A head-motif (German: Kopfmotiv) is a musical idea at the opening of a set of movements which serves to unite those movements. Occasionally such a motif is a musical cryptogram of the name involved. A rhythmic motif is the term designating a characteristic rhythmic formula, an abstraction drawn from the rhythmic values of a melody.Ī motif thematically associated with a person, place, or idea is called a leitmotif or idée fixe. A melodic motif is a melodic formula, established without reference to intervals.

Grove and Larousse also agree that the motif may have harmonic, melodic and/or rhythmic aspects, Grove adding that it 'is most often thought of in melodic terms, and it is this aspect of the motif that is connoted by the term 'figure'.'Ī harmonic motif is a series of chords defined in the abstract, that is, without reference to melody or rhythm. 'The smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity'. It is commonly regarded as the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that still maintains its identity as a musical idea. The Encyclopédie de la Pléiade defines a motif as a 'melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic cell', whereas the 1958 Encyclopédie Fasquelle maintains that it may contain one or more cells, though it remains the smallest analyzable element or phrase within a subject.

The motif is the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity. In music, a motif (pronunciation) ⓘ IPA: ( /moʊˈtiːf/) or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition. Play ⓘ Motif from Ravel's String Quartet, first movement.

Play ⓘ Motif from Machaut's Mass, notable for its length of seven notes. Play ⓘ Two note opening motif from Jean Sibelius's Finlandia. In Beethoven's Fifth Symphony a four-note figure becomes the most important motif of the work, extended melodically and harmonically to provide the main theme of the first movement. For other uses, see Motif (disambiguation).

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