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Pitch Axis - new?

#21
Access? Axis? Hmmmmmm......

Axis is what is intended, IMHO, implying something 3-D symmetrical like a globe rotating on an axis (axle?), or 2-D symmetrical figure being divided in half, a circle, a face, or an isosceles triangle, etc.

In music, real (strict) symmetry and thus an actual "axis of pitch symmetry" is possible with special arrangements of diatonic collections (dorian), certain scales (whole tone and diminished and symmetrical subsets there of) certain PC sets, and alignments of multiple chromatic scales. see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry#Musical_form for a hint of this vast world. :eek:

However, I think the concept as illustrated by Joe Satriani in one of the early posts, shows how a pitch can be used as a drone-like tonal center (pitch axis? pedal tone? drone?) while the notes that are circulating melodically and harmonically can be derived from a given mode, then another, then another, etc. :ninja:

Look, any tool that helps you think in new ways when composing or improvising is all fine, as long as it focuses on the musical result, not the terms, system, numbers, machines, software, etc. Believe me, I have seen all those things imprison young musicians. :eyebrow:
 
#24
Jim Carr said:
Look, any tool that helps you think in new ways when composing or improvising is all fine, as long as it focuses on the musical result, not the terms, system, numbers, machines, software, etc. Believe me, I have seen all those things imprison young musicians. :eyebrow:
Click to expand...

+1

Wrote the same in various other threads advising newbees to first digest tons of theory before even thinking of results... I will always keep saying that practical use shaped music theory over the centuries, and that it should go on that way. Play > listen > analyse > study > play - and so on.

Seems we reached something of a conclusion.
The merit of pitch axis is mostly in being (still) another entrance to the vast world of music theory.

As a tool for composition it seems to be little more than a sort of trick; however this might be true for any systematic approach to composition.

And playing scales over drones is as old as humanity.

Thanks for all of your contributions!
 
#25
Pitch axis isn't anything new, just another way to look at modal music and chords.
I find it to be a great tool because it's easy to understand and plan ahead.
Very useful for jamming and improvising because it is immediate. You don't need to think about the whole succession of modes and corresponding notes while playing. Just apply the rules and it works.
So yeah it's incomplete, it isn't new but it works. Just another tool in the box.
 
#26
An understanding of theory is supposed to help you build a framework in which you can efficiently organize the mechanical makeup of various aspects of music in an analytical sense. It has no real use as a creative tool. This theory appears to be a way to describe a particular kind of "thing" that happens in some music. You should also check out major triads. And triplets. They're pretty cool. Oh...and rests. Those are easy.

This theory business is getting to such a "cart before the horse" place that it's becoming useless. Ears before eyes everybody. It's music. You can't just look at it.
 
#27
thepontif said:
An understanding of theory is supposed to help you build a framework in which you can efficiently organize the mechanical makeup of various aspects of music in an analytical sense. It has no real use as a creative tool. This theory appears to be a way to describe a particular kind of "thing" that happens in some music.
Click to expand...

I dunno, that seems a tad hard-and-fast. IMHO this is mostly true but not entirely. True, theory is basically analytical, but that doesn't mean it has no creative role.

Why do we bother to analyze music in a theoretical sense anyway? Once we understand how certain things about it actually work, what do we do with that understanding? What's the point?

AFAICS the point is that we can actually do something with that analysis. Once we understand how something musical works, we can use it again, reproduce it, generate new work that makes use of that musical event. It's a little like a magic trick: you try to understand how it's done so that if you want to do that trick yourself, you can.

Suppose that somehow you've never heard a maj9 chord in your life. You hear the sound of a Bbmaj9 and say, Wow! How did that happen, how does it work? But beyond that, you might ask, How can I make that happen again myself? Theory allows you to take that sound apart to understand it (the analytical function), but once you understand what's going on, it also allows you to generate that sound from any note whenever you want (the synthetic function, if you like). I mean, at a basic level, if we want to hear that maj9 sound coming off, say, F#, we could move our hands around until we land on the right notes somehow by using our ears (which can in fact work), or we could, by knowing how it's done, get it almost instantly. (I'm using "theory" in a fairly broad sense--not "textbook learning" so much as an organized understanding that allows us not only to grasp how musical events work but also to make use of and repurpose those events ourselves.) So having learned not only what a maj9 sounds like but also how to make one whenever I want, I have a creative possibility that I didn't have before.

