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A style is a basic definition of the music. It is a collection of patterns, along with a time signature (meter) and a tempo (beats per minute). A style can also contain one or more bands.
A pattern is a musical figure one or more measures long consisting of a basic sequence of notes for each instrument, or part. These notes are not fixed but are ultimately mapped to particular pitches, according to the current key, chord, and play mode. Patterns also include variations.
A motif is a special type of pattern designed to be played solo over the basic score. Typically, a motif would be used in an interactive application to mark an event: for example, the drumbeat that occurs in the DMDonuts sample whenever the ship hits the edge of the screen.
In DirectMusic Producer, patterns are created by the author on a grid analogous to a piano roll. Each part has its own row (corresponding to a PChannel), on which notes are represented by bars of varying length (duration), thickness (velocity), position on a vertical scale (pitch), and position on a horizontal scale (time).
The author can create many variations for each pattern. Typically, he or she would do this by copying the pattern, and then making small changes to one or more parts. At run time, variations are chosen by the style playback mechanism. However, the author can disable any variation for any chord—that is, specify that the variation must never be chosen when a certain chord is being played.
The author also assigns a groove range to the pattern, specifying the groove levels at which the pattern can be played.
The pattern can also be designated as an embellishment. Embellishments are of four types—intro, fill, break, and end—and a pattern can be assigned to one or more of these categories. When the music is played and a certain type of embellishment is called for, only patterns of that type are candidates for playback.