Variation in music is like having a good set of kitchen knives. If you use them properly, cooking becomes easy and fun . . . If you use them carelessly, somebody loses a finger . . . Likewise, in composing music, variation is NOT inherently valuable. How you use it makes the difference between Giving […]
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Why Four-bar Phrases?
“The four-bar phrase has had a bad press in our time,” writes Charles Rosen.[1. In The Romantic Generation 258. Rosen gives a fascinating exploration of them in his book, but I want to articulate a different approach.] But for all the denigration, four-bar phrases are ubiquitous.
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Why Don’t Modern Composers Like Repetition?
The fact is, the vast majority of composers in the history of the world have not repeated everything in their music literally. That only happens in strict strophic forms (on the formal level), early Minimalism (on the local level), and a few other oddball pieces.
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A Simple Trick To Think About Repetition in Music — or Anything
Composers work with patterns, which is another way of saying we work with repetition. Thus, if I have three elements, A, B, and C, it would be useful to know how I can reorder them.
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