Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme. While it plays a role in all music, with

noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

and musical tones lying along a spectrum from irregular to periodic sounds, it is especially prominent in specific styles.

Usage

A literal repetition of a musical passage is often indicated by the use of a repeat sign, or the instructions

da capo Da capo ( , , ; often abbreviated as D.C.) is an Italian musical term that means "from the beginning" (literally, "from the head"). The term is a directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space, and thus is an easie ...

or dal segno. Volta music

Theodor W. Adorno damned repetition and

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

as psychotic and infantile. In contrast, Richard Middleton (1990) argues that "while repetition is a feature of ''all'' music, of any sort, a high level of repetition may be a specific mark of 'the popular'" and that this allows an "enabling" of "an inclusive rather than exclusive audience". "There is no universal norm or convention" for the amount or type of repetition; "all music contains repetition – but in differing amounts and of an enormous variety of types". This is influenced by "the political economy of production; the 'psychic economy' of individuals; the musico-technological media of production and reproduction (oral, written, electric); and the weight of the syntactic conventions of music-historical traditions". Middleton distinguishes between discursive and musematic repetition. A museme is a minimal unit of meaning, analogous to a

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

in linguistics, and musematic repetition is "at the level of the short figure, often used to generate an entire structural framework". Discursive repetition is "at the level of the phrase or section, which generally functions as part of a larger-scale 'argument'". He gives "paradigmatic case : the

riff A riff is a short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, punk, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based ...

and the

phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...

. Musematic repetition includes circularity, synchronic relations, and openness. Discursive repetition includes linearity, rational control, and self-sufficiency. Discursive repetition is most often nested ( hierarchically) in larger repetitions and may be thought of as sectional, while musematic repetition may be thought of as additive. Put more simply, musematic repetition is simple repetition of precisely the same musical figure, such as a repeated chorus. Discursive repetition is "both repetitive and non-repetitive" (Lott, p. 174), such as the repetition of the same rhythmic figure with different notes. During the

Classical era Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilization ...

, musical concerts were highly expected events, and because someone who liked a piece of music could not listen to it again, musicians had to think of a way to make the music sink in. Therefore, they would repeat parts of their song at times, making music like

sonata In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...

s very repetitive, without being dull. Repetition is important in musical form. The repetition of any section of ternary form results in expanded ternary form, and in binary form the repetition of the first section at the end of the second results in rounded binary form. Schenker argued that musical technique's "most striking and distinctive characteristic" is repetition (Kivy, 327) while Boulez argues that a high level of interest in repetition and variation ( analogy and difference, recognition and the unknown) is characteristic of all musicians, especially contemporary, and the dialectic between the two creates musical form (Campbell, 154). Au clair de la lune repetition

Types of repetition include "exact repetition" (aaa), "repetition after digression" (aba or aba'), and "nonrepetition" (abcd). Copland and Slatkin offer " Au clair de la lune" and " Ach! du lieber Augustin" as examples of aba, and "The Seeds of Love" as an example of the last
Copland & Slatkin,
At the tone level, repetition creates a drone.

Repetitive music

Some music features a relatively high degree of repetition in its creation or reception. Examples include

minimalist music In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-m ...

krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...

disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

(and its later derivatives such as

house music House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground ...

), some techno, some of

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

's compositions, barococo, and the Suzuki method (Fink 2005, p. 5). Other important genres with repetitive songwriting are post rock, ambient/

dark ambient Dark ambient (referred to as ambient industrial especially in the 1980s) is a genre of post-industrial musicReed, Alexander: ''Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music'', Oxford University Press, 2013, , p. 190 that features an ominous, ...

, and

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...

