A medley of motifs made from the plastic he left out (8)
I believe the answer is:
pastiche
'a medley' is the definition.
(I know that medley can be written as pastiche)
'plastic he left out' is the wordplay.
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'out' is a deletion indicator.
'plastic'+'he'='plastiche'
'plastiche' with 'l' taken out is 'PASTICHE'.
'of motifs made from the' acts as a link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pastiche that I've seen before include "Patches I apply to composition drawn from various sources" , "Imitative artistic work" , "Work of art in the style of another" , "Operatic song" , "Combination" .)