Overview
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 that motives DL the small-scale pitch and rhythm shapes that are ever-present in music DL unify musical compositions and shape our experiences of them. Motives serve both to communicate basic musical meaning and to tie together sound space like the motifs in visual art. They present in all genres from classical and popular to jazz and world music, making them ideally suited for analysis. Musical Motives opens with a general introduction to these fundamental building blocks, then lays out a comprehensive theory and method to account for music's structure and drama in motivic terms. Aimed at both amateur and expert audiences, the book offers a tiered approach that progresses from Basic to Complex Motivic Analysis. The methods are illustrated by small- and large-scale analyses of pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Chaminade, Verdi, Radiohead, and many more.
Full Product Details
Author: Brent Auerbach (Associate Professor of Music Theory, Associate Professor of Music Theory, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 23.90cm
, Height: 3.10cm
, Length: 15.70cm
Weight: 0.748kg
ISBN: 9780197526026
ISBN 10: 0197526020
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 17 September 2021
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Reviews
Auerbach's book is at once engaging and rigorous. We have long needed such a comprehensive approach to a concept that has occupied, even bedeviled, music theorists for centuries. -- Walter Frisch, Columbia University At every turn the author seems eager to engage a broad audience of interested readers beyond the community of professional music theorists. Following a detailed survey of historical perspectives on musical motive, Auerbach offers an original system of terminology and brings his methodology to bear on a wide range of repertoire. Specialists and non-specialists will appreciate his accessible style and his engagement with musical favorites from the Baroque era through Radiohead. -- Evan Jones, Florida State University
At every turn the author seems eager to engage a broad audience of interested readers beyond the community of professional music theorists. Following a detailed survey of historical perspectives on musical motive, Auerbach offers an original system of terminology and brings his methodology to bear on a wide range of repertoire. Specialists and non-specialists will appreciate his accessible style and his engagement with musical favorites from the Baroque era through Radiohead. * Evan Jones, Florida State University * Auerbach's book is at once engaging and rigorous. We have long needed such a comprehensive approach to a concept that has occupied, even bedeviled, music theorists for centuries. * Walter Frisch, Columbia University *
Auerbach's book is at once engaging and rigorous. We have long needed such a comprehensive approach to a concept that has occupied, even bedeviled, music theorists for centuries. * Walter Frisch, Columbia University * At every turn the author seems eager to engage a broad audience of interested readers beyond the community of professional music theorists. Following a detailed survey of historical perspectives on musical motive, Auerbach offers an original system of terminology and brings his methodology to bear on a wide range of repertoire. Specialists and non-specialists will appreciate his accessible style and his engagement with musical favorites from the Baroque era through Radiohead. * Evan Jones, Florida State University *
Author Information
Brent Auerbach, Associate Professor of Music Theory, University of Massachusetts Amherst Brent Auerbach is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on formalizing the concept of the musical motive and extending its applications for analysis. Other research interests include the music of Brahms, the aesthetics of Baroque composition and counterpoint, harmonic sequences, and music theory pedagogy. Dr. Auerbach has published articles in The Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Online, Theory and Practice, Intégral, and in The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy, ed. by Leigh VanHandel (2020).
