A composer friend of mine asked how I manage ‘form’—the overall ’structure’ of a piece.
Well, in music school they teach you about the classic ‘forms’: fugue, sonata allegro, etc. But this approach assumes that there is some sort of almost mathematical ‘form-ula’ for a given type of piece. My experience of approaching music with formulas is that the result is invariably boring and unsatisfying.
Instead, I assume that we bring essentially the same mental capacities to bear when we listen to music as we do when we enjoy any other time-based art form, such as novels and films (and as we experience Life itself unfolding in Time). There are always exceptions, but generally the successful (people are moved by them) novels and films tell a story.
What makes for a satisfying story? Well, you have to have interesting characters. Those would be like the themes of your piece. And then those characters experience change—within themselves, and/or by going on an adventure somewhere outside of their normal routine.
For example, Star Wars, is a very successful story that exhibits these characteristics with crystal clarity. You have interesting characters: Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, etc. If Luke did nothing but stay on his space farm and Darth did nothing but maintain the status quo of the Empire, there would be no story. But Luke does leave his farm, we see him change as he is placed in all sorts of new and interesting contexts. And he interacts with other interesting characters (like Darth). And there is a sense where he loses his family in the beginning, and ultimately gains a new one (including his father and sister) by the end; he thinks he knows who he is at the beginning, searches for his new self in the course of the story, and finds/earns a new larger vision of himself by the end.
To me, a piece of music is like that. You have ‘themes’ that are interesting—they have to be ‘catchy’ enough so you’ll recognize them again when they reappear. Those themes undergo changes (from major to minor is a simple example) as they are placed in new musical contexts (the accompaniment to that same theme is different, for example). You can juxtapose your themes—have them ‘interact’ with each other in different ways as the piece unfolds. And you want to have some sort of ‘resolution to the conflict’ like in a story—one common way of doing this is having the piece return to the home key and more or less restate the original versions of the themes, but there’s no end of other ways to resolve/conclude the musical story.
To be honest, when I start a piece, I have at best only the vaguest idea what the ‘form’ will turn out to be. I come up with my themes/characters, and then let them have their own adventure with each other—I’m almost discovering their story as THEY are—and I too want to see how the story ultimately resolves. When I get to the end, in hindsight I can see how the ’story’ has a structure to it. Sometimes at that point I can see that the ’story’ could be improved by having a theme/character make an additional appearance somewhere—that sort of fairly light editing; but I almost never make major modifications to the story after the fact.
That’s not to say that all ‘my’ stories (if they really are ‘mine’) are equally successful—some are more so than others, just like everyone responds more to one story than another, and everyone’s opinions always vary! But that’s fine—best to just move on and start a new story and see how THAT one unfolds! There is no lack of stories that want to be told—whether they be in the evanescent universe within a piece of music, or in the evanescent universes of our own individual lives.
