It’s All about Change – 33 Ways of Dancing with a Motif

Freed Hartmann
Feb 17, 2022
4 min read

When going from one sound event to the next one, we have on one hand the exact repetition – that may even appear a bit different though – we talked about it already.

On the other hand we may get a sound event that seems to have no connection to the former one att all. This brings us to state now the quite obvious:

The music plays in the middle! It’s all about change.

Change gives us the opportunity to compare and to feel that something is moving, in the best case, moving ourselfs. That should be the purpose, shouldn’t it?

Even so, we may all agree on the necessity of good changes in the flow of sounds, the core question remains,

What makes the changes really damn good?

I’m for my part found one of the most moving changes in the 7th Symphony by Beethoven. A firework of 33 completely different changes applied to just one single little dance motif:

Changes are appearing as variations. To emphasize the process of doing and discovering variations, I call this ‘the varification’ of sounds or sound motifs.

And I am adding this to my list of #freesoundspirations on a very prominent point: There are endless possibilities where and how change can apply to sounds even in the most strange sound territories.

But who can show me only one example where within eight minutes such a magnitude of fundamental changes appears to our ears as in the below sound trip through this symphonic movement?

Where can contemporary sound collections learn how to develop – if not from such a place of emotional and intellectual richness?

Don’t worry – the trip will be very easy to follow – thanks to the great musical animation work of Stephen Malinovski we enjoyed already in our last entry when talking about the Eroica. So every variation will be introduced by an image of the sounds, then you click, and you get immediately the ‘full picture’: Sometimes the eye will be faster, sometimes the ear, I promise, in any case, it will be a joyful trip.

In my next blog entry,

I will shortly explain which kind of variations I see here in general (I call it the ‘arrangification of sounds’), and which other important kinds of varifications can be found in music. And I will add some examples from different sound territories – as usual – in order to try to give some inspiration, where those varifications could be an eye or – even better for this matter – ear opener as well.

In the meantime –

what about you finding a contemporary musical piece that does something similar even with totally different sounds? Let us know!

The travel begins!

Are you ready?

Variation 1:

Build up of the core motif (exposition starts after a long four minutes introduction)

Variation 2:

Building a melody (the “subject”) out of the core motif

Variation 3:

Building a ramp up

Variation 4:

Repeating the subject with full orchestra (again with the motif intervowen)

Variation 5:

Creating a bow out of the motif

Variation 6:

Creating a second completely different bow

Variation 7:

Getting down with one voice and then desintegrating the motif

Variation 8:

Multitimbral splitting of motif and huge orchestral ramp up

Variation 9:

Motif integrated in a climax chord (in two ways)

Variation 10:

Building a canon of two voices based on the subject (with the motif leading) and contracting it

Variation 11:

Building a multitimbral scale with all instruments as one voice out of the motif

Variation 12:

Building up a chord step by step from top to bottom (beginning of development)

Variation 13:

Crossed lines

Variation 14:

Static chord progression (vertical motif texture)

Variation 15:

Falling dialog between upper and lower voices within chord

Variation 16:

Strict antiphonic structure between strings and wood instruments

Variation 17:

Motif distributed across colors and (falling) registers (one of my favorites!)

Variation 18:

Antiphonic raising motif texture against a pedal tone, raising on two levels

Variation 19:

Raising texture with short antiphonic repetitions

Variation 20:

Synchronized motif repetitions across full orchestra with adjacent distribution

Variation 21:

New antiphonic structure between strings and woods/brass all in one voice

Variation 22:

Full orchestra in one voice playing around the motif with different tone combinations while raising it

Variation 23:

Again accumulating an accord, see 12 (beginning of development), here ending it, but now with full orchestra

Variation 24:

New version of subject with multitude of motif textures such as crossing lines, antiphonic design, melodic integration, flashing motif of woods (like a lightning) (beginning of recapitulation)

Variation 25:

Motif as pedal point plus subject beginning and tonal coloring of major and minor

Variation 26:

Repetition of subject phrase with the motif in different instrument colors and keys with a very quiet string chord accompaniment (my favorite!)

Variation 27:

Recapitulation of many textures known from exposition

Variation 28:

Various chords progression with motif as carrier and as a melodic sprinkle (coda begins)

Variation 29:

Complete synchronized motif play of full orchestra (chords)

Variation 30:

Antiphonic play of motif tail while leading full orchestra downwards

Variation 31:

Antiphonic play with stable chords and special accent on first tone of motif

Variation 32:

Chord change with every motif in a circling loop

Variation 33:

Pedal point motif in the upper and antiphonic spread in the lower voices

I hope you enjoyed this trip! Just imagine, this is only one aspect of many more sound relationships in this piece. Listen to the whole piece to sense all the other sound relatives, you will be amazed. And every time new – I promise!

See you next week then, or so!

#musiceducation #freesoundspirations