Inversion (music)
Musical term / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Inversion (disambiguation).
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.
![\n{\n#(set-global-staff-size 16)\n \\new PianoStaff <<\n \\new Staff <<\n \\relative c'' {\n \\set Score.currentBarNumber = #21\n \\set Score.proportionalNotationDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1/8)\n\n \\bar ""\n \\clef treble \\key d \\minor \\time 3/4\n \\once \\override TextScript.script-priority = #-100 a4~^\\mordent^\\markup { \\sharp } a16 g! f e g f e d\n \\override NoteHead.color = #red \\stemUp e8 e' d cis b d \n \\override NoteHead.color = #black cis16\n }\n >>\n \\new Staff <<\n \\clef bass \\key d \\minor \\time 3/4\n \\new Voice \\relative c' {\n \\override NoteHead.color = #red a8 a, b cis d b\n \\override NoteHead.color = #black cis16 a gis a f'4-. d\\trill a'8\n }\n \\new Voice \\relative c' {\n \\stemUp \\override NoteHead.color = #red a4 r r\n }\n >>\n >> }\n](http://upload.wikimedia.org/score/4/8/48tj3v91m7grrxgbpjbbnkjt0oclocm/48tj3v91.png)
An example of melodic inversion from the fugue in D minor from J. S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1.[1] Though they start on different pitches (A and E), the second highlighted melody is the upside-down version of the first highlighted melody. That is, when the first goes up, the second goes down the same number of diatonic steps (with some chromatic alteration); and when the first goes down, the second goes up the same number of steps.