Repetition in music

[freeztar]

I'm going to start by stating my bias.

I abhor contemporary pop music and feel as if I'm being mentally tortured when exposed to it. There are exceptions, but I'm mainly speaking of something like...ohhhhh...say...Kelly Clarkston.

 

Ok, bias out of the way...

 

Repetition in music is essential. It forms the backbone of every memorable melody, or rhythm.

 

Do you agree with the assertion stated above?

If not, why?

 

How does repetition aid in listener appreciation? When is it too much?

 

Of course this isn't really quantifiable, but it makes for a good discussion, and potentially some enlightenment...

 

To start it off, I'll quote from an article Monomer turned me on to:

My career as an ESL teacher began as a volunteer tutor in the ESL department of an Atlanta high school. I was asked by the department head to bring my guitar to class. There were several levels of English proficiency in the program. We began at level one with childrens’ songs which contained physical gestures and motions. Strangely, the students liked the song, while most American teenagers would surely have sneered at it. Repetition, pronounciation and hand motions combined with a good-natured attitude can be very effective with language learning. We sang songs and met for music time once a week for 90 minutes.

The OAL Connection - Music and Language Learning

 

Repetition is obviously a key factor in learning, as any student that has taken anatomy can tell you. :eek_big:

We learn in several different ways; visual, auditory, etc...

How does musical repetition help us, and to what extent? Why not hit the un-repeat button?

[Monomer]

Repetition in music is essential. It forms the backbone of every memorable melody, or rhythm.

 

Do you agree with the assertion stated above?

If not, why?

 

I agree. A song is generally identified by some repetitive aspect. I've heard instrumental songs which have a theme that reappears throughout the piece, and classical music often has repetitive sections.

 

 

How does repetition aid in listener appreciation? When is it too much?

 

Repetition makes the song what it is. It becomes fairly unique, and familiar to the listener, and maybe that's why they appreciate it. There's a certain sense of joy and satisfaction when you hear a song that you know. We also enjoy experiencing things we like many times over. As for when is it too much, I think that's really up to the listener. For some it's too repetitive, and for others that's what they like about the song. I often reach a limit with songs, particularly when I like them so much I listen to them over and over. I've reached a point many times when I just can't listen to that song anymore. Usually I can appreciate it again after a number of months.

 

 

How does musical repetition help us, and to what extent? Why not hit the un-repeat button?

:eek_big:

 

This article addresses repetition in music:

 

How Music Makes Sense

 

Music relies primarily on repetition to help it make sense to the listener. In popular music and children's songs, the repetition is often very literal and direct, making the music more immediately accessible.

[pgrmdave]

Possibly the best use of repitition I can think of: Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. He uses one rhythm (short-short-short-long) and one interval (a third (both major and minor)), and repeats that over and over again, in the melodies, in the harmonies. He inverts it, he shortens it, but he never strays from that idea, and he produces beautiful music.

 

Repitition is great to help set up a goal, and an expectation. It's kind of like the V-I progression in most classical music. Much of classical music can be analysed to be a simply progression from I-V-I, with changes within. We know the song is over when we've returned to the I chord. Well, with repitition, we set up an expectation that we can either fulfill (continue the repetition), or break (either completely stop it or modify it). We also set up the ability to break it then bring the song back to it. Repitition can add to the tension of music, or it can provide us with a comfortable security blanket to return to.

[Turtle]

Repetition in music is essential. It forms the backbone of every memorable melody, or rhythm.

 

Do you agree with the assertion stated above?

If not, why?

 

I do agree, and even though you didn't ask, here is why. It is an artifact of memory, that is a song without repetition is hugely unmemorable. Repetition in music serves to make it memorable. :eek_big:

[freeztar]

I do agree, and even though you didn't ask, here is why. It is an artifact of memory, that is a song without repetition is hugely unmemorable. Repetition in music serves to make it memorable. :D

 

I agree...

The problem is that I, and others like me, enjoy listening to ever changing ambient music. How is that explained, in the face of repetition?

[Turtle]

It is an artifact of memory, that is a song without repetition is hugely unmemorable. Repetition in music serves to make it memorable.

I agree...

The problem is that I, and others like me, enjoy listening to ever changing ambient music. How is that explained, in the face of repetition?

 

I imagine by the cycles & epicycles as they manifest over different time scales and moderated by individual differences in the listeners. We all know the deadly 'got this song stuck in my head' syndrome, and it applies even to the best of songs. On the other end is not enough repetition , a phenomenon often referred to as 'noise'. :D

[Monomer]

I agree...

The problem is that I, and others like me, enjoy listening to ever changing ambient music. How is that explained, in the face of repetition?

 

Music without repetition can still be memorable if there is a melody, or particular sound that we can get to know. Even the ever changing ambient music would have some sort of definable quality to each section, and if it is listened to enough it can be remembered. Maybe we make connections to other music we know, or something else that's familiar to us, so it becomes memorable because it reminds us of something that we know well. :D

[Queso]

I love Dark side of the moon . .

 

When they play breathe, and then on the run, and then Time.

 

They have a reprise in Time that goes back to breathe

 

"Home, home again.

I like to be here, when I can"

 

Roger waters was such a genius! In the music, it was like you're coming home. It aligns with the music,

thus,

aligns with the soul.

 

Music shows me the universe. It shows me the flowers, and fractal mandalas of googling tongues and snakes.

 

Music has molded orbsycli. I wouldn't be such a shamanic freak if I didn't listen to music all day! :D

 

Look at the ambient song macrocosmically, and the fact that it is a song it is repetitive because you can play the song again, in another location of the 4th dimension.

[Queso]

Speaking of repitition . .

