Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun twelve-tone_system

1 sense of twelve-tone system

Sense 1
twelve-tone music, 12-tone music, twelve-tone system, 12-tone system -- (a type of serial music introduced by Arnold Schoenberg; uses a tone row formed by the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale (and inverted or backward versions of the row))
       => serialism, serial music -- (20th century music that uses a definite order of notes as a thematic basis for a musical composition)