So theory does have a creative role insofar as it gives you tools for generating the specific sounds that you want to generate. It does NOT have a real role in determining what's good music or what's bad, or in deciding the right way to compose or play versus the wrong way--both of which are common misunderstandings of what it's about. But it can be, in its own way, a creative tool, as long as it's not expected to a job it's not designed to do.

Of course the important thing is good music. You don't necessarily need standard theory to create good music, but theory can be used as a creative tool to help create music, depending on your working processes.
 
#28
I hear you. But where I'm coming from is this, guys come to me all the time because they want to learn more advanced theory because they want to improve their soloing. But many of them don't really have a clue what they want to play. There's rarely an actual musical idea trying to find it's way out. There seems to be a misconception that learning theory is how you learn to improvise at a high level and it's absolutely wrong. It's a small part of understanding what it is you're hearing and it allows you to plug what you're hearing/doing into a framework in an organized fashion so that you can understand how it relates to other ideas and concepts and so you can reproduce it. It's not a creative tool without some actual musical impetus first. The idea that theory is a set of concepts which, if put together correctly, is going to add up to something musically cool is a misconception and it needs to be corrected. There is no substitute for inspiration. And yes, I know, sometimes studying theory leads you to new ideas about what you can do with your playing, but at that point it's an offshoot of the music you already make. Understanding all the theory in the world won't make you good musician, nor will it make you sound good. Great music is, and has always been, far more than the sum of it's parts and it always will be.
 
#29
thepontif said:
I hear you. But where I'm coming from is this, guys come to me all the time because they want to learn more advanced theory because they want to improve their soloing. But many of them don't really have a clue what they want to play. There's rarely an actual musical idea trying to find it's way out. There seems to be a misconception that learning theory is how you learn to improvise at a high level and it's absolutely wrong. It's a small part of understanding what it is you're hearing and it allows you to plug what you're hearing/doing into a framework in an organized fashion so that you can understand how it relates to other ideas and concepts and so you can reproduce it. It's not a creative tool without some actual musical impetus first. The idea that theory is a set of concepts which, if put together correctly, is going to add up to something musically cool is a misconception and it needs to be corrected. There is no substitute for inspiration. And yes, I know, sometimes studying theory leads you to new ideas about what you can do with your playing, but at that point it's an offshoot of the music you already make. Understanding all the theory in the world won't make you good musician, nor will it make you sound good. Great music is, and has always been, far more than the sum of it's parts and it always will be.
Click to expand...

Makes sense to me.:cool:
 
#30
thepontif said:
I hear you. But where I'm coming from is this, guys come to me all the time because they want to learn more advanced theory because they want to improve their soloing. But many of them don't really have a clue what they want to play. There's rarely an actual musical idea trying to find it's way out. There seems to be a misconception that learning theory is how you learn to improvise at a high level and it's absolutely wrong. It's a small part of understanding what it is you're hearing and it allows you to plug what you're hearing/doing into a framework in an organized fashion so that you can understand how it relates to other ideas and concepts and so you can reproduce it. It's not a creative tool without some actual musical impetus first. The idea that theory is a set of concepts which, if put together correctly, is going to add up to something musically cool is a misconception and it needs to be corrected. There is no substitute for inspiration. And yes, I know, sometimes studying theory leads you to new ideas about what you can do with your playing, but at that point it's an offshoot of the music you already make. Understanding all the theory in the world won't make you good musician, nor will it make you sound good. Great music is, and has always been, far more than the sum of it's parts and it always will be.
Click to expand...

This post needs to be made into a sticky at the top of the forum.
 
#31
As I understand it it's just a thought prosses to make scaler stuff easier to get.


IE we switch keys but we relate the new key to the mode of the Pitch Axis.

