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{{Short description|Dense musical chord}}
[[File:Tone cluster.JPG|thumb|430px|right|Example of piano tone clusters. The clusters in the upper staff—C{{music|sharp}} D{{music|sharp}} F{{music|sharp}} G{{music|sharp}}—are four successive black keys. The last two bars, played with overlapping hands, are a denser cluster.]]

A '''tone cluster''' is a [[chord (music)|musical chord]] comprising at least three adjacent [[musical tone|tone]]s in a [[scale (music)|scale]]. Prototypical tone clusters are based on the [[chromatic scale]] and are separated by [[semitone]]s. For instance, three [[steps and skips|adjacent]] [[Musical keyboard|piano keys]] (such as C, C{{music|sharp}}, and D) struck simultaneously produce a tone cluster. Variants of the tone cluster include chords comprising adjacent tones separated [[Diatonic scale|diatonically]], [[Pentatonic scale|pentatonically]], or [[microtonal music|microtonally]]. On the piano, such clusters often involve the simultaneous striking of neighboring white or black keys.

The early years of the twentieth century saw tone clusters elevated to central roles in pioneering works by [[ragtime]] artists [[Jelly Roll Morton]] and [[Scott Joplin]]. In the 1910s, two classical avant-gardists, composer-pianists [[Leo Ornstein]] and [[Henry Cowell]], were recognized as making the first extensive explorations of the tone cluster. During the same period, [[Charles Ives]] employed them in several compositions that were not publicly performed until the late 1920s or 1930s, as did [[Béla Bartók]] in the latter decade. Since the mid-20th century, they have prominently featured in the work of composers such as [[Lou Harrison]], [[Giacinto Scelsi]], [[Alfred Schnittke]] and [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]], and later [[Eric Whitacre]]. Tone clusters also play a significant role in the work of [[free jazz]] musicians such as [[Cecil Taylor]], [[Matthew Shipp]], and [[Kevin Kastning]].

In most Western music, tone clusters tend to be heard as [[consonance and dissonance|dissonant]]. Clusters may be performed with almost any individual instrument on which three or more notes can be played simultaneously, as well as by most groups of instruments or voices. [[Keyboard instrument]]s are particularly suited to the performance of tone clusters because it is relatively easy to play multiple notes in unison on them.

==Music theory and classification==
[[File:Piano-keyboard.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The modern [[Musical keyboard|keyboard]] is designed for playing a diatonic scale on the white keys and a pentatonic scale on the black keys. Chromatic scales involve both. Three immediately adjacent keys produce a basic chromatic tone cluster.]]

Prototypical tone clusters are chords of three or more adjacent notes on a [[chromatic scale]], that is, three or more adjacent [[Pitch (music)|pitches]] each separated by only a [[semitone]]. Three-note stacks based on [[Diatonic scale|diatonic]] and [[Pentatonic scale|pentatonic]] [[scale (music)|scales]] are also, strictly speaking, tone clusters. However, these stacks involve [[Interval (music)|intervals]] between notes greater than the half-tone gaps of the chromatic kind. This can readily be seen on a keyboard, where the pitch of each key is separated from the next by one semitone (visualizing the black keys as extending to the edge of the keyboard): Diatonic scales—conventionally played on the white keys—contain only two semitone intervals; the rest are full tones. In Western musical traditions, pentatonic scales—conventionally played on the black keys—are built entirely from intervals larger than a semitone. Commentators thus tend to identify diatonic and pentatonic stacks as "tone clusters" only when they consist of four or more successive notes in the scale.<ref>See Nicholls (1991), p. 155.</ref> In standard [[Classical music|Western classical music]] practice, all tone clusters are classifiable as [[secundal]] chords—that is, they are constructed from [[minor second]]s (intervals of one semitone), [[major second]]s (intervals of two semitones), or, in the case of certain pentatonic clusters, [[augmented second]]s (intervals of three semitones). Stacks of adjacent [[microtonal music|microtonal]] pitches also constitute tone clusters.<ref>Jones (2008), p. 91; Wilkins (2006), p. 145; Norman (2004), p. 47.</ref>

[[File:Thirteenth chord collapsed.png|thumb|A [[thirteenth chord]] collapsed into one octave results in a [[Consonance and dissonance|dissonant]] tone cluster<ref>Cope (2001), p. 6, fig. 1.17.</ref>[[File:Thirteenth chord collapsed.mid]]]]

