Form theory for music

The existence of a theory of forms for music assumes that its elements are put together into a formed whole with the help of deliberately used design elements, which for the listener does not represent a random sequence of the individual elements, but rather forms a logical whole. Same with the formation of شركة نظافة بالبخار بجدة, the effort of every person in this business has been put together to achieve success.

This applies to most compositions of the “classical” occidental music tradition as well as to an improvised jazz solo. Many other musical styles and genres, on the other hand, do not derive their effect on musicians and listeners from the experience of a sequence predetermined by the composer: African drum music, Indian raga, minimal music.

Form theory

The theory of forms therefore has to examine whether the terms and categories used by it are at all appropriate for the object it wants to describe. The theory of forms does not manage without terms, schemes, and categorization, because it wants to describe musical processes mainly with linguistic means, make them understandable and interpret them whereby means of graphic representation are helpful. Music, however, cannot be completely absorbed in language because it is its own kind of language. The description of a musical form will therefore only ever be able to approximate the piece of music.

The categorization by means of terms has other problems:

  • On the one hand, categories with their necessary abstraction and simplification are indispensable for understanding work against its historical and stylistic background: An analytical approach to a Bach fugue only opens up when the musical historical background of the compositional genre “fugue” is known.
  • On the other hand, every category formation can be refuted on the basis of individual works, because most works of art also show their individual characteristics and modifications at the same time as the use of musical conventions and patterns.
  • The use of categorizing terms in the theory of forms also harbors the risk of misunderstanding that composers have oriented themselves according to the specifications of a theory of forms. Rather, the historical reality is that the theory of forms creates an intersection from the multitude of compositions that have used certain means of formal design from a certain time interval and from this derives and formulates types of form and genre.