An Introduction to Music Studies - Harper Scott and Samson

It does what it says on the tin:

Twelve tone music:
- the arrangement of the twelve notes into a ‘row
- generating of forty-eight versions of the row through inversion (turning it upside down), retrograde (reversing the order), retrograde inversion and multiple transpositions
- using these rows as building blocks for composition
(Harper-Scott and Samson, 2009, p.35).

Adorno describes Serialism as totalitarian, because it effectivey prescribed ‘the order in which each pitch should appear’ (Harper-Scott and Samson, 2009, p.45)..

On Critical theory (Adorno): Music and society are intertwined. Modern music always struggles between expression and convention. It aims to be absolutely unique and ignore convention but then it will not be understood by anyone: “The difficulty for music is to avoid mere convention without losing the ability to express something significant” (Harper-Scott and Samson, 2009, p.89).