When I Thought Form Was a Straightjacket
I remember sitting in a music theory class called Form and Analysis thinking that all I wanted to do was chuck my textbook in the trash. My fellow composer buddies would all complain with me about how obnoxious and useless this class felt. It stifled our creativity. I don’t feel that way anymore. Form, rather than being handcuffs that hinder our motion, is more like a canvas that gives focus and scope to our painting.
Formless Chaos
When I look back at my early compositions, they are sprawling octopus-like creatures with fifteen uncoordinated arms. Or like watching a film where each scene introduces a new protagonist who never returns. Or like a garden of vegetables without rows, each plant wildly competing with the rest of the disordered vegetation. My mind was like a never-ending, idea-generating machine. But this beads-on-a-necklace approach to composition wears out the listener.
Form as Solution to Chaos
Attention to form is a skill that increases the expressiveness of a musical piece. Perhaps it might be compared to architectural symmetry or narrative arc. The symmetry and balance of a building are part of its beauty and grandeur. A story’s rising action, denouement, and conclusion are what give it momentum and release. The same is true of music. Intelligible structure is what gives it dramatic power or gravitas.
The Secret: Repetition with Variation
“Fine,” you say. “Form is important, but how do I do it?” Personally, I don’t think of form rigidly. There is a simple principle that all form is based upon in one way or another. If you play around with this principle, you will find your way as a composer who writes music that others can follow. The principle is this: repetition with variation.
Diverse Examples
Bach made much of this concept in his music. He would take a small idea, turn it upside down, bring it through different key centers, and compress or expand the rhythms. Beethoven, likewise, took advantage of this principle. His favorite form may have been “theme and variations.” We’re able to track with these composers because they keep repeating the same ideas, but each time there is a twist. It’s the familiarity along with the surprises that gives their music its logic.
But perhaps you are not inclined to Bach or Beethoven’s fixation upon one idea. (Their style works in part because they worked with small motives.) Perhaps instead you like long, flowing melodies like Schubert or Tchaikovsky. Well, truth be told, they did the same thing in their own ways. Schubert would often repeat a melody frequently with different harmony beneath so that its character changed. Or Tchaikovsky would embed his ideas into a kind of narrative, repeating the same ideas at different moments in his symphonies with radically different orchestral garments. The result was a kind of journey with rising action and climactic resolutions. It’s a different approach with the same principle working behind it.
But perhaps you are neither inclined to small motives nor long melodies but rather to rhythmic gestures. Consider, then, the work of Steve Reich or Philip Glass, who would take an idea and, like watching the course of a day in a time-lapse camera, bring their listeners on a journey by spinning hypnotic rhythmic or harmonic textures which they then subjected to small changes over time. Again: repetition with variation.
Practical Takeaway
So composers, heed the form of your work. Write an idea, then ask yourself, “Can I repeat this idea differently from the time before? How many times does a repetition feel good, before it starts to feel old-hat? Can I increase that number if there’s something between my repetitions?” If you ask yourself these questions, you’re well on your way to writing music with a satisfying structure that can have the same kind of impressive effect as great architecture or a sweeping story.