So Lady Bird is



Cmaj/Cmaj/Fmin/Bb7

Cmaj/Cmaj/Bbmin/eb7

Abmaj/Abmaj/Amin/D7

Dmin7/g7/Cmaj Eb7/AbmajDbmag


Key centers are

C/C/Eb/Eb
C/C/Ab/Ab
Ab/Ab/G/G
C/C/C,Ab/Ab.


Scales Off of C pitch axis

Cionian/Cionian/C aeolian/"""""""
Cionian/Cionian/CPhygian/''''''''''''
Cphryg/Cphryg/Clydian/''''''''
Ionian/Ionian/Ionian,Prygian/ionian
 
#32
Based on what I'm seeing here you can also make an argument for the idea that lydian should be the scale from which all others are derived instead of ionian. Because if you take CDEFGAB and start applying key signatures to that set of notes beginning with "C" in the order of the flats you get to the bottom of the circle of fourths before you ever get a lydian scale. In order to get all 7 pythagorian modes you have to start one step to the "left" in the circle and then ionian is the second in the sequence. But once again, this is trivia.
 
#35
Don't get me wrong. There is no substitute to knowing what you're doing in a "verbal knowledge" sense. When we play, however, we really are using non-verbal knowledge. Ultimately, "how you play" can't be entirely described with any words. But when you hear it, what's being played is clear. While it's generally evident when you hear someone who knows a lot about harmony, ideally one's verbal knowledge doesn't cloud one's non-verbal knowledge.
Point is, theory is there for the taking. Take what you want from it. Sometimes it broadens your perspective on something or simply gives you a different way to look at something you've understood in a particular way previously.

1) There is no magic in theory. It won't do anything for you. But you can do something with it if you have a musical paradigm you want to expand.
2) There is no real content in it.
3) There is no reason to ignore or dismiss it because you want to "just feel it".
4) Being too hung up on any one concept or set of rules is probably going to limit you in some way or another.
 
#36
Scales Off of C pitch axis

Cionian/Cionian/C aeolian/"""""""
Cionian/Cionian/CPhygian/''''''''''''
Cphryg/Cphryg/Clydian/''''''''
Ionian/Ionian/Ionian,Prygian/ionian
Click to expand...

From the second video and the glance I took at the wikipedia article describing "pitch axis theory", this isn't pitch axis theory at all - this is just chord scale reduction, and a rather crude one at that. Guitarists love looking for the magic bullet in terms of what scales to play over what chords, and the like doing these kind of chord scale reductions. This isn't the best analysis for Lady Bird, because the tune modulates away from C, so it doesn't do any good to understand it all in the key of C, because other stuff is going on.

From what satch was talking about, it's pretty clear that he's talking about the wonderful world of pedal point composition and harmony. This is actually a pretty simple concept to understand, and it's a great tool for composition. Essentially, pedal point enforces a tonal anchor, or "pitch axis" to keep the tonality grounded while the harmony changes around it. Because its so grounded on one note, if the harmonic progression doesn't change modalities (go up or down sharps/flats in other words), its going to be really boring. Unless you've got some really interesting other stuff going on, just listening to Gmaj7 for 16 bars is going to get tedious. However, if we keep that G, and play the progression Gmaj7 C/G F/G G-7, we get a more interesting harmonic event happening. You're still harping on that G, but your ear perceives a change of color happening. There is no "function" to the individual chords like there would be in a functional harmonic progression - no one chords inherently "points" to another. However, despite being non-functional, it's still logical, and a great way to get into the crazy, open-ended realm of non-functional chord progressions.

Expanding on this a bit more, because you're not dealing with functional chord progressions, you can delve into modal progressions over a pedal point, which is what Satriani was getting at. An interesting progression might be | G mixo | G harmonic minor | G altered | G dorian b5 | G lydian, which, if you went by traditional modal thinking, would be a progression going from Light to Dark and back to Light. If you're getting more deeply into the compositional nitty gritty of things, you can try planing constant structures over a pedal point to develop interesting, non-functional colors. For example, if you had the pitch collection D Eb Bb, a minor second followed by a perfect fifth (notated as Dm2P5), you could go wild moving that thing up and down in the progression D(m2P5)/G | D#(m2P5)/G | A(m2P5)/G | F#(m2P5)/G...... and so on.

