The Ostinato

© 2005 Chad Twedt

Not only is the ostinato greatly underexplored by history's composers, naturally, it is also underexplained by music textbooks and websites. In fact, as the first composer to explore the ostinato in any significant depth, I've even found it necessary to coin some terms (indicated in bold yellow) to help with complete understanding of the ostinato. Since the proposal of an "ostinato recognition week" national holiday probably won't fly, I felt the next best thing would be to inform visitors of my website about the ostinato.

Root, Meaning, and Usage

The word ostinato comes from the Latin root obstinatus, which means "obstinate" (stubborn, firm, resolved, and/or staunch). The musical ostinato refers to any short musical pattern that repeats itself for a significant portion of a composition. An ostinato pattern can be as short and simple as a repeating single note or drum tap, or as long and complicated as the bass note sequence in Bach's Passacaglia. However, this word "passacaglia" is a more fitting term to describe ostinatos of this length since listeners can sometimes finish an entire passacaglia without being aware that there was even a pattern in the bass at all. I would define "passacaglia pattern" to simply be a "long ostinato pattern".

Also, it is important to note that the word "ostinato" can refer to both a repeating musical pattern as well as a composition that contains a repeating musical pattern. For example, each of the movements of my ostinato suites can themselves be called ostinatos.

Every composer in history has probably used the ostinato technique at one point or another. The technique often appears over a duration of one or two lines of music. Fewer (but still numerous) composers have used the ostinato technique throughout an entire piece of music.

Ostinato Types

The ostinato can be broken down into four categories:

Drone

A pitch or set of pitches that are either sustained or repeated for a significant portion of a composition. The drone is almost always in the bass, and it is most characterized by harmony above it that creates dissonances and resolutions with the drone. "The Old Castle" from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition has a G-sharp drone in the bass at all times. Some of my own ostinatos have a drone effect, such as Outburst, Spellbound, Nocturne, and Chinese Tea Dance).

Rhythmic ostinato

An ostinato pattern that is most clearly identified by its distinctive rhythm. The most famous example of a rhythmic ostinato would be Ravel's Bolero, a 15-20 minute musical experiment in which Ravel clearly explores what can be done within the limitations of a constant rhythmic pattern. Holst's Mars also contains a famous rhythmic ostinato in 5/4 time. Ragtime and waltzes can also be considered a form of the rhythmic ostinato, since the left hand usually offers constant regular rhythmic support. Most music with regular percussion usage (such as popular, jazz, etc.) utilizes the rhythmic ostinato.

Harmonic ostinato

An ostinato pattern that is most clearly identified by its distinctive harmonic progression. Pachelbel's "Canon in D" is the most famous example of a harmonic ostinato (I-V-vi-iii-IV-I-IV-V), and Chopin's Berceuse is a harmonic ostinato that repeats a very basic I-V7 chord progression. My own ostinatos Spellbound (i7-iv-i7-iv) and Merciful Cry (i-VI-VII) are also harmonic ostinatos.

Melodic ostinato

An ostinato pattern that is most clearly identified by its distinctive melody. Pachelbel's "Canon in D" could be seen as a melodic ostinato if the bass line is also considered a melody. My own ostinato Grand Ostinato would be a melodic ostinato consisting of a descending major scale.

Most ostinato patterns are a combination of more than one of the above.

Alternate Classification of the Ostinato

It is also useful to think of ostinatos as either "open" or "closed":

Open ostinato

An ostinato pattern with vague harmonic implication. All drones and rhythmic ostinatos would be considered harmonically open.

Closed ostinato

An ostinato pattern with specific harmonic implication. Harmonic ostinatos and some melodic ostinatos would be considered harmonically closed.

The open ostinato is by far the easiest type of ostinato to write, and therefore the most common technique used. Famous examples already mentioned above would be Ravel's Bolero, Holst's "Mars" from The Planets, Mussorgsky's "The Old Castle" from Pictures at an Exhibition. My own ostinatos Outburst, Mother Nature's Clock, Victory Bells, Chinese Tea Dance, Nocturne, and Grand Ostinato would all be examples of open ostinatos.

Naturally, the closed ostinato is more restricting for a composer to write. Chopin's Berceuse is perhaps the most limiting of all closed ostinatos, constantly restricting Chopin to nothing but tonic and dominant chords. Chopin was surely using such a horribly limiting ostinato pattern to prove his skill as a composer to write a variety of right hand gestures to keep the audience's interest, which he does successfully. My own ostinatos Spellbound and Merciful Cry would be other examples of closed ostinatos.

