# Improvising 12-tone music



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Is anyone here good at it? I've been giving it a go on a piano with a matrix in front of me and just making up the music as I go, less difficult than I ever would have thought! To me it's just like improvising something in C minor but just...in a different mindset, thinking about the the different rules needed to write dodecaphonic music. 

Anyway, sounds cool 
Is anyone good at it?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Not I, but I'm thinking I do not have the innate ear you do. Mine is 'trained' and I have relative pitch, and before you were born, lol, I did, without breaking a sweat, pass the atonal sight-singing and dictation part of the ear training exam.

When I worked a serial piece (using an 11-tone row) I did get well familiar enough with the materials that I could once in a while write at a desk without its needing revision, and other times worked it at a piano. 

It would take me quite a while of familiarization with not just the row (which came to me fairly quickly in the inner ear) but of course its permutations, retrograde, inversion and retrograde inversion, before I would even hazard a guess at being able to improvise upon it, at least while keeping within Arnie's earliest parameters of 'the rules.'

American composer Meyer Kupferman used one tone row for all (or most of) the pieces he wrote over a period of decades (!) which would have him so familiar with the row and the entire matrix that I'm sure he could have improvised anything from that row at the drop of a hat


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

The majority of listeners would not be able to tell whether your are doing a 12-tone improvisation or whether your cat is walking across the keyboard. So you could possibly get away with some mistakes.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> The majority of listeners would not be able to tell whether your are doing a 12-tone improvisation or whether your cat is walking across the keyboard. So you could possibly get away with some mistakes.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I doubt it's possible. Jazz musicians made some attempt but with no results. Bill evans wrote a piece called twelve tone tune but when he's improvising he's not anymore rigorous. And if a musician with the ear of Bill Evans can't I wonder if it's possible for anybody. I think that Gunther Schuller too wrote that it's impossible, and he has composed twelve tone music all his life.


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

It isn't impossible, like my teacher said "you can improvise every aspect of the music but the pitch", so like improvising rhythms and dynamics and articulation, and also which form of the row (retrograde, transpositions, etc....) you are using, and when its more than 1 single line there are even more possibilities of improvising

Im not good in it at all though


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

norman bates said:


> I doubt it's possible. Jazz musicians made some attempt but with no results. Bill evans wrote a piece called twelve tone tune but when he's improvising he's not anymore rigorous. And if a musician with the ear of Bill Evans can't I wonder if it's possible for anybody. I think that Gunther Schuller too wrote that it's impossible, and he has composed twelve tone music all his life.


I suppose it depends how strictly you stick to twelve-tone rules. It is my understanding that those rules are open to all sorts of interpretations, and not all composers working in that style have stuck strictly to them all the time. So perhaps the same is true of a twelve-tone improvisation?

That it is so difficult to do perhaps indicates that the system really is an unnatural kind of music for humans. Perhaps we are wired for tonality, and it would also explain the limited popularity of such music. Me, I never could stand it, but of late I have found myself increasingly interested in it, and fascinated by its very strangeness.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

lupinix said:


> It isn't impossible, like my teacher said "you can improvise every aspect of the music but the pitch", so like improvising rhythms and dynamics and articulation, and also which form of the row (retrograde, transpositions, etc....) you are using, and when its more than 1 single line there are even more possibilities of improvising
> 
> Im not good in it at all though


Do you know any piece that demonstrate it's possible? Because I've seen someone improvising fugues and incredible things (Richard Grayson and Ted Greene are examples of that) but nobody doing this. So I'm tempted to believe to Schuller, who's not only a twelve tone composer but one of the greatest experts of the history of jazz and improvisation. And it's evident that there are a lot of constraints.


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Do you know any piece that demonstrate it's possible? Because I've seen someone improvising fugues and incredible things (Richard Grayson and Ted Greene are examples of that) but nobody doing this. So I'm tempted to believe to Schuller, who's not only a twelve tone composer but one of the greatest experts of the history of jazz and improvisation. And it's evident that there are a lot of constraints.


No piece I would call improvisation, unless of course the composer really improvised it and then wrote it down instead of composing it, of which I don't know any 12 tone ones. I know it is possible because Ive tried it myself.

Maybe he just meant you can't improvise pitch in 12tone music? I don't see why there should be limitations in rhythm at all for instancce as long as its just 12 tone music (and not serial music using rows in rhythm too)


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If anyone could do it, it's probably Keith Jarrett.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

lupinix said:


> Maybe he just meant you can't improvise pitch in 12tone music?


