Chicago
· Geographic. The city on Lake Michigan that produced the blues, house music, gospel, soul jazz, and a
lineage of Black musical innovation rooted in the Great Migration — a convergence of Southern heritage and
Northern industrial ambition that created a distinctly urban, forward-moving musical sensibility.
Motivation
· Psychological. The internal force that initiates and sustains movement toward a goal. In musical
terms, the quality of rhythmic or harmonic tension that compels the listener forward — not push, not drive, but
the felt sense that something is being worked toward.
The Chicago Motivation
adj. Of or pertaining to a musical quality in which forward momentum is generated through
harmonic or rhythmic tension rather than tempo — a sense of purposeful, urgent movement that does not require
speed.
n.(a The Chicago Motivation) (a Chicago Motivation) The specific quality of forward
propulsion in a musical phrase or composition generated by unresolved harmonic tension or rhythmic displacement
— the feeling of being drawn toward a resolution that keeps deferring.