Motivic Development printable pdf download

music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush

Motivic Development

I’ll tell you what’s

going on: I’m grumpy!

I bet archduke rudolph

20 gulden that I

we’re going to take a little break

from the usual stuff and... hey,

could write

it’s ludwig van beethoven!

500 measures

of music this week and

so far I’ve only

what’s going on, maestro?

come up with

four stinkin’ notes!

& ‰ œ œ œ ˙ b

hey, it’s cool, mr. b...

we can use these notes

original motive

as a motive, and create

a ton more music based

on them. watch!

b b ‰ œ œ œ ˙

œ œ œ œ ˙

& b

the simplest form of motivic

development: repeating a phrase

repetition

immediately gives you twice as

much music!

œ œ œ

motive

repetition

œ œ n œ œ

œ # œ œ œ

b b ‰

& b

repeating a motive at a higher

or lower level pitch. as with

sequence

all of these, the intervals

don’t have to match exactly.

motive

sequence

b b œ Œ ‰ œ œ œ œ Œ

& b

flipping the motive upside-down:

if the original motive leaps

inversion

downward, an inversion will

leap upward.

inversion of original motive

œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ ˙

& b

b ‰

interval contraction

making the intervals within the

motive smaller (contraction) or

interval expansion

larger (expansion).

b b Œ œ œ œ

motive

int. expansion

. ˙

& b

diminution

changing the speed of the motive

so it is played faster (diminution)

augmentation

. œ œ œ .

or slower (augmentation).

b b ‰ œ œ . œ . œ œ n œ . œ . œ œ œ . œ

augmentation of original motive

& b

‰

rhythmic

any change of the motive’s rhythm

(other than just changing the

metamorphosis

tempo, as described above)

metamorphosis of original motive

b b b

œ œ œ œ Œ

‰ œ œ œ

an “echo” effect between different voices

b b b

imitation

(between instruments in an ensemble, for

‰ œ œ œ ˙

. ˙

example, or between registers on the piano)

motive

aw, dang!

so, heh heh....

let’s go

that gets us to 253

double or

measures...

nothing!

you sly fox...

506 measures!

wait... we are in

4/4 time, right?

woooot!

uh, yeah...

read it and

weep, rudy!

so let’s use

2/4 time instead!

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Motivic Development

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