Motif

A motif, also spelled motive, is the smallest idea in a piece that you can still recognize: a handful of notes with a distinctive rhythm and shape. Composers rarely write a brand-new idea in every bar. Instead they take one motif and use it again and again: the same, higher, lower, upside down, stretched or squeezed. Once you spot the motif, a page of notes turns into a few shapes you already know.

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Ways a motif can change

• Repetition: the same notes again.
• Sequence: the same shape starting on a higher or lower note.
• Inversion: turned upside down, so every step up becomes a step down.
• Augmentation: the same notes in longer values, often twice as long.
• Diminution: the same notes in shorter values.
• Fragmentation: only part of the motif, often just its first few notes, repeated on its own.
• Rhythmic or interval change: the rhythm kept with new notes, or the notes kept with a new rhythm.

The rhythm is often the most recognizable part. Many famous motifs can be identified from their rhythm alone, tapped on a table.

Motif, theme and phrase

A motif is a building block. A phrase is a complete musical sentence, usually made from one or two motifs. A theme is a larger idea, often a whole phrase or more, that serves as a main subject of a piece. In the Classical sentence, a two-bar idea is stated, repeated, and then broken into fragments that drive toward the cadence: see An Idea, Its Repeat, and a Push to the End.

Motifs beyond classical music

Film composers attach motifs to characters, places or ideas, in the tradition of the opera leitmotif. In popular music a short repeated instrumental motif is called a riff, and a catchy vocal one often becomes the hook.

Practice spotting them with Motif and sequence and Find the motif and the sequence.