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.
I like it, I definitely do. I write music as well and what I try about sentences is basically to find some movement. I find inspiration in Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and many other because they really defined the form. Today, we just imitate them. That said. I like you video, I would try something different in the background rather that the white colour all the time but that's what I'd do. Anyway, great job editing all the music and examples. Bravo!!!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