Expression

Singers add expression to the melodies they sing using many methods, including changing the tone of their
singing, adding vibrato to certain notes, and emphasizing important words in the lyrics.

Expressive qualities are those elements in music that create change in music without changing the
main pitches or substantially changing the rhythms of the melody and its accompaniment.
Performers, including singers and instrumentalists, can add musical expression to a song or piece
by adding phrasing, by adding effects such as vibrato (with voice and some instruments, such as
guitar, violin, brass instruments and woodwinds), dynamics (the loudness or softness of piece or a
section of it), tempo fluctuations (e.g., ritardando or accelerando, which are, respectively slowing
down and speeding up the tempo), by adding pauses or fermatas on a cadence, and by changing
the articulation of the notes (e.g., making notes more pronounced or accented, by making notes
more legato, which means smoothly connected, or by making notes shorter).
Expression is achieved through the manipulation of pitch (such as inflection, vibrato, slides etc.),
volume (dynamics, accent, tremolo etc.), duration (tempo fluctuations, rhythmic changes, changing
note duration such as with legato and staccato, etc.), timbre (e.g. changing vocal timbre from a light
to a resonant voice) and sometimes even texture (e.g. doubling the bass note for a richer effect in a
piano piece). Expression therefore can be seen as a manipulation of all elements in order to convey
"an indication of mood, spirit, character etc." [20] and as such cannot be included as a unique
perceptual element of music,[21]although it can be considered an important rudimentary element of
music.
Form
See also: Strophic form, Binary form, Ternary form, Rondo form, Variation (music), and Musical
development

Sheet music notation for the chorus (refrain) of the Christmas song "Jingle Bells" Play (help·info)
In music, form describes how the overall structure or plan of a song or piece of music,[22]and it
describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections.[23] In the early 20th century, Tin Pan
Alley songs and Broadway musical songs were often in AABA 32 bar form, in which the A sections
repeated the same eight bar melody and the B section provided a contrasting melody and/or
harmony for 8 bars. From the 1960s onward, Western pop and rock songs are often in verse-chorus
form, which is based around a sequence of verse and chorus ("refrain") sections, with new lyrics for
most verses and repeating lyrics for the choruses. Popular music often makes use of strophic form,
sometimes in conjunction with the twelve bar blues.[citation needed]
In the tenth edition of The Oxford Companion to Music, Percy Scholes defines musical form as "a
series of strategies designed to find a successful mean between the opposite extremes of unrelieved
repetition and unrelieved alteration."[24]Examples of common forms of Western music include
the fugue, the invention, sonata-allegro, canon, strophic, theme and variations, and rondo. Scholes
states that European classical music had only six stand-alone forms: simple binary, simple ternary,
compound binary, rondo, air with variations, and fugue (although musicologist Alfred
Mann emphasized that the fugue is primarily a method of composition that has sometimes taken on
certain structural conventions.[25])
Where a piece cannot readily be broken down into sectional units (though it might borrow some form
from a poem, story or programme), it is said to be through-composed. Such is often the case with
a fantasia, prelude, rhapsody, etude (or study), symphonic poem, Bagatelle, impromptu, etc.[citation
needed]
Professor Charles Keil classified forms and formal detail as "sectional, developmental, or
variational."[26]
Sectional form
This form is built from a sequence of clear-cut units[27] that may be referred to by letters but also often
have generic names such as introduction and coda, exposition, development and recapitulation,
verse, chorus or refrain, and bridge. Introductions and codas, when they are no more than that, are
frequently excluded from formal analysis. All such units may typically be eight measures long.
Sectional forms include:
Strophic form
This form is defined by its "unrelieved repetition" (AAAA...).
Medley
Medley, potpourri is the extreme opposite, that of "unrelieved variation": it is simply an indefinite
sequence of self-contained sections (ABCD...), sometimes with repeats (AABBCCDD...). Examples
include orchestral overtures, which are sometimes no more than a string of the best tunes of the
musical theatre show or opera to come.
Binary form

Binary form in major and minor keys. Each section must be at least three phrases long.[28]

This form uses two sections (AB...), each often repeated (AABB...). In 18th-century Western
classical music, "simple binary" form was often used for dances and carried with it the convention
that the two sections should be in different musical keys but same rhythm, duration and tone. The
alternation of two tunes gives enough variety to permit a dance to be extended for as long as
desired. b
Ternary form
This form has three parts. In Western classical music a simple ternary form has a third section that is
a recapitulation of the first (ABA). Often, the first section is repeated (AABA). This approach was
popular in the 18th-century operatic aria,[citation needed] and was called da capo (i.e. "repeat from the top")
form. Later, it gave rise to the 32-bar song, with the B section then often referred to as the "middle
eight". A song has more need than a dance of a self-contained form with a beginning and an end of
course.
Rondo form
This form has a recurring theme alternating with different (usually contrasting) sections called
"episodes". It may be asymmetrical (ABACADAEA) or symmetrical (ABACABA). A recurring
section, especially the main theme, is sometimes more thoroughly varied, or else one episode may
be a "development" of it. A similar arrangement is the ritornello form of the Baroque concerto
grosso. Arch form (ABCBA) resembles a symmetrical rondo without intermediate repetitions of the
main theme. It is normally used in a round.