John C. O'Leary III

John C. O'Leary III

Two Motives!

Two fun motives I really enjoy playing

John C. O'Leary III, PhD's avatar
John C. O'Leary III, PhD
Oct 03, 2025
∙ Paid

Here’s a couple of fun motives that I like to play. When you learn them try doing couple of things:

  • Move them around diatonically inside the scale.

  • Try the original motives with different chords underneath.

  • Try the motives in different time signatures.

  • Use a 2-5-1 chord progression to play the motives, then play something yours, then play the motives and alternate the motives with improvisation in between.

If any of this sounds overwhelming, just remember that there is no wrong way to perform these!! Just try different ways of playing them, and definitely work in all 12 keys. Perhaps try a different key every day for 12 days!


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