The pieces of the piece
The overall form of a piece can be broken down into sections. Even a very short piece of music can usually be described as sections (for example, three phrases: a call and a repeated answer). For a very long piece, it can be useful to divide and subdivide multiple times, to see how the composer spins out a long piece by connecting and developing smaller ideas. For example, a symphony is divided into four movements. One of those movements might be a dance consisting of four repeated sections. The first of those sections might consist of 2 eight-measure phrases, and the first of those phrases might be built from four variations on a short motive (and so on).
- Are the musical ideas that draw the attention best described as motives, distinct phrases, or long lines with no clear division into phrases or motives?
- How are the musical ideas put together? For example, do phrases happen one at a time, or do they overlap? Is an entire section built up from a single motive? Is a phrase-based melody accompanied by a persistent rhythmic motive?
- To what extent is repetition used? At what levels is it used? (For example, repetitive rhythm establishing the beat, short motives reused to create a melody, whole phrases repeated, whole repeated sections)? Are repetitions exact, or slightly different? What is different and why? (For example, does the melody change slightly to fit new words, or is the repetition in a new key because of the expectations of sonata form?)
Rhythm
The short-term organization of the sound from one moment to the next creates rhythm, audible groupings of the sounds in time.
- Is the music organized into regular pulses? If so, name the
meter , time signature, tala, or other organizing principle.
- Are
accents ,
articulation , and/or changes in
dynamics crucial in creating or expressing the rhythm, form, or style of the music?
- Are there any rhythmic devices (such as
syncopation or
borrowed divisions ) that play an important part in the piece?
- What specific rhythmic motives or ideas make this music distinctive, and how are they used in the development of the piece?
- In what way is the organization of the rhythm typical of a particular style of music (for example, salsa, swing, or hard rock)? Is the rhythm atypical of this style in any way?
Summary: where should you concentrate you analysis?
As you answered the questions above, you may have already discovered the aspect of the piece that is most intriguing, most difficult to understand, or most relevant to the questions you have as a learner and creator of music. If you are still uncertain where to focus the rest of your analysis, look over all of your answers and consider:
- Which aspects of this piece attracted you to it in the first place?
- Which aspects can you definitely dismiss as irrelevant to your current interests?
- Which aspects are the most difficult for you to describe, understand, or analyze?
- Which musical elements are the most complex in the sections of the music that you find most interesting?
- What aspects of this piece would you find most difficult to imitate convincingly in a composition, improvisation, or arrangement of your own? Which aspects are the most unlike your own attempts to create this type of piece? (You may need to do an exploratory analysis of your own composition to discover the answer.)
- Which aspects of this piece do you find the most difficult to perform? Or which are the most unlike other pieces in this genre or tradition that you have already studied?
- Do your interests lie in aspects of the music that you could analyze well on your own given enough time, in aspects that you could analyze sufficiently given some help and music-theory resources, or in aspects that you currently have no idea how to analyze? If you cannot finish an analysis on your own, are the resources and help you need available? Could you learn what you want to know by taking lessons or classes, or by joining a musical group?
