ABSTRACT:
In this experiment, the 12-tone technique of The Second Viennese School has been systematically applied to the formulation of electric guitar-based music to compose songs that broadly fit into the genre of contemporary post-punk.

BACKGROUND:
The 12-tone technique is a compositional method developed in early 20th-century classical music and used by the composers of 'The Second Viennese School'. This style of composition is designed to utilize all 12-notes available in western music at precisely equal frequency in order to achieve a sort of pure ”atonality”.

Starting the the late 2010's, a number of (mostly) British bands emerged with new and adventurous takes on the broad rock subgenre of post-punk (also categorized as experimental rock, noise rock, art punk, etc.). Most notably, these bands have explored more progressive and chaotic song structures, dark and dissonant approaches to harmony, and some have incorporated instrumentation from other genres such as jazz.

Post-punk lends itself well to this sort of experimentation, as the genre is partly characterized by a sort of coarse eccentricity, with lyrics more likely to evoke sensations of derangement and nihilism rather than more straightforward emotions. In a word, post-punk bands often reject the conventional beauty of music in service of their art.

Given the uniquely disorienting atonality that the 12-tone technique tends to produce when applied to classical composition, we hypothesized that when applied to electric guitar, the 12-tone technique would generate musical ideas suitable for a particularly turbulent and dark variation on modern experimental post-punk and associated genres.

METHODS:
(1) To begin each song a 12-tone row was selected, i.e. a certain arrangement of all 12 notes was decided on.
(2) Using an electric guitar, a motif or "riff" was created by experimenting with different octave iterations of the 12-tone row, as well as rhythms, dynamics, tones, and guitar techniques. For some motifs, slight variations to the order of the 12-tone row were used after a use of the unaltered 12-tone row, particularly to achieve different resolutions with the motifs so that they did not end on the same note every time they were repeated.
(3) Step (2) was repeated several times with different transpositions of the 12-tone tow.
(4) The parts created in sections (1) and (2) were organized into a single composition and other instruments were written and added accordingly, including vocals with lyrics. The use of different transpositions of the same 12-tone row was used as a thematic, melodic foundation for the whole song, ensuring some consistency between parts (given that there is no key to establish consistency between different parts of the song as is standard in most music).
(5) Steps (1)-(4) were repeated several times.
(5) The songs were edited, completed, titled, mixed, mastered, and organized into an album.

LIMITATIONS:
12-tone rules were often, but not always, applied to secondary instruments and the 12-tone rules were not used for the vocal melodies. Further experiments with the 12-tone technique could attempt to enforce the 12-tone system upon all secondary instruments at all times and to compose the vocal melodies using the 12-tone technique. However, further experimenters should be cautious in attempting to impose the 12-tone system on vocals as it may severely limit creative options in regards to lyrics and emotional expression.

Keeping that in mind, this experiment could be scrutinized for failing to adhere to the 12-tone system in the absolute, namely with secondary instruments and vocals, but also on occasion when a certain 12-tone row-based motif would be cut-off prematurely as a creative decision (for example, the end of track #5). Furthermore, in track #4, a middle section consists of a non-12 tone chord progression that was written to accompany a 12-tone bassline and guitar riff that enters later.

Creative choices such as these were made in order to ensure the artistic integrity and musical quality of the album, given that the ultimate purpose of the experiment was to discover the creative potential of the 12-tone technique as a sort of inspirational catalyst in electric guitar-based rock music. An experiment seeking primarily to determine what the 12-tone technique would produce in regards to electric guitar-based rock music could use the methods in this paper, but would need to apply the rules strictly to all instruments and make no exceptions for artistic integrity or musical quality.

RESULTS:
The experiment produced an 8-track album totaling 53 minutes and 9 seconds. The experiment will be available for listening by the public on October 27th, 2023, on Bandcamp.com and music streaming services.