# Your Own Leitmotif



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

If you could take any melody or theme from any piece of music to be your very own leitmotif - a musical phrase that encapsulates your character and plays whenever you enter a room or walk down the street - what would it be? I'm thinking of mine right now, I'll be back...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

1st choice - Fate Motif - Wagner
2nd choice - 



3rd choice - 



 - Beginning 
4th choice - 



 - Beginning 
5th choice - Mozart Requiem - Lacrimosa

These are, accordingly, not my "favorite" motives or melodies that I judge most beautiful or sublime, just the ones I think are most representative of my vision of "me".

Motives I WISHED encapsulated my character.

1. 



2. 



 Sunrise basically. 
3. 



4. 



5. Haydn - Quartet Op. 76 Emperor - First movement

Btw nice thread.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

The Vampire Pig flies in.






It's actually more difficult than I thought picking a serious one for myself, because I can't judge my own character very well! I'm so used to being depressive and misanthropic, but feel myself to be quite happy and light at the moment, that I have no idea how to judge myself.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Up to :17


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Nah, that only happens in the movies.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)




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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Very interesting thread...I have to think on it, but I will post.


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

At 4:37...






I am a tragic individual.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

"The app is currently unreachable."
edit: nvm.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

What I aspire to:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The 'DSCH' cryptogram minus the D - it matches my initials. I suppose I could use an A from my surname and make it E flat, C, B, A.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

OK, I've decided. It was a tough choice, especially because it's not as though my mood and outlook are constant! But if I were to pick one theme, it would be this. I _am_ Brahms's Piano Concerto, but particularly the entrance of the piano (not the bombastic opening). 4:39-5:05 here:






Of course, there is also me when I've got morphine running through my veins...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

"I have to admit that I have always intuitively felt there was another and quite different yardstick for measuring consciousness, although a most blurry and controversial one: musical taste. I certainly cannot explain or defend my own musical taste, and I know I would be getting myself into very deep, hot, and murky waters if I were to try, so I won’t even begin. I will, however, have to reveal a little bit of my musical taste in order to talk about Albert Schweitzer and his musical profundity."

"I need not go on and on, because I am sure that every reader has experienced chemistries and non-chemistries of this sort — perhaps even relating to the Bartók and Prokofiev violin concertos in exactly the reverse fashion from me, but even so, the message I am trying to convey will come across loud and clear. Music seems to me to be a direct route to the heart, or between hearts — in fact, the most direct. Across-the-board alignment of musical tastes, including both loves and hates — something extremely rarely run into — is as sure a guide to affinity of souls as I have ever found. And an affinity of souls means that the people concerned can rapidly come to know each other’s essences, have great potential to live inside each other."


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Either the main melody of this:






Or this:






It would play in the background whenever something happens in the direction of love or relationships. Because they are the theme of my destiny.


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

I never thought of it as a leitmotif before but, with baseball season approaching, did you know each player gets to pick his own walk-up music for at-bats?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

@ 2:05 is my moment of glory. It was so good that he repeated it a second time, but then the elusive theme doesn't appear again.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2012)




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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some love theme will do. Especially the one from the film _On the Waterfront_, music by *Leonard Bernstein*.

I was trying to find an actual leitmotif from a Humphrey Bogart film on youtube, I think it was _The Big Sleep_. I think the music was by Max Steiner. Film noir is full of leitmotifs. In this one, whenever Bogart entered a scene, there was this kind of whimsical leitmotif introducing him. I can remember it well, even though I've only seen the film a couple of times...


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

BRB... I have to wash the dishes before I can finish composing it for you.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Here it is. It would have to be adapted to various situations, of course (that V-I resolution at the end of the basic idea would have to go away in most cases), but this is the basic motif.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I like the idea of this thread, it's been fun listening to everyone's choices! It took a bit of thought but I narrowed it down to two possible ones for myself (it's harder to decide than I thought it would be lol). I personally find both of these melodies to be really uplifting in their own way.

First: (from ~16:00 to 16:45)





Second: (the melody starting at 2:28)


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


>


Were they mining for iron ore?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Here's my leitmotif.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I won't be able to help but think of that every time I see a post of yours now, HC.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Lunasong said:


> I never thought of it as a leitmotif before but, with baseball season approaching, did you know each player gets to pick his own walk-up music for at-bats?


Judging by the amount of players busted for or accused of substance/steroid abuse in the last 25 years I'm surprised the most popular choice isn't 'The Drugs Don't Work' by The Verve.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)




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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Maybe I'll take the phrase from the 4th beat of the 3rd measure of Mozart's Requiem, ending on the first beat of the seventh measure.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Is the vampire pig a hampire ?


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I posted quite quickly and without much thought,...while the Beethoven is appropriate some of the time,...most of the time, it sounds something like this:






And I mean the whole thing!


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Boy, I hate to admit it, but I feel like almost always the Chopin Preludes capture the ups and downs in my life. There just seems to be one for every mood I feel I'm in. Maybe not a leitmotif, but as close as it gets for me.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

EDIT: Ignore me--I'm an idiot.



science said:


> Maybe I'll take the phrase from the 4th beat of the 3rd measure of Mozart's Requiem, ending on the first beat of the seventh measure.


You mean this?

http://oi42.tinypic.com/33xelae.jpg

Why starting on the _fourth_ beat of the third measure?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Kopachris said:


> You mean this?
> 
> Why starting on the _fourth_ beat of the third measure?


That does not look like the score I followed when I made my selection. Here is the pdf that I used: http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c8/IMSLP26746-PMLP02751-Mozart_Requiem_score.pdf

I'm talking about right at the beginning, in the introitus. I could be doing it wrong....


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

science said:


> That does not look like the score I followed when I made my selection. Here is the pdf that I used: http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c8/IMSLP26746-PMLP02751-Mozart_Requiem_score.pdf
> 
> I'm talking about right at the beginning, in the introitus. I could be doing it wrong....


*facepalm* Now I realize that I initially read "3rd measure" as "3rd movement."

Incidentally, that _is_ the exact same score I was looking at.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Away with you people and your self-deprecatory modesty. Here's mine:

*



*


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## Eviticus (Dec 8, 2011)

Motive creeps in about 0:24-1:24


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Fsharpmajor said:


> Away with you people and your self-deprecatory modesty. Here's mine:
> 
> *
> 
> ...


*clicks link*
*glimpses title*
Oh, you.
*close tab before it starts playing*

How's this?
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL430EC55AADBC3843&feature=player_detailpage&v=BqF2Li6Iwkc#t=116s*


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

The leitmotif of Alkan's quasi faust, because it was simple like any other Lutheran melody, yet it's religious use and historical context developed into it's use in that piece. My main focus in life is the religious struggle, and my favorite melodies are those melodies that Luther wrote which thereafter enveloped music. Because that kind of a melody germinates all of my favorite music, and it functions as a religious focal point, it seems like it would be a good leitmotif for me.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)




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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

It should be all like:





But instead it is all like:


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## An Die Freude (Apr 23, 2011)

Kind of a mash up of the Pathetique Symphony and Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

It's good that you mentioned Peter and the Wolf, quack, because my inspiration for this thread was the Cat's theme going over and over in my head.

On the subject of Strauss, I think I really ought to have this version as my theme.


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