Twelve-tone Technique

CORE DEFINITION

The twelve-tone technique (German: Zwölftontechnik) is a method of composition in serial music. It was first proposed separately by Austrian composers Joseph Matthias Hauer and Arnold Schoenberg. Their concepts are partially similar but not mutually subordinate; Schoenberg's theory is more widely accepted and was widely disseminated among the Second Viennese School to which he belonged. To this day, the twelve-tone technique is mostly based on Schoenberg's theory. The twelve-tone technique can be said to have developed from atonal music during the late Romantic period to neoclassicism. Its concept is that within a complete chromatic scale, all twelve semitones are of equal importance, rather than the traditional music theory that advocates the dominance of individual notes within a scale.