I'm not a music specialist, I've studied very little theory myself and most of my theory knowledge comes from personal observations and friends who have studied music at university level, but...
It depends on what you mean by "standard". There are some style of music that you can pin down so far as a sort of ABABACBB(modulated) - namely most entires into the Eurovision Song Contest in the last 40 years - but I'm not sure if that "Pop music" format has a name unto itself. The lack of a name doesn't make it any less common or predictable, though. Then you have things like the Sonata form, which isn't well represented in letter format, because of the way the development and exposition sections build on the initial forms, but aren't repetition.
Virtually every form of music has its own set of templates. It's what makes that music sound like... that music, as much as the instrumentation. Music is driven by patterns, and we notice the exceptions that break the patterns. Ergo, there are a lot of templates :P
__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"
- Arthur Dent
|