The ABA of Musical Repetition

It was my mother’s birthday this week. We had lunch together at her favourite local Italian restaurant and we were chatting about all sorts of things, but for reasons that are not important, we got onto the topic of hats. Mum told me a brief story, or more an observation, from her youth. Here it is.

When mum was a child, people still often wore hats. The norm was that when a man met a lady his courteous and automatic response was to doff his hat. It brought to my mind a gentleman adeptly raising his bowler, perhaps with a crisp “ma’am”, as he passed a lady on the street. More chivalrous times, perhaps.

It was the next thing that fascinated me. Mum explained that as she grew up, hats became rarely worn. People no-longer wore hats. But the action remained for a while. When a man met a lady, he would automatically raise his hand to his forehead. She explained that the hat was missing, but the automatic greeting response remained. It made me think about when I was young, and how I recall how some men, especially older men, would still make a ‘doffing action’ as they met people.

Today it would seem antiquated to lift your hand to lift an imaginary cap. It intrigued me how a repeating action leaves a such an impression for years later.

I open with this short tale because it fits well with the topic I have been considering recently: repetition.  Here it was in a story about hats. I was exploring it from the angle of music…

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To repeat or not to repeat?  That is our question.

When presenting, in a range of scenarios, is there value in repeating what you say? Is it good to repeat the way you say something? I’ll explore this with three answers:

1. YES, DEFINITELY.

2. YES, BUT LET’S ADMIT THAT WE DON’T.

3. YES, AND WE CAN LEARN HOW FROM MUSIC, yes music.

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1. YES, DEFINITELY… To repeat or not to repeat? This is a question we probably all have a quick answer to. Our speedy response is “yes”. Yes, repetition in a presentation is good. Repetition hammers home our key messages and ideas, which helps the audience remember the key points presented.

If something is worth saying, it is worth saying often. AG Laffley, ex-CEO of Procter & Gamble, was known to say that to get his organisation to focus on something he needed to state its importance at least seven times. He must repeat himself seven times. AG was a highly respected CEO. We can assume (correctly) that the organisation was keen to ask “how high” whenever he said “please jump”. And yet he knew from experience that he needed to repeat himself more than once. If a revered CEO needs to repeat himself seven times to drive a response, how many times do we need to repeat ourselves to our audience?

In a world of almost limitless information and fluctuating priorities, it takes repetition to break through and take hold.

A B C B D B E F G B H B I B J K L M B N B O B P B B B Q…

Reading the letters above you will see one “letter” feels most important to remember, more relevant, and more worth understanding: “B”. Simply because it appears so regularly our brain craves to know why. If we know the sequence will continue, we start looking out for each time the “B” returns.

We can go further into the value of longer sequences repeating.

A B1 B2 B3 C B1 B2 B3 D E B1 B2 B3 F G H B1 B2 B3 I J B1 …

Scan your eye across the sequence above and you will see the repeating block of “B1 B2 B3”. You will likely get to the end and complete the next two letters without thinking “B2 B3”. If you go back and read the line over and over again, you are likely to start noticing different things about the repeating sequence – you analyse and explore them.

The repetition brings the audience to directly engage with the information in useful ways.

Repetition has obvious and surprising value for us as presenters. So, the answer to “To repeat or not to repeat?” is a unanimous “yes, definitely”.

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To repeat or not to repeat? That is our question.

2. YES, BUT LET’S ADMIT THAT WE DON’T… The slow and painful admission is that we often avoid repeating ourselves. We spend so much time working out how to say each element well, we miss investing time to work out how we will say it often.

Why? Are we affected by Einstein’s famous quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results”?  No, I think we worry more about sounding patronising, like a primary school teacher, when we want to come across as knowledgeable, like an Oxbridge professor.

We have formed our argument, laid each element out intelligently, it is now up to the audience to process and act upon it. We have stated the facts, announced our key message, so it would seem patronising, and embarrassingly so, to start repeating ourselves ad nauseum.

To repeat or not to repeat? That is our question.

I want to break this hesitancy to repeat. I hope to do this by getting into guidance on how we can repeat ourselves. If we know how to ‘repeat well’, maybe we will do it with more confidence and regularity? We need a source to learn from.

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To repeat or not to repeat? That is our question.

3. YES, AND WE CAN LEARN HOW FROM MUSIC.  Music is full of repetition. Whether the latest pop song or a virtuosic operatic aria, songs use repetition in a myriad of interesting ways. They repeat lyrics, they replay musical motifs, they cycle back to consistent choruses, they return to full musical sections. The musical term “refrain” itself derives from the old French word ‘refraindre’, which meant “to repeat”.

