Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange
Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [serial]

For questions related to serial music, music in which a fixed series of pitch classes are used to generate the remaining musical material of the work. Questions should also likely use the theory tag.

22 questions
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Are the discrete hexachords of a tone row always either the same set class or z-related?

In a traditional 12-note tone row, it seems to me that the first six notes will always either be in the same set class as the last six notes, or will be z-related, but I'm having trouble confirming this. For example: Schoenberg's Fourth String…
Pat Muchmore
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We love the Second Viennese School, but daughter's practice of Boulez's music is wearying us. How can we appreciate Boulez?

We love and listen to the Second Viennese School like Berg, Schoenberg, Webern — even before my daughter was born! My daughter's studying music at university. To guard privacy, I don't want to write more details on her or our family. But starting…
user26407
9
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2 answers

How far do the supporting chords contribute to the tonality of Vi Hart's "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and if they do, how?

Vi Hart, a mathemusician (cool eh!) at the Khan Academy posted an excellent video explaining 12 Tone music. She first explains the rules thus: You have to use all twelve chromatic pitches in some order and You go through them one-by-one. You can…
dumbledad
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Learning the concept of Serialism from its basics - where should I start from?

I am completely new to the concept of Serialism. A music theory workbook I have only mentions about the concept in short, with an example of Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra. It also mentions about the 4 types of tone rows: Original,…
Grace
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Writing a simple 12-tone row

A few days ago my instructor taught me the basis of the twelve-tone system and taught me how to write a dodecaphonic row and its retrograde, inversion, and the inversion of retrograde. Now I have no more classes with him for a few months and he is…
Bend
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Does Schoenberg or Glenn Gould have a point? Does a great deal of music remain to be written in C major?

There's a great interview online where Glenn Gould talks about Stravinsky and Schoenberg (circa 1960). His comments about Stravinsky certainly haven't aged well but nonetheless, he does make some rather good points. And on Schoenberg too. All of…
cmp
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In 12-tone music, how frequently do composers allow themselves to alternate between adjacent notes of the tone row?

In Vi Hart's video on twelve-tone nursery rhymes, she says that one of the rules of twelve-tone composition is that you're allowed to alternate between adjacent notes in the tone row as much as you want; you're just never allowed to jump back by two…
Micah
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Mode of Limited Transposition for Microtonal Temperament

There's a recent paper discussing the theory of limited transposition for general n-temperament…
PeaBrane
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6
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Inversions of Pitch Class set prime numbers

I am taking a long time to check whether or not pitch class set inversions are right, but there may be a shortcut. That's why I am asking for your help instead of procrastination and erroneousness. If, e.g., there is a pitch class set like: 40 …
Sample1nversions
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What are the stipulations for a twelve-tone row to create a matrix with two consistent diagonals?

Consider the tone row for Chen Yi's "Near Distance" (C, D♭, B♭, E♭, E, G♭, A♭, A, B, F, G, D). The matrix for this row form is: Notice that the NW–SE diagonal is all the same pitch/integer (here, 0). This is true for all…
Richard
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Why does a Serialist composition sound like a random one?

Why can random notes and a structured Serialist composition sound the same? This Reddit comment cites Ligeti: The irony, noted Ligeti, was that the kind of music pioneered by Boulez and Stockhausen was actually extremely structured -- but it was…
user26407
4
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1 answer

Intervals when making a tone row - what to keep in mind?

For writing 12 tone or serial music, one generally makes a tone row, and then uses that for constructing a melody. I want to know what would be the maximum range of intervals between any 2 consecutive notes of the tone row that will be feasible to…
Grace
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How can I make 12 tone and atonal melodies sound interesting?

I have recently started learning about serialism (12 tone melody writing) and atonal music. When I attempted to write a short melody, it didn't sound quite pleasing to the ears. Yes, I know atonal music is different than the usual tonal harmonies we…
Grace
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database of 12-tone rows

I am hoping to do some statistical analysis on 12-tone rows that have been employed in practice, and for this I'm looking for as large as possible a database. Currently I am only aware of the 160 something rows on Wikipedia…
Badam Baplan
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Compound Operations in Basic Atonal Theory by John Rahn

Looking into John Rahn's Basic Atonal Theory for Compound Operations. I’m reading John Rahn's Basic Atonal Theory. What I dont understand is how the T11l(T7(Tol(T2(T5(X))))) example, in this section 3.3 Compound Operation related to the four forms…
M G Easter Jnr
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