Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In music theory, an inversion is a rearrangement of the top-to-bottom elements in an interval, a chord, a melody, or a group of contrapuntal lines of music. [2] In each of these cases, "inversion" has a distinct but related meaning. The concept of inversion also plays an important role in musical set theory.
In music theory, retrograde inversion is a musical term that literally means "backwards and upside down": "The inverse of the series is sounded in reverse order." [ 1 ] Retrograde reverses the order of the motif 's pitches : what was the first pitch becomes the last, and vice versa. [ 2 ]
Transposition and inversion can be represented as elementary arithmetic operations. If x is a number representing a pitch class, its transposition by n semitones is written T n = x + n mod 12. Inversion corresponds to reflection around some fixed point in pitch class space.
Todd also notes that, by use of retrograde, inversion, and retrograde-inversion, composers of this time viewed music in a way similar to serialists of the 20th century. [17] However, as Edmund Rubbra (1960, p. 35) points out, “This is, of course, a purely mental concept, as music can never do anything but go forwards, even if the given tune ...
Thematic transformation (also known as thematic metamorphosis or thematic development) is a musical technique in which a leitmotif, or theme, is developed by changing the theme by using permutation (transposition or modulation, inversion, and retrograde), augmentation, diminution, and fragmentation.
The inverse of a given fragment of melody is the fragment turned upside down—so if the original fragment has a rising major third (see interval), the inverted fragment has a falling major (or perhaps minor) third, etc. (Compare, in twelve-tone technique, the inversion of the tone row, which is the so-called prime series turned upside down ...
For example, a major 3rd is the complement of a minor 6th. The complement of any interval is also known as its inverse or inversion. Note that the octave and the unison are each other's complements and that the tritone is its own complement (though the latter is "re-spelt" as either an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth, depending on the ...
From the figured bass-writer's perspective, this bass note is obviously a third inversion seventh chord, so the sixth interval is viewed as an interval that the player should automatically infer. In many cases entire figures can be left out, usually where the chord is obvious from the progression or the melody.