September 2010
Beginner
376 pages
12h 7m
English
While most compositional forms regard the entire piece or movement, there are forms that exist within a larger framework. These inner forms guide our ears through long pieces, just as paragraphs and chapters guide us through a novel.
The most basic structural idea, our musical atom, is the motive. The motive can be of any length, but is usually 2–5 note lengths. The key is that this musical idea is repeated, either exactly or modified in some way, later in the piece.
The opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is an excellent example. That combination of three repeated ...
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