TWELVE-TONE SYSTEM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A type of serial music introduced by Arnold Schoenberg; uses a tone row formed by the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale (and inverted or backward versions of the row)

Synonyms:

12-tone music; 12-tone system; twelve-tone music; twelve-tone system

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("twelve-tone system" is a kind of...):

serial music; serialism (20th century music that uses a definite order of notes as a thematic basis for a musical composition)

Credits