Leitmotif in Music: Meaning, Examples, and How to Write One

What Is a Leitmotif?

A leitmotif (from the German Leitmotiv, "leading motif") is a short musical idea that is deliberately associated with something outside of the music: a person, a thing, a place, an idea, or even a narrative subtext that the audience is not told about directly. Every time that person or idea becomes relevant to the story, the motif can return, and because the idea is short and recognizable, listeners can connect it to its subject, often without consciously noticing.

The concept is usually traced back to Richard Wagner and the late-Romantic composers around him. Wagner's Ring cycle assigns motifs to characters, objects, and ideas, and transforms them as the drama unfolds. Film composers inherited the technique almost directly, which is why the word leitmotif today appears far more often in discussions of film and game scores than of opera.

Here are three very practical aspects to consider:

• Short. A leitmotif is usually a few notes, a rhythm, or a single chord change, not a full melody.
• Recognizable. It has a striking identity of its own, so that it can be picked out even in a dense orchestral texture.
• Associated. The association with a character or idea is what turns an ordinary motif into a leitmotif.

Motif vs. Leitmotif

These two words are often used as if they meant the same thing, but there is a slight difference that separates them.

A motif is any short musical idea with an identity of its own. It doesn't represent anything. It could be something like the opening four notes of a symphony, a rhythmic figure in a bass line, or a two-chord movement that keeps returning. All of these are motifs, and every piece of music is full of them. But, outside of its own musical context, it doesn't mean anything.

A leitmotif is a motif with a job. It is tied to a person, place, thing, or idea, and it is used to signal that subject's presence or relevance. All leitmotifs are motifs; only some motifs are leitmotifs.

In practice, composers tend to say "motif" for the small musical building block and "theme" for the longer melody built from it, and only specify a "leitmotif" when they want to stress the dramatic association. In our courses you will hear "motif" far more often than "leitmotif", but the craft of writing one is identical either way. If you can write a strong motif, you can write a leitmotif. Turning a motif into a leitmotif is a decision you make when you use it to represent something outside the music.

Six Kinds of Motif

When people think of a motif, they usually think of a melody first. A motif can be built from almost any aspect of music, and this is what gives the leitmotif its immense range of usefulness.

• Melodic motif. A short sequence of pitches, such as the horn call from Superman. This is the most common type and the one most people recognize immediately.
• Harmonic motif. A chord movement or a short progression. A single tritone-based chord change can be a motif in its own right. If you want to go deeper into how progressions carry character, see our guide to chord progressions.
• Rhythmic motif. A rhythm that keeps its identity no matter which pitches it is placed on. You can play it on one note, on a chord, or with percussion, and it is still recognizable.
• Textural motif. Using texture, or the specific combination of melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic layers, to create an identity. A texture is something that can be repeated in any key with any notes as long as that combination of layers remains the same. This one is more about orchestration than melody, but it can be just as strongly associated with an idea.
• Metric motif. A time signature or a meter type. For example, a composer could use a 3/4 meter in a way that carries its own meaning, or perhaps the contrast between compound and simple meter can work as a signal in itself.
• Timbre and other elements. A specific instrument, a register, an interval class: any element that the audience can learn to recognize can be made into a motif and associated with something in the story.

Spend some time really considering this list. Are there any specific examples you can think of for each of these types? How would you go about creating one of these types? Better yet, how can these types be transformed to fit the need of a story? For example, if a character already has a melodic motif, the reveal of a darker side of theirs might prompt a composer to give them a minor-sounding harmonic motif too. Perhaps the melodic and harmonic motifs are built to work both separately and together. Or perhaps a film score requires a more subtle musical touch, so a person or place might be represented by a texture rather than a more obvious tune. A score built from several kinds of motif, especially ones that work together and build off of each other, tends to feel richer than one built from melodies alone.

The Piano Composer Motif writing is where the course begins, and every later chapter grows out of it. Explore the course

What Makes a Motif Recognizable?

