Lesson video

Good morning everybody.

And welcome to music.

My name is Mr. Sole I'm from Barcelona, Spain.

And this is going to be the first of six music lessons where we're going to learn about music structure for today's lesson you're going to need an exercise book or paper and a pencil or a pen.

It's better a pencil just in case we have to erase something.

So in short, what are we going to learn today? Today, we're going to learn about musical form and what is it after musical form we're going to take a look at one of the most famous music forms ever created, which is the binary form.

We're going to take a look as well at the structure of the binary form, and then at some examples of binary form and how can we together identify them.

So musical form, what is it? Musical form is the structure of a musical composition or a piece of music.

The structure means that it's how it looks how we organise it, how it is divided.

So we call it the arrangement of the units of rhythm, melody and harmony.

So all those elements together, going to the piece of music and that helps the structure get some shape and helps us as well, identify elements and dividing them into small sections, which we call phrases.

A phrase is the beginning and the end of a musical sentence.

For example, it could be ♪ My dog is a good dog ♪ ♪ Yes, he is ♪ That was a musical sentence.

The second one, ♪ My dog is a good dog ♪ ♪ Yes, he is ♪ I know the showed one, but then comes the largest one ♪ For he can sit and bark ♪ ♪ Stand up tall ♪ ♪ Chasing he stay alone around the hall ♪ ♪ My dog is a good dog.

♪ ♪ Yes, he is.

♪ This is how we divide music by phrases.

So in order to organise the structure we're going to give letters to each musical idea.

But are we going to give any letter no just like the alphabet the first musical idea is going to get an A so the second musical idea what letter do you think we're going to give it? Yes, you're right.

We're going to give A at the first one.

And as you said, and as you guessed the second idea, the third idea, the fourth idea they're going to be called B, C and so on.

So binary form Mr. Sole what is it? Good question.

Because binary form is a musical form that has two sections.

So if it has two sections, two musical ideas how many letters does it going to have? two, well done So can you guess now, before we go further which letters are going to be, keep it for you? You're going to know in a bit.

So the binary form was very popular in the Baroque period which happened 500 years ago.

And it's still very famous today.

And it was used before the Baroque and after the Baroque it was mostly used for keyboards sonatas Now what's a keyboard Sonata, the word Sonata we will look at it in the third lesson but I keyboard is an instrument that has keys pretty obvious, isn't it? But the keyboard was the predecessor of the piano.

So it was the father, the ancestor.

And binary form was meant to be used with songs that were short and they were the only done.

Only written from one movement, now let's take a look at the structure of the binary form.

And here is where it gets a little bit tricky.

So binary form, as we said, and as you guessed right and very correctly has two sections which we call A and B let's remember that we call A the main and the first idea that appears and B we call it when is the second section, which contrasts from the section A Now binary forms comes in two different ways can be simple or can be rounded.

Now let's take a look at what do they have in common simple and rounded binary forms. They both repeat, they have repetitions.

It means that the ideas are played twice.

The rounded binary form goes back to A but the symbol form does not.

That means that in a simple binary form song we only play A and B, but on the rounded one, we play A, B, A as we are going to see now let's take a look at the visuals of this simple binary form.

We can see as A, between two brackets of reputations which is represented by two dots.

And then it goes to B, which also repeats itself.

If we take a look at the rounded one, we're going to see that we have the same A section repeated once.

But when we get to B, then we have B and A and then repeats back to B and finishes with the A which was the first idea we ever heard.

So let's hear an example of simple binary form.

It's a piece of music called Greensleeves but we don't know who wrote it.

That's why it's called anonymous.

Many songs, many pieces of music from the renaissance were written by anonymous sources.

So we never know.

We never knew who those people were.

So let's have a listen to Greensleeves by the beat or numbers.

Beautiful, can you guess which instrument was that? It's also a very old instrument called the loot.

The loot is the ancestor of the modern classic guitar.

Now let's have another listen to another binary form song but this one it's going to be a rounded one.

Now this song was composed by Robert Schumann, a romantic composer on his piano.

It's one small song called Melody from a big album called album for the young.

And it sounds like this, This time the instrument, it's a piano Beautiful and simple.

So let's go back to Greensleeves and now we're going to analyse it together.

We're going to identify the sections.

So the first musical idea is going to be do you remember the letter? Yes, its going to be A.

Now Greensleeves is very special because A is going to repeat it But It's going to be developed, developed means that the artists It's going to ornamented.

Now this doesn't sound like A, so we call it B.

And the idea It's going to repeat it twice.

Let's have a look now, you and I identifying the sections of Robert Schumann, Melody from album for the young.

First idea A repeats A remember 'cause this is rounded we are going to go back to A.

NeW section, new idea what happens now, we'd go back to A do you remember that the sections repeat each other, back to B and, yes back to A and then beautiful piece of me.

I hope you enjoyed it.

So what I would like for you to do at home I would like for you to listen again to the songs that we heard today and by yourself trying to spot the different sections.

If it's simple, It's going to be A, A, B, B but if it's rounded, it's going to be A, A, B, A B, A.

So I help that you have an amazing day and I will see you in the next lesson.

Bye bye.