Tone Row
The basis of twelve-tone technique is the tone row, an ordered arrangement of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale (the twelve equal tempered pitch classes). There are four postulates or preconditions to the technique which apply to the set on which a work or section is based:
- The set is a specific ordering of all twelve notes of the semitonal scale.
- No note is repeated within the set
- The set may be stated in any of its "linear aspects": prime, inversion, retrograde, and retrograde-inversion.
- The set in any of its four transformations may be started upon any degree of the semitonal scale.
When twelve-tone technique is strictly applied, a piece consists of statements of certain permitted transformations of the prime series. These statements may appear consecutively, simultaneously, or may overlap, giving rise to harmony.
In Hauer's system postulate 3 does not apply.
Read more about this topic: Twelve-tone Technique
Famous quotes containing the words tone and/or row:
“If the oarsmen of a fast-moving ship suddenly cease to row, the suspension of the driving force of the oars doesn’t prevent the vessel from continuing to move on its course. And with a speech it is much the same. After he has finished reciting the document, the speaker will still be able to maintain the same tone without a break, borrowing its momentum and impulse from the passage he has just read out.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C)
“Those who want to row on the ocean of human knowledge do not get far, and the storm drives those out of their course who set sail.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)