I searched some twelve-tone music in Lime Wire and got this: Bruce Hornsby - Twelve-Tone Tune. That was, for me, a very cool song... try to get it and tell me if that is twelve-toned.
I sounds kinda jazzy.

      > Iszil

You can read about it here:

Wikipedia on Schoenberg

But it's probably a waste of time as far as developing your music is concerned.  12-tone is so far different from Western music that you may as well be studying Orthodox Gregorian chant.  And that analogy sucks, because you can still listen to chant and understand what's going on.

The link is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoenberg

Sorry.

i hope this helps-------------

first of all realize that 12 tone music is not to everyones taste----so dont expect to like it--------------it cant be ---------its as revolutionary as punk or heavy metal is today...............but it has a place.............the same as punk or heavy metal.

the composers of 12 tone were trying to get rid of crappy music rules most of the time

PUNKS...............of the classic music world

to understand a bit more go to  http://www.thegreatness.com/old/schoenberg.html

its an understanding website that has some pretty neat wav files........................listen 2 them..................dont compare them 2 nething youve heard before............and then judge them

was he mad or bad?

the music is very different.....................but try not to dismiss it......

what was he trying to do?????????????

if you are a composer........what do his whacky ideas tell you?

hope this of help

the fish

p.s. i love this stuff..................................................sometimes

a) Twelve tone music, or dodecaphony, is not serialism, per se. Webern was responsible for serialism, and the latter is essentially a form of composition which uses the principles of twelve-tone music and applies them to aspects of the score, other than pitch, i.e. dynamics, bowing technique, color, etc. It is in that sense the next "logical" step up from twleve-tone music.

b) The most famous twelve-tone composers are what is called the second vienese school: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Also see Stravinsky's last few pieces.

Serialists abounded in the States and Europe after the second world war and many a composer used serialist technniques, including early John Cage and Morton Feldman. Boulez is a well known continental serialist. The most well-known American Serialist would probably be Eliott Carter, Milton Babbit and Roger Preston. Serialists are still plenty active in academia world-wide, but, thankfully, there are fewer and fewer young purist composers hitting the scene.

An amusing introduction to 12-Tone is David Shire's soundtrack to the film "The Taking of Pelham 123".  12-Tone and Serialist music are denigrated constantly by the classical music crowd -- but are constant elements in movie soundtracks.  Particularly horror movies.  Give people's eyes something to do and they'll listen to anything.

Anyway, the above-mentioned music is basically 70's "thriller" movie music with a hint of era-blaxploitation.  The liner notes describe in not extensive detail how Shire used the 12-tone method to create a very exotic-sounding piece of funk.

You know, it's only a matter of time before some wise-ass garage band discovers this method and applies it to loud instrumental rock.

... except in practical jokes.
Today, my music teacher explained the basic principals of 12tone, one of the things he said: "If it sounds good, it should be changed", as it isn't meant to sound pleasant. Who was the idiot who said "let's play all twelve tones at random to see what it sounds like".

However, I would use the 12 tone system to lure people into hearing what they seem to be "good" music, then hit them with the wrath of the 12tone   

Also, I dunno how these sound but:
Polytonal: playing more than one key at a time.
Atonal: No recognized set key.
Polyrhythm: the use of separate rhythms in separate parts (not really terrible sounding, but interesting, nonetheless). I'm learning a piano piece at the moment with frequent time changes 4/8... with occasional triplets, strange rhythms and unusual ties, not to mention the random notes and accidentals, the difference this has from 12tone is that it's about mood and creating imagery, rather than ear infections.

Anyways, interesting topic (helped me revise for school).

That was my two cents...

WB

I absolutely disagree.
In order to understand you must distill what "music" is to the most general definition.
Music is an abstraction of sound and the absence of sound.
In one's life and interaction with others the concept of music is introduced over and over again.
For example someone says to you "listen to this piece of music" or "I don't like this music"
You can only assume that they are defining music in their "ears" and that is what they consider music.
As you experience things in your life you "sound world" increases and you constantly redefine music.
Twelve-Tone "music" is only twelve tones.
There are many cultures that have music that is more than twelve tones; indian music is a good example.
Anyway, twelve tones refers to the NOTATION of the sound and not necessarily the sound itself which may include "gestures" that slide from one pitch to the next. You can't exclude the "sound between the sound" that is not a specific pitch.
SOOOOOOOO
If you just take the time to listen over and over again to "twelve tone" music you will begin to hear it as it becomes part of your sound world.
Start with small pieces.
Roswell Rudd (jazz trombonist) once told me the truth:
If you want to go to heaven train your ear (the ear in your mind).

How about Arnold Schoenberg, Milton Babbit, Webern, Benj. Boretz, Stefan Volpe
Google "Perspectives in New Music" and I am sure you'll be able to find twelve tone composers.
There are several theory books on the subject.
Also, youmay want to distinguish between twelve-tone composition and serial composition. They are similar but not the same monster.

It is interesting that much of Wagner's music uses twelve tones like the prelude to tristan and isolde which is chromatic from the start. Check it out.

