III. Form
Formal Sections in General
Brian Jarvis
Key Takeaways
- Analyzing musical form involves determining the identity and function of musical spans.
- Musical sections are either core or auxiliary.
- Core sections are either main or contrasting.
- Auxiliary sections are either external or connective.
Overview of Formal Sections in General
Understanding the form of a musical work typically involves breaking it down into spans of time, based on how each span is similar to and/or contrasts with other spans. These spans are then classified based on the identity of their musical material and how the section “functions” in the context of the piece. The two largest categories of formal function are core sections and auxiliary sections.[1] below summarizes the hierarchical relationship between some of the most common section types. At the broadest level, musical sections are either core or auxiliary. Core sections are either main or contrasting, and auxiliary sections are either external or connective.
Core Sections
The core sections identified in
typically introduce and repeat a work’s primary musical content. You can think of them as the sections you might sing for someone if they asked you how the work “goes.” You can also think of core sections as containing the work’s themes, though the term “theme” can be used in a broad or specific sense. Core sections also tend to repeat, which is another reason they will often make a stronger impression on your memory.Main Sections
Main sections are typically the first section that presents primary musical content; they are usually repeated later in the work and are characterized by a relative sense of stability.
Terminology
The terms for main sections change depending upon the conventions of the genre and form (if it is a form with a name). When thinking about form in general, the main section should be called A, but within a known form, it may go by many names, including but not limited to:
- primary theme (sonata)
- refrain (rondo or verse-refrain)
- exposition (sonata)
- theme from a set of variations
- chorus (verse-chorus)
- dance chorus (verse-chorus)
- strophe (AABA and strophic)
Contrasting Sections
Contrasting sections are hard to generalize, since they can vary in affect and stability. In some cases, the section is perfectly stable, and it contrasts mainly because it comes second instead of first; in other cases, a contrasting section may be the most unstable section of the work.
Unstable contrasting sections may share many musical features with connective auxiliary sections (defined below). The distinction lies in whether or not it is considered a core section: contrasting sections sound like a primary place in the work, whereas connective sections sound like a place between two core sections. In cases where the line between the two is blurry, a decision can be made based on the conventions of the overall form of the piece, or multiple formal descriptors (e.g., becoming) can be used to create an