Psychological interpretations

Repetitive music has often been negatively linked with Freudian thanatos. Theodor W. Adorno provides an example in his criticism of

, whose "rhythmic procedures closely resemble the schema of catatonic conditions. In certain schizophrenics, the process by which the motor apparatus becomes independent leads to infinite repetition of gestures or words, following the decay of the ego." Similar criticism was leveled at Ravel's Bolero. Wim Mertens (1980, pp. 123–124) writes, "In repetitive music, repetition in the service of the death instinct prevails. Repetition is not repetition of identical elements, so it is not reproduction, but the repetition of the identical in another guise. In traditional music, repetition is a device for creating recognizability, reproduction for the sake of the music notes of that specific line and the representing ego. In repetitive music, repetition does not refer to eros and the ego, but to the libido and to the death instinct." Repetitive music has also been linked with Lacanian jouissance. David Schawrz (1992, p. 134) argues that the repetition in

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before Presidency of John Adams, his presidency, he was a leader of ...

's '' Nixon in China'' is "trapping listeners in a narrow acoustic corridor of the Real" while Naomi Cumming (1997, p. 129–152) argues that the repetitive string ostinatos of Steve Reich's ''

Different Trains ''Different Trains'' is a three-Movement (music), movement piece for string quartet and Tape music, tape written by Steve Reich in 1988. Background During World War II, Reich made train journeys between New York and Los Angeles to visit his par ...

'' are "prearticulate" pieces of the Real providing a refuge from the Holocaust and its "horror of identification".

Genres

DJs at

clubs in the 1970s played a smooth mix of long single disco records to keep people dancing all night long. The 12-inch single was popularized as a means to this end. While disco songs have some repetitive elements, such as a persistent throbbing beat, these are counterbalanced by the musical variety provided by orchestral arrangements and disco mixes that add different sound textures to the music, ranging from a full, orchestral sound to stripped-down break sections. The

electronic dance music Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...

genres that followed disco in the 1980s and 1990s, such as

and techno, kept disco's bass drum rhythm but discarded orchestral arrangements and horn sections. House and techno had a more minimalist sound that layered electronic sounds and samples over a drum machine and a repetitive synth bassline. Extremely repetitive song structures are also used by some

bands like Burzum,Burzum
markprindle.com

Darkthrone Darkthrone is a Norwegian black metal band hailing from Kolbotn, Akershus. Formed in 1986 as a death metal band named Black Death, in 1991, Darkthrone transitioned to a black metal style influenced by Bathory (band), Bathory and Celtic Frost and ...

, Forgotten Woods, Lustre and Striborg.

References

Bibliography

* Cited in Fink 2005. *Benward & Saker (2003). ''Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I''. Seventh edition. . * *Campbell, Edward (2010). ''Boulez, Music and Philosophy''. . Cites Boulez 2005b, 156 and 239. * Copland, Aaron & Slatkin, Leonard (2011). ''What to Listen for in Music''. . *Cumming, Naomi (1997). "The Horrors of Identification: Reich's ''Different Trains''" ''

Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Musi ...

'' 35, no. I (Winter). *Fink, Robert (2005). ''Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice''. . * Kivy, Peter (1993). ''The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of Music''. . * Levitin, Daniel J. (2007). ''This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession''. . * Lott, Eric (1993). ''Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class''. Oxford University Press. . Cited in Middleton. *Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth (2013)
''On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind.''
Oxford University Press. . *Mertens, Wim (1980/1983/1988). ''American Minimal Music'', trans. J. Hautekiet. . Cited in Fink 2005. * Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). ''Studying Popular Music''. Philadelphia: Open University Press. . *Middleton, Richard (1999). "Form". ''Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture'', Horner, Bruce and Swiss, Thomas, eds. Malden, Massachusetts. . *Miller, Michael (2005). ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory''. . *Moravcsik, Michael J. (2001). ''Musical Sound: An Introduction to the Physics of Music''. . * Jonas, Oswald (1982). ''Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker'' (1934: ''Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks: Eine Einführung in Die Lehre Heinrich Schenkers''). Translator:. John Rothgeb. . *Rajagopal, K. (2007). ''Engineering Physics''. . *Schwarz, David (1992). "Postmodernism, the Subject, and the Real in John Adams's ''Nixon in China''" ''Indiana Theory Review'' 13, no. 2 (fall). Cited in Fink 2005.