What About Minimalism?

The ostinato technique is not to be confused with minimalism, since minimalism seeks to make music out of "minimal" musical ideas. An ostinato pattern itself may be a "minimal" musical idea in itself, but in a typical ostinato piece, the primary musical material is merely accompanied by the ostinato, which means the ostinato serves only a secondary purpose. In minimalism, the "minimal" musical ideas are the primary musical ideas.

Personal Note: Influences

When I first started writing my ostinatos, I did not consciously realize how much I loved the ostinato technique itself. I was just fascinated by what was possible to write with such simple restrictions. Only after writing Outburst and Mother Nature's Clock did I consciously set out to write an entire CD's worth of ostinato music. As I look back on my musical tastes even at a very young age, I am still amazed at how this taste for the ostinato was always there in the most natural, unnurtured way. I just didn't see it until I started writing my own music. The music that I had always loved the very most - the music that I could listen to hundreds of times without intellectual or emotional fatigue - all seemed to utilize the ostinato:

• The harmonic ostinato throughout Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana" as well as the harmonic ostinato in Bortkiewicz's Prelude in C-sharp minor had always mesmerized and moved me (and later both served as inspiration for Merciful Cry).

• Tori Amos's "Father Lucifer" has a left hand ostinato, and the brilliant contrast in the song's middle sections was one of the most effective uses of extreme musical contrast I had ever heard (and, likewise, this later served as inspiration for the musical contrast I sought out in Outburst and Mother Nature's Clock).

• I was always mesmerized by the middle section of Alkan's Scherzo Op. 16 No. 1, in which the left hand consists of two drone pitches that are either heard as fifth-ninth or root-fifth (depending on Alkan's modulations in the right hand).

• The seventh movement of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata, which demonstrates how even a seven-note pattern can come across as a drone when played quickly enough, placed me in another world altogether whenever I listened to a recording of it.

• Although I was not fond of mainstream techno music, there is an entire world of techno/trance music on the Internet in the 1990s (and still today) that produces some very interesting ostinato-like music. Long ago (before the days when everyone had websites), I even maintained an extremely popular "Chad's Top 40 Music Files" site. Some of the top-listed files were ostinatos (all are playable with Winamp):

• #4 on the page was When We Rise, demonstrating a melodic ostinato throughout with the "dream flute" instrument, along with a drone bass. A second melodic ostinato pattern is introduced toward the end and both melodic ostinatos are combined at the end (by Quasar, e-mail unknown, written for The Party 5, 1995)

• #11: Blue Valley, demonstrating drones as well as rhythmic, harmonic and melodic ostinatos throughout. Don't be scared away by its length, since it "morphs" from one contrasting section to another every minute or two. (by Karsten Koch, old e-mail: koch3@larry.scc.hab-weimar, written 1995)

• #1: Wet Dream 1, demonstrating melodic ostinato patterns throughout (by "Dynamix" - old e-mail address used to be dynamix@quasar.idn.nl, composed in December 1994, unknown if it was written for a competition or not)

New Ostinatos

What sets my ostinatos apart from the ostinatos that other various composers have written? Two things: arch structure and melodic/harmonic content. Structurally, every piece I write has a clear emotional peak, and every piece is built around maximizing the emotional impact of this peak. Sometimes I spend more time on the structure of a piece than I do coming up with actual melodies and harmonies, such as with Grand Ostinato, which took me weeks to finalize the order in which each thematic idea would be presented.

As far as harmonic content is concerned, judging by what I see in other ostinatos written by past composers, I believe I spend more time coming up with a variety of themes that are all compatible with each ostinato pattern I use. I also believe the real beauty in a well-written ostinato lies in keeping the listener from becoming too aware of the repetition of each ostinato pattern. What happens on top of the ostinato makes all the difference.

Many of the greatest compositions are written with self-imposed limitations. Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn limited themselves to following a structural pattern in sonatas, rondos, concertos, etc. Shakespeare limited himself to 14 lines of iambic pentameter in the many brilliant sonnets he wrote. Scott Joplin mostly limited himself to the same jumping left hand bass pattern throughout his rags, just as Chopin did with most of his waltzes. It is wrong to say that one of these techniques is inherently flawed. Obviously, every composition must be judged on its own creative merit.

© 2005 Chad Twedt