Not every short idea works as a leitmotif. The ones that are truly memorable share a handful of qualities, and it's important to check a new idea against them.

• Simplicity. Most melodic motifs stay within a small range and use uncomplicated rhythms. They can certainly be more complex if the story calls for it, but simple and to the point is often best, and it is what makes them easy to remember. Less is more.
• A striking identity. A good motif has identifiable DNA elements that make it up. In other words, it usually has one or two musical elements that make it unmistakably itself. We will look at this in detail below, because it is the heart of a good motif.
• Repeatability. Because a motif is short, it can be repeated throughout an entire score without getting in the way of the story or the music itself. That repetition is what lets an audience carry the idea home with them. They may not know the word "motif", but they remember that little bit of music.
• Malleability. Short, simple ideas are easy to modify. You can widen the intervals, move them to a different register, change the harmony underneath, and they still read as the same idea. This is what makes long-term development possible.
• The DNA of larger structures. Motifs are very often the building blocks of longer themes, and longer themes are the building blocks of whole cues and whole scores. A theme that is made from strong motifs is easier to remember and easier to develop than one that is not.

The DNA of a Motif

The most useful way to understand a motif is to take it apart and look at what it is made of. For example, take a motif that consists of two elements: a stately, march-like rhythm and a tritone, the interval of an augmented fourth. Those two elements are its DNA. Fuse them and you have a short, identifiable, recognizable idea.

Looking at a motif this granularly also tells you what it means emotionally. The rhythm on its own suggests something regal, a march. The tritone on its own is unstable, not quite tonal, almost angry. Put those together, and the motif is a rather on-the-nose march with menace in it. But change one element, say the tritone to a perfect fourth, and the same rhythm suddenly feels far more stable and open; the character has changed without the rhythm changing at all.

This is why it is so important to ask, for every element of a motif, not only how it sounds but how it feels. Interval, rhythm, contour, register, and timbre all carry emotional information, and a leitmotif works best when its DNA elements point in the same direction as the character or idea it represents. Strong intervals such as perfect fourths and fifths tend to read as bold and heroic, which is why they appear so often in themes for warriors and adventurers; half-steps and minor sixths lean toward menace and lyric darkness.

Leitmotif Examples in Film Music

A good exercise is to take well-known film motifs and identify their DNA elements: the rhythm, the intervals, the chord changes, the instrument they are played by, or even the meter they sit in. Here are some worth studying.

• Superman horn call (John Williams). The horn call is short, uses strong open 5th and 4th intervals, and is immediately recognizable even when reduced to its first five notes.
• Darth Vader's theme, "The Imperial March" (Williams). Although this piece contains a longer "Vader theme," this theme is a great example of the larger theme being based on a smaller six-note leitmotif. In this case, not only is this a melodic motif, but it's also associated with a particular rhythmic motif, harmonic motif, and timbral motif. A march rhythm combined with minor-mode chordal movements and strong brass create a case where rhythm, harmony, and timbre all form part of the DNA.
• The Predator ostinato (Alan Silvestri). During the main titles, you'll hear this motif being played by the synthesized tack piano and percussion. This is a motif with a strong rhythmic DNA, proving that a repeating rhythm can represent a character just as clearly as a tune. Ostinato-based motifs are common in action and horror scoring.
• Vertigo main titles (Bernard Herrmann). You can hear two motifs at once: the swirling woodwind and string figure, itself representing the idea of vertigo, and the menacing brass stabs below, being a kind of representation of fate. Both leitmotifs are very recognizable and very emotional representations of their associated ideas.
• Interstellar (Hans Zimmer). This is the very famous "S.T.A.Y." theme that contains a consistently repeated leap up. It's a very simple motif that works largely through repetition and texture rather than melodic complexity.
• The government motif from E.T. (Williams). This is one that's a little more obscure but is just as effective. Anytime the mysterious presence of the government searching for E.T. is shown, Williams plays this largely rhythmic motif that signals their presence. It is very prominent in the track "Abandoned and Pursued" where it is played in many different instrumental combinations from high flutes to loud brass, but it is recognizable each time.
• Back to the Future (Alan Silvestri). This is another great example of a larger theme being based on a much shorter and striking three-note motif. The motif, the first three notes of the theme, is a compact fanfare idea that contains bold moves of a 5th and tritone. A closer inspection of the entire score also shows that much of the other motivic ideas are drawn from this little bit of intervallic information.