If you want to pause and get further into how repetition and symmetry permeates music, here are two great videos:

In my blog we will focus on a few ways that songs use repetition and connect to their relevance for us as presenters. I want to highlight the response the musical repetition is aiming to inspire in the listener, so we can find powerful ways to inspire similar responses when we present.

To help, let me introduce the very simple way in which music teachers explain main musical forms (thanks to Heather Greenwood, a real music teacher, for explaining this to me). They use an ABC notation.

  • A A A = a song with a musical section that plays and then repeats twice.
  • A B A = a song with a musical section A that transitions into a new section B before returning to the original musical section A again.
  • A B A C A = the section A comes first and then returns after each of two different sections B and C.

That’s enough music theory to get us going…

Repetition to encourage Call-and-Respond. There are lots of songs where part of their design is to help the audience to participate. The most basic is a song we sing with young children. Most of us will have sung Old Macdonald Had A Farm with a small kid, encouraging them to choose a favourite farmyard animal, maybe ”pig”, and “oink” in the right place. Then repeat the tune and define a new animal and associated sound. This is a type of call-and-response.

To help the child the tune and words are almost entirely repeated every verse. The only thing that changes is the choice of animal and the associated sound to be made. In music this can be described as AAA form, where A is a section of the music. If we sang 5 verses to a class of children in music terms we would describe this a Acow Aduck Agoat Apig Asheep.  We can simplify this to AAAAA

The repetition makes it very easy for the child to learn the pattern, the rules of the game, and encourages the child to get involved. To make each animal choice and form the sounds. Imagine “Old Macdonald” with a different tune (ABCDE) and varying sentence patterns… would your 4-year old nephew eagerly sing along with you now? They might with a lot of practice, but it would take a lot of practice.

Presentation Learning: If you want an audience to “call and respond” form a very clear repeating pattern. If you are giving a data presentation, frame each data chart with the same process, show the data, then step forward to a specific point in space and each time ask the audience “what does this chart tell us?”. If you deliver this consistent rhythm with consistent call language “what does this chart tell us?”, the audience quickly learns the game and is more likely to respond with their thoughts.

 

Repetition to enable fuller involvement: Next let’s talk Christmas carols. A large congregation singing along to their favourity yuletide tunes. Again, most carols, and especially the most popular ones, are full of repetition.

O Come All Ye Faithfull is one of the classics. It follows a clear repeating pattern of verse (A) where the music is consistent but the lyrics differ and the chorus (B) where both the music and the lyrics are the same each time.  

A1B A2B A3B A4B A5B

The repetition, especially of the chorus, helps the audience participate. Even if they have not heard the carol before, by half way through they will be comfortable singing the chorus.

Presentation Learning: If you want an audience to be actively involved in the presentation, consider including a repeating chorus. I don’t mean suddenly breaking out into song, although that would have an impact, but by having a content set that repeats.

Rhetorical questions can work well as an example. Imagine you are delivering a presentation laying out the priorities for next year – at the end of each section you ask “How does this help us do what we do? How do we each help the team do this? Is it enough, or do we need to do more?” followed by a pause. By using the repeating language we are training the audience to respond, in this case in their own minds. After a few they will likely be answering the questions to themselves before you ask them.

 

Signalling to an audience you are moving to the conclusion: There are a range of ways that music forms and then breaks repetition to broadcast that we are moving to the end of the song.

Some of the most famous Christmas Carols do this by adding a descant for the final verse. Returning to  O Come All Ye Faithful.  The sopranos add a new high line flying above the original tune for the final verse with “Sing Choirs Of Angels”. As listeners (and singers) we feel the shift beyond the repeating pattern that has come before, feeling the closure of the carol.

Away from Carols, another example here is American Pie by Don McLean. There are different versions, almost all of which are long and very repetitive. I listened to a version that is over eight minutes long. It can be summarised as:

A1B C1B C2B C3B C4B A2BB’

We have the famous chorus B. We have a core verse C with changing lyrics and some small shifts in the tune, but with consistent harmonies and energy. We open (and close) with a much slower section A. Musically they are actually pretty close to C, but the change in dymanics at the end, mirroring the opening, is enough for there to be a clear signal that the song is coming to its conclusion.

