Strophic form – also called verse-repeating form,
chorus form, AAA song form, or one-part song form – is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music.
Contrasting song forms include
through-composed, with new music written for every stanza,
and
ternary form, with a contrasting central section.
The term is derived from the Greek word , ''
strophē'', meaning "turn". It is the simplest and most durable of
musical form
In music, ''form'' refers to the structure of a musical composition or performance. In his book, ''Worlds of Music'', Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a piece of music, suc ...
s, extending a piece of
music
Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...
by repetition of a single formal
section. This may be analyzed as "A A A...". This additive method is the musical analogue of repeated stanzas in poetry or lyrics and, in fact, where the text repeats the same rhyme scheme from one
stanza to the next, the
song's structure also often uses either the same or very similar material from one stanza to the next.
A ''modified'' strophic form varies the pattern in some stanzas (A A' A"...) somewhat like a rudimentary
theme and variations.
Contrasting verse-chorus form is a
binary form that alternates between two sections of music (ABAB), although this may also be interpreted as constituting a larger strophic verse-
refrain form. While the terms 'refrain' and 'chorus' are often used interchangeably, 'refrain' may indicate a recurring line of identical melody and lyrics as a part of the verse (as in "
Blowin' in the Wind": "...the answer my friend..."), while 'chorus' means an independent form section (as in "
Yellow Submarine": "We all live in...").
Many
folk and
popular songs are strophic in form, including the
twelve-bar blues,
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
s,
hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn ...
s and chants. Examples include "
Barbara Allen", "
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly redu ...
", "
Michael, Row the Boat Ashore", and "
Oh! Susanna" (A = verse & chorus).
[Pen, Ronald (1991). ''Schaum's Outline of Introduction to Music'', p. 96. .]
Many
classical art songs are also composed in strophic form, from the 17th century French
air de cour to 19th century German
lieder and beyond.
Haydn used the strophic variation form in many of his string quartets and a few of his symphonies, employed almost always in the slow second movement.
Franz Schubert composed many important strophic lieder, including settings of both narrative poems and simpler, folk-like texts, such as his "
Heidenröslein" and "Der Fischer".
Several of the songs in his
song cycle
A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle, of individually complete songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online''
The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarel ...
''
Die schöne Müllerin'' use strophic form.
See also
*
Antistrophe in the
lyrical performances of the
Greek chorus
A Greek chorus, or simply chorus ( grc-gre, χορός, chorós), in the context of ancient Greek tragedy, comedy, satyr plays, and modern works inspired by them, is a homogeneous, non-individualised group of performers, who comment with a collect ...
References
Sources
*Appen, Ralf von / Frei-Hauenschild, Marku
"AABA, Refrain, Chorus, Bridge, Prechorus – Song Forms and their Historical Development" In: ''Samples. Online Publikationen der Gesellschaft für Popularmusikforschung/German Society for Popular Music Studies e.V.'' Ed. by Ralf von Appen,
André Doehring and
Thomas Phleps. Vol. 13 (2015).
Repetition (music)
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