Repetition

I heard some of the new Ed O' Brien (Radiohead) album and remember Thom Yorke saying they were dispensing with melody. Essentially music should contain some sort of recognisable pattern which may or may not be defined as melody.

Then I started thinking (and I have probably written about this before so I am repeating myself) that all songs and musical pieces are generally based on repetition , often starting with a drum beat or a rhythm in one form or another and then built up from there.

Obviously there is music that maybe doesn't have a beat as such (say in acapella) but there is recognisable repetition.

For a piece to not repeat and still be recognisable it needs to be very short, and often you will get bits in songs that do that, but repetition is essential to the actual production of a song or musical piece.

Ironically prose and film has to generally avoid repetition except in cases such as the two excellent Duncan Jones (David Bowie's lad) films "Moon" and "Source Code" where repetition is essential to the excellently executed storylines.

Life is full of repetition we sleep , wake eat , work then repeat. When we eat we have to wash and dry utensils and then repeat, same with clothes , we wear , wash  then wear in a never ending cycle which is not necessarily a bad thing , life is cyclical.

Yes it's a short Saturday morning post , and there is only one song for this , "Repetition" by The Fall.