Yes, I think he means that it's too difficult to the piano and improvise a melody and harmony (I suppose that Millionrainbows would not call it harmony) respecting the rules of the tone row and without errors. Or at least he doesn't know any example of this, and Schuller has an encyclopedical knowledge of jazz.


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## Yardrax (Apr 29, 2013)

Well, you probably couldn't do it without planning the row you were going to use in advance, but that's not radically different from Jazz players mapping out the chord changes before they start improvising.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Messiaen's organ improvisations are amazing, but then he didn't write serial music.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Yardrax said:


> Well, you probably couldn't do it without planning the row you were going to use in advance, but that's not radically different from Jazz players mapping out the chord changes before they start improvising.


The big difference is that when you have a set of chords you can choose to use many different notes at any moment, while if you have to improvise twelve tone music you have a lot more restrictions.


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Yes, I think he means that it's too difficult to the piano and improvise a melody and harmony (I suppose that Millionrainbows would not call it harmony) respecting the rules of the tone row and without errors. Or at least he doesn't know any example of this, and Schuller has an encyclopedical knowledge of jazz.


also improvising 1 single line monophonicly or "appaearing polyphonicly" on fpr instance an oboe is a lot different than playing with two hands on a piano, but it is improvising still. But also creating chords from a tone row isn't impossible, it would take more practice becoming good at it maybe, and you can also improvise with only 1 line in each hand polyphonically. These are all things I have tried once and yeah it had to be slow and I had to make some notes extra extra long to think about which variation of the row should come now, but I'm very inexperienced so I guess even things like that wouldnt be a problem if you have "mastered" it


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I suppose it depends how strictly you stick to twelve-tone rules. It is my understanding that those rules are open to all sorts of interpretations, and not all composers working in that style have stuck strictly to them all the time. So perhaps the same is true of a twelve-tone improvisation?
> 
> *That it is so difficult to do perhaps indicates that the system really is an unnatural kind of music for humans.* Perhaps we are wired for tonality, and it would also explain the limited popularity of such music. Me, I never could stand it, but of late I have found myself increasingly interested in it, and fascinated by its very strangeness.


*BZZZZ. WRONG!* Unless you mean, of course, unnatural like Bach in the most rigorous double inverted fugue, some of the contrapuntal games played in a ricecar, i.e. retrogrades, inversions, retrograde inversions and all, is "unnatural."

You are 'wired' for tonality by conditioning. If you had been born earlier, you would have been 'wired' for modality, earlier yet, monophonic tropes in modes.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

lupinix said:


> also improvising 1 single line monophonicly or "appaearing polyphonicly" on fpr instance an oboe is a lot different than playing with two hands on a piano, but it is improvising still. But also creating chords from a tone row isn't impossible, it would take more practice becoming good at it maybe, and you can also improvise with only 1 line in each hand polyphonically. These are all things I have tried once and yeah it had to be slow and I had to make some notes extra extra long to think about which variation of the row should come now, but I'm very inexperienced so I guess even things like that wouldnt be a problem if you have "mastered" it


I don't know, the fact is that there isn't a single example in the entire history of jazz, and there are a lot of musicians with an amazing knowledge of harmony. There are swinging twelve tone pieces, but completely composed and without improvisations. Twelve tone improvisations, even single lines withouth "harmony" underneath? Nothing. At least I don't know anything like that.


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

norman bates said:


> The big difference is that when you have a set of chords you can choose to use many different notes at any moment, while if you have to improvise twelve tone music you have a lot more restrictions.


thats why i said you can't improvise the pitch , but you can still improvise which variant of the row comes next and also if you play more "harmonically" you can chose if you use tones of the row as full chords or as the melodic line, for insstance: you begin with a melody playing the first 4 tones but the 5,6 and 7th tones are together with the fouth forming a chord, then the melody goes on using the 8, 9 and 10th tones and then a chord formed of the 11th , 12th and the first note of the retrograde

things like that


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I suppose it depends how strictly you stick to twelve-tone rules. It is my understanding that those rules are open to all sorts of interpretations, and not all composers working in that style have stuck strictly to them all the time. So perhaps the same is true of a twelve-tone improvisation?


I'm not sure there was any composer who was so dogmatic as to never break the rules. The idea that the 12-tone method was at all times followed rigorously and strictly by 12-tone composers seems to exist only among those who don't have any idea what the method actually entails in practice or have as their primary exposure to it a few classroom exercises where they had to count tone rows in Webern or Schoenberg (which isn't necessarily a helpful exercise).



brianvds said:


> That it is so difficult to do perhaps indicates that the system really is an unnatural kind of music for humans. Perhaps we are wired for tonality, and it would also explain the limited popularity of such music. Me, I never could stand it, but of late I have found myself increasingly interested in it, and fascinated by its very strangeness.


