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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 drawn from the rhythmic values of a melody. A motif thematically associated with a person, place, or idea is called a leitmotif or idée fixe. [7]
Simple melodic pattern. Play ⓘ Melodic sequence on the lines "Send her victorious," and "Happy and glorious," from "God Save the Queen" Play ⓘ In music and jazz improvisation, a melodic pattern (or motive) is a cell or germ serving as the basis for repetitive pattern. It is a figure that can be used with any scale.
A melodic formula, ranging length from a short motif of a few notes to an entire melody, which is used as the basis for musical compositions. It differs from a mode, which simply sets forth a sequence of intervals (in Western music, half tones and whole tones), and from a scale (the notes of a mode in rising order of pitch), in that it is more specific: a melody type spells out actual ...
A musical motif has been defined as a "short musical idea ... melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic, or all three", [1] a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: "the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity". [3]
Often, melodies are constructed from motifs or short melodic fragments, such as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Richard Wagner popularized the concept of a leitmotif: a motif or melody associated with a certain idea, person or place.
A phrase originally presented or heard as a motif may become a figure that accompanies another melody, such as in the second movement of Claude Debussy's String Quartet. It is perhaps best to view a figure as a motif when it has special importance in a piece. According to White, motives are, "significant in the structure of the work," while ...
The Encyclopédie Fasquelle defines a theme (subject) as "[a]ny element, motif, or small musical piece that has given rise to some variation becomes thereby a theme". [ 4 ] Thematic changes and processes are often structurally important, and theorists such as Rudolph Reti have created analysis from a purely thematic perspective.
Ernst Kurth coined the term of "developmental motif" [citation needed]. Rudolph Réti is notable for tracing the development of small melodic motifs through a work, [citation needed] while Nicolas Ruwet's analysis amounts to a kind of musical semiology. [citation needed]