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In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, a tone row or note row , also series and set, refers to a non-repetitive ordering of the twelve notes (pitch-classes in musical set theory) of the chromatic scale
Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve Pitch es, each a semitone or half step apart. "A chromatic scale is a diatonic scale consisting entirely of half-step interval ," having, "no tonic ," due to the symmetry or equal spacing of its tones....
. Tone rows are the basis of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School....
's twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any through the use of tone rows....
 and most types of serial music. Tone rows were widely used in 20th century contemporary music.

A twelve-tone or serial composition will take one or more tone rows, called the prime form, as its basis plus their transformations
Transformation (music)

In music, a transformation consists of any operation or process that a composer, performer, or analyst may apply to a musical variable . Transformations include multiplication, rotation , Permutation , and combinations thereof....
 (inversion
Inversion (music)

In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and inverted voices....
, retrograde
Permutation (music)

In music, a permutation of a set is a transformation of its prime form by applying zero or more of certain operations, specifically transposition , inversion , and retrograde....
, retrograde inversion
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....
; see twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any through the use of tone rows....
 for details).

Initially, Schoenberg required the avoidance of suggestions of tonality
Tonality

Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchy pitch relationships are based on a Key "center" or Tonic . The term tonalit? originated with Alexandre-?tienne Choron and was borrowed by Fran?ois-Joseph F?tis in 1840 ....
—such as the use of consecutive imperfect consonances (thirds or sixths)—when constructing tone rows, reserving such use for the time when the dissonance is completely emancipated
Emancipation of the dissonance

The emancipation of the dissonance was a concept or goal put forth by Arnold Schoenberg and others, including his pupil Anton Webern. It may be described as a metanarrative to justify atonality....
.






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In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, a tone row or note row , also series and set, refers to a non-repetitive ordering of the twelve notes (pitch-classes in musical set theory) of the chromatic scale
Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve Pitch es, each a semitone or half step apart. "A chromatic scale is a diatonic scale consisting entirely of half-step interval ," having, "no tonic ," due to the symmetry or equal spacing of its tones....
. Tone rows are the basis of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School....
's twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any through the use of tone rows....
 and most types of serial music. Tone rows were widely used in 20th century contemporary music.

A twelve-tone or serial composition will take one or more tone rows, called the prime form, as its basis plus their transformations
Transformation (music)

In music, a transformation consists of any operation or process that a composer, performer, or analyst may apply to a musical variable . Transformations include multiplication, rotation , Permutation , and combinations thereof....
 (inversion
Inversion (music)

In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and inverted voices....
, retrograde
Permutation (music)

In music, a permutation of a set is a transformation of its prime form by applying zero or more of certain operations, specifically transposition , inversion , and retrograde....
, retrograde inversion
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....
; see twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any through the use of tone rows....
 for details).

Initially, Schoenberg required the avoidance of suggestions of tonality
Tonality

Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchy pitch relationships are based on a Key "center" or Tonic . The term tonalit? originated with Alexandre-?tienne Choron and was borrowed by Fran?ois-Joseph F?tis in 1840 ....
—such as the use of consecutive imperfect consonances (thirds or sixths)—when constructing tone rows, reserving such use for the time when the dissonance is completely emancipated
Emancipation of the dissonance

The emancipation of the dissonance was a concept or goal put forth by Arnold Schoenberg and others, including his pupil Anton Webern. It may be described as a metanarrative to justify atonality....
. Alban Berg
Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Gustav Mahler Romantic music with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique....
, however, sometimes incorporated tonal elements into his twelve-tone works, and the main tone row of his Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto (Berg)

Alban Berg's Violin Concerto was written in 1935 . It is probably Berg's best-known and most frequently-performed piece....
 hints at this tonality:

Berg Vn Conc Tone Row
This tone row consists of alternating minor and major triads
Chord (music)

In music and music theory a chord is a set of two or more different note that sound simultaneously. Most often, in European-influenced music, chords are tertian Sonority that can be constructed as stacks of thirds relative to some underlying musical scale....
 starting on the open strings of the violin, followed by a portion of an ascending whole tone scale
Whole tone scale

In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbours by the interval of a whole step. There are only two whole tone scales, both six-note or Hexatonic scale scales:...
. This whole tone scale reappears in the second movement when the chorale
Chorale

A chorale was originally a hymn of the Lutheran church sung by the entire congregation. In casual modern usage, the term also includes classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
 "It is enough" (Es ist genug) from Bach's
Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organ whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque music period and brought it to its ultimate maturity....
 cantata no. 60, which opens with consecutive whole tones, is quoted literally in the woodwinds (mostly clarinet).

Some tone rows have a high degree of internal organisation. Here is the tone row from Anton Webern
Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and Conducting. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known proponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of pitch, rhythm and dynamics were formative...
's Concerto Opus 24:

B, B, D, E, G, F, G, E, F, C, C, A

If the first three notes are regarded as the "original" cell, then the next three are its retrograde inversion (backwards and upside down), the next three are retrograde (backwards), and the last three are its inversion (upside down). A row created in this manner, through variants of a trichord
Chord (music)

In music and music theory a chord is a set of two or more different note that sound simultaneously. Most often, in European-influenced music, chords are tertian Sonority that can be constructed as stacks of thirds relative to some underlying musical scale....
 or tetrachord
Tetrachord

Traditionally, a tetrachord is a series of four tones filling in the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion. In modern usage a tetrachord is any four-note segment of a scale or tone row....
 called the generator
Generating set of a group

In abstract algebra, a generating set of a group is a subset S such that every element of G can be expressed as the product of finitely many elements of S and their inverses....
, is called a derived row
Derived row

In music using the twelve tone technique derivation is the construction of a row through segments. A derived row is a tone row whose entirety of twelve tones is constructed from a segment or portion of the whole, the generator....
. The tone rows of many of Webern's other late works are similarly intricate.

The set-complex is the forty-eight forms of the set generated by stating each "aspect" or transformation on each pitch class.

See also

A literary parallel of the tone row is found in Georges Perec
Georges Perec

Georges Perec was a highly-regarded France Judaism novelist, filmmaker and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group....
's poems which use each of a particular set of letters only once.

Tone row may also be used to describe other musical collections or scales such as in Arabic music.

  • Musical set theory
  • Unified field
    Unified field

    In music, unified field is often used to refer to the "unity of musical space" created by the free use of melody as harmonic and harmony as melodic material....


Source



External links

  • by David J. Hunter and Paul T. von Hippel