion of the keyboard; or one hand may answer the other. The second section—the fast section—of the Overture to Tannhduser contains one example after another of sequence, some of them containing over a dozen repetitions. The Bach Invention analyzed in Chapter 8 has a simple three-member descending sequence as the second figure:  Sequence is a very common device.

Stretto

Stretto is closely related to sequence. In stretto the melodic units overlap one another, as if they could not wait to be heard. The canon which we observed in Chapter 7 is an example of stretto in just two voices. The first chorus in Handel's Messiah, "And the Glory of the Lord," uses stretto as its chief method of development. The second movement of Beethoven's First Symphony uses stretto to bring the move­ment to a close. For the pianist, the easiest place to find stretto is in the Bach fugues. Not all the fugues involve stretto, but it is one of Bach's favorite devices to gain tension and climax. Fugue No. 8 in the Well-Tempered Clavichord has probably the greatest assortment of stretto in any one composition. We can easily represent the difference between sequence and stretto by lines, thus:

You can sing sequence, but you can't sing stretto.

Inversion

Inversion has always been a favorite device of the more serious composers. They simply turn the subject or motive upside down; where it skipped up a third in the original form, it now skips down a third, etc.:

The ear may not catch inversion at first hearing, but in a surprisingly short time it becomes able to detect the theme or motive thus disguised. Fugue No. 8 in the Well-Tempered Clavichord, mentioned above, contains many fine examples of inversion.

Augmentation

Augmentation and diminution are other variations of the subject which are used chiefly in polyphonic writing. In augmentation the theme moves twice as slowly—each quarter note becomes a half, each eighth a quarter, etc. In diminution the opposite occurs—the theme moves twice as fast; each quarter note becomes an eighth, each eighth a sixteenth, etc. Again Fugue No. 8 in the Well-Tempered Clavichord presents many examples of both augmentation and diminution.

Development

All of these variations of the theme are gathered together under the general term "development." They develop the subject in the same sense that a speaker develops his subject in a formal address; they present various aspects of the subject and compel us to hear all the possible angles. The devices are not always so precise as our definitions would seem to indicate but more frequently present themselves with con­siderable distortion, necessary to meet the requirements of harmony, fingering, or general euphony. In attempting to attain this general euphony or smooth effect from all the factors involved, the composer and the ear player are striving for the same end. Ear-playing thus leads very naturally into creative composition.

Imitation

Various other devices of imitation are used to recall the subject and give unity to the composition. In short, we seek to notice any repetition or faint resemblance of repetition which the composer consciously or unconsciously uses. When we enjoy hearing these devices, we remember them easily.

Improvisation

The student should analyze some of the numbers that he already plays, noting the repetitions, sequences, and other forms of development. He will learn the means or technique by which a composer builds his composition. Then he should improvise a composition himself. Select a subject or little motive and play it in sequence, invert it, play it in one hand and then in the other, allowing the ear at all times to guide the repetitions so that the composition feels right. Harmony may be added, or, better still, imitative voices. The result will be entertaining, and the player will hear things he has never heard in music before.

Many players hesitate to improvise in this manner because they feel it is presumptuous on their part; they are humble before the masters and do not wish to be compared to them. The same attitude in language would forbid us ever to talk or write a letter. Music is to be used, and this is one very enjoyable use.

How much some players gain from such improvisation becomes apparent when we find them trying to get their little pieces published. In their own composition they hear vividly for the first time the development by means of repetition in varying forms, and consequently they think their little composition is the equal or superior of other popular pieces.

In our analysis of music we have been using terms in a rather loose fashion. We seem to do violence if we handle the art with hard, precise terms such as the sciences use. Nevertheless, it may help our thinking to define our terms.

Motive

The motive is the smallest musical unit. It may be only
two notes long and it certainly cannot be divided into smaller
units. The familiar four note motive of the Beethoven Fifth
Symphony (* " ' -------            ) is a good example.

Theme

"Theme" is a rather lax term, which applies to any longer motive or group of motives which seem to hang together and be remembered as a unit.

Subject

"Subject" is a much more precise term; a subject is treated consistently by the composer and is inverted, broken into smaller units, and developed in many guises, all of which are obviously developed from the original subject. The term is frequently used interchangeably with "theme." The subject, however, often includes the harmony or counterpoint which accompanies the theme.

Tune

Any subject or theme which is melodious is called a tune. In other words, it is usually singable, though it may run hopelessly out of range of one voice. The term is also applied in very informal fashion to any small piece of music.

Melody

A melody is the voice or line which the ear picks up as the most obvious singable unit of a piece. The term, however, is loosely used for any outstanding line in a composition. Indeed, musicians, probably because of the very fact that they are not scientists, make no attempt to keep their terminology precise or well defined.

Phrase

A phrase is an indefinite section which includes several motives. It is usually determined by where the singer would take a breath. The wind-instrument players breathe in about the same place. Although the string and piano players never need a breath, they phrase their music in a similar fashion. Our breath is so much a part of us that we desire and expect a phrase to be about the length we might conveniently sing.

Section

In the formal analysis of music, the term "phrase" is often restricted to mean a unit larger than the motive. Several phrases are then combined to make a section. However, musical theorists differ decidedly in their use of both terms, phrase and section.

