Micro Music Laboratories - Music Theory - Part 5 - The Force-Fields in Music - The Sequence in Music

The sequence is that musical force which lovingly leads the dancing motifs from one sequence world into the next, inspiring them to new creative unfoldment in a harmonious manner, so that all the motifs, although striving apart and back to each other in many ways, still travel through each new world collectively and – with the help of the sequence – enter ever new dimensions of musical unfoldment.

At each transition from one sequence world into the next, the full beauty of the form of the sequence appears particularly distinct. Like a mother, it guides the motifs – collects them in the old world, encourages them to enter the new world and, through the charm of its motherly beauty, gives them confidence to advance without fear into the new land of the next sequence; because, to the "children" (the motifs), the new sequence world appears as the mysterious, unknown sphere of a new generation.

The sequence-technique is that faculty of the musical logic which governs the motif-technique from within. In accordance with the inner formative laws of the sequence-technique, the sequence stimulates the motifs, holds them together, and again soothes them – like a mother tending her children.

The sequence-technique prevents the natural order of the motifs from disintegrating even if the motifs are of opposing nature and even if, in the course of the musical event, they contradict each other ever so much.

In the form of the laws of the harmony, the sequence-technique contains those principles which improve the relation of the motifs among each other.

The sequence-technique is the "field of the social laws of the motifs," while the motif-technique comprises the individual laws of the motifs.

The sequence-technique, therefore, is a natural superior order of the motif-technique. The motif-technique evolves from the sequence-technique; it is, in its latent form, already present within it, and is not later attached artificially to the sequence-technique.

The sequence is that inner life-impulse of the composition which unites the motifs so naturally as our palm holds our fingers together. And as little as the palm moves when activating the individual fingers, as little is the sequence moved even when the individual motifs are moving apart, or together again, in the musical dance.

And due to this discrete nature of its activity, the sequence is not easily identified in the composition.

Thus, the sequence acts as the all-nourishing motif mother between the harmony and the dancing motifs, and enchants the motifs with the qualities of the harmony.

In a motherly way, the sequence holds the motifs together and harmonizes their intentions which are often striving apart; at the same time, however, it leaves them extremely wide scope for individual creative unfoldment.

On the level of the sequence-technique, the art of composing lies in the sequence only promoting, and never inhibiting, the free unfoldment of the motifs in the course of the musical event, and it also lies in the motifs, inspired by the beauty of the sequence, always and only living the natural inner power of the harmony.

The mastery over the applied sequence-technique consists of the art of merging the motifs with the harmony of the composition.

Thus, the applied sequence-technique represents a more comprehensive formative will than the applied motif-technique because it acts in a superior dimension of a musical order, in the world of the sequence, where the individual motifs are held together on the level of the social structure of the composition.

In this way, the mothers (the sequences) are serving the fore-father of music (the harmony) by inspiring his children (the motifs), and by guiding them through the world of music.

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