In this video I'm going to talk about the sentence form, which I'm pretty excited about.
Yes, I am the kind of person who gets excited about musical forms because when I really
understood what makes the different parts of this form work it completely changed my writing.
Hey guys, welcome back to my channel.
If you're new here, I'm Ryan.
I'm a composer for film, TV, and video games,
but I also love figuring out and talking about the way that writing music works.
For more videos about form, music theory,
and everything related to writing music please remember to subscribe.
So there are two fundamental formulas, or structures, I use when writing music.
Last time I talked about the period form and today we'll talk about the sentence form.
The sentence is an under discussed form but it's really powerful.
It can work really well for main themes, B themes, intros, outros, transitions, pretty much anything.
A lot of books about musical form only focus on the period, and then when you go and listen to a
lot of real music what they describe doesn't really match up with what you're hearing.
The first time I heard about the sentence as a distinct form
was in Arnold Schoenberg's Fundamentals of Musical Composition.
You might know of Schoenberg as the father of atonal music, but his understanding of
tonal harmony is really solid and his books are really good if you ever get a chance to read one.
But I didn't really come to appreciate what made the sentence form different from the period,
and why those differences mattered, until I read Analyzing Classical Form by William Caplin.
And there I really understood how the different parts can give you
a really different trajectory for your theme.
So there is a lot to get through in this video.
First I'll talk about what the sentence form
is and we'll look at what I call "the textbook example" from Beethoven.
Then I'll talk a bit about what makes the sentence different from
the period and when you might want to use one or the other.
We'll take a look at a second example from Spirited Away.
Then I'll write a brand new melody using
the sentence form to show you how useful and easy the structure is.
And to finish it off, I'll talk about why learning
about the sentence form was such a game changer for me.
So let's get into what the form actually is.
We'll do a quick overview and then we'll go into more detail.
You start with a two bar basic idea.
Repeat the basic idea, with or without variation.
Bars five and six are called the continuation and this is
where things have a feeling of forward motion.
And that leads us to a cadence that closes off the theme.
So let's take a listen to the opening theme from Beethoven's F minor Piano Sonata.
Just like we did with the period form, he starts with a two-bar basic idea.
But what the sentence does differently is that instead of responding with a contrasting idea
we repeat the basic idea.
It could be an exact repetition, it could be varied.
In the case of the Beethoven he's kept the line roughly the same pitch register
but adapted it to the V chord.
There's no question that it's a repetition of what we just heard before
being played in a different way.
What's really important about these first four bars, which Caplin calls the presentation,
is that there's a feeling of harmonic stability.
A lot of times this can mean that there's a pedal tone holding the tonic underneath,
or the whole thing is on the I chord, but generally there's just a lack of kind of
harmonic progression, harmonic forward movement.
Even if you are using different chords or different harmonies the chords aren't
necessarily telling a story, and especially there's not really a strong sense of cadence.
So for example in the Beethoven, when he repeats the basic idea he modifies it to the V chord,
but just because we have a I chord going to V we don't really get a feeling of,
like, a I to V half cadence.
There's not really this harmonic direction.
It's more like oscillating harmonies.
And when we return to the tonic in bar
five it still feels like we're kind of hovering around that I home tonic space.
If you look at the bass line you can even see he's using an inversion, so we're getting
this neighbor tone motion which is not as forceful as using the root position chords.
But next is where the magic happens, because in bars five and six we have the continuation.
I like to think of the continuation as the moment where we have motion and
movement in the theme, and a lot of times the way we get that is by having more of something.
This might mean more motivic units in less time, or more cords per bar, or a more active rhythm.
Generally there is just a sense of more,
because we're getting motion, we're getting forward movement.
Things are actually happening and driving us towards the end.
Whatever it is, there's a sense that we're being moved from point
A of the beginning to point B of the cadence.
So in the case of the Beethoven, for the continuation you can see
he reaches towards a new melodic high point, so more pitch height.
He has a climbing motion in the bass line.
He has a new chord every bar instead of just a new chord every two bars.
And all those things come together to make
this middle section feel really exciting and really energetic.
You really get swept along.
And then in bar seven and eight, just like in the period form, we have a cadence.
And just like in the period form, this doesn't have to mean that the piece is over.
