MUSICAL COMPOSITION

CHAPTER VIFORMIT is not within the purview of this book to treatForm in all its aspects. There are treatises enoughand to spare on this branch of study, which will givethe student ample information as to its historicaldevelopment and various guises. We have mainly todo with its use as a factor in composition. So far wehave discussed what may be termed the flesh andblood of music, melodic invention and rhythmicaltreatment. Form may be, in similar parallel, termedthe skeleton; the bones, which by their solidity preventthe flesh from being flabby and uncontrollable,and by their symmetry of position and due proportionof size, regulate the position of the flesh which coversthem, producing a good or a bad figure according astheir proportions are good or bad. To continue thesimile, the clothes are represented by tone-colour, anadjunct without which the skeleton and the flesh andblood can live, though they cannot exist without eachother. This chapter has to do with the essentials ofmusic's life, and colour will be considered in its properplace, after the consideration of the more vitalnecessities.Form has been defined by Sir Hubert Parry as the74