Presentation Learning: If you want an audience to feel you coming to a close, without you having to directly tell them, form and then break a repeating patter. As you transition into the closing thoughts deliberately add something new, a presentation descant. Or perhaps follow Don McLean and start and end in a very different style. Maybe open in a contemplative style, slow and thoughtful, be energetic and optimistic through the long central section, returning to your slow and thoughtful style as you close. 

 

Repetition to leave space for the beauty in the message: When researching this blog I went back to listen to songs from my teens and twenties that have stuck with me for some reason. One was Hallelujah (the Jeff Buckley version, but there are so, so many). Here is a song that repeats, and repeats, and repeats. Buckley’s masterpiece is nearly seven minutes long. It can be summarised like this:

A1 A2 A3 A4 A* A5 A6

A* is an instrumental, but otherwise we have a verse + chorus musically repeating many times. Buckley makes small musical changes each verse, but we can all admit it is a repetitive song.

Yes, the words change, but I have heard the song many times, I have even sung a choral version of it in concert, and yet I recall only a single word from the whole thing (no prize for guessing which one). What I remember is the sincerity and passion of Buckley’s performance. Hallalujah is a song with an intense soul. Wrapping it in more variety and musical finesse could overshadow this emotional core, or worse make the heart feel insincere. Sometimes, when the idea and the sentiment is powerful and true, a repeating performance lets this shine through.

Presentation Learning: If you have a message that is profound and emotionally powerful, and if you believe it’s significance with all of your heart, then consider delivering it like Buckley. Say it regularly and consistently. Make small changes in emphasis, look at it from different perspectives, but make it about a single repeating point.

 

Repetition to build up to the reveal: Stepping away from a single song, we can learn from longer forms of music. Modern musicals have a long and fascinating evolution history, all the way back to the early operas of Monteverdi and Mozart. Some of the masters of musical theatre have followed some interesting tricks of repetion so that by the time you get to the most important tunes in the piece, you have already heard them.

Arthur Sullivan (as in Gilbert & Sullivan) wrote many famous operettas still performed today. All of them have an overture which is an orchestral opening before the curtain rises, which zips through highlights of the main tunes to come. What is the Overture for? It is holding up the starting of the story. You could get rid of it. However, Sullivan had learnt that by starting with the musical highlights to come, the audience enjoys more the music throughout.

In some musicals there is a main defining song. Think Memory in Cats. One of the ways the composer helps set this up is by including snippets from the music (and sometimes lyrics) before the song arrives. Andrew Lloyd Webber is the master of this. Memory comes just before the concluding scene of the show, but it is far from the first time you hear the Memory music. You hear elements of it throughout, and you get a section in the first half that sounds like it is the actual start of Memory before then breaking away. You get snippets. You get teasers.

There is lots of research on how people enjoy best music that they have heard before – preferably repeatedly. Consider a major rock concert by your favourite band – yes you want to hear a few of the new numbers from their upcoming album, but mostly you want to revel in the classics you have been singing to in the car for the last 5 years.

The overture was an original way to make sure when you got the big numbers you had heard the music before. Over the decades composers have learnt to weave in parts of main tunes throughout the piece. In modern times the most popular shows have soundtracks that most people have heard many times before they arrive at the theatre. I saw Hamilton last year and you could tell that most of the audience knew the songs already, and were still wildly lapping up every dramatic musical moment.

 

 

Presentation Learning: If you want an audience to engage deeply with a major message, especially one which you need to build up to through lots of complex information, don’t leave all your powder to the end. Get parts of your message out beforehand, at the start, and throughout. A great way to do this is to break your core idea into pieces. Elements that mean a little separately, but mean so much more once clicked together to form your final picture.

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When I started writing this blog it was going to only be a couple of observations on what we can learn from musical ABA structure. However, the more I explored it, the more I found I was looking squarely at the topic of repetition. Also, I found far more rich and interesting insights than I had expected. This is a long blog. If you are still reading you have done well to stick with me. If it is any relief, know there is still much that I found that I have left out.

To repeat, or not to repeat? This was not the question I started with, but it is the one I found compelled to answer.

Yes, we should repeat key messages, repeat how we visualise our ideas, repeat the performance elements in our presentations.

Yes, we should be aware that something holds us back from doing so. It takes effort to battle against our hesitency to repeat.

My greatest hope is that this blog inspires you in practical ways to repeat. Repetition is a skill and an artform worth exploring.

Richard Pascoe

Richard is one of the two Master Trainers at Making Presentations.

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