tone row

noun

Music.

1. a series of tones in which no tone is duplicated, and in which the tones generally recur in fixed sequence, with variations in rhythm and pitch, throughout a composition.

tone row

noun

1. Also called: note row. music a group of notes having a characteristic pattern or order that forms the basis of the musical material in a serial composition, esp one consisting of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale See also serialism twelve-tone

Word History and Origins

Origin of tone row¹

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

Michael Kennedy, a biographer and friend, recalled that he liked to pronounce “tone row,” impishly, as if it rhymed with “cow.”

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“They’re just more fun. When you have the whole arsenal of the tone row in your head, you can just have a lot more freedom to mess around with it.”

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The tone row I used in my composition was F#-A-E-D-C#-F-B-G-G#-A#-D#-C.

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The first interval in my tone row, F#-A, is an ascending minor third or a descending major sixth, depending on whether the composer chooses the A to be higher or lower than the F#.

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The full sequence of intervals in my tone row is 3-7-10-11-8-6-1-2-5-9.

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