There's no such thing as atonality. All music gravitates towards tonal centers based on contextual factors.

That said, serial music is difficult to improvise because of its rigor, and because it generally is not a native tongue for most. How many can improvise correct double fugues, for example? Probably only people who have grown up immersed in the idiom for years and years.


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

norman bates said:


> I don't know, the fact is that there isn't a single example in the entire history of jazz, and there are a lot of musicians with an amazing knowledge of harmony. There are swinging twelve tone pieces, but completely composed and without improvisations. Twelve tone improvisations, even single lines withouth "harmony" underneath? Nothing. At least I don't know anything like that.


Im sorry I can't explain this as I don't know anything about jazz yet apart from that I listen to it once in a while and can enjoy it very much. To me improvising usually means the kind of improvising you do all alone, preferably when no one hears you, improvising/jamming with other people I like to do too sometimes but its a whole different experience imo.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

PetrB said:


> *BZZZZ. WRONG!* Unless you mean, of course, unnatural like Bach in the most rigorous double inverted fugue, some of the contrapuntal games played in a ricecar, i.e. retrogrades, inversions, retrograde inversions and all, is "unnatural."
> 
> You are 'wired' for tonality by conditioning. If you had been born earlier, you would have been 'wired' for modality, earlier yet, monophonic tropes in modes.


This could be. I don't really know. And while I happily poke fun at twelve tone music, don't think for a moment that I am its enemy. As I mentioned, I am beginning to rather like it.



Mahlerian said:


> That said, serial music is difficult to improvise because of its rigor, and because it generally is not a native tongue for most. How many can improvise correct double fugues, for example? Probably only people who have grown up immersed in the idiom for years and years.


I have been thinking along the same lines. If Bach could improvise a fugue on a given theme, then perhaps someone with similar talent and experience in twelve tone technique could do the same. One wonders whether Schoenberg himself could do it!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

There is a jazz CD, done in the 1960s by *The Don Friedman Quartet featuring Atilla Zoller (gtr). *It's called _*Dreams and Explorations. *_Half of the album is standards, and the other half is highly improvisatory. One track is called Park Row and uses a 12-note row as its "head." I'm not sure if they stick to 12-tone rows when they takes solos, but it's a very convincing attempt. There's also a guitar player (forgot the name) who put out an album of 12-tone explorations. I've heard *Pat Metheny *say that he practices 12-tone rows. His *Song X* with *Ornette Coleman *is probably a good example of what is possible in this area.

Actually, I don't think 12-tone rows are appropriate for improvisation, like scales are in jazz. A scale is unordered, so it acts as an "index" of notes to choose from freely, and there is not a "no repeat" rule in place.

A twelve-tone row gets it variance from R, I, and RI forms of the row; these are not "off the cuff" forms that one can instantly call up. Also, since the rows are ordered, one is not really "improvising;" this would be more akin to the regurgitation of long thematic strings. The whole idea seems antithetical to the idea of "free improvisation."

Since 12-tone evolved out of its closely-related predecessor "free atonality," or total chromaticism, which is the far-end spectrum of tonality, then perhaps a totally chromatic (unordered) approach would be better; in fact this has already been done, with Ornette Coleman's "harmolodic" music, and all the free jazz players of the 1960s: *Albert Ayler, Eric Dolphy, The Chicago Art Ensemble, Sun Ra, *and others.* Miles Davis *as well.

You see, all these "totally chromatic" lines, if used like "free atonality" used them (as *un*ordered sets), then any note you place under them, in the bass, becomes a tonal reference for all of it. That's how "totally chromatic tonality" works. The minute you* order *the rows, it becomes 12-tone: ordered, non-harmonic, and thematic/melodic in nature.

Miles Davis, in recordings like Bitches Brew, In A Silent Way, The Cellar Door Sessions, and The J.J. Johnson Sessions, would simply lay down a "groove" with drums, and bass playing a tonally-centered figure, and whatever anyone chose to play, no matter how "outside" or chromatic, instantly became "tonicized" by being referenced to the groove in the bass. Viola, instant total chromaticism.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> His *Song X* with *Ornette Coleman *is probably a good example of what is possible in this area.


No, it's just free jazz.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> There's no such thing as atonality. All music gravitates towards tonal centers based on contextual factors.


I love it when Mahlerian makes sweeping statements like this. My work is cut out for me..."job security" as a poster. I'll gladly take the bait.

