It’s very rare that someone develops an entirely new way of composing music, but Arnold Schoenberg did just that. Together with his students (some of whom, like Anton Webern and Alban Berg became famous composers in their own right), Schoenberg invented a system called “Twelve-Tone” music.

 

The idea behind Twelve-Tone music (also called “Serial” music) is that we learn to hear music in such a way that some notes are more important than others within a particular key. For instance, in the key of C the note “C” is the most important, and the note “C#” is hardly used at all. In a Twelve-Tone composition every note in the chromatic scale must be used at least once before any note can be used again.

 

Schoenberg’s music is sometimes very difficult to listen to, because it is so different from what we are used to hearing, but many people have learned to appreciate, and even love, its unique sound.