Musical Motives

All music fans harbor in their memories vivid fragments of their favorite works. The starting guitar solo of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, the da-da-da-DUM gesture that opens Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the lush swelling chords of a beloved movie soundtrack: hearing the briefest snippet of any of these is enough to transport listeners into the piece's sonic and emotional world. But what makes musical motives so powerful? In Musical Motives, author Brent Auerbach looks at the ways that motives the small-scale pitch and rhythm shapes that are ever-present in music unify musical compositions and shape our experiences of them. Motives serve both to communicate basic musical meaning and to tie together sound space like the motifs in visual art. They present in all genres from classical and popular to jazz and world music, making them ideally suited for analysis. Musical Motives opens with a general introduction to these fundamental building blocks, then lays out a comprehensive theory and method to account for music's structure and drama in motivic terms. Aimed at both amateur and expert audiences, the book offers a tiered approach that progresses from Basic to Complex Motivic Analysis. The methods are illustrated by small- and large-scale analyses of pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Chaminade, Verdi, Radiohead, and many more.

The da-da-da-DUM motive from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is an undeniably evocative moment for any music fan. Whether it be a first foray into classical music, childhood piano lessons, or the soundtrack to a beloved movie scene, this is a moment not easily forgotten. So what makes this andother musical motives so memorable? In Musical Motives, author Brent Auerbachs look at the ways that motives - or the small-scale pitch and rhythm shapes ever-present in music - tie musical compositions together, and why we remember some more than others.Musical motives function like motifs in visual art, tying together sonic space. They repeat frequently, either as perfect copies or with slight variation. With presence in all musical genres from classical and popular to jazz and world music, motives are ideal tools for musical analysis. Openingwith an introduction to motives, Musical Motives offers a new and universal system of motivic nomenclature, then demonstrates how motives - both in small and in expanded forms stretching over many measures - help explain the structure and drama of musical works. Taking amateurs and experts alikeinto consideration, Auerbach provides two tiers of analytic method: Basic and Complex Motivic Analysis. To illustrate these methods, he offers large-scale analyses of pieces by Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Chaminade, Radiohead, and others.

This book shows how recent work in cognitive science, especially that developed by cognitive linguists and cognitive psychologists, can be used to explain how we understand music. The book focuses on three cognitive processes--categorization, cross-domain mapping, and the use of conceptual models--and explores the part these play in theories of musical organization. The first part of the book provides a detailed overview of the relevant work in cognitive science, framed around specific musical examples. The second part brings this perspective to bear on a number of issues with which music scholarship has often been occupied, including the emergence of musical syntax and its relationship to musical semiosis, the problem of musical ontology, the relationship between words and music in songs, and conceptions of musical form and musical hierarchy. The book will be of interest to music theorists, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists, as well as those with a professional or avocational interest in the application of work in cognitive science to humanistic principles.

The first thorough theoretical study of Janácek's compositions, focusing on motivic and rhythmic structure and identifying elements that give the music coherence, character, and interest.

Definitions -- Transformations -- Assimilative allusions -- Contrastive allusions -- Texting -- Inspiration -- Naming -- Allusive traditions and audiences -- Motives for allusion.