Retrograde inversion

Retrograde Inversion is a musical term that literally means "Backwards and Upside down". This is a technique used in music specifically in Serialism where the inversion and retrograde techniques are performed on the same tone row at the same time. This musical term also appears in the wikipedia article entitled "Counterpoint". The Tone row involves taking the twelve available semitones in any given octave, and rearranging them in such an order that there is no tonal link between conseutive notes. Composers who adopt this technique are very particular as to the exact nature of the basic series (tone row), and often focus on particular intervals such as semitones or perfect fourths, as a way of ensuring the prime order (tone row) remains atonal (not in a key).

Inversion is where the Prime Order is written upside down, so that a 'mirror image' of the prime row is created. A famous example of inversion is the eighteenth variation of Rachmaninoff's 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini', which takes the main theme and flips it upside down, such that a whole step upwards on the musical scale becomes a whole step downwards.

Retrograde is the technique where the prime order is written backwards, in effect, the musician would be reading the Prime order from right to left, as opposed to the conventional left to right.

Thus, Retrograde Inversion is a technique where the composer will take the inversion of the Tone Row, and write that backwards, thus creating a Retrograded inversion of the original Note Row (tone row).

Other uses

Retrograde-Inversion is also the name of a young rock group from the south-east of England.