Musical Motives: A Theory and Method for Analyzing Shape in Music

All music fans harbor in their memories vivid fragments of their favorite works. The starting guitar solo of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, the da-da-da-DUM gesture that opens Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the lush swelling chords of a beloved movie soundtrack: hearing the briefest snippet of any of these is enough to transport listeners into the piece's sonic and emotional world. But what makes musical motives so powerful? In Musical Motives, author Brent Auerbach looks at the ways th...