Motif and Variations

5. Organizing Blocks

How to make variations is one issue, and in what order you place blocks is another. There are many possible combinations to connect a motif and its variations.

Now I’m gonna introduce some famous patterns.

Reprise on 3rd

There are cases where the 3rd block offers the original motif again.

By returning to the original, 4-block form is divided into two; the “first half” and the “second half”. Let’s take “Stay” by Zedd as an example:

With the power of such dual segmentations listeners can grasp the whole picture even more easily.

Twist on 3rd

Not often but sometimes in vocal songs, liquidation occurs at the 3rd block and return to a motif in the last block.

The last block may be the pure reprise, some variation or a fragmentation of the original.

Above are examples (though in some tracks earlier blocks are not included in the 30 sec previews). Taking “Let It Be” as an example, the phrase “There will be an answer” is inserted between the repetitions of “let it be”.

What’s the purpose of this formation? …Take notice that all the songs above have their song titles sung in the last block.

So the thoughts behind this could be like this : You want to finish the chorus part with declaring the title, and the melody for it must be catchy. Liquidation is generally characterless so it’s not appropriate in this situation.
What’s the best option?—Go into liquidation earlier than usual and go back to the catchy motif instead, making the last block rather impressive.

The lesson here is; there’s no rules like “you must finish with liquidation”. On the contrary, any pattern can work as a good “strategy” if done deliberately.

Promotion

Generally liquidations and fragmentations are the “disposable” motives that are consumed without any further development or repetition; just used once or twice at the end of a series of blocks and that’s all. But occasionally an interesting measure is taken where they leave “offspring“.

Daft Punk – Get Lucky

“Get Lucky” is a song that won the Record of the Year at 56^th Grammy Awards. The verse and the bridge section have clear repetition structures but that’s not the matter in question. Listen to the chorus part (0:50-).

The fourth block is composed of a fragmentation of the motif (with pitches changed) and a liquidation, on which the most important words “get lucky”, the title, is put as lyrics. Not sure if that’s why, but the block is promoted to the new motif and is repeated through the next section.

A backseat player becomes the main actor! Hence I’d like to call this technique Promotion of a motif.

What are the benefits of promotion? By recycling motives, the total amount of material used in a song is reduced, hopefully making a song more memorable.

The resources of our brain memory are limited so sustainable development is the key for a catchy melodies. Yes, economy and ecology are important in songwriting too!😇

Hayley Westenra – Haru Yo Koi

Let me show you one more example of promotion.

This is a famous Japanese song covered in English. The phrase “All around, I can feel new life unfold” (0:38-) is the liquidation of the verse part, which has a nested structure in it.

The atomic motif of “All around”, the rhythm “tan-ta-tan” is promoted to the new motif and used throughout the bridge part, and the chorus part too. And there’s more to it than that. Do you notice that the motif “tan-ta-tan” actually is already exposed at the very start?

Though its placement in rhythmic position is different, the form is the identical “tan-ta-tan”. So the whole picture is; The motif exposed in intro is demoted to the liquidation phrase in the end of verse, but then promoted again to the main motif! As if it’s musical “DNA” inherent in the song that is sometimes sunk in the depth and other time revealed prominently.

Such secret “inheritance” can be found in other mega-hit songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Every Breath You Take by Police, You’re Beautiful by James Blunt and so on. ¹

Replication, variation, fragmentation, inheritance… a melody that grows like a living organism would be said to have a high degree of organization.

---

Now you see that the process of melody making is not like splicing a variety of materials one after another, but rather like constructing a piece from limited number of coordinated materials from a single tree. An eminent composer / theorist Schoenberg said:

A composer does not, of course, add bit by bit, as a child does in building with wooden blocks. He conceives an entire composition as a spontaneous vision. Then he proceeds, like Michelangelo who chiselled his Moses out of the marble without sketches, complete in every detail, thus directly forming his material.

Schoenberg,Arnold. Fundamentals of Musical Composition(p.2).

It is noteworthy that he doesn’t say you should plan the whole line. He says they can see a spontaneous vision. Yeah it must be true…You saw many strategies so far but I guess the artists do not really scheme them seriously. They simply can do it just by experience, just by intuition.

Such ability is learned through practical experience. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that the theory does not worth learning. These knowledge and wisdom will surely help you to reach that stage faster.

If you won’t get cramped up by the theory, it is a possible choice to ignore it while songwriting and use it afterward only for analytical review. Theories are not rules, but tools to support you.

Summary

• Repetition/development structures can give a song a sense of “blocks” or “stories” and it is not until listeners perceive it that they can enjoy the song.
• A seed of a melody line that has some character in its curve or rhythm is called a motif.
• Exposing a motif, developing variations and lastly dissolving it by liquidation is the typical architecture of melody.
• The intensity of transformation determines the balance between variety and catchiness of a melody line.

Continue

---