Although all of these terms are thought of as referring to melody, they may also be concerned with the harmony or rhythm. That is, the characteristic features of a subject may be its rhythm or harmony rather than its melodic line. Again, however, we must observe that rhythm cannot be separated from the other materials of the music. Composers such as Brahms, Wagner, and Franck combine melody, harmony, polyphony, rhythm, dynamics, tone color, and tempo into such a well-balanced unity that all seem to be of equal importance in the development of the ideas. Each becomes a part of the other.

Thus far we have discussed the many small units which are used to construct a large piece of music. They are arranged in sections and the sections into larger sections or movements. Some of these arrangements are well standardized. We shall consider the more frequent of these standardized forms.

One-Part

The simplest is the one-part form. A hymn tune is a good example of this form; it is complete in itself and does not, break down into smaller units which are complete in them­selves. The familiar Chopin Prelude in A Major, op. 28, no. 7, is in this form.

Two-Part

The two-part form may be merely a verse and its repetition; or it may have a second verse resembling the first but slightly different; or it may have a second section entirely different from the first. To indicate such forms, we would use the symbols A A for the first instance, A A' for the second, and A B for the third. The popular song is the familiar example of this type; the verse is one section, the chorus the other. The Chopin Prelude in E Minor, op. 28, NO. 4, is obviously in this form.

Three-Part

The three-part form is the most common in all music. It may be composed of three sections resembling each other, A A' A", or of three entirely different sections, ABC; but its most frequent form is A B A, where the first is repeated after a contrasting section. Dvorak's Humoresque is a good example of this. The minuet is in this form, though there are occasional exceptions. Frequently the middle section is a development of the first section—just different enough to make the return of the first subject effective.

Theme and Variations

We could go on to four-part and five-part form, but their structure is obvious. The theme and variations form is closely related here. In this there is one idea or section which is constantly repeated with various changes in harmony, key, tempo, rhythm, polyphony, etc. We indicate it by A A' A" A'" A"" A5 A6, etc. Examples are easy to locate, since they are generally titled "theme and variations." Many exist as movements of sonatas or symphonies and often do not carry the title "variations." La Folia by Corelli, for violin, is a series of variations though it is not so labeled.

Rondo

The rondo form is more important. In this form the theme keeps returning after being separated by contrasting material. It may be ABACADAEA, etc., with the contrasting material changing in each instance; or it may be A B A C A B A, with some of the contrasting material also brought back again. This form has been a favorite with many a composer and has been particularly effective as the last movement of a sonata or symphony. It tends to move quickly, but it is also surprisingly effective in slow movements. The effect of the return is always a comfortable one of "Ah, here we are again!" The third movement of the Beethoven Sonata Pathetique, OP. 13, for piano, is a splendid example of this form and may be learned by ear rather easily. The second movement of this same work is also in rondo form, but the return of the theme is a variation. Beethoven thus combines the variation and rondo forms—a frequent practice with him.

Sonata

The sonata form is the most important of all forms, because more of the masterworks are written in this form than in any other. It is not the form of a sonata; but every sonata must have at least one movement in this form. A symphony is merely a sonata for orchestra and consequently will always have one movement in sonata form. Usually this is the first movement; but the Tschaikowsky Fifth Symphony has all four movements in this form. The sonata form may be out­lined as follows:

Exposition—sometimes repeated in older composers Introduction—sometimes omitted 1st Subject—only a few measures long transition—containing a modulation 2nd Subject—more  melodic  and in  the  key  of the dominant or relative major transition—leading to a little coda

Development—the composer uses any or every form of development of either or neither subject or both, but usually stays away from the keys used in the exposition, in order that, after you have been sufficiently tortured by the distortions of the subject matter, you will be glad to hear the

Recapitulation 1st Subject—same as in exposition transition—similar to one in exposition but without modulation 2nd Subject—now in the same key as the ist subject transitionCoda—quite long and includes material from the subjects

This may appear complex, and few movements follow this outline in all details; but it will be worth your time to memorize the form, so that you will enjoy symphonies more and be able to pick up sonata movements by ear. When you know that the second subject is about to appear, you focus your ear in that direction and note the subject as it enters. If you cannot remember the subjects throughout a symphonic movement, you miss the point and the movement seems much too long and uninteresting.

Fugue

The only other form of outstanding importance is the fugue form. We shall not discuss it here, since the student is certainly not ready to attempt fugues by ear. It is a polyphonic structure of strict form.

We often hear of song form, minuet form, scherzo form, etc. These are really not forms but rather are names of com­positions which use one of the forms we have discussed above. They are seldom difficult to identify.

Here more than anywhere else in ear playing, intellectual analysis will help the player. It is always possible to figure out the form, whether or not it uses one of those outlined above; and immediately the player finds it easier to remember the melodies and countermelodies. But the greatest contri­bution made by a knowledge of form is the interpretation of a piece. The player knows and feels what is most important, what is merely incidental, and where the movement begins to draw to a close. The radio or phonograph recording is always available for analysis. Just before bedtime is a splendid opportunity. Remove the worries and strain of daytime activity by analyzing the structure of some pleasing musical composition.

WHAT TO DO Analyze the form of compositions you hear and would like to play. Every time you hear a piece repeated, try to find out something more about the form.

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