The motive
The smallest recognizable musical idea: two to five notes with a precise rhythmic and intervallic profile. A good motive is simple, characteristic and “developable.”
Development techniques
- Repetition: identical, to fix the idea.
- Sequence: the same motive on another scale degree (diatonic or real).
- Inversion: the intervals change direction.
- Retrograde: the notes in reverse order.
- Augmentation / diminution: values doubled or halved.
- Fragmentation: only part of the motive is used.
- Expansion / contraction of the intervals.
- Rhythmic displacement: the motive starts on another beat of the bar.
- Reharmonization: same notes, different chords.
- Change of register and timbre.
Example in C major
Motive: E–D–C in three quarter notes (E–D–C) over C.
- Sequence: F–E–D over Dm, G–F–E over Em.
- Inversion: E–F–G.
- Diminution: E–D–C in eighth notes, repeated twice.
- Displacement: E–D–C starting on beat two.
- Reharmonization: E–D–C over Am (becomes fifth–fourth–third).
In production
A synth hook can generate the whole piece: full version in the chorus, filtered fragment in the verse, inversion in the bridge, slowed-down version in the outro. This coherence is what makes a beat sound “written.”
Real-world example
The first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1808) grows out of a four-note motive (three short and one long) that is repeated, sequenced and fragmented throughout the movement. In rock, the riff of “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes (2003) is a motive that carries the whole song by changing only the arrangement.