Talk: Musical form

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Does anybody really use the phrase "musical form" interchangably with "musical genre"? I can't recall ever coming across an instance of that use. However, I think that people do mean two different things by "musical form":

1. The structure of a movement as determined by arrangement of thematic material and key centres (binary form, sonata form, rondo and so on)
2. A classification determined by overall multi-movement structure, instrumentation and/or function (opera, ballet, sonata, concerto, symphonic poem and so on)

I think this would be a more sensible way of dividing up the article than is done at present. Does anybody agree, or am I being silly? --Camembert

Well, Encyclopaedia Britannica does; see its entry for "Musical form".

mikkalai 25 Nov 2003

I don't have the EB to hand, and I'm not really sure what you're saying it "does", but anyway, I was probably a bit too simplistic with my above post. I'm going to fiddle with the article a bit. --Camembert

Just google for "musical form", it will pop up. Anyway, I am just a layman; the article was missing, so I created a stub. Feel free to do anything with, but leave references to ballet and dance, necessary to my subwikiweb of articles Mikkalai 20:28, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Ah right, found the EB thing. I think it agrees both with what you and I said originally, actually - we were just using words to mean slightly different things. Anyway, I've edited the article somewhat, and it seems better to me now, but it's a tricky thing, and I'm sure it can take further improvement. --Camembert

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Proposed outline

1. Intro
2. Single-movement forms: sectional vs developmental, developmental vs variational, extensional vs intentional
   1. Sectional forms, the larger unit (form) is built from various smaller clear-cut units (sections), combinational, sort of like stacking legos.
   2. Developmental forms, larger unit (form) is built from small bits of material given different presentations and combinations, usually progressive.
   3. Variational forms, larger unit (form) is built from sections treated to one type of presentation at a time, but varying succesively.
3. Multi-movement "forms"

Hyacinth 20:27, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC), User:Hyacinth/Outlines.

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Hi! If you want to expand that outline you could explain to us what each of those "vs." things are. I am a musical layman. Jaberwocky6669 18:05, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

Ta-da. Hyacinth 05:47, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ta-da as in, "Duh, you're really dumb." or "Hey! That's a really great idea!" Lol Jaberwocky6669 16:30, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

The second one, like I Dream of Genie, see article and outline above. Hyacinth 21:36, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)