A Study Of Paratactic Music Form

Paratactic music forms have not been systematically probed into and categorized in the analytical theory of musical forms which is established on the foundation of western professional music composition. In fact, as one category of essential music forms, paratactic forms appear not only in traditional music of various nations but also in professional music of each historical period. Furthermore, the particular function of mutability and openness within paratactic forms to the progress of music produces unique structures and brings aesthetic effects, which the other categories of music forms could not achieve and compare with. The main framework of this dissertation is to accomplish a systematic discussion from four aspects: the structural features of paratactic forms, the structural categories of paratactic forms, the paratactic characteristics of non-paratactic forms and the aesthetic characteristics of paratactic music forms.First, the structural features of paratactic forms include both structural principles and structural forms. Structural principles mainly refer to the hierarchical nature and homoorganicity nature of different music passages, while structural forms mainly refer to the pattern feature and homogenous feature of various music materials.Second, the structural categories of paratactic forms refer to either forms constituted with different structural units or forms composed by different numbers of paragraphs. Structural categories of paratactic forms mainly involve forms composed of musical passages, forms composed of musical departments and forms composed of musical movements, and sorting out into binary, ternary, quinary, multinary.Third, the paratactic characteristics of non-paratactic forms refers only not to the homogeneous parallel structures of repetitive music forms but also to the heterogeneous coordinate structures of alternative music forms. The homogeneous parallel structures, with repetitions or changing-repetitions, lay logic basis for heterogeneous coordinate structures, while the interlinks of heterogeneous coordinate structures, with alternations, construct the basic steps and intermediate links.Fourth, the aesthetic characteristics of paratactic music forms involve both universal aesthetic features stemming from their own regular patterns of music forms and individualized aesthetic features rooted from diversity of cultural forms. The aesthetic features are influenced by characteristic patterns of music itself and instinctive aesthetic orientation of human auditory system, while the individualized aesthetic features are affected by cultural background, such as philosophical thoughts, humanistic ideas and aesthetic psychology.