 

I was very very skeptical of trance music, and dancing, for a long time.

One night, my friends convinced me to go with them . .

We ended up hopping fences, and crawling down a cliff on the beach

 

but then I heard the Bass . . .

 

Approaching psychedelic trance music on the beach is so....unique.

You go from hearing the waves, and the wind, to a subtle kick . . and then you are enthralled and you can't help but smile and you can't help but dance . .

 

Dj's mix psytrance so that it flows fluidly for...ever.

The beat is constant, and there are an infinite amount of things that swarm around the beat.

I love it!

 

That night, they even mixed ACDC's HELLS BELLS into psytrance when they got the fire started, it was just so absurd.

 

Anyone who likes to dance and likes repetitive music with infinite variable swarms you should check out the psytrance scene in your area . .

 

Those people are the greatest. Peaceful, crazy humans that love the outdoors and love to dance and have a great time. I've always found that people are very friendly at psytrance gatherings, and will welcome you especially if you've never been to a gathering before.

 

It's very tribalistic, and futuristic.

 

Also,

 

the trance you fall into when you've been stretching and dancing and sweating for hours is phenomenal.

 

greatest workout I've ever had!

 

Check this out, listen to the VERY FIRST SOUND!

http://www.asmatronica.com/mixes/audiognomes/gnomemix58_arachgnophobia.mp3

 

It's one of the most mystical things I've ever heard....

this, bright, wobbling light that shines in your ears.

 

:D

[pgrmdave]

The problem is that I, and others like me, enjoy listening to ever changing ambient music. How is that explained, in the face of repetition?

 

I've never heard music that didn't repeat to some degree, in some fashion. Well...no...that's not entirely true. Some of the more avant guarde stuff (like John Cage's stuff) don't necessarily have repetition, but those things are very rare.

[Turtle]

Speaking of repitition . .

 

I

Check this out, listen to the VERY FIRST SOUND!

http://www.asmatronica.com/mixes/audiognomes/gnomemix58_arachgnophobia.mp3

 

It's one of the most mystical things I've ever heard....

this, bright, wobbling light that shines in your ears.

 

 

Jammin on the jilbenarg as I type. Speaking of repetition, on the scale of notes, they are themselves repetitions over/on/of frequencies. Rather a fractal mash when you look at music that way.

 

Oh, & speaking of scale, what is an ideal length for a song? :D

[Queso]

Precisely.

 

The ideal length of a song is subjective to the observer.

Many songular components must be taken into consideration.

Such as genre, tempo, structure, and what's resonating in the body with the overall fractal mash of frequencies we art absorbing.

 

My favorite songs are around 5 minutesish

[Queso]

Although, my favorite song is actually infinite and every time I tune in it's exactly the same I just hear it differently . .

[Monomer]

Oh, & speaking of scale, what is an ideal length for a song? :D

 

Short snappy songs that get to the point and don't overstay their welcome are great, but then long songs that tell a story and take you on a journey are great too.

 

 

My favorite songs are around 5 minutesish

 

My favourite songs are generally around 5 minutes long also.

[Queso]

There's a yin yang comin' outa my speakers and it hits me on the forehead purple.

 

While in trance a few moments ago out back I was pondering this thread and I came to the realization that some notes represent emotions. Combine an ingredient with another, and you have something else.

Everything is a factor

as is life and everyting relates

I see e8 like every song and person bending

and finding themselves somewhere else

all the time.

[CraigD]

The following is my personal, unoriginal, highly opinionated, only informally tested theory of How Music Works. Repetition, a necessary feature of pattern, figures prominently in it.

 

We humans are hard-wired pattern-recognizers. Show us a random arrangement of rocks or clouds, and we find faces, etc.

 

Music engages our pattern-recognition neural systems in a similar way, and can be placed in 2 basic classes: find the break in the pattern; and find the pattern.

Pop/dance/etc. music, with a well defined metric foot with the occasional break and fill, is predominantly “find the break” type. A pure metronome drum (da, da, da, da …) beat isn’t very interesting, and won’t get a crowd dancing, but add just a single fill (da, da, da, boom-ah-da, da, da …) and you’ve got the beginnings of a drum circle jam. Listeners are playing a game of “find the break in the pattern”. Once they’ve got it, they show it by foot-tapping, dancing, etc.

 

Classical music is predominantly “find the pattern” type. For example, Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” tells a children’s story with recurring themes representing the characters (and, to make it really easy, distinct instruments, and vocal narration). Listeners are playing a game of “find the pattern” to follow the entrance and exits of the characters on an “acoustic stage”. Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” is a sort of war movie, with armies identified by music themes swelling and shrinking on the acoustic representation of a smoky battlefield (and, in case someone misses that it’s about war, the typical big outdoor performance of it uses a few cannon as percussion instruments). More subtle pieces, and other genres, from prog to trance to ambient to bluegrass to good-old Grateful Dead, feature recognizable themes that drift in and out of the music. Not only does the listener play a game of recognizing the themes when they appear, he’s drawn into anticipating when they’ll appear, when it seems like they’ll appear but don’t, etc.

 

You can convey a lot of meaning by playing with when themes come and go in music. Teasing the listener can make them angry, satisfying, happy, and a vast range of other shades of emotion, which, of course, vary from listener to listener. If an audience cheers the return of a theme, it’s a sign that its working. Get too clever, and the audience will get lost and wander off (if you’re playing an open public venue, often quite literally).

 

One of my favorite “is it working” test of a song is to take play an obscure folk ballad (eg: less known Leonard Cohen or Steve Earl), play it instrumentally, and ask listeners what it was about. Oft times, they’ll give you something pretty close to the original lyrics.