SONATA FORM DEVELOPMENT | SONATA FORM | SONATA FORM EXPLAINED

SONATA FORM DEVELOPMENT | SONATA FORM

What we can expect to find next in a piece after the exposition of music in Sonata form is this thing known as a development section.  The development section is the most exciting part of a sonata-form piece because it really makes it stand out from just a piece where you have some nice melodies. There are lots of pieces that have a nice tune but really in a sonata form, it's in this development section that a composer gets the chance to really play around develop and transform those Mordechai Diaz that we were introduced to in the opening expedition section.  It's really a test of the composer's skill as to how well they can make those melodies their subject melodies transform twist and turn in front of our eyes. They all have to go out and listen to as many differences in our to form pieces as you can see all the different ways that composers treat and develop their melodies in this middle section of a sonata-form movement.

DEVELOPMENT

 While there are lots of techniques for doing this the way that the development section will start is often very similar so don't forget that at the end of our exposition section the opening of the piece will have had our first subject melody and our second subject melody and those tend to be in related keys. Now I said that we had a piece that was in C major. We could expect our second subject to be in a related key and in this example let's say it was in the dominant key so our exposition section is going to finish in the key that is different to the key that we started in this is our double bass this is where the expedition ends and then we go in something else.

so the first thing we've got to do is realize that our the development section isn't starting at home if you like we've already moved away from home over the course of the exposition we've moved from the tonic key of C major to the dominant key of G major so when we reach this development section we're already in a kind of slightly unusual not so comfortable home key we've moved

somewhere else and in that development section that's only going to be taken further by the composer so we'll find the development section. We'll start in the key that we finished in at the end of our opening exposition section.

 Now what happens here is sort of a bit like this we've got the nice sort of movement from tonic to dominant but in our development section really there are no rules it's sort of no-holds-barred if you like in terms of the way that the composer can meander around and develop those melodies and bring those melodies in and keys that we'd never expect maybe related keys may be quite distantly related keys or even quite unrelated keys and they'll keep playing around with it they'll keep surprising is showing us all the different ways and showing us their skill and manipulating these melodies so really there's not a lot I can say about the development section apart from going listen to a load you'll often find theme  develop by taking it through the circle of fifths. 

CIRCLE OF FIFTHS TECHNIQUE

 That's one technique that you'll find a lot so very common to find a melody developed through the circle affair just being modulated round and round this circle of fifths that we go through lots and lots of different keys and that's kind of what I mean by having this big squiggly line.

RHYTHMIC DEVELOPMENT TECHNIQUE

 There's other techniques that might involve taking a very small snippet of one of the subject melodies are really playing around with that that might involve some kind

of rhythmic development. So you're changing them the rhythm slightly of that opening that melody or part of the opening melody or you might start to do some melodic development which is where you take through the melody and you might shorten it, lengthen it change that it the different sort of characteristics that it had so lots of interesting things happen in this development section.

But like all good things, this development actually must come to an end and as I said at the beginning our Sonata form movement is essentially in three main sections so we need to get to this other bit so we've got the exhibition over here this is our development section and we have this final section called the recapitulation which we're going to talk about in the next POST but the important thing to note is that this is a really important arrival point here this double bar where we go from the end of our development section into the beginning of our recapitulation because of we hear these opening subject melodies

again in their kind of original form to complete the piece that we heard them at the beginning and we going to hear them at the end and the main thing is that these melodies in their original key. so after having taken this long meandering journey often through lots of different keys we need to somehow get the music back to the pieces opening tonic key so that we can really enjoy the arrival having gone this long crazy journey around lots of different keys, we can enjoy that arrival of coming back to the tonic key at the start of the third and final section of the Sonata form movement and that'll have a look at next we'll have a look at that section known as the recapitulation

So that in total is our Sonata form development and it's one of the most brilliant ways to develop a musical argument which great composers have been using for generations I hope you enjoyed this post and there will definitely be more like this coming up as well as analyses of great pieces of classical and film music so please do subscribe if you want to see more and share this post if you liked it thanks for reading