In tone clusters, the notes are sounded fully and in unison, distinguishing them from [[ornament (music)|ornamented]] figures involving [[ornament (music)#Acciaccatura|acciaccaturas]] and the like. Their effect also tends to be different: where ornamentation is used to draw attention to the [[harmony]] or the relationship between harmony and [[melody]], tone clusters are for the most part employed as independent sounds. While, by definition, the notes that form a cluster must sound at the same time, there is no requirement that they must all ''begin'' sounding at the same moment. For example, in [[R. Murray Schafer]]'s choral ''Epitaph for Moonlight'' (1968), a tone cluster is constructed by dividing each choir section (soprano/alto/tenor/bass) into four parts. Each of the sixteen parts enters separately, humming a note one semitone lower than the note hummed by the previous part, until all sixteen are contributing to the cluster.<ref>Swift (1972), pp. 511–512.</ref>

[[File:Harmonic series spacing successive octaves.png|thumb|By the fourth [[octave]] of the [[harmonic series (music)|harmonic series]], successive harmonics form increasingly small [[second (interval)|seconds]] the fifth octave of harmonics (16–32)[[File:Tone cluster fifth octave harmonic series.mid]]]]

Tone clusters have generally been thought of as dissonant musical textures, and even defined as such.<ref>See, e.g., Seachrist (2003), p. 215, n. 15: "A 'tone cluster' is a dissonant group of tones lying close together...."</ref> As noted by Alan Belkin, however, instrumental [[timbre]] can have a significant impact on their effect: "Clusters are quite aggressive on the organ, but soften enormously when played by strings (possibly because slight, continuous fluctuations of pitch in the latter provide some inner mobility)."<ref>{{cite web|author=Belkin, Alan|url=http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/bk.H/H6.html|title=Harmony and Texture; Orchestration and Harmony/Timbre|publisher=Université de Montréal|year=2003|access-date=2007-08-18 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070622064614/http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/bk.H/H6.html |archive-date = 2007-06-22}}</ref> In his first published work on the topic, [[Henry Cowell]] observed that a tone cluster is "more pleasing" and "acceptable to the ear if its outer limits form a consonant interval."<ref>Cowell (1921), pp. 112, 113.</ref> Cowell explains, "the natural spacing of so-called dissonances is as seconds, as in the overtone series, rather than sevenths and ninths....Groups spaced in seconds may be made to sound euphonious, particularly if played in conjunction with fundamental chord notes taken from lower in the same overtone series. Blends them together and explains them to the ear."<ref>Cowell, Henry (1969). ''New Musical Resources'', p.111-139. New York: Something Else. {{pre-ISBN}}.</ref> Tone clusters have also been considered noise. As [[Mauricio Kagel]] says, "clusters have generally been used as a kind of anti-harmony, as a transition between sound and noise."<ref>Kagel, Mauricio. "Tone-clusters, Attacks, Transitions", p.46. Cited in [[John Schneider (guitarist)|Schneider, John]] (1985). ''The Contemporary Guitar'', p.172. University of California. {{ISBN|9780520040489}}.</ref> Tone clusters thus also lend themselves to use in a percussive manner. Historically, they were sometimes discussed with a hint of disdain. One 1969 textbook defines the tone cluster as "an extra-harmonic clump of notes".<ref>Ostransky (1969), p. 208.</ref>

==Notation and execution==
[[File:Cowell tone clusters.png|thumb|Example of Henry Cowell's notation of tone clusters for piano[[File:Cowell tone clusters.mid]]]]
In his 1917 piece ''[[The Tides of Manaunaun]]'', Cowell introduced a new notation for tone clusters on the piano and other keyboard instruments. In this notation, only the top and bottom notes of a cluster, connected by a single line or a pair of lines, are represented.<ref>The score of ''The Tides of Manaunaun'' is reprinted in ''American Piano Classics: 39 Works by Gottschalk, Griffes, Gershwin, Copland, and Others'', ed. Joseph Smith (Mineola, New York: Courier Dover, 2001; {{ISBN|0-486-41377-2}}), pp. 43 et seq.</ref> This developed into the solid-bar style seen in the image on the right. Here, the first chord—stretching two [[octave]]s from D<sub>2</sub> to D<sub>4</sub>—is a diatonic (so-called white-note) cluster, indicated by the natural sign below the staff. The second is a pentatonic (so-called black-note) cluster, indicated by the flat sign; a sharp sign would be required if the notes showing the limit of the cluster were spelled as sharps. A chromatic cluster—black and white keys together—is shown in this method by a solid bar with no sign at all.<ref>Hicks (2002), p. 103.</ref> In scoring the large, dense clusters of the solo organ work ''Volumina'' in the early 1960s, [[György Ligeti]], using graphical notation, blocked in whole sections of the keyboard.<ref>Griffiths (1995), p. 137.</ref>

