Definitions of Musical Terms

[RachOn]

I've heard terms like Etude, Sonata, Prelude, Impomptu, Waltz, tossed around and they all describe pieces of music, obviously, but what exactly seperates an Etude from a Sonata, from a Prelude?  I THINK this is just kind of pattern recognition an Etude is a "study" of some sort, although I'm not quite sure what that means, a Sonata is a longer complex piece in several movements, and a prelude is a simpler melodic piece in one movement.  As to Impromptu's, Waltzes, Scherzo's, what are they, and how do they differ?  Thanks a lot in advance, happy playing.  

[bernhard]

These terms basically refer to musical “form”.

You can think of it in terms of clothing. There are trousers, skirts, underwear, suits, evening gowns and so on. What distinguishes them? Basically their general form. Trousers have two legs, skirts don’t. A three piece suit will have trousers, an undercoat, and a coat. And it is taken for granted that when wearing a suit you will need a shirt, a tie, socks and shoes. It is the taken-for-granted stuff that usually confuses the beginners, since they end up using a suit without a shirt, or not wearing shoes, because they define too narrowly the meaning of “clothes”. Besides, there is quite a range of variation within each form. Get a fashion magazine and observe how many different kinds of skirts or trousers fashion designers can come up with! Some trousers may look so outlandish that you would hesitate to call them trousers at all. In fact, having a textbook trouser to serve as a standard of comparison is absolutely essential.

So with music. Below I will give you very brief descriptions for each of the terms you mentioned. Keep in mind the analogy above: these are textbook descriptions, and many times composers have come up with some real outlandish versions of these musical forms – in fact almost unrecognisable as such.

I also suggest that you get yourself a book like “The Oxford Companion to music” (ed. Scholes – OUP), or google some of these terms.

Etude – A piece whose main purpose is to develop a single aspect of technique. The musicality of the piece takes second plane (that would be the equivalent of a safety suit for dealing with contagious disease: the “elegance” and “aesthetics” of the suit would take second place in regards to the priority of providing safety to the wearer – not that it would be impossible to design an “elegant” safety suit, as Chopin etudes prove).

Sonata – an extended piece in several movements (usually 3 – fast – slow – fast).  This is a bit like a suit. Usually it is three pieces, but you can find 2 piece suits, and I am sure some fashion designer has come up with a one piece suit. So with sonatas. There are one-movement sonatas, and even 4-5 movement sonatas. Like suits, sonatas are quite formal, and what really defines them is “sonata form” which is a specific form usually found in the first movement. Sonata form means that a theme is stated, then this them is developed, and finally you go back to it: exposition – development – recapitulation. This is a very simplified description, and over 200 years this format has been experimented with wildly. Textbook sonatas are the ones by Mozart and Haydn. Beethoven experiments wildly, and Liszt’ Sonata is almost unrecognisable as a sonata if you stick with textbook definitions.

Prelude – If you go back in time to the Baroque, when musicians were really more like servants, you can imagine them arriving at the music room to delight the count. The count of course has not arrived, since it would not be proper for him to wait for the musicians. So the musicians gather, and while they wait for his highness to appear, they tune their instruments, and they warm up, and what better way to do this (as Ted would suggest) than to improvise a little tune using scales and arpeggios, and perhaps some of the difficult figurations in the music they will play later on? This is the origin of the “prelude” – literally something that comes (and perhaps prepare for) before the main attraction. As such preludes are always short and pretty much free from form. I tend to think of them as underwear. Bach and Chopin’s preludes are of course, Calvin Klein. As time went on, preludes – given their shortness and freedom of form become ideal forms for composers to experiment with ideas that would not fit a more rigid and limited form.

Impromtpus – the word means “improvised” and impromptus share certain similarities with preludes in that they are pretty much free of form. They are also much longer, and if you have ever done free improvisation, this is what they should sound like. The composer sits at the piano and freely improvises (many of the impromptu composers like Chopin, and Schubert where famous for their improvisation skills), and sometimes it sounds so good that they may deem it worthy to be written down. From that it developed into a more cerebral form where although you give it a lot of thought and structure, you want to give the delusion that it is all improvised.

Scherzo – The word means a “joke”, and it usually refers to a fast “funny” sonata movement, although many composers (notably Chopin) wrote scherzos that do not sound funny at all and that stand on their own. So the question here is, what is a musical joke? I tend to think of scherzos as fancy dress. If a whole bunch of composers went to a fancy dress part, Haydn would probably go as a clown, Beethoven would put on a gorilla’s suit. Mozart would cross dress, and Chopin’s costume would probably make everyone exclaim in disgust: “What sort of sick joke is this?!”. Chopin of course would smile and say “ I thought it was pretty funny”.

Waltz – a dance in ¾ time (notice that there are many other dances in 3/4times, like minuets – what differentiates them? There must be more to a waltz than simply time signature – and Viennese Waltz are very different from, English and French waltzes – and let us not forget jazz waltzes!).

Behind all this is the philosophical question: “What exactly is music and what it is for?” Treat this question in the same way as you would answer an alien who asked you: “What are clothes, and what are they for”, and your answer will not be far from the truth.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Tash]

if you want some really nice long answers to your questions and their historical development i would recommend going and finding a grove encylopaedia of music and looking them up and thus you will know an overload on how each type of piece differs. if not then just listen to bernhard cos he's practically the same thing!

[RachOn]

Wow, thanks a lot Bernhard for that very imformative and well thought out post.  I pretty much laid down the law.  I shall heed the advice of Diamond_Tiara and check out a groves musical dictionary if I wan't more details.  Thanks again.

[bernhard]

Wow, thanks a lot Bernhard for that very imformative and well thought out post.  I pretty much laid down the law.  I shall heed the advice of Diamond_Tiara and check out a groves musical dictionary if I wan't more details.  Thanks again.

You are welcome.

[tocca]

I love your explanation Bernhard! You should be a teacher... Err, you are a teacher!  

This reminds me of my teacher in mathematics in College. He had a stunning way of always managing to explain even really hard things in a short time to anyone.
He came up with some wilds stories, which at first made you go "Huh? What on earth is he talking about?", then five minutes later the whole class went "AHA"!
I learned more the first month of his class than i had the whole previous year.

Wish i had had a pianoteacher of the same caliber when i was a kid!

[Daevren]

Online music dictionary:

https://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/

The best one I ever found on the net.