The Daily Book of Classical Music

DAY 307

MUSIC THEORY

Bloop! Bleep! Every Element Can Be Serialized!

FOR WHEN YOU WANT TOTAL CONTROL

Serializing pitches obliterated tonality. This serialization was extended to octave displacement: each note had to be in a different octave than its predecessor. Also, a stricter application of serialization dictated that no single note could ever be repeated before using all 12. Serializing also controlled rhythm and silence.

Here’s the same 12-tone theme with the stricter pitch application, arbitrary octave displacement, and rhythmic duration serialization (first note has 4 beats; the second has 3, 2, 1, 1/2, etc., also used in retrograde): ...