0.5 Musical form

Grasping the whole composition

Driving through a city for the first time can be very disorienting. Building after building catches your eye. Youcircle past a monument, then a fountain. Restaurants, hotels and shops fly past. Trying to absorb and remember all of theselandmarks quickly becomes tiring. Was the town square before or after the park? Did you pass a museum? If you don't speakthe language, an extra anxiety sets in. You try to decipher the street signs, negotiate the traffic. By the time youarrive at the hotel, you fall on your bed, exhausted.

Similarly, it is easy to get lost in the moment-to-moment progress of a piece of music: There are often too many detailsto remember, too many implications to contemplate. If the work is particularly dynamic, you may become overwhelmed withits rapid progress. If the musical language is unfamiliar, even one poorly understood sound may throw you into confusion.

In your visit to a new city, it is wiser to begin with an overview of the neighborhoods. First, you notice that you aretraversing the old town, where the buildings are closely packed together and the streets narrow and winding. Then, youpass into the modern section, with sleek high-rises, set apart along straight thoroughfares. You don't need to speak thelanguage; nor is there the pressure to remember facades or street-names. Later, you may revisit the old town on foot,discovering quiet alleys and ancient monuments. But, for now, you content yourself with a general sense of the city'slayout: How large is the old town compared to the new? How much variety of architecture characterizes each neighborhood?This more patient, disciplined approach helps to orient your future explorations. It will be harder to get lost oroverwhelmed when you have a commanding sense of the city's geography.

Similarly, the path to informed listening begins with a grasp of the whole composition. There are tremendous advantages tobeginning with a commanding perspective: While details tend to pass by very quickly; the overall trajectory of the musicunfolds more gradually, giving you more time to consider it. The significance of an individual gesture is often clearerwhen related to the work's overall destiny. And, while the immediate sounds are bristling with personality and may bedifficult to grasp, the larger structure is often easier to hear accurately.

Thus, we will approach listening to a piece of music by moving from the whole into the details: We will begin by developingan awareness of the composition's form and destiny, then gradually sink into the details with a stronger sense of theirrelevance.