First let me say that, regarding my comment on 12-tone music, it's like black licorice....some people LOVE it and some people HATE it. I have also met some people who HATE Bach. If you will look more closely my earlier reply(whcih I strongly suggest you do) I think you'll find that I was talking about 12 tone music at its very inception. The system was created at one point. I find nothing inspiring about the creation of a tonal system by which the tones are predetermined. Let me compare music with solid architecture, if I may. Consider formal structure rather like a buildings foundation, walls, roof..etc. Consider the tones rather like the paint which coats the inside and out. Form in music is nothing more than an architecture by which to "design" a musical house. Now imagine painting a house with some sort of predetermined scheme in which you must use EVERY color before you can use one again. I wouldn't buy it....I'd like to see it but not live in it. I am merely trying to say that melody and harmony are predetermined in a mathematically predetermined musical system. 2 of the most important factors in what makes a piece of music sound the way it does are left to mathematical organization rather than the creative whim of the composer. I am NOT saying that all 12 tone music is bad or that 12 tone composers are bad. I am saying that the thought that led to the idea which led to the formulation of the system seems to me to be without musicality in mind. If you feel differently then such is life. All you can do is feel differently because noone is more correct. I would like to add something which I forgot to mention in the last reply. What I meant by a composer having his/her name in the history books but noone at his/her concerts is different than how you took it. (of course) Do you like Bach or Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart??? The music of these great masters fills the concert halls. They are not sellouts, nor are they uninnovative. They just wrote great music which fills millions of peoples' hearts with joy. I hope someday that people will get joy from the music I write. If not....it matters not. But.....What about experimentalism.....nothing wrong with that I suppose..BUT......there ARE people out there who are so set on individuality that they leave artistic quality to the birds. Some people fling one speckle of paint off their brush onto the canvas and they are elevated to the title of genius. I don't buy into that crap personally. I don't buy into it with music either. There are all kinds of people in all areas of all art forms. Some are genuinely sincere.......I'm CERTAIN that some are not. Thanks for your interesting replies to my replies.....No harm meant....water under the bridge.....we haev differing opinions. I can't PROVE that there is no inspiration in the formulation of 12 tone theory..just as you cannot PROVE there is. All we have is the music. Just liek black licorice..some of us like it...some of us do not. --Wes