The main thing with all of this is to realize that it absolutely is not a new "theory" to describe existing models of function harmony. "Pitch axis theory" or pedal point composition simply is a compositional technique that exploits non-functional harmony. Because it is non-functional, there are no "rules" in the traditional sense to describe where a progression should or can lead besides the ultimate authority of the ear. There isn't a chord progression happening, rather, a succession of interesting new "colors".

Anyway, permitting me to shamelessly whore my music, check out this video (there's educational use for this, I swear!) I make pretty extensive use of pedal point and ostinato in this one, especially in the introduction. The piano keeps harping away on a "D" while you get these weird chromatic constant structures happening all over the place. It still works, though, and doesn't sound "wrong" because of the tonal anchoring of the pedal point. As it goes on, there's a lot more of that sort of thing, but instead of a pedal point, it's over an ostinato.

 
#37
thepontif said:
Don't get me wrong. There is no substitute to knowing what you're doing in a "verbal knowledge" sense. When we play, however, we really are using non-verbal knowledge. Ultimately, "how you play" can't be entirely described with any words. But when you hear it, what's being played is clear. While it's generally evident when you hear someone who knows a lot about harmony, ideally one's verbal knowledge doesn't cloud one's non-verbal knowledge.
Point is, theory is there for the taking. Take what you want from it. Sometimes it broadens your perspective on something or simply gives you a different way to look at something you've understood in a particular way previously.

1) There is no magic in theory. It won't do anything for you. But you can do something with it if you have a musical paradigm you want to expand.
2) There is no real content in it.
3) There is no reason to ignore or dismiss it because you want to "just feel it".
4) Being too hung up on any one concept or set of rules is probably going to limit you in some way or another.
Click to expand...
+1, Applause, Applause, Applause. Well said! 8-)
 
#38
thepontif said:
Understanding all the theory in the world won't make you good musician, nor will it make you sound good.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but it surely
- speeds up your development
- helps you to cross barriers
- helps you to turn your inspiration into good music a lot faster, therefore allows you to reach further away goals

Wasn't it Edison who said: My work is 1% inspiration and 99% transpiration?
 
#39
Yes. But it won't make you a good muscian, nor will is make you sound good. It's nothing by itself. That's all I'm saying. All the knowledge in the world won't help you if you don't have a clue how to use it. You can't take out the 1% inspiration. And frankly I think it's more like 10% inspiration, 10% understanding what you're doing, and 80% getting out of your own way so you can let it all happen. But that's just me.
 
#40
thepontif said:
Don't get me wrong. There is no substitute to knowing what you're doing in a "verbal knowledge" sense. When we play, however, we really are using non-verbal knowledge. Ultimately, "how you play" can't be entirely described with any words. But when you hear it, what's being played is clear. While it's generally evident when you hear someone who knows a lot about harmony, ideally one's verbal knowledge doesn't cloud one's non-verbal knowledge.
Point is, theory is there for the taking. Take what you want from it. Sometimes it broadens your perspective on something or simply gives you a different way to look at something you've understood in a particular way previously.

1) There is no magic in theory. It won't do anything for you. But you can do something with it if you have a musical paradigm you want to expand.
2) There is no real content in it.
3) There is no reason to ignore or dismiss it because you want to "just feel it".
4) Being too hung up on any one concept or set of rules is probably going to limit you in some way or another.
Click to expand...

On point one is to humanize theory. It is not theories choice to do anything, it can't, but the person using it can do something with it, in much the same way as having a bass does not make you a bass player and what the bass does is down to the player...not the bass?
On point two, there is content in all theories if you know how to look, its there interpretation that is open, as in point three feeling it is the same as understanding it, so if you undertand it you can feel it, and that means if you can't feel it you don't understand it....interpretation from two sides.
Point four is a personal thing to inhibite learning or scared to learn.
Limits are decided by the person involved, we all know rules are there as a guide and can be broken. Potential on the other hand can be there but never discovered, so a concept can have potential if one is not scared to try it or explore it.

Pitch Axis for all its ideas will make players think more about what they can do if the apply it, so it has potential and that needs to be encouraged rather than saying it has limits.:bassist:
 

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