Editing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (section)

====Repetition====
[[File:Sequence ascending from C tonal.png|thumb|Sequence ascending by step {{Audio|Sequence ascending from C tonal.mid|Play}} with four continuously higher segments that continue by the same distance (seconds: C–D, D–E, etc.)]]
As mentioned above, repetition was a natural part of Tchaikovsky's music, just as it is an integral part of Russian music.<ref>Warrack, ''Symphonies'', 9. Also see Brown, ''The Final Years'', 422–423.</ref> His use of [[Sequence (music)|sequences]] within melodies ([[repetition (music)|repeating]] a tune at a higher or lower [[pitch (music)|pitch]] in the same voice)<ref>Benward & Saker, 111–112.</ref> could go on for extreme length.<ref name="brown_ng18628"/> The problem with repetition is that, over a period of time, the melody being repeated remains static, even when there is a surface level of rhythmic activity added to it.<ref>Brown, ''The Final Years'', 423–424; Warrack, ''Symphonies'', 9.</ref> Tchaikovsky kept the musical conversation flowing by treating melody, tonality, rhythm and sound color as one integrated unit, rather than as separate elements.<ref name="Maes161">Maes, 161.</ref>

By making subtle but noticeable changes in the rhythm or phrasing of a tune, modulating to another key, changing the melody itself or varying the instruments playing it, Tchaikovsky could keep a listener's interest from flagging. By extending the number of repetitions, he could increase the musical and dramatic tension of a passage, building "into an emotional experience of almost unbearable intensity", as Brown phrases it, controlling when the peak and release of that tension would take place.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove'' vol. 18, p. 628. Also see Bostrick, 105.</ref> Musicologist [[Martin Cooper (musicologist)|Martin Cooper]] calls this practice a subtle form of unifying a piece of music and adds that Tchaikovsky brought it to a high point of refinement.<ref>Cooper, 32.</ref> (For more on this practice, see the next section.)