Harmony and Form There Are Essay

This is not to say that the melody or harmonic lines bear any relation to modern Western pop music, or to say that the form is not without its quirks, but the relationship that the form of the song establishes with the listener is easily accessible and comforting where Stravinsky's, in contrast, is alien and dissociative. The song starts right away with a melodic/harmonic line of drums and a wind instrument that carries on throughout the song. Though the melody is played with and changes and evolves as the song progresses, there is no abrupt shift -- no break in the form -- in keeping with traditional Western music, especially folk music. The transitions in the piece are so gentle as to be hardly noticeable, giving the piece an overall smoothness and cohesion exactly the opposite of the effect Stravinsky achieves by breaking up the structure of his piece. "Cheumutemgure's form is so smooth, in fact, that the song borders on repetitiveness. Whereas "The Fair" changes theme and feel so quickly as to be distracting, "Cheumutemgure" runs the risk of leading a Western listener into boredom. Luckily, form is not the only feature of a piece of music, and the use of harmony in both of these pieces, though stark, is engaging enough in ways unique to each piece so that an element of interest and cohesion exists.

Neither of these pieces has a very complex melodic line, nor do they have true secondary melodies to provide harmony. Stravinsky's "The Fair," especially, makes little use of harmony, often employing only one or two voices at a time. What little harmony there is, though, stands out all the more for the general lack apparent in most of this piece of music.Even so, this harmony is not perceived as a careful blending of multiple notes, nor is it discordant, but almost gives the impression that the various sounds comprising the harmony at a given moment simply happened to coincide and fit together well, while bearing no direct relation to each other. In "Cheumutemgure,"the harmonic lines seem equally separated. Each instrument has its own clear purpose and though line; they match up well and compliment each other without ever blending or taking each other's parts. The similarities of harmony in these two pieces, despite the different histories and cultures that produced them, are made even more remarkable when considered in the light of their extremely different approaches to form.

Harmony and form, though closely related, are two very distinct elements in music. Harmony is a part of form; it can often dictate a piece's style more clearly than melody, and establishes the mood and the feel of a piece by blending -- or separating -- the various voices of a piece of music. A discussion of form is a more out=to-in approach to examining a piece; rather than looking at the way the voices blend, form looks at the through line of the voices as a collective whole. Both are essential to developing the overall effect of a piece......