by AshShields

Austrian composer who developed the twelve-tone method, in which the composition must play each of the twelve tones once before it can repeat any of them. Twelve tones, no repeating, then the twelve again, no repeating, et cetera.

Okay, well, not quite. I'm no expert.

Twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition devised by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note through the use of tone rows, orderings of the 12 pitch classes. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. The technique was influential on composers in the mid-20th century.