I have made grateful use of the book Form und Struktur in der Musik by Hermann Erpf: it is an approach that is suitable for any kind of music. Especially applicable when attentively observing what happens in music.
Observe attentively always circles around discovering/recognizing patterns (regularities) and principles that can be deduced from those regularities.
Two starting points:
- Eenheid arises out of inner coherence
- Segmentation arises out of separation
Form means (applied to sound material)
- repetition
- variation
- contrast
Sound material
- (Tone) Pitch (melody/harmony)
- (Tone) Duration (metre/rhythm)
- (Tone) Dynamics
- (Tone) Colour (also instrumentation)
- (Tone) Length (articulation
Form principles
- repetition:
separates
concludes
asks for contrast
(depending on location in the whole ) - contrast
asks for repetition
connects
opens up
(depending on the location in the whole)
Form characters
- sequential form
- balanced form
- developing form
The dimension texture is not mentioned explicitely.
I always used texture as an addition to the approach of Erpf.
The overall scheme from the book:
