Degrees of variation in motivic variations

Belkin says different motivic variations have different degrees of similarity, each having their own use case.¹

Close forms:

• Sequence
• Compression and expression – Changing a leap to be slightly larger

Medium forms:

• Compression and expansion – Changing a step to a leap

Distant forms:

• Augmentation and diminution
• Compression and expansion – Compressing an interval such that the following note is a repetition of the preceding note
  • In general, repeating notes that were not repeated previously is apparently a dramatic change
• Displacement
• Retrograde
• Retrograde inversion