Even in the realm of "freely atonal" music, a.k.a. "total chromaticism," the sense of a tonal center is pretty much obliterated, and so obscured by ambiguity that it's easy to see how this led to_ true _12-tone and serialism.

You could say, in the realm of total chromaticism, that the music "gravitates towards _possible_ tonal centers," but this does not establish a definite tonality, only possible ones. Also note that in "free atonality," the tone-center, although ambiguous, is constantly shifting, sometimes on every beat, to another equally ambiguous tone-area. R. Strauss' Metamorphosen is like this; Schoenberg's 'freely atonal' works even more so.

The "free atonality" period demonstrates what you need to do to gradually "erase" tonalty: simply keep all 12 chromatic notes in circulation. This does several things to discourage the sense of tonality:

1. The constant circulation of all twelve notes _forces_ the music to become more linear, more melodic, because chromatic notes, one after the other, tend to suggest melodicism rather than harmony. It works that way in tonality, with passing tones.

2. The constant circulation of all twelve notes means that there is minimal repetition. Although not ordered rows, the constant circulation acts as a de facto "no repeats" dictum, as in serialism.

3. When all twelve notes are in circulation, this chromaticism naturally degrades a sense of tonality, since tonality is created by *omission* of notes, by restricting the sonorities to 7-note scale forms.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I can and would love to improvise 12 tone. Nobosy would know the wrong notes, and some would love it anyway, and clap.

Pollini's performance here (not improvisation) was more interesting than the noise. Musical decadence.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> I can and would love to improvise 12 tone. Nobosy would know the wrong notes, and some would love it anyway, and clap.


Well, find a better audience. One that actually understands what Schoenberg's music is doing will be able to tell the difference between a well-thought-out composition and a haphazard improvisation.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Artmusic's snarky but true; and Mahlerian, gracious friend, you're true and un-snarky.

Delight.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I dunno...if you ask me, improvising from the chromatic scale would be like "creating" a 12-tone scale every time you go through the scale. To me, that's "free jazz." But there's the problem of "all 12 notes being in circulation," which for me, makes the improvisation to restricted. To order the rows would be even worse.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Schoenberg done WELL-- Berlin-level well-- with an engineer job that can faithfully capture some of the balances and nuances-- is absolutely fascinating. 

For me, it's like looking deep-focus into a slowly rotating diamond- with all of the attendant, variegated color shifting.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> I can and would love to improvise 12 tone. Nobosy would know the wrong notes, and some would love it anyway, and clap.
> 
> Pollini's performance here (not improvisation) was more interesting than the noise. Musical decadence.


One would have to truly understand and get into it to recognize "decadence" or "jaded", or that stance is but an affected posture. Such a consistent and blind dismissal shows the opposite, i.e. no real understanding at all, rather like hating foreigners while never having actually met one or ever having been abroad. (Like any other sort of blind bigotry, it is horrific while being more than easy to dismiss.)


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

PetrB said:


> One would have to truly understand and get into it to recognize "decadence" or "jaded", or that stance is but an affected posture. Such a consistent and blind dismissal shows the opposite, i.e. no real understanding at all, rather like hating foreigners while never having actually met one or ever having been abroad. (Like any other sort of blind bigotry, it is horrific while being more than easy to dismiss.)


You might like to know half my friends are foreigners, dated a foreign born girl, been invited to overseas as much as any other traveller; but sorry, limiting my polite discussion back to music itself and not on individuals, banging your arm and slapping the keyboard in front of a score are just plain silly, musically and generally.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> You might like to know half my friends are foreigners, dated a foreign born girl, been invited to overseas as much as any other traveller; but sorry, limiting my polite discussion back to music itself and not on individuals, banging your arm and slapping the keyboard in front of a score are just plain silly, musically and generally.


The Stockhausen piece isn't strictly speaking 12-tone music in any event, so it's not particularly relevant here.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> You might like to know half my friends are foreigners, dated a foreign born girl, been invited to overseas as much as any other traveller; but sorry, limiting my polite discussion back to music itself and not on individuals, banging your arm and slapping the keyboard in front of a score are just plain silly, musically and generally.


LOL. You so don't get it.

Here's in your ears, kiddo


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

PetrB said:


> *BZZZZ. WRONG!* Unless you mean, of course, unnatural like Bach in the most rigorous double inverted fugue, some of the contrapuntal games played in a ricecar, i.e. retrogrades, inversions, retrograde inversions and all, is "unnatural."
> 
> You are 'wired' for tonality by conditioning. If you had been born earlier, you would have been 'wired' for modality, earlier yet, monophonic tropes in modes.


Brad Mehldau shows that improvising polyphony is quite possible. It starts at 8:00 of the first video


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