Let’s talk about “musical motives”: you may find this somewhat relevant for the upcoming august challenge…

A motive (or motif) is a short musical idea. Music theory defines it as “the shortest identifiable musical unit in a composition”. They were “invented” in the Baroque period but are still very much used today in all genres.

Motives are the musical equivalent of “topics” or “subjects” in narratives; they are often the building blocks of musical phrases (although not all phrases necessarily use motives) and may combine to form a theme. Motives are usually melodic, but they can also be purely rhythmic or harmonic.
In classical music, the most famous motive has probably got to be the beginning of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (“Ta ta ta taaaa”), when fate comes knocking at the door…
In popular music, examples also abound; think of “Happy Birthday”, for example.

Compositions may contain several motives, and each motive is usually manipulated in a variety of ways to add or maintain interest. Here are some typical motive manipulations:

– Repetition
The motive is simply repeated as is.

– Sequence
The original motive is transposed (diatonically or not).

– Inversion
The intervals of the motive are inverted diatonically.

– Retrograde
The motive is played “in reverse” from end to start.

– Rhythmic augmentation or reduction
The rhythm of the motive is multiplied or divided by a constant factor (often 2).

– Alteration
The motive is only slightly modified.

The manipulations above are summarised in the following score. At the end of the score you will find a short example where several techniques are combined – this is of course where the fun begins!

Motives are probably more useful in compositions than in improvisations: it is quite difficult (I think) to apply those motive manipulation techniques on the fly while improvising, although sometimes this is feasible (for example: repetitions, sequences and small alterations are certainly doable).

On the other hand, these techniques can be used to recycle your old worn out licks and get more mileage out of them. Simply look at them as motives and apply some of the techniques above. Bluegrass licks, for example, lend themselves very easily to this sort of manipulations. Try it!