A compositional technique that organizes musical elements (pitch, rhythm, dynamics, timbre) into ordered sequences or 'series' that are systematically manipulated. It extends twelve-tone technique to other musical parameters beyond pitch.
From 'series' plus -ism, referring to the systematic ordering of musical elements into predetermined sequences. The term emerged in the 1950s as composers like Pierre Boulez expanded Schoenberg's twelve-tone methods.
Serialism represents music's most mathematical phase - composers like Boulez and Stockhausen created pieces where every aspect was predetermined by complex numerical systems, making composition feel more like advanced algebra than traditional artistic inspiration!
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