12säveljärjestelmään

The 12-tone system, also known as dodecaphony or twelve-tone technique, is a method of musical composition developed by Arnold Schoenberg in the early 1920s. It is a form of serialism, where the ordering of musical elements is crucial. The core principle of the 12-tone system is to ensure that all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale are given equal importance, thus avoiding the establishment of a tonal center that characterizes traditional Western music.

To achieve this, a composer constructs a specific ordering of the twelve pitches, called a tone row or series. This row serves as the foundation for the entire composition. The pitches can be played in their original order, in retrograde (backward), inverted (upside down), or retrograde-inverted. These basic forms can also be transposed to any of the twelve chromatic pitches, creating further variations. All melodic and harmonic material in a 12-tone piece is derived from this foundational tone row.

The goal of the 12-tone system is to eliminate traditional tonality and create a more egalitarian distribution of pitches. Composers such as Alban Berg and Anton Webern, students of Schoenberg, also adopted and developed this technique. While it was a significant departure from previous musical practices and initially met with resistance, the 12-tone system has had a lasting impact on 20th and 21st-century music, influencing many composers and contributing to the development of atonal and serial music.