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10. The Structural Level:
Patterns, Generic and Conventional Structure

In chapter 4 we saw the fundamental features of structure in how we perceive musical units, connections and boundaries. We will now look at how units interact on the structural level to produce emergent structural features. The essential underlying concept here is that of Patterns. When units are put together, there are only three fundamental mechanisms that produce patterns in music: Repetition or Identity, Variation and Novelty. Since there are so many dimensions in music both vertically of notes, harmony and dynamic as well as horizontally in time, and these mechanisms apply to any single dimension or combination of dimensions, the possibilities of multi-layer patterning are practically infinite. However, even the most complicated music can be explained by a finite number of basic applications of the mechanisms put together in different ways.

Repetition, Variation, Novelty

Let’s start with melodic units, which are often most prominent. A melodic unit, a phrase, can be repeated to create a pair of two identical phrases. This puts emphasis on that particular phrase when we hear it repeated a second time. Having this identity we can then add variation in another dimension, for example increasing dynamic the second time and create the effect of Insistence, or decreasing dynamic or tempo the second time and create the effect of Echo or Afterthought. We can vary the timbre by repeating the phrase in other instruments and create the effect of Imitation or Dialogue, with different voices playing the same statement.

The Variation mechanism refers primarily to the pitch and/or rhythmic dimensions of a unit and can take many different forms. Ornamentation is adding shorter notes around main melodic notes like trills and turns. Variation in the texture of instruments and/or grouping of accompaniment units is a potent way of stating the same thing in a different way. There can even be variation in the harmonic dimension of having different harmony to the same melody. Variation form as a large-scale structural feature (getting ahead of ourselves slightly) uses a longer stretch of foundational material and varies different aspects of it in turns, like harmonic mode, tempo, rhythm, register, articulation etc.

The Novelty or Contrast (in character) is everything that is not derived from previous material. It acts as a new entity in the musical world and depending on the scope of contrast to the preceding material it could be like a new idea, a new way of thinking or a completely new character in a musical drama. In large-scale structure different sections often stand in contrast to each other in character in order to produce a whole that keeps being interesting. The typical “character piece” that gained popularity in the 19th century on the other hand has precisely the lack of contrast and comfortable stay in one character as a defining feature. Novelty in general is what gives music its potential for plurality, and the act of reconciling plurality within unity is one thing composers have aimed at for centuries.

As a special case of variation, we talk of Transformation when the material is made into something new while still retaining part of its identity. For example, changing a theme that has been in minor and stating it in major is a powerful transformation. In a technical sense we have these transformational mechanisms:

• Extension/Augmentation and Reduction/Diminution: keeping the same contour of melodic direction but extending/augmenting or reducing/diminishing the intervals.

• Prolongation and Shortening: keeping the same melody but in shorter or longer note values

• Reharmonization, for example switching harmonic mode

Some special cases of transformation are less apparent and often intuitively imperceptible but mathematically valid and much employed in 12-tone music:

• Inversion: same intervals of pitches but each inverted in direction (up/down)

• Retrograde: pitch sequence in inverted order, starting from last to first

• Retrograde inversion: both of the above simultaneously

Compounded Units

Moving on from applications in principle to a more practical level, it’s common to build music with units that we feel belong directly together rather than indirectly. They can be called Compounded units and are present whenever we perceive the music in terms of:

• Antecedent – Consequent

• Call/Question – Response

• Dialogue

• Reaction – Commentary

• Sequence (technical meaning of repeating material in transposition)

• Counter- voice/melody/part

These units get their identity from their position within the compound sequence. As a thought experiment, we can think about what a Response unit would sound like if it were on its own. It would be something very different: either a motif in its own right or something incoherent and incomplete. As we can see from the terminology here, these structural units also come with clear valence of Conversational character (response, dialogue etc.). This is precisely how they get their function within music and form this special type of structural unit, and we will look more into this in the next chapter. There are also special cases of structural organization that have correlates in Rhetoric, brilliantly demonstrated by Leonard Bernstein in no. 3 of his Harvard lecture series “The Unanswered Question”, titled Musical Semantics (1973).

• Alliteration = starting each group of units the same way but continuing with novelty

• Rhyming = ending each group of units the same way but starting with novelty

Bernstein makes the main point in the lecture series that music has poetic features rather than prosaic in its structural configuration. Musical units relate to each other much more freely with the help of poetic imagination and ambiguity rather than under strict grammar rules.

Form

The Form is the large-scale structure of a piece and specifies the relationship and order between Sections of various characters. And in order to ascertain what the form is, some kind of analysis needs to be applied. The rough outlines are normally rather easy to identify: where a new character has been established that is clearly different from the preceding music, is where a new section has started. But there are finer levels of structure that are more difficult to discern especially for an untrained listener. Clearly divided sections could contain several subsections within them that differ in a structurally significant, but not as easily ascertained, way. To reach a level where such a deep analysis is readily available one needs extensive exposure to music, as well as some theoretical studying of it. The next chapter goes through the consequences of such an analysis: what the music can tell us when we are in an informed position (and chapter 14 is about how to attain such a position).

A good starting point is the level just above the musical unit and compounded units. Several phrases are put together in a melody or some other kind of musical texture, but since each unit is clearly related to the surrounding ones, everything is perceived to be part of one predominant expression of character. Now, after several units this character may shift slightly while still operating with similar types of units. This is a significant point in a structural sense, but on a fine rather than rough level. Already here music shows its immense potential of infinite possibilities: after only several units such a shift can occur over any dimension and make the resulting combination completely unique. Just like how a human being is drawn up from one of endless combinations of only two sets of DNA, or how a game of chess typically opens in a standard way but deviates into a completely new, never-seen-before position after about 15-25 moves (through introduction of a “novelty”). A great composer knows how to harvest these possibilities. He chooses the material of his musical units: motifs, themes, rhythms, harmonies, and then keeps some of these dimensions intact, as it were, while using contrasts in others. All differences in style and between composers come from this plethora of differently made choices.

On this level, we have a few important structural concepts that are valid across music genres and styles. The concept of Return is one, which occurs after some initial material has been stated and followed by something new, when the first material then comes back again. At that point it comes with a recognition of having been before, but novel in relation to the latest material. This can also be done at different times on several structural layers, all the time contributing to the complexity of musical patterning. We also have the functions of a special section that starts a piece as an Introduction before a proper start in another character; and a special section that ends a piece as a Coda if it differs from the body of the piece to some extent.

All these features make up a repertoire of Generic structural units in music. When we go into any musical style, there are separate terminologies for Conventional structural units within that style. The simple return of material on a higher structural level could be labelled as ABA-form even across styles since it refers to a generic mechanism. But in pop songs there are also conventional forms with Verse and Refrain (both types returning several times in a song), and in classical sonata form the Recapitulation is the major return of material from the Exposition. There are conventional units on structural levels on a middle ground as well. For example, in sonata form we have the 1st and 2nd subject (or subject groups), a Closing group and the Development as important structural units.

The structure requires more cognitive effort in order to store, recognize and identify different materials and assess their internal relationship, than what taking in the expression on the perceptual level does. Therefore it is open to be analyzed to gain a better understanding of the music, which we will look deeper into in chapter 14. By understanding the structure we can access the deepest secrets of music, that of the narrative it tells by progressing through it. The structure, too, has a valence, which we will look at in the next chapter.