In jazz theory, a pitch axis is the center about which a melody is inverted.
The "pitch axis" works in the context of the compound operation transpositional inversion, where transposition is carried out after inversion, however unlike musical set theory the transposition may be chromatic or diatonic transposition. Thus if D-A-G (P5 up, M2 down) is inverted to D-G-A (P5 down, M2 up) the "pitch axis" was or will be D. However, if it is inverted to C-F-G the pitch axis is G while if the pitch axis is A, the melody will invert to E-A-B.
Note that the notation of octave position may determine how many lines and spaces appears to share the axis. The pitch axis of D-A-G and its inversion A-D-E will either appear to be between C/B♮ or the single pitch F.
Read more about this topic: Inversion (music)
Famous quotes containing the words pitch and/or axis:
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present timethis one, for instanceas it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (18991986)