Song Forms

Binary and Ternary Forms

Most traditional and popular songs are made up of simple forms that have musical "sentences" or phrases in multiples of 4 bars or measures in length. One would count rhythm in groups of four, generally. This characterizes most familiar songs that might get stuck in your head and that fit on one page of music.

These songs have repeated opening sections and contrasting interior sections, such as:

A B
A B A

These are Binary and Tertiary forms. Often we can notate the repeats explicitly and add to these "reprise forms". In text I will use a colon and vertical bar to signify this, So,

A :|: B A :|

becomes a "Two Reprise Form" which is common in music.