For longer themes, Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter and the solo-trumpet theme from Apollo 13 are also great examples of how a theme is built from smaller motifs, which are in turn built from smaller DNA elements. In each case, try to deconstruct what the basic ideas are (the intervals, rhythms, chords, etc.), how they are repeated, and how they are transformed.

Why Leitmotifs Work

Leitmotifs are powerful for a simple reason: they are recognizable, and people latch onto recognizable things, often subconsciously. When a motif is tied to a character, and the character is compelling, the audience begins to feel the character's presence whenever the motif appears, even before anything happens on screen.

This creates possibilities that a single memorable theme cannot. A motif can appear in a different key to suggest that a character has changed. It can be inverted, slowed down, or moved to a dark instrument as the story turns. Two motifs can be combined when two characters meet. A fragment can be hidden in an accompaniment to hint at something the characters do not yet know. Over the length of a film or a game, this builds an intricate and emotionally powerful score out of a small number of very simple ideas. Even in a modern stylistic context where subtlety is king, motifs can be used in simple ways to convey complex ideas.

The same logic applies in trailer music, where the leitmotif idea appears under a different name. A trailer track is usually built around a short, singable signature motif, sometimes only two or three notes over a pedal, which the whole track develops and which is often handed to the editor as a separate part because it is the thing people will remember. The word is "hook" rather than "leitmotif", but the idea is the same.

How to Write a Leitmotif

Here is a method that works well at the piano, and just as well in a DAW.

1. Define the subject. Decide who or what the motif is for, and list its traits. A hero, a villain, a homeland, a threat. Write down the qualities you want the audience to feel: innocence, menace, grandeur, loss. These are what can be called "source words", or words that can act as a powerful source for inspiration.
2. Generate many short ideas. Write three or four motifs for the subject, or more. Let your mind flow freely and don't discard anything. No idea is too bad. Most of the motifs will not be used as you will probably only keep one, maybe two. The point is to have plenty of options. You can also generate variations of any of these motifs. Adding a half-step at the end of an idea can show a different side of a character; widening the intervals of a motif can denote a positive change in a situation. Note down every idea that has possibilities, even the ones you are not yet sold on.
3. Identify the DNA of each candidate. For each idea, name the one or two elements that give it its identity, and ask how they feel. If the feeling does not match the subject, change the element that is pulling it off course. For a hero, the DNA could be something like this: a contour that rises and then comes back down, a Lydian mode that gives a bright, cinematic sound, and a simple but firm rhythm that shows confidence.
4. Check it against the list. Is it simple? Is it striking? Can you repeat it in different contexts? Can you imagine modifying it? If the answer to all four is yes, you have a promising leitmotif.
5. Build a theme around it. A motif becomes a theme through form. The sentence form takes a basic motif, repeats it, and continues it, typically in a one-plus-one-plus-two pattern of bars; the period form sets a question against an answer. Both are covered in our guide to sentence and period form. The DNA elements you identified in the motif carry straight into the larger theme, which is what makes the theme feel like it belongs to the same character.
6. Assign the association and keep it consistent. The motif only becomes a leitmotif in use. Introduce it with its subject, return to it when the subject is relevant, and resist using it where the subject is absent.

