In music, a tone row or note row (German: Reihe or Tonreihe), also series and set,[2] refers to a

non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set
theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometimes found.

Contents
[hide]

1 History and usage

2 Theory and compositional techniques
3 Nonstandard tone rows
4 See also
5 Sources
6 External links

[edit] History and usage

Tone row of Stockhausen's Gruppen fr drei Orchester Play (helpinfo) the pitches of which
correspond with duration units and metronome marks. [3]
Tone rows are the basis of Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique and most types of serial
music. Tone rows were widely used in 20th century contemporary music, though one has been
identified in a 1742 composition of Johann Sebastian Bach,[4] and by the late eighteenth century
was a well-established technique, found in works such as Mozart's C Major String Quartet, K.
156 (1772), String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428, String Quintet in G minor, K. 516 (1790), and
the Symphony in G minor, K. 550 (1788). [5] Beethoven also used the technique, for example in
the finale of his Ninth Symphony but, on the whole, "Mozart seems to have employed serial
technique far more often than Beethoven". [6] It is clear from Schoenberg's own writings that he
must have been aware of this practice. [7]

[edit] Theory and compositional techniques

Principal forms of Webern's tone row from Variations for piano, op. 27. Each hexachord fills in a
chromatic fourth, with B as the pivot (end of P1 and beginning of IR8), and thus linked by the
prominent tritone in the center of the row Play (helpinfo).[8]
Tone rows are designated by letters and subscript numbers (ex.: RI11, also may appear RI11 or
RI-11). The numbers indicate the initial (P or I) or final (R or RI) pitch-class number of the given
row form, most often with c=0. P indicates prime, a forward-directed right-side up form. I
indicates inversion, a forward-directed upside-down form. R indicates retrograde, a backwards
right-side up form. RI indicates retrograde-inversion, a backwards upside-down form.
Transposition is indicated by a T number, for example P8 is a T(4) transposition of P4.[9]

P-6 tone row melody from Schoenberg's Op. 25, P-0 transposed up 6 semitones[10]
A twelve-tone or serial composition will take one or more tone rows, called the prime form, as
its basis plus their transformations (inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion, as well as
transposition; see twelve-tone technique for details). These forms may be used to construct a
melody in a straightforward manner as in Schoenberg's Op. 25 Minuet Trio, where P-0 is used to
construct the opening melody and later varied through transposition, as P-6, and also in
articulation and dynamics. It is then varied again through inversion, untransposed, taking form I0. However, rows may be combined to produce melodies or harmonies in more complicated
ways, such as taking successive or multiple pitches of a melody from two different row forms, as
described at twelve-tone technique.

I-0 tone row melody from Schoenberg's Op. 25, P-0 inverted[10]
Initially, Schoenberg required the avoidance of suggestions of tonalitysuch as the use of
consecutive imperfect consonances (thirds or sixths)when constructing tone rows, reserving
such use for the time when the dissonance is completely emancipated. Alban Berg, however,

sometimes incorporated tonal elements into his twelve-tone works, and the main tone row of his
Violin Concerto hints at this tonality:

This tone row consists of alternating minor and major triads starting on the open strings of the
violin, followed by a portion of an ascending whole tone scale. This whole tone scale reappears
in the second movement when the chorale "It is enough" (Es ist genug) from Bach's cantata no.
60, which opens with consecutive whole tones, is quoted literally in the woodwinds (mostly
clarinet).

Mirror forms, P, R, I, and RI, of a tone row (from Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra op. 31
Play (helpinfo)): "Called mirror forms because...they are identical.".[11]
Some tone rows have a high degree of internal organisation. Here is the tone row from Anton
Webern's Concerto Opus 24:

Webern's Concerto Op. 24 tone row,[12] composed of four trichords: P RI R I

B, B, D, E, G, F, G, E, F, C, C, A

If the first three notes are regarded as the "original" cell, then the next three are its retrograde
inversion (backwards and upside down), the next three are retrograde (backwards), and the last
three are its inversion (upside down). A row created in this manner, through variants of a trichord
or tetrachord called the generator, is called a derived row. The tone rows of many of Webern's
other late works are similarly intricate.

Webern's String Quartet Op. 28 tone row, composed of three tetrachords: P I RI, with P = the
BACH motif.
The set-complex is the forty-eight forms of the set generated by stating each "aspect" or
transformation on each pitch class. [2]
The all-interval twelve-tone chord is a tone row arranged so that it contains one instance of each
interval within the octave, 0 through 11.
The total chromatic (or aggregate[13]) is the set of all twelve pitch classes. An array is a
succession of aggregates.[13]

First array of four aggregates (numbered 1-4 at bottom) from Babbitt's Composition for Four
Instruments, each vertical line (four trichords labeled a-d) is an aggregate while each horizontal
line (four trichords labeled a-d) is also an aggregate[13]
A secondary set is a tone row which is derived from or, "results from the reversed coupling of
hexachords," when a given row form is immediately repeated. [14] For example, the row form
consisting of two hexachords (one in italics and one in bold):
0 1 2 3 4 5 / 6 7 8 9 t e

when repeated immediately results in the following succession of two aggregates, in the middle
of which is a new and complete aggregate beginning with the second hexachord:
0 1 2 3 4 5 / 6 7 8 9 t e / 0 1 2 3 4 5 / 6 7 8 9 t e
secondary set: [6 7 8 9 t e / 0 1 2 3 4 5]

Pierre Boulez's Second Piano Sonata series Play (helpinfo) consists of three cells: A) an
ascending perfect fifth followed by a tritone and a perfect fourth, B) a descending perfect fifth
followed by an ascending major second and a descending augmented fifth, and B1) B
inverted.[15]

[edit] Nonstandard tone rows

Prime form of five note tone row from Igor Stravinsky's In memoriam Dylan Thomas[16]
Schoenberg specified many strict rules and desirable guidelines for the construction of tone rows
such as number of notes and intervals to avoid. Tone rows which depart from these guidelines
include the above tone row from Berg's Violin Concerto which contains triads and tonal
emphasis, and the tone row below from Luciano Berio's Nones which contains a repeated note
making it a 'thirteen tone row':

Thirteen note tone row from Nones,[17] symmetrical about the central tone with one note (D)
repeated
Stravinsky used a five tone row, chromatically filling out the space of a major third centered
tonally on C (C-E), in one of his early serial compositions, In memoriam Dylan Thomas.
In his twelve-tone practice Stravinsky preferred the inverse-retrograde (IR) to the retrogradeinverse (RI),[18][19][20] as for example in his Requiem Canticles:

Basic row forms from Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles[20]: P R I IR

Series from the second of Stockhausen's Klavierstcke I-IV Play (helpinfo) which, "retained
only the rudiments of the 12-note series."[21]

Series from the third of Stockhausen's Klavierstcke I-IV Play (helpinfo).[21]

Ben Johnston uses a just tone row (see just intonation) in works including String Quartet No. 6
and 7. Each permutation contains a just chromatic scale, however, transformations (transposition
and inversion) produce pitches outside of the primary row form, as already occurs in the
inversion of P0. The pitches of each hexachord are drawn from different otonality or utonality on
A+ utonality, C otonality and utonality, and E- otonality, outlining a diminished triad.

Primary forms of the just tone row from Ben Johnston's String Quartet No. 7, mov. 2 Play
(helpinfo) and Play hexachords (helpinfo).

[edit] See also

A literary parallel of the tone row is found in Georges Perec's poems which use each of a
particular set of letters only once.
Tone row may also be used to describe other musical collections or scales such as in Arabic
music.

Musical set theory

Unified field
Side-slipping
Pitch interval