music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w.

rush

Motivic Development
we’re going to take a little break
I’ll tell you what’s
going on: I’m grumpy!
I bet archduke rudolph
20 gulden that I
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
beetho four stinkin’ notes!
ven

& ‰ œ œ œ b˙
hey, it’s cool, mr. b...
original motive we can use these notes
as a motive, and create
a ton more music based
on them. watch!

b œœœ˙ œœ œ œ˙ œ
&bb ‰ J J
the simplest form of motivic
development: repeating a phrase
repetition immediately gives you twice as
much music!

œœœœ
motive repetition

bb b ‰ nœ œ œ #œ œ œ œ
J œ
repeating a motive at a higher

& J J
or lower level pitch. as with
sequence all of these, the intervals
don’t have to match exactly.
motive sequence sequence

b œ œ
&b b Œ ‰œœœ Œ
flipping the motive upside-down:
if the original motive leaps
inversion downward, an inversion will
leap upward. inversion of original motive

b bb ‰ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ ˙
interval contraction
&
making the intervals within the
motive smaller (contraction) or
interval expansion larger (expansion).
motive int. expansion

b œ œ œ ˙.
diminution
augmentation
changing the speed of the motive
so it is played faster (diminution) &bb Œ
.
or slower (augmentation).

bb ‰ œ œ. œ. œ n œ œ. œ. œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ. ‰
augmentation of original motive

rhythmic
& b
any change of the motive’s rhythm
(other than just changing the
metamorphosis tempo, as described above)
metamorphosis of original motive

an “echo” effect between different voices

b
&bb Ó ‰ œ œ œ œj œ œ œ œ Œ
imitation b imitation
&bb ‰ œ œ œ ˙ Œ
(between instruments in an ensemble, for
example, or between registers on the piano) ˙.
motive

so, heh heh.... aw, dang!

that gets us to 253 let’s go
measures... double or
nothing!
you sly fox...
wait... we are in 506 measures!
4/4 time, right?
woooot!
uh, yeah... read it and
weep, rudy!
so let’s use
2/4 time instead! beetho
ven

licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more