This could be a perfect cadence, it could be a half cadence.
What it really means is that there's some sort of sense of punctuation, that there's a breath.
This is really important so that your listener can have a moment to process what they just heard,
to have a little breath and space before the new things that you're about to give to them.
If you neglect to have clear cadences in your piece you're essentially writing run-on sentences.
It would be like writing an essay with no punctuation marks,
no indentation, no line breaks for new paragraphs.
It would just be a rambling mess.
So don't neglect your cadences.
So Beethoven does a few nice things with his cadence here.
After having a very active melody he simplifies the rhythm and has it descend back down.
Both of these things help to give us kind of a calming feeling
after the rush of that continuation.
He ends on the V chord for a half cadence and he has a fermata,
which allows for some space before he moves into the next part of the piece.
There's a very strong feeling of breath or punctuation,
demarcation, that that first theme has ended and we're getting prepared and ready for more to come.
So now that we've talked about the different details of the
theme let's listen through it one more time and hear how it all comes together.
So how does the sentence form compare with the period form?
If you haven't watched my video on the period form yet you might want to head over,
check that out first, and then come back over here.
In some ways the period and the sentence form are identical for like 75 percent of the time.
They both start with a two bar basic idea.
They both have a repetition of that idea, and they both end with a cadence.
What's really different about them is what happens in the middle
and the way that that repetition of the basic idea is handled.
So if you remember, in the period
after the basic idea we have a contrasting idea and then a return to the basic idea.
There's definitely a sense of balance, and also that the first time we said something it was
kind of a question now we're saying it again and you're expecting some sort of resolution.
In contrast. the sentence stays pretty static by repeating that basic idea.
It's kind of really holding us down.
We're going to need something more by the second time through.
We're ready for something to happen.
And then we get that continuation,
so there's a lot of energy and motion in the middle of the theme.
When you hear the first two bars of a theme
there's really no way to know which way it's going to go.
Is this going to be a period?
Is this going to be a sentence?
Until you get to bar three, and that might be true when you're writing as well.
So how do you decide which one to use when?
I like to oversimplify it a bit and think of the period form as being kind of stability and balance
and calmness, contrasted with the sentence form which is energy and action and motion.
So if I was writing a love theme or maybe a simple march I might lean towards the period form.
If I was writing an adventure theme or the opening allegro to
a sonata I'm probably going to use the sentence.
So to borrow and twist a metaphor from the author Karol Berger,
I like to think of the period as a circle and the sentence as an arrow.
There are plenty of cases where you could use either theme in any context,
but kind of oversimplifying this, putting them in these two separate camps, helps me
make quick decisions when I'm writing about which direction I'm going to take my theme.
So our next example of a sentence form comes from Joe Hisaishi's score to Spirited Away
from the track One Summer's Day.
So the first thing we have, as expected, is a two bar basic idea.
In bars three and four we have a repeat of this idea, but it's down a step
and there's some subtle but kind of insignificant rhythmic variation.
There is no doubt to anyone listening that even with those slight changes
bars three and four are a repetition of bars one and two.
Notice the harmony in the first four bars.
There is this IV-V-I progression but it's positioned in such a way that it's almost
more affirming of C major than it is a harmonic movement kind of use of chords.
There's not really a strong sense of cadence or punctuation happening in these first four bars.
Really it just kind of feels like we're sitting around in C major territory.
And especially because of that repetition of the basic idea there's a lot of stability.
Things are kind of staying in place.
It's not until the continuation when things really start to move
and he uses two very classic continuation moves when we get there.
The phrasing fragments from two bar ideas down to one bar ideas,
and the harmony moves by step which is very active and tangible harmonic motion.
By tangible I mean you can really feel this forward motion
in the chords with the stepwise progression.
The fragments and the stepwise climb carry us all the way into the cadence.
If I had to, I guess I would name this a G7sus4b9 chord.
If you took that C and put it down just a half step you'd have a kind of traditional G7b9 chord.
The actual chord itself is not important as much as the feeling that it gives us,
and that feeling to me is very strongly of a half cadence.
There's this unresolved punctuation mark.
It really feels like there's a breath, there's a pause, but we want more.
So we've looked at all the separate parts,
now let's listen to the whole theme to hear how they come together.
