The ABC's of "Clair de Lune" and "Fast Forward"

“Clair de Lune” is an astonishing solo piece, but it is actually the third movement from the Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque. The Sonata form was a common form during this era and the piece is part of a symphony, but I choose to analyze it using letters because it was not the first or last movement of a piece, where Sonatas are typically found.  “Clair de Lune’s form is as follows; A B C C¹ A¹ C. The piece opens with chords grouped into three counts as the piece is played in nine eight time. Following this section, comes a series of augmented and diminished chords, I labeled this section B. Section C is a series of arpeggios, and C’ is also arpeggios with a slight variation. After the arpeggios, comes a part similar to the opening, but the chords are more broken so I named this section  A¹ . “Clair de Lune” ends with a series of arpeggios, so the ending group is also C. “Fast Forward” has a slightly different format, and it is as follows; A B B¹ C C¹ D B C D¹ A B B¹C C¹D¹. Unlike “Clair de Lune” “Fast Forward” has more parts, but parts also repeats more often, and when the next part comes in, it is only slightly altered. The opening of the piece is the baritone marimba playing a split third, which I have labeled as section A. As the soprano marimba gets added, the section transitions into B section and when another soprano marimba is added, that section then becomes  B¹ . The first soprano marimba, also known as the lead marimba then goes on into something completely different, so I named the section following section C and when that part gets altered it becomes section  C¹ . Suddenly, the piece transfers into a minor mode, and the ensemble narrows down to just the two soprano marimbas and the baritone marimbas, I called this section D. Slowly, a transition is made from the minor section back into a full ensemble with the baritone as the lead, playing something similar to the opening, transitioning back to section A and everything from there on is played the same up until the transition into D. This time, instead of the same minor melody, something minor is brought up again, but there were some slight changes so that section is entitled section  C¹ . “Clair de Lune” and “Fast Forward” follow different patterns in terms of form, but both pieces use the ABC format. Even though “Fast Forward” may have more sections, and is a shorter piece, it does not imply that “Clair de Lune” is less complicated. “Clair de Lune” had bigger sections, so instead of grouping sections in terms of two or four measures, I grouped them by nearly twenty measures.