What Are Motives In Music

Short recurring musical phrase

A phrase originally presented as a motif may become a figure which accompanies some other melody, every bit in the second movement of Claude Debussy's String Quartet (1893).^[1] Play(help·info) White would classify the accompaniment every bit motivic fabric since it was, "derived from an important motive stated earlier".^[2]

In music, a motif (pronunciation)(help·info) IPA: (/moʊˈtiːf/) (also motive) is a curt musical phrase,^[5] a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: "The motive is the smallest structural unit of measurement possessing thematic identity".^[iii]

The Encyclopédie de la Pléiade regards information technology as a "melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic jail cell", whereas the 1958 Encyclopédie Fasquelle maintains that information technology may contain ane or more cells, though it remains the smallest analyzable element or phrase within a subject.^[6] It is commonly regarded every bit the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that notwithstanding maintains its identity as a musical thought. "The smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity".^[3] Grove and Larousse^[7] too concord that the motif may have harmonic, melodic and/or rhythmic aspects, Grove adding that information technology "is most often thought of in melodic terms, and it is this aspect of the motif that is connoted by the term 'figure'."

A harmonic motif is a series of chords defined in the abstract, that is, without reference to melody or rhythm. A melodic motif is a melodic formula, established without reference to intervals. A rhythmic motif is the term designating a characteristic rhythmic formula, an abstraction fatigued from the rhythmic values of a melody.

A motif thematically associated with a person, identify, or idea is called a leitmotif. Occasionally such a motif is a musical cryptogram of the proper noun involved. A head-motif (German: Kopfmotiv) is a musical idea at the opening of a set of movements which serves to unite those movements.

Scruton, nonetheless, suggests that a motif is distinguished from a figure in that a motif is foreground while a figure is background: "A figure resembles a moulding in architecture: it is 'open at both ends', then as to be endlessly repeatable. In hearing a phrase as a figure, rather than a motif, nosotros are at the same time placing information technology in the background, even if it is...potent and melodious".^[1]

Any motif may be used to construct complete melodies, themes and pieces. Musical evolution uses a distinct musical effigy that is subsequently contradistinct, repeated, or sequenced throughout a piece or section of a slice of music, guaranteeing its unity. Such motivic evolution has its roots in the keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and the sonata form of Haydn and Mozart's age. Arguably Beethoven achieved the highest elaboration of this technique; the famous "fate motif" —the design of three short notes followed past one long one—that opens his 5th Symphony and reappears throughout the work in surprising and refreshing permutations is a classic case.

Motivic saturation is the "immersion of a musical motive in a composition", i.due east., keeping motifs and themes below the surface or playing with their identity, and has been used past composers including Miriam Gideon, as in "Night is my Sister" (1952) and "Fantasy on a Javanese Motif" (1958), and Donald Erb. The employ of motives is discussed in Adolph Weiss' "The Lyceum of Schönberg".^[8]

Hugo Riemann defines a motif as, "the concrete content of a rhythmically bones time-unit."^[9]

Anton Webern defines a motif equally, "the smallest independent particle in a musical idea", which are recognizable through their repetition.^[10]

Arnold Schoenberg defines a motif equally, "a unit which contains i or more features of interval and rhythm [whose] presence is maintained in constant employ throughout a piece".^[xi]

Caput-motif [edit]

Head-motif (German language: Kopfmotiv) refers to an opening musical idea of a prepare of movements which serves to unite those movements. It may also be chosen a motto, and is a frequent device in cyclic masses.^[12]

Run across as well [edit]

Motif (art)
Motif (literature)
Riff

References [edit]

^ ^a ^b Scruton, Roger (1997). The Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Printing. ISBN 0-19-816638-9.
^ White, John D. (1976). The Analysis of Music (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall), pp. 31–34. ISBN 0-13-033233-X.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d White (1976), pp. 26–27.
^ White (1976), p. 30.
^ New Grove (1980). cited in Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Soapbox: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated past Carolyn Abbate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Printing. ISBN 0691091366/ISBN 0691027145.
^ Both cited in Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Soapbox: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Academy Printing. ISBN 0691091366/ISBN 0691027145.
^ 1957 Encyclopédie Larousse cited in Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Soapbox: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated past Carolyn Abbate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691091366/ISBN 0691027145.
^ Hisama, Ellie M. (2001). Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon, pp. 146 and 152. Cambridge Academy Press. ISBN 0-521-64030-X.
^ Jonas, Oswald (1982). Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker (1934: Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks: Eine Einführung in Die Lehre Heinrich Schenkers), p. 12. Trans. John Rothgeb. ISBN 0-582-28227-half-dozen.
^ Webern (1963), pp. 25–26. Cited in Campbell, Edward (2010). Boulez, Music and Philosophy, p. 157. ISBN 978-0-521-86242-4.
^ Neff (1999), p. 59. Cited in Campbell (2010), p. 157.
^ Fallows, David (2001). "Head-motif". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN978-1-56159-239-5. ‎