Tone row

A tone row is an ordered arrangement of the twelve pitch classes, each used once, that supplies recurring pitch material for a twelve-tone composition.

Prime form: The original ordering of a tone row, distinguished from its transposed and transformed forms. It names the row in its basic orientation before other forms are derived.
Pitch class: A category grouping pitches that differ by one or more octaves. A tone row orders pitch classes rather than fixing a single register.
Arnold Schoenberg: An Austrian composer who developed twelve-tone composition in the early twentieth century. Schoenberg established the row as the basis of his new compositional method.
Serialism: A compositional approach that organizes musical parameters through ordered series. Serialism extends row-like ordering beyond pitch classes.
Serial composition: Music composed through systematic ordering of musical elements, especially pitches, durations, or dynamics. A tone row is one specific ordered series used within serial composition.
Inversion (music): A transformation that reverses the direction of each interval in a sequence of pitches. It produces a row form by reversing the row’s interval directions.
Semitone: The smallest standard interval in Western equal temperament, equal to one twelfth of an octave. Intervals between row elements are measured in semitones.
Second Viennese School: A group of early twentieth-century composers associated with Schoenberg and the development of atonal and serial music. Its composers developed and extended row-based composition.
Integral serialism: A compositional approach that applies serial ordering to several musical parameters, such as duration, dynamics, and articulation. It adapts the row principle to dimensions beyond pitch.
Diatonic scale: A seven-note scale organized around a pattern of five whole steps and two half steps. A diatonic scale repeats a hierarchy of scale degrees rather than ordering all twelve pitch classes once.

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Anton WebernBroader topic: Its transformations supply recurring pitch relationships in Webern’s serial works.