Basic Developmental Techniques

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• Basic approaches to developing a motive:
  1. Repetition; Recurrence
  2. Melodic embellishment, or ornamentation
  3. Fragmentation and manipulation:
     • sequence, real or tonal
     • imitation, real or tonal
     • simultaneity
     • invertible counterpoint
     • stretto
  4. Expansion of material:
     • added at the beginning
     • internal expansion, or interpolation
     • added at the end
  5. Contraction of material:
     • condensation
     • truncation
  6. Significant alteration of material:
     • Pitch
       1. interval expansion, or amplification
       2. interval contraction, or compression
       3. free substitution
       4. inversion, changing contour and possibly interval content
       5. retrograde and retrograde inversion, affects pitch order
       6. mutation
     • Rhythm
       1. diminution or augmentation, affecting durational values
       2. change of meter
       3. rhythmic embellishment
       4. rhythmic variation

        

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• Stretto
  1. This is a type of imitation between voices where the material overlaps itself. In a contrapuntal composition, stretto occurs when a motive, or theme, begins in one voice before its statement is completed in another, created an overlap. Stretto often occurs at important, or climactic, points in a composition.
  2. Things to note when stretto occurs:
     • how many voices are involved?
     • what is the rhythmic distance between statements? is it the same each time?
     • what is the harmonic distance (interval) between statements? is it the same each time?

      

©2015 Dr. Timothy Nord