12 Tone Serial Music Composers

Anyone out there into composing 12 tone serial music a la Arnold Schoenberg?  I did a few pieces about 10 years ago and am just getting into it again and would like to compare notes with other composers 

HolyMoly wrote: Compare notes?  Which 12 did you use?

1. The row is a specific ordering of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale (without regard to octave placement).
2. No note is repeated within the row.
3. The row may be subjected to interval-preserving transformations -- that is, it may appear in inversion (denoted I), retrograde (R), or retrograde-inversion (RI), in addition to its "original" or prime form (P).
4. The row in any of its four transformations may begin on any degree of the chromatic scale; in other words it may be freely transposed. (Transposition being an interval-preserving transformation, this is technically covered already by 3.) Transpositions are indicated by an integer between 0 and 11 denoting the number of semitones: thus, if the original form of the row is denoted P₀, then P₁ denotes its transposition upward by one semitone (similarly I₁ is an upward transposition of the inverted form, R₁ of the retrograde form, and RI₁ of the retrograde-inverted form).

...or so says Wikipedia

Once you create your original tone row, generating the 12 x 12 tone row matrix takes awhile and is pretty easy to mess up.  I found a great tool that builds the matrix for you and even prints it out 

Edited by The.Crimson.King - October 28 2013 at 18:13

Give me a period of time and I'll be able to come back with it. I think I need to think about it on a piano level instead of guitar so I need to buy a keyboard real quick.

irrelevant wrote: Why have rules?

It is a technique rather than just a set of rules just like Dogme 95 film-making - without the rules it wouldn't be Dogme 95 it would just be film-making - so 12-tone serialism without the rules would be 12-tone atonal music or chromatic music or non-12-tone serialism or just serialism. That said, rules are made to be broken and Schoenberg broke them all the time, however to be "serialism" 12-tones (or any other series of notes) have to be used to create a row or series that is then transformed - this was intended to prevent any single note or sequence from dominating the piece and to challenge the traditional thinking on melody and harmony.

irrelevant wrote: Dean wrote: irrelevant wrote: Why have rules?  It is a technique rather than just a set of rules just like Dogme 95 film-making - without the rules it wouldn't be Dogme 95 it would just be film-making - so 12-tone serialism without the rules would be 12-tone atonal music or chromatic music or non-12-tone serialism or just serialism. That said, rules are made to be broken and Schoenberg broke them all the time, however to be "serialism" 12-tones (or any other series of notes) have to be used to create a row or series that is then transformed - this was intended to prevent any single note or sequence from dominating the piece and to challenge the traditional thinking on melody and harmony.   It's a fun technique that makes you think about composition in a different way but if you don't like the rules, don't use them/ It's interesting, no doubt. I've looked up some info on it in the past. I personally would prefer to compose without that technique, that's all.

irrelevant wrote: Dean wrote: irrelevant wrote: Dean wrote: irrelevant wrote: Why have rules?  It is a technique rather than just a set of rules just like Dogme 95 film-making - without the rules it wouldn't be Dogme 95 it would just be film-making - so 12-tone serialism without the rules would be 12-tone atonal music or chromatic music or non-12-tone serialism or just serialism. That said, rules are made to be broken and Schoenberg broke them all the time, however to be "serialism" 12-tones (or any other series of notes) have to be used to create a row or series that is then transformed - this was intended to prevent any single note or sequence from dominating the piece and to challenge the traditional thinking on melody and harmony.   It's a fun technique that makes you think about composition in a different way but if you don't like the rules, don't use them/ It's interesting, no doubt. I've looked up some info on it in the past. I personally would prefer to compose without that technique, that's all.   I know your user name is "irrelevant" but I now wonder what you are doing in this thread if it is not to troll. Can't I sum up my thoughts at under a paragraph? I just wanted to say that the compositional technique is not one I'm a fan of. A bit useless to the thread, I know, but I make up for it with the mentioning of Blotted Science (12 tone instrumental prog death metal).

"Why have rules."

I might add that all rules are in art are a way of understanding music logically. You can't understand music without limiting yourself. Limiting yourself creates parameters to work without, and if those parameters were not there then you'd be confused by the infinite number of options. I don't know whether you compose music or not, but if you do then you abide by rules, even if you don't know about it. I hear a lot of folk say "If it sounds good then it sounds good." Well, it sounding good is a rule. Also, rules derive from what sounds good or not.

Regarding serialism, it relies heavily on logic and structure. It's mathematical. Shoenberg actually said it was LESS free than tonal music, and the reason being that serialism doesn't have a tonic reference point. In its place you have to create structure out of the atonalism, which is where Arnold's techniques come in. Rhythm also plays a major part in this.

They aren't "rules", because... well, you can do what the hell you like. Whether it's good or not however depends on the presence of logical structure.

This might interest you:

http://www.supload.com/listen?s=Tc2FMt

In the last part I used a twelvetone row played forward and backwards so the two rows together form one symmetrical row of 24 notes. Then I generated nine new rows, using a special system I designed myself. The eleventh row, played towards the end together with some other, unrelated musical material – mainly to prevent the piece from dying out with only one instrument playing – is identical to the first.

I’m not sure if it qualifies as serial music, but it’s pretty close.


Edited by refugee - October 29 2013 at 15:29