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.
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