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One voice moves while the other stays on the same note.
Oblique motion is useful when one voice needs to create a pedal point or sustained note while the other moves freely. It provides moderate independence — less than contrary motion, more than parallel.
Pedal points in Bach's fugues — one voice sustains the tonic or dominant while the others move freely above in oblique motion.
Oblique motion is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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