Basic Formal Structures In Music

"This text is intended primarily for students of college level who have had at least one year of theory: in most colleges and universities this means two semesters or the equivalent. A modest knowledge of harmony, extending to the more common altered chords such as augmented sixths and diminished sevenths, is assumed. Also, the student should understand the forms and functions of ordinary cadences. An attempt has been made here to bring some order to the study of subphrase units, especially motives. This and the subsequent study of phrases and phrase-groups are the two most important steps in any approach to musical form. They are fundamental to all styles and types of music. The story of the elementary forms and how they grew is a sort of capsule history of music. The subject is pursued in this book beyond the traditional classical forms in order to investigate certain adaptations of these old forms. Some of the miscellaneous studies in Chapter 12 are concerned with definite hybrid types. Great emphasis is placed on student participation. Modest opportunities for original composition (a most valuable instructional techniqe) are included as optional assignments in the early chapters. The instructor can, at his discretion, add to these or omit them. The making of graphs compels a student to analyze the formal details of a composition and reduce them to a visible form on paper in a manner permitting easy correction. Here, again, the instructor can determine subject matter for such analyses according to his own preferences and experience. The final chapter devoted to recent music touches on what appears to the author to be the more important advances or developments in compositional techniques affecting form in our time." --Preface.

In this book, David Temperley addresses a fundamental question about music cognition: how do we extract basic kinds of musical information, such as meter, phrase structure, counterpoint, pitch spelling, harmony, and key from music as we hear it? Taking a computational approach, Temperley develops models for generating these aspects of musical structure. The models he proposes are based on preference rules, which are criteria for evaluating a possible structural analysis of a piece of music. A preference rule system evaluates many possible interpretations and chooses the one that best satisfies the rules. After an introductory chapter, Temperley presents preference rule systems for generating six basic kinds of musical structure: meter, phrase structure, contrapuntal structure, harmony, and key, as well as pitch spelling (the labeling of pitch events with spellings such as A flat or G sharp). He suggests that preference rule systems not only show how musical structures are inferred, but also shed light on other aspects of music. He substantiates this claim with discussions of musical ambiguity, retrospective revision, expectation, and music outside the Western canon (rock and traditional African music). He proposes a framework for the description of musical styles based on preference rule systems and explores the relevance of preference rule systems to higher-level aspects of music, such as musical schemata, narrative and drama, and musical tension.

Analyzing Classical Form offers an approach to the analysis of musical form that is especially suited for classroom use at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Students will learn how to make complete harmonic and formal analyses of music drawn from the instrumental works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

Hearing Form: Musical Analysis With and Without the Score is a complete course package for undergraduate courses on musical forms, with comprehensive coverage from the Baroque to the Romantic. Placing emphasis on listening, it teaches students to analyze music both with and without the use of a score, covering phrase endings and cadences, harmonic sequence types, modulations, formal sections, and musical forms. Hearing Form is supported by a workbook, its own full-score anthology, and a companion website containing an instructor’s manual, test bank, audio streaming of recordings for the pieces in the anthology, and downloadable sound files. .The second edition has been updated to include: Additional score-based exercises, More music of the Romantic era and more vocal music, New scores included in the Anthology, with twice as many composers represented. With an engaging and practical approach informed by recent scholarship, Hearing Form enables students to recognize musical elements both by sight and by ear. Please note: this is the Hearing Form textbook only. For the Hearing Form anthology, order ISBN 978-1-138-92967-8. For the textbook and anthology set, order ISBN 978-1-138-90069-1.