Kathryn Brickell Music is proud to offer drum lessons to our students in Brooklyn. We will be posting informative articles relating to drum instruction and drum lessons.
The following article helps distinguish between the importance of repetition vs. contrast.
We hope you will enjoy your drum lessons with our wonderful, experienced and dedicated local drum teachers.
Repetition and Contrast
When constructing pieces of music, two basic structural elements are key: repetition and contrast. The element of repetition is rather straightforward. Composers repeat interesting elements of the music which satisfies the listener’s psychological requirement for the familiar. Contrast, on the other hand, fulfills a secondary psychological requirement, that of the interest in change. The beauty of a particular piece of music can often be attributed to the interplay between the repeated elements and the contrasting ones. One particular form of music, the strophic form, is marked by the repetition of a melody in each stanza. The music within the particular stanzas fulfills the requirement of contrast, but the repetition of the melody creates the repetition we desire. Variation falls somewhere in between repetition. This element satisfies both requirements, having altered familiar pieces of music, making it both repetitive and unfamiliar. This may be done by a performer on a whim as they are performing, or planned by a composer, who might compose a new arrangement of a familiar song.