Phrase structure, in verse
(for better or worse)
A phrase is like a sentence, yes—and yes, those sometimes rhyme
Musical phrases do that too (but no, not all the time).
Can you tell the meter I am using for this verse?
Did you feel that triplet, making things not quite so terse?
The triplet was on “musical,” but here it’s made of duples—for to
have the beats not all add up would go against my scruples.
Phrases pile upon themselves to make up bigger structures.
When we cannot feel that, how our comprehension ruptures!
Two plus two plus four, plus eight; an answer to a question—
The cadence heard beyond all doubt, through phrasing’s pointed suggestion!
And how long are those phrases, that we shape with such great care?
Get out your score and count up all their measures, if you dare!
I think you’ll find that many phrases make exactly four.
Eight is common, so is two, and yes, it could be more.
If you conduct these lines of words, it’s fours you’ll most detect;
Threes and fives and sevens throw us off what we expect—
Five measure phrases
Open up our little minds.
Brahms knew what to do!
Listen! Count to five, twelve times
Then—surprise!—just four….
If you’ll play a small Minuet
for phrase-counting reasons, I bet
You’ll hear all those fours
Just doing their chores
And Petzold will be in your debt
For their author is Christian Petzold—
They’re not by Bach as we were told!
What else have we missed,
Who else have we dissed,
Whose music left out in the cold?
(Well, since you asked….)
Elisabeth J. De la Guerre!
And so many more with long hair,
Those not acting quite right,
or—let’s name it: NOT WHITE,
Or otherwise giving a scare
To traditional Powers that Be.
But composers find ways to be free!
Ethel Smyth, Florence Price,
(In the Canebrakes is nice),
Taaffe Zwilich, Bonds, Duarte, Chen Yi!
But wait!
Phrase structure is what we’re about,
And sometimes that is more like stream of consciousness, and nothing rhymes,
and the number four has nothing to do with it. Please pass the butter.
One moment it’s regular phrases; the next, it’s historical phases
of bias and blindness and did you know
that in Erik Satie’s Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear,
there are not three pieces, but seven?
If only bias were just a phase! But at least I know that’s a four-measure phrase….
Four-measure phrases all over the places—but not in this piece. It was written later.
Today, in fact! Do you believe the theory that the Enlightenment
(Golden Age of the four-bar phrase)
was fueled by the discovery
of coffee?
I do.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass,
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
And shift slightly from time to time
And shift slightly from time to time
And shift slightly from time to time
Sometimes things repeat 840 times
Sometimes things repeat 840 times
Sometimes things repeat 840 times and are vexing.
Vexing, vexing, vexing, vexing, vexing, vexing, vexing….
This is not only because they are very long,
Or very repetitive,
or full of tritones,
But also because
their phrase structure
is built of four
plus four
plus five.
That is unsettling.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot.
Sometimes things repeat a lot
And shift slightly from time to time
Sometimes things do not repeat.
This is a phrase
This is a phrase that grows
This is a phrase that grows and changes
As things are added to it, our phrase grows and changes into something new!
Something new emerges from the old phrase, from specific elements of the old phrase,
as things are added to it, or changed, or taken away. Something new emerges,
and we can hear and understand how we got here.
We know how we got here.
And the phrase has grown, changed, learned, come around to new understanding,
and it has found a way to express its new insight to us—very much like thought.
Phrases behaving like living things! Phrases as thought. Musical thought, no need for words.
(And—phrases experiencing inspiration….)
This is a phrase
This is a phrase which has grown.
This is a phrase (as opposed to one having undergone the more typical forms of development, which happen at the end: spinning things out through melodic extension, sequence, delayed resolution…) whose middle has grown!
(Also, this is a phrase which has grown.)
This is a phrase.
This is a phrase whose end is ALSO a new beginning/ALSO a new beginning, measures 7-8 of Bach’s Little Prelude BWV 999 make the end of the first phrase.
This, then, is two phrases, with a 2-measure elision,
so that Bach makes what feels like 8+8 out of only 14 bars.
And THIS, now, is a phrase which, thrillingly, goes on far longer than we imagined it would, since each of the previous phrases was so very much shorter, setting an expectation that this next one would be similar—and yet the harmonies keep refusing to resolve, maintaining the tension, pulling us along, and before we know it here we are, having taken flight in this third phrase—not four, not eight, but twenty measures…….
This is a phrase which—whether due to the inexhaustible nature of its godlike energy, or because it is so rich with nuanced meaning, or perhaps just because it so badly wants to be understood—has become quite involved and complex, and yes, long.
This is a phrase which has become quite long, for reasons it doesn’t need to go into now, but which is in the process of distilling its essence down to just what is needed.
This is a phrase which is gradually becoming distilled down to its essence, which is just this.
This is a phrase reducing things to its essence, which is just this.
The essence of this phrase is just this.
Its essence is just this.
Just this.
Just.
this.
In closing: I hope you’ve read most of this rhythmically;
That’s what I hope and intend.
The metrical parts have their upbeats and downbeats
and should all add up in the end—
But mostly, I hope you’ll forgive me this week!
I don’t know what’s come over me….
The structure of phrases has somehow inspired
this perverse little part-rhyming spree.
Just maybe you’ll find here some useful examples
of ways that our phrases might act
So thank you for reading and sharing,
and if you have comments—
please write them
with tact.
And what a delightful spree
it was, creating rhythm and serenity!
Wonderful!!