Tone cluster

A tone cluster, in music and in Western tuning, is a chord comprised of consecutive tones seperated chromatically. For example a typical tone cluster could be the tones C, C#, D, D#, E, F, held at the same time.

Variants of this include the chord comprising of tones seperated diatonically, or pentatonically (on a piano, holding only the black notes).

Henry Cowell was notable for the use of this harmonic technique in his piano work The Tides of Manaunaun.

Tone clusters may also be called secundal chords.

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by fixing it.