I'm kind of obsessed with songs that use 1 or 2 notes as the central motif. "One note samba" would be the obvious example. Of course, it uses more than one note, but the initial theme is monotone. It adds the Bb after a while, and then the B section uses a ton of notes.
Second example, "Thelonious" by you-know-who. The motif is Bb, repeated, going down a half step to A, then back again to Bb. There is only one other note in the A section of the tune, a fourth up from Bb to Eb.
What else? C Jam blues has a melody that goes up a fifth from the tonic.
So the movement that normally was in the melody is transferred to the harmony, in the Jobim example. The initial F sounds different depending on its relation to the underlying chords. There is also rhythmic dynamism. It don't mean a think if it ain't got that swing / dah dah dah dah / dah dah dah dah / dah dah dah dah / dah dah. The last part is all on one note.
Staying on one note for a while is also an improvisatory technique. It could be "honking," in which a tenor sax will pick a low note and just milk the hell out of it while the audience goes crazy. Or, in Sonny Rollins, a way of creating tension and rhythmic variation. Repetition creates tension, because the listener wants it to end, to resolve to something else.
En effective technique is to play one note for a while, then a crazy ornamentation that goes all over the place.
What other tunes use this device of repetition?
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