ARTIST: Joe Satriani
GENRE: Rock, Art Rock, Blues Rock
CONCEPTS: Pitch Axis
SOURCE: Music Theory For Guitar
TOPIC: Joe Satriani's Pitch Axis

The Emotions Behind Joe Satriani's Pitch Axis

guitar pitch axis

One of the compositional "secret weapons" of virtuoso guitarist Joe Satriani is the so-called Pitch Axis. In fact this is one of the ideas that made him famous, even if he is not the only one who uses it. I have seen good explanation of the Pitch Axis online, but I have not seen anybody tackling how Pitch Axis can help express specific emotions, so here we are.

The basic idea is simply to take all the modes that have the same root note (say, A) and freely use any chord from any of those modes in the same chord progression.

Here are the chords for the major scale modes with root A:

    A Ionian: A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim

    A Dorian: Am Bm C D Em F#dim G

    A Phrygian: Am Bb C Dm Edim F G

    A Lydian: A B C#m D#dim E F#m G#m

    A Mixolydian: A Bm C#dim D Em F#m G

    A Aeolian: Am Bdim C Dm Em F G

    A Locrian: Adim Bb Cm Dm Eb F Gm

Yes, those are just the modes of the major scale. To be complete, we should consider also the modes of melodic and harmonic minor scales, but we will start with the basics, ok? You can add the other modes later once you master those.

The problem is: now that you have all these modes and A LOT of chords to choose from, how do you use them to express emotion? How do you create shades of happiness and sadness, of brightness and darkness by using the modes?

Well, here's how: