Bar form

Bar form (German: die Barform or der Bar) is a musical form of the pattern AAB.

The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to refer to their songs and the songs of the predecessors, the minnesingers of the 12th to 14th century. In their work, a Bar is not a single stanza (which they called a Liet or Gesätz); rather, it is the whole song. The word Bar is most likely a shortening of Barat, denoting a skillful thrust in fencing. The term was used to refer to a particularly artful song – the type one composes in songwriters' guilds.