twelve-tone technique

American  

noun

Music.

1. a modern system of tone relationships in which the 12 tones of an octave are not centered around any one tone, but are unified by a selected order of tones for a given composition.

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Example Sentences

By reputation an expert practitioner of twelve-tone technique, Lieberson had always had a secret yen for sensuous, late-Romantic harmony.

From The Guardian • May 28, 2013

Their music is based on jazz materials, but it is embroidered with twelve-tone technique and polyrhythms.

From Time Magazine Archive

In Italy, the land of Verdi and Puccini, Luigi Dallapiccola, 46, is the chief disciple of Arnold Schoenberg's strange-to-the-ear twelve-tone technique.

From Time Magazine Archive

A visit to Paris shook him out of his native conservatism: he experimented with radical rhythmical structures, later with the twelve-tone technique, but absorbed only what he wanted from them and went his own way.

From Time Magazine Archive

Four poetic movements in the often unpoetic twelve-tone technique.

From Time Magazine Archive