contrary motion

American  

noun

Music.

1. melodic motion in which one part rises in pitch while the other descends.

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Example Sentences

The first song from it, “Dreams,” begins with multiple, echoed cello lines, some of them moving in contrary motion, continuing until halfway through a seven-and-a-half-minute song, when a steady pulse begins, made by finger on cello string.

From New York Times

In “Stairway to Heaven,” also in A minor, the lower voice descends by half-steps while the upper voice ascends—up an octave to an A and then further up to B and C. Such contrary motion against a falling chromatic line itself has many precedents, from Dido’s Lament to “My Funny Valentine”—and a YouTube user points out a resemblance to a seventeenth-century sonata by Giovanni Battista Granata. For a moment, “Taurus” and “Stairway to Heaven” do sound the same, but they quickly go their separate ways.

From The New Yorker

In the reprise, a bass line moves in contrary motion, further tweaking the chords above.

From The New Yorker

Sleater-Kinney songs often have the two guitars chasing each other along jagged trajectories, wrangling back and forth, racing in contrary motion or blitzing with bursts of noise.

From New York Times

Other elements on “Morning Phase” are not so much traceable to particular sources — though you might swear they are — as they are just useful ingredients: major-to minor transitions, contrary motion in vocal harmonies, metrical changes between three-beat and four-beat patterns, open guitar tunings.

From New York Times