TRY PLAYING THIS
right hand starting on middle C on the piano:
C   A  F  G# ------ F# C#   B  Eb     D
left hand starting on Bb below middle C on the piano
Bb-----------E-----------G-----------------------------
Well, how do you like it?

If you answered BLECH!!!
                   Well, maybe you just haven't listened to it enough to get the full flavor.

If you answered OOOH! NICE!
                   Well, maybe you just haven't listened to it enough to get rid of the bad taste.

lol

yeah  i look at 12 tone as a love hate relationship. you love it and you hate it . 

here is a simple 12 tone tune ......  All Systems Go....by Philip Ahern   this is a simple piece........... people seem to think that 12 tone has to sound bad, but it doesn't......... if you work it right.
12 tone pieces  are serialized  combinatorial  pitches....  well to be specific it's in accordance with  hexachordal combinatoriality  you can take both treble and bass clefs voicing state a 12 note row in the first 12 measures. the first half of each row ( first hexachord in each row) is stated in the first 6 measures.the second half in the second six measures.

oh well this would be to long a thread to try to explain. 

But 12 tone does not have to sound bad.
Cool link for 12 tone
http://solomonsmusic.net/setheor2.htm

I AM AGAIN amazed at some of the things I've read in this thread...."12 tone music is not part of Western Music" for one, is the most preposterous assertion I've heard as well as "Stravinsky - at the end - was a 12-tone composer." Stravinsky NEVER was a12-tone composer!!!!! If anything you would have to say that Stravinsky was a pan-diatonic composer. Look at the Piano Concerto for Piano and Winds, the Rite of Spring, Firebird....it's all white notes. Schoenberg, the founder of the 12-tone or "atonal" notational system, and Stravinsky were are such odds with each other that during their lifetimes, and whilst simultaneously living in Beverly Hills - FOR YEARS - they never spoke to each other. They avoided each other like the plague.** Their wives tried to affect some form of dialogue, but no soap. If you want to listen to some really GREAT 12-tone music, start with the composer who was the first composer in music history to use ALL 12 tones of the diatonic scale in a systematic and methodical way: Johann Sebastian Bach. You will find a wealth of knowledge ABOUT ALL musical concepts in the Well-Tempered Klavier Books 1 and 2 which comprise 48 preludes and fugues (24 each: meaning 12 major and 12 minoir keys). It is from Bach's genius that Schoenberg began the systematic construction of a 12 tone series of notes (tone row) upon which most of his compositions were written. After that, go to Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstucke (three piano pieces) Op. 11 and then to the Piano Suite Op. 23 for a wild, and I do mean WILD conception of the baroque keyboard suite, the last piece, the Gigue, will knock your socks off. Something to ponder:  Charlie Parker's chord progressions were not far afield from atonal music. You can also listen to the Berg Piano Sonata Op. 1, the Piano Variations (1931) of Aaron Copland and even the music of George Crumb or pierre Boulez to hear examples and influences of 12-tone music. Joihn Cage'/s music does not reflect atonal music. His music was alleatoric. Schoenberg created this system because Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner and the rest had stretched harmony, and chromaticism to as far as anyone could possible have stretched it. It was time ripe for a new language and his system did for harmony what Stravinsky did for rhythm. Stravinsky, and I emphasize this most strongly, WAS NOT a 12-tone composer.

To return to the "non-western" issue though: there are no microtones in 12-tone music, nor are there in Stravinsky. Both systems are rather conventional if you come right down to it. the influence of Indian, Eastern, or music from the southern hemisphere were not influences on Schoenberg or Stravinsky. Both composers took their inspiration from rather old-fashioned accepted practice and FORM from the classical manner was rather strictly adhered to. By form I mean an exposition, development and recapitulation. Even Wagner and Liszt, who were at odds with the romantics of the late nineteenth century (Brahms, Schumann, etc.) knew better than to toy with form. They used monothematic material (leitmotif) in ways that were never used before but there was still the exposition - devlopment - recapitulation format present.

As an aside, if you listen closely to the music of Arnold Schoenberg, you will find something quite strange in it...you will, unlike much if not most of the modern music of the 20th century, find melody. For this alone, one can say that Schoenberg was more of a classicist than a modernist even though, at least to me, his music, still, today, in the 21st century, sounds more modern than any of the others. Even Boulez or Crumb or even Ligety, although Ligety is perhaps the best of both worlds.

** History lesson: Beverly Hills was a hotbed of emigre life in the years following the Russian Revolution and World War I. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff, Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel (she got around), even Thomas Mann and his brother, and Ayn Rand ALL lived in Southern California. They all knew each other in one way or another but never socialized together for some reason.. Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky were at a dinner party given by the famous concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein at his home in Beverly Hills and Rachmaninoff is said to have done nothing but scream at Stravinsky across the table that he was nothing but a composer of oom-pa-pa music for ballets and parades!

Arnold Schoenberg: Three Piano Pieces Op. 11
                            Suite for Piano op. 23
recordings by Glenn Gould, Maurizio Pollini

From the vehemence in a number of these posts I suddenly understand why there were riots in the street after the first performance of "Rite of Spring" regarding whether it was or was not music. I personally subscribe to the notion that in any disagreement between music theory and the ear, the ear must have the final authority.