Definition Of Form In Music

In music, form refers to the structure and organization of a musical composition.

There are many different types of musical form, and to analyze the form of a
piece essentially means to place it in one of those prototypes.
If a new piece of music is written, it would have to follow certain guidelines about
its melody, harmony, and rhythmic aspects in order to be considered part of a
specific form.
There are a few levels of organization that can determine the form of a piece.
The smallest level is at the measure, or bar, level.
This deals with how a measure is broken up into accented and unaccented beats,
and how one measure or a few can come together to create a melodic, harmonic,
or rhythmic phrase.
This is like looking at one specific word or sentence in a book.

How Form is Analyzed

Form is mostly looked at in terms of the above levels of organization.

Depending on the structure of a specific form, the units of analysis could be small
(bars and phrases) or big (movements or entire pieces).
These units are usually assigned a letter – A, B, C, D, and so on.
For example, a verse in a pop song might get the letter A, and then chorus would
be called B, because it’s different from A.

The Types of Musical Form

Almost all of the types of form in music, and all of the ones mentioned here, are
called sectional forms.
A sectional form is when music can be broken down into sections and then
labelled with the A, B, C letters mentioned above.
Here is a list of the main sectional forms, and we will link to posts that go into
each of these in detail.

Strophic Form
Strophic Form is a type of musical form when only one phrase or passage is
repeated throughout the piece.
You might also see it referred to as verse-repeating form or chorus form.
Because it doesn’t vary at all, Strophic form is labelled as:
AAAA
A good example of a piece that uses stophic form is Amazing Grace.
Binary Form
A piece with Binary Form has two sections that are approximately equal in length
and importance.
They tend to be similar not only in length but will often harmonically too.
It is written as either:
A B or A A B B
A good example of a piece written that uses Binary Form is the folk song
Greensleeves.

Ternary Form
A piece separated into three parts, in which the third part repeats the main ideas
and passages of the first, has a Ternary Form.
The three sections also tend to be very long and can even be whole movements
or pieces.
Because the third part is a repeat of the first Ternary Form is written as:
ABA
A good example of a piece that uses Ternary Form is “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”

Rondo Form
Another type is Rondo Form which follows on from Binary and Ternary form by
adding some additional sections.
It starts with a main passage or phrase that repeats in between different,
contrasting sections, called “episodes”.
ABACADA
You can also carry on adding more episodes which would be written as
ABACADAEA
A good example of a piece of music using Rondo Form is Beethoven’s “Fur Elise”.