There was a time when music technology would only allow the sequencing of a few notes. A far cry from the DAWs of today, the limit of four, eight or even 16 notes (if you were lucky) was very much the norm.
As with all things creative, the level of technology was never an issue for creating great music. This note-based limitation gave rise to a number of tracks, beginning in the ’70s, where a short sequence of notes would be constructed, and run the duration of the track. This was debatably most notable throughout the ’80s; ask an artist like Howard Jones, and he will tell you about many a hit song that featured a synth riff repeating
