Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Remarkable-Thought-7 t1_iulmxe4 wrote

Im offering my perspective as a music scholar here but there is a specific terminology for the element of music that becomes an ear worm. You can call it a theme, melody, or hook but entire pieces are planned around it. In classical music the entire genre of symphony is devoted to exploring the possibilities of said theme.

Hop this helps or something whatevs ams a 40oz deep... discover classical music!

14

MoiJaimeLesCrepes OP t1_iun25y9 wrote

is that tied to the concept of leitmotiv ?

If I may probe your brain here, is this an early modern discovery? or does it date further back (baroque? medieval?)? What about in non-Western traditions, like carnatic music with its rāgas?

1

Remarkable-Thought-7 t1_iunipc4 wrote

Yes! Although the concept of lietmotiv became a more formal concept through the works of Richard Wagner, and Guiseppi Verdi!

But the idea and formal processes date back to the baroque or possibly even midieval eras. The most prominent examples i can think of fall under the form of fugues. Where a melody is written and strictly immitated and developed using a "set of tools" like augmentation, dimenution, and inversion to name a few.

I would imagine that many forms of non western folk music also relied heavily on the idea of a theme so as to be easily passed down orally, but I'm speculating. Non western music history is still a bit outta my wheel house.

2

MoiJaimeLesCrepes OP t1_iunt6uv wrote

I was wondering precisely about fugues! they do feel like very complex variation and ornamentation of a motif, aren't they?

Then, some pieces are really centered around theme repetition, it feels. Ravel's Boléro. Pachelbel's canon. Carrol of the Bells. Looks like there's different names for that - canon, ostinato.

And then there's the use of motif and repetition/variation/ornamentation in improvisation, such as in jazz. I am not a music scholar so I can't explain how it works, but I know that they use it...

Maybe you can tell us more?

1