I had a discussion the other today with a composer about form vs. structure in music. In the course of the conversation, I was forced to confront some formerly unexamined thoughts.
In the first place, are these terms synonymous or are they different degrees of a similar concept? I had been using them interchangeably in conversation until it was pointed out to me that I should clarify what I meant. After a moment, I realized that structure, for me, is a generic term for identifying a pattern in sound. It precedes the idea of form. Think of architecture: there are buildings, structures, but they take on different forms, usually as a result of their function. Similarly, a nineteenth century symphony and a baroque dance suite fulfill entirely different functions, and their forms are different, yet they both have structure.
That all seems fairly straightforward, but here is a complication: is there such a thing as non-structured? IS structure everywhere but only as a matter of degree? A building, in order to be a building, requires structure, but what of a piece of music? It seems to me that anything trotted out by the wildest experimentalist still has structure. That is, the space between sounds implies a relationship, and the sounds themselves become interstices of the silences.
Now, in that bears familiar forms, i.e. rondos, sonatas, etc. phrase units, motifs, and melodies are repeated or otherwise referred to in different configurations. However, much modern music eschews such regularity, and still, to my mind does bear structure. Such music is like obsidian, a volcanic glass that is burped up hot and rapidly cooled. Its outer form is irregular, and no two pieces are likely to be the same. Furthermore, unlike crystals whose outer manifestation is the expression of atomic level strict regularity, glasses are frozen geological fluid. At the atomic level we find not a regular lattice, yet, the 3-space is filled with irregularly arranged atoms which find themselves in relationships the atomic tendencies would like to organize, but the temperature is too low to move to more energetically efficient configurations.
It seems to me that the crystal/glass analogy has some insight for us here. What is important to note is that crystals arrange themselves according to principles that only obtain at high temperatures. It takes sustained temperatures and pressures to precipitate crystal, whereas obsidian (volcanic glass) is too quickly cooled for the regular crystal patterns to emerge. I have belabored the point somewhat, but it drives home the point that regularity and contents are not concomitant. The contents of quartz and obsidian are very similar, just as a Mozart rondo and Cage’s Concert for Piano are both sound events. In the first case, groups of notes are regularly organized, and in the second, the structure of the piece is the content taken as an aggregate and undifferentiated into regularly repeating phrases.