So now let's write a brand new melody in the sentence form so you can see how
easy it is to use, and maybe some of the differences from the period form.
Any of the moments where I'm kind of noodling around at the piano, just kind of exploring
for ideas, I'm probably just going to skip ahead through so this doesn't take forever.
So you can see we're starting here with a blank page, which usually is just the worst thing ever,
but knowing we have this formula, the sentence form,
it's actually going to make things pretty easy.
So the first thing I'm going to do is pick a key.
For the period form video I used C major so I don't want to be too boring.
I'm going to pick something a little different.
Maybe we could use a minor key.
How about G minor or something?
I'm picking that somewhat at random.
So we need to come up with some sort of basic idea on the G minor thing that's
going to be kind of the basic, the main motive that's going to drive the rest of the theme.
Exploring on the keyboard right now.
So I've got a basic idea here.
And the great thing about the sentence form is the next thing I have to do is repeat it.
So I'm going to copy paste that over here.
So I could just stay on the G minor, keep it exactly how it is.
I could maybe move the whole thing up a third.
I kind of like that idea, or move it down to the Eb.
I'm leaning towards moving down to the Eb.
G minor, Eb are both tonic harmonies.
The I minor and the bVI major are both kind of tonic
chord functions, so we're not really changing the chord function.
It's really more of a kind of color harmonic change than a functional one.
So just one more time where we are so far, halfway done.
Now we get to the interesting part, the continuation.
So probably what I'm going to do is try to fragment this down.
This was two bar ideas before.
I want to look into my existing motivic material and see where can I get
kind of half as much information crammed in and chop out some of it.
So I think that this right here is some of the more interesting material, with that
rhythm going on.
So I might try to explore that, especially that.
So probably what I'm going to try to do is sequence that whole thing,
moving up towards some sort of climax.
One thing I noticed is that Gm
goes down a third to the Eb so maybe I could go down a third again into a Cm.
That would land us on some subdominant harmony,
and that would be a good place to start off the motion.
This kind of driving progression we're going to want to lead us into the final cadence.
So we'll have this.
So now I'm going to try to adapt my motive into some sort of fragment that'll work
well over that Cm from where we left off.
As I've mentioned before, the ending of your theme a lot of times is the simplest most easiest part.
It's the part that people don't remember
because you're kind of liquidating your ideas, you're simplifying things down.
Keep your interesting motivic material towards the beginning, in the middle,
and then at the end simmer everything down, lead us back home.
All right so here's playback, with Sibelius just providing a left-hand part for us.
So why was it such a big deal for me when I discovered the sentence form?
Well for so long I had no problem coming up with ideas and starting,
but eventually i'd hit a point where I got stuck.
I felt like I needed some sort of motion, I needed something to kind of
continue things forward, to get the piece moving.
I might have eight bars, I might be able to repeat those eight bars so many times
and then I would just feel like things were very static.
Maybe i'd just been layering on top,
it was getting bigger and bigger but it wasn't going anywhere.
It wasn't until I really understood the continuation section of the sentence
and how that gives us so much movement, especially how it gives us movement
in contrast to the basic ideas before it, that I really discovered how to get forward motion,
how to get things moving and especially driving towards a certain destination, the cadence.
So now I use the sentence form all the time.
Whenever I have any kind of transition section I'm going to be using the sentence form.
When I have a B theme.
Most of my A themes even use this form because that continuation is so flexible.
It gives you forward motion.
You can extend it and repeat the sections within for as long as you need,
which is really helpful for scoring a scene.
And it really gave me what I was missing before, of that idea of forward motion,
of actually going somewhere, of something really happening in my music that I didn't have before.
There is a lot you can do with the sentence form even within the constraints it has.
So you can extend the form and make it longer.
You can shrink it down and make it shorter.
You could drop the repeat of the basic idea.
You could get super adventurous with that continuation section.
So please let me know if you're interested in more videos about the sentence form
How it compares to the period form, how we can make that continuation section even
more adventurous, more interesting, and how to really exploit the potential it has within it.
And also some of the hybrid forms where the
period and sentence kind of merge together into different things.
Remember to subscribe to the channel so you don't miss it when those videos come out.
Check out my video on how to write a B theme, which I almost always use the sentence form for,
and please leave a comment letting me know what you'd like to see next.