(MF) Period Lesson

Period

In music, the term period refers to certain types of recurrences in small-scale formal structure. It is a group of measures comprising the natural division of the melody. In twentieth-century music scholarship, the term is usually used as defined by the Oxford Companion to Music: "a period consists of two phrases, antecedent and consequent, each of which begins with the same basic motif."  The concept of a musical period is a question phrase followed by an answer phrase with the same basic musical idea.

Diagram of a typical period consisting of two phrases:

The above music is an example of a Period with two five-bar phrases in Haydn's Feldpartita. The second phrase is built of parallel (similar) melodic material, distinguished by an authentic cadence answering the half cadence at the end of the first phrase.

In Western art music or Classical music, a period is a group of phrases consisting usually of at least one antecedent phrase and one consequent phrase totaling about 8 measures in length (though this varies depending on meter and tempo). Generally, the antecedent ends in a weaker and the consequent in a stronger cadence; often, the antecedent ends in a half cadence while the consequent ends in an authentic cadence. Frequently, the consequent strongly parallels the antecedent, even sharing most of the material save the final measures.

A double period is, "a group of at least four phrases...in which the first two phrases form the antecedent and the third and fourth phrases together form the consequent." Thus doubling a single period.

"Greensleeves" would be an example of a double period. Listen to a recording of this song.

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