Pillars of Composition Melody, harmony, accompaniment and counterpoint, including the sentence and period forms that turn a motif into a theme. Explore the course

How to Develop a Leitmotif

Writing the motif is the smaller part of the job. A leitmotif earns its value through development, and there is a reliable set of tools for that.

• Change the key. Keep the idea exactly as it is and place it in a different key or mode. This works for a four-note motif and for a sixteen-bar theme alike.
• Extend it. Play the motif and add a continuation, for example by repeating the tail a step lower each time.
• Change the intervals. Keep the contour but widen or narrow the intervals. The idea stays recognizable while its emotional weight shifts.
• Invert it. Turn the contour upside down: where it rose, it now falls. Combined with a rhythmic change, this can produce material that feels new while still hinting at the original.
• Interject and expand. An interjection places something new in the middle of an idea; an expansion adds material at the beginning or the end. An interjection often works best as an echo of something that came before, such as a repeat of the motif or of one of its DNA elements, either exactly or in varied form. An expansion at the start of a melody is frequently a lead-in, a scalar run or the motif itself stated before the melody proper begins.
• Mutate it. Change several things at once: rhythm, harmony, mode, contour. Taken far enough, this produces a doppelgänger, a sound-alike motif that shares the original's DNA but is clearly a different idea. This is a good way to represent a character's disguise, a false version, or a corrupted counterpart.
• Extract from elsewhere. A motif does not have to come from the melody. A bass line under a chord progression can contain a four-note idea that works as notes for a variation, or as a counterline in the middle of the texture.

The Family Tree Method

All of these tools raise the same question: how do you keep track of the material, and how do you make sure you actually generate enough of it? There is a method for that, taught in Chapter 4 of The Piano Composer, and it deserves a mention here because of how reliably it works. It was passed on to me by a composition teacher who also worked as a Hollywood composer, and it is called the family tree.

The idea is simple. A single motif, written at the top of a blank sheet of staff paper, becomes the ancestor of an entire family of related ideas: each child is a particular kind of variation on the original, each grandchild one step further away, and every one of them still carries the original DNA. What makes the method work is not the diagram itself but the freedom in how each branch is allowed to change. When you let the mind organically fill in this tree, it is close to impossible to get stuck, which is why it doubles as one of the most dependable cures for writer's block I know. Composers who use it can finish a session with a full page of usable, related material from one idea. Some or all of these can be used as the raw material for an entire cue.

The complete walkthrough, including the three branch types and how the resulting material is turned into a finished hero theme, is in The Piano Composer.

Leitmotifs in Orchestration and Production

A leitmotif is not finished when it is written; it also has to be heard. In an orchestral mockup, a motif often begins as a single line in a piano sketch and is then assigned to the section that suits its character: a lone trumpet for a fanfare idea, layered horns for weight, a call-and-answer between flute and oboe an octave apart in a woodwind quartet. A rhythmic motif taken from a bass line can be answered by a different instrument later in the piece; a repeated motif can be given a modulation to keep the listener's attention when the idea itself stays the same.

The important thing is to keep the DNA intact through orchestration. If the identity of the motif lives in a tritone and a march rhythm, the orchestration should make those two things audible, whatever else is happening around them.

Common Mistakes When Writing Leitmotifs

• Writing a melody instead of a motif. If the idea is eight bars long, it is a theme, and it will be hard to fragment it or hide it in a texture. Find the two or three notes inside it that carry the most emotional weight and identity.
• Too many DNA elements. A motif with five distinguishing features has no clear identity. Two to three is usually enough.
• Using the motif where its subject is absent. The association only works if it is consistent.
• Never transforming it. A leitmotif that always appears in the same key, register, and orchestration stops telling the audience anything after its second appearance. This is when the motif becomes "on-the-nose" and trite. Remember, something that never changes always gets ignored.
• Mismatched DNA. A heroic subject with a motif built on unheroic musical elements will feel wrong to the audience even if they cannot say why. Feel out the emotional meaning of every element.