From Peter Burkholder, (1994), The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field:
A typology of the uses of existing music in new compositions or improvisations may be based on the following distinctions, posed as questions. Some answers are listed here, but others are possible.
1. What is the relationship of the existing piece to the new work that borrows from it?
- It is of the same genre, medium, or style
- It is of a different genre, medium, or style
- It is of a different musical tradition
- It is a single-line melody used in a new monophonic work
- It is a single-line melody used in a polyphonic work
- It is a polyphonic work used in a new polyphonic work
- The existing work is by the composer of the new work
- It is from the same circle of musicians
- It is from a distant place or earlier time
- It is likely to be familiar to most listeners at the time and place the new work is created
- It is relatively unfamiliar
2. What element or elements of the existing piece are incorporated into or alluded to by the new work, in whole or part?
- the full texture
- a combination of parts that is less than the full texture
- a melodic line
- a rhythmic figure
- an aspect of harmony, such as a chord progression or striking sonority
- form
- texture
- instrumental color
- other parameters
3. How does the borrowed material relate to the shape of the new work?
- It provides the structure, virtually unaltered, but other features, such as text or performing forces, are changed enough to create a new work
- It provides the structure and is varied or altered
- It forms the basis of the structure or of a melodic line, with new material added or interpolated (e.g., tropes)
- It serves as a structural line or complex to which other parts are joined contrapuntally
- It is used as a theme, including extension and development
- or variations
- for a dance movement
- for sonata form
- for a march
- for a cumulative setting
- in a fantasia
- in other forms (rondo, fugue, etc.)
- jazz improvisation
- It provides material (motives, structural ideas, contrapuntal combinations, etc.) that is freely reworked
- It is used as a motive
- It appears once, but its appearance is a significant event in the form
- It appears once, in passing
- It is combined linearly with other borrowed (and perhaps some new) material (e.g., linear , medley, patchwork)
- It is combined contrapuntally with other borrowed (and perhaps some new) material (e.g., polyphonic quodlibet)
- It is part of a collage
4. How is the borrowed material altered in the new work?
- It is not altered
- It is minimally altered
- It is embellished or ornamented
- It is melodically paraphrased or restructured
- It is substantially reworked
- It appears only in fragments
- It is placed in a new context, changing its effect
- It is used as a theme, perhaps not significantly altered when it appears as a theme, but is elsewhere developed and fragmented as themes are
- It is changed to conform to a new function (e.g., as a cantus firmus in long notes, or as a folk tune reworked as a theme)
- It is disguised
- It is only alluded to, with a similar gesture, without itself being incorporated
5. What is the function of the borrowed material within the new work, in musical terms?
- It served the composer as a starting point for composition (often literally, if the new work begins like the model)
- structural:
- It forms the basic structure of a single line
- It is the structural basis for a polyphonic work
- It serves as one contrapuntal line among several
- It provides a model for the structure of the new work
- thematic:
- It serves as a theme (or part of a theme)
- It serves as a leading melody (or part of a leading melody)
- It serves as a motive
- other event:
- It marks a major event, such as a culmination or high point
- It is a passing gesture, neither thematic nor structural
6. What is the function or meaning of the borrowed material within the new work in associative or extramusical terms, if any?
- motivated by a text or program:
- Its appearance represents a performance of the borrowed piece or of a piece of its type
- It appears with its text, which has a particular extramusical significance
- Its appearance (without text) evokes part or all of the text with which it is normally associated, conveying an extramusical meaning
- Its appearance symbolizes something or someone associated with it or with pieces of its general type
- descriptive: Its appearance lends a certain character to a passage
- allusion:
- collage: It helps create a stream of consciousness effect
From Grove Music Online: In vocal music, the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music.
From Grove Music Online; A type of medieval polyphony. Early meanings are connected with the organ, but later only with ‘consonant music’. While retaining the collective meaning of ‘polyphony’ in general, from the 12th century it was used specifically to refer to music with a sustained-note tenor (usually a pre-existing part) and more mobile upper part or parts.
From Grove Music Online: The medieval motet was a polyphonic composition in which the fundamental voice (tenor) was usually arranged in a pattern of reiterated rhythmic configurations, while the upper voice or voices (up to three), nearly always with different Latin or French texts, generally moved at a faster rate.
From Grove Music Online: A term, associated particularly with medieval and Renaissance music, that designates a pre-existing melody used as the basis of a new polyphonic composition. The melody may be taken from plainchant or monophonic secular music, or from one voice of a sacred or secular polyphonic work, or it may be freely invented. Cantus firmus composition is now understood to encompass a wide range of rhythmic and melodic treatments of an antecedent tune within a new polyphonic texture.
From Grove Music Online: A composition in which well-known melodies and texts appear in successive or simultaneous combinations. Generally the quodlibet serves no higher purpose than that of humour or technical virtuosity, and may thus be distinguished from more serious works in which pre-existing material has a constructive or symbolic function.