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Simple early forms
A A B A
This is a standard form or shape used in music, particularly in the modern era. Many pop songs are composed to this shape and it is a standard form for many jazz pieces with the B section often described as the middle eight. It is also a standard shape for a melody of a song. In this example from an English art song the melody is in this shape and is cued for the listener.
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Binary or A B form
The music is made up of two different sections labelled A and B. Each section may be repeated. This was one of the earliest forms and is present in all kinds of folk dance music. Listen to a Scottish reel played on the accordion with the sections cued with a voice to help you and then all the music repeated without cues and with accompaniment.
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In the Baroque period the suite was a group of dances performed one after another and continuing a tradition from the Renaissance period when two dances, the pavan and galliard, were usually performed together one after the other. Listen to a pavan played on early instruments: sackbuts, early trombones, and cornetti.
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The dances of the suite were usually:
1 a German allemande in a moderate 4/4 time
2 a French courante in a quite fast 3/2 or 6/4 time or faster
3 an Italian corrente in 3/4 or 3/8 time
4 a Spanish sarabande in slow triple time
5 a lively gigue (jig) usually in compound time.
6 Sometimes after the gigue composers introduced other dances such as gavotte, boure, minuet or passepied.
In almost all cases these dances were in binary form and in the same key. Listen to an example of a minuet from Handel's 'Water Music'.
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Compare with ternary below.
Ternary form
Three-part form. A form where the first section is always repeated at the end. It could begin with a short introduction and end with a coda.
Listen to a complete Italian aria with the parts clearly defined and cued for the listener. Also notice the excellent example of an interrupted cadence near the end of the aria and the perfect cadences at the end of each section.
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Da capo aria
An aria in ternary form (A B A) used in cantata, opera and oratorio in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The third section is not written out but the instruction da capo (from the beginning) is given instead. The repeat of the A section was often performed with the solo part ornamented. Listen to a complete Handel aria, sung by a mezzo soprano with the sections cued for the listener. Listen carefully for the ornamentation in the da capo section.
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