twelve-tone technique
Noun
Meaning
twelve-tone technique (uncountable)
A system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg, as a method of composing with twelve notes which are related solely to each other.
Synonyms
Examples
In August 1951, just after his first Darmstadt visit, Stockhausen began working with a form of athematic serial composition that rejected the twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg (Felder 1977, 92).
Free atonality The twelve-tone technique was preceded by Schoenberg's freely atonal pieces of 1908–1923, which, though free, often have as an "integrative element.
In August 1927, while staying in Königstein, Copland wrote Poet's Song, a setting of a text by E. E. Cummings and his first composition using Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.