The performance of keyboard tone clusters is widely considered an "[[extended technique]]"—large clusters require unusual playing methods often involving the fist, the flat of the hand, or the forearm. [[Thelonious Monk]] and [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]] each performed clusters with their elbows; Stockhausen developed a method for playing cluster [[glissandi]] with special gloves.<ref>{{cite web|author=Tyranny, "Blue" Gene |url=http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=54tp16 |title=88 Keys to Freedom: Segues Through the History of American Piano Music—The Keyboard Goes Bop! and the Melody Spins Off into Eternity (1939 to 1952) |work=[[NewMusicBox]]|publisher=American Music Center |date=2003-10-01 |access-date=2007-08-20 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604001431/http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=54tp16 |archive-date=June 4, 2011 }} Cooke (1998), p. 205.</ref> [[Don Pullen]] would play moving clusters by rolling the backs of his hands over the keyboard.<ref name=R205>Ratliff (2002), p. 205.</ref> Boards of various dimension are sometimes employed, as in the [[Piano Sonata No. 2 (Ives)|''Concord'' Sonata]] ({{circa}} 1904–19) of [[Charles Ives]]; they can be weighted down to execute clusters of long duration.<ref name=HR624>Hinson and Roberts (2006), p. 624.</ref> Several of [[Lou Harrison]]'s scores call for the use of an "octave bar", crafted to facilitate high-speed keyboard cluster performance.<ref name=ML135>Miller and Lieberman (2004), p. 135.</ref> Designed by Harrison with his partner [[William Colvig]], the octave bar is
<blockquote>
a flat wooden device approximately two inches high with a grip on top and sponge rubber on the bottom, with which the player strikes the keys. Its length spans an octave on a grand piano. The sponge rubber bottom is sculpted so that its ends are slightly lower than its center, making the outer tones of the octave sound with greater force than the intermediary pitches. The pianist can thus rush headlong through fearfully rapid passages, precisely spanning an octave at each blow.<ref name=ML135/>
</blockquote>

==Use in Western music==

===Before the 1900s===
The earliest example of tone clusters in a Western music composition thus far identified is in the Allegro movement of [[Heinrich Biber]]'s ''[[Battalia à 10]]'' (1673) for string ensemble, which calls for several diatonic clusters.<ref>"Earliest Usages: 1. Pitch" in {{cite web|author=Byrd, Donald|url=http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm|title=Extremes of Conventional Music Notation|publisher=Indiana University, School of Informatics (website material based in part on work supported by the National Science Foundation)|date=2010-05-12|access-date=2011-08-29|archive-date=2010-03-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308113537/http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> An orchestral diatonic cluster, containing all the notes of the [[harmonic minor scale]], occurs also in the representation of chaos in the opening of [[Jean-Féry Rebel]]'s 1737–38 ballet ''[[Les Élémens (Rebel)|Les Élémens]]''.<ref>Henck (2004), pp. 52–54.</ref>
[[File:Rebel, les Elemens, opening 01.wav|thumb|Rebel, ''Les Élemens'', opening]]
[[File:Rebel, les Elemens, opening 02.png|thumb|center|500px|Rebel, ''Les Élemens'', [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LduVCPkshHw opening]]]
From the next century-and-a-half, a few more examples have been identified, mostly no more than a fleeting instance of the form, for example in the opening of [[J.S. Bach]]'s Cantata ''[[O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort]]'', [[BWV]] 60 [[File:Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV60 opening 01.wav|thumb|Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV60 opening]] [[File:Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV60 opening.png|thumb|center|500px|Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV 60]] or in the concluding two bars of the "Loure" from the same composer's French Suite No. 5, BWV 816:
[[File:Loure from Bach French Suite No 5, concluding bars.wav|thumb|Loure from Bach's French Suite No. 5, concluding bars]]
[[File:Loure from Bach, French Suite No 5, concluding bars.png|thumb|center|500px|Loure from Bach, French Suite No. 5, concluding bars]]
or the collisions that result from the interaction of multiple lines "locked together in [[Nonchord tone#Suspension|suspensions]]"<ref>David, H. T. (1945, p. 138) ''J.S.Bach's Musical Offering''. New York, Schirmer</ref> in Bach's ''[[The Musical Offering]]'':
[[File:Ricercar a 6 from the Musical Offering bars 29-31.wav|thumb|Ricercar a 6 from ''The Musical Offering'' bars 29–31]]
[[File:J.S.Bach, Ricercar a 6 from the Musical Offering bars 29-31.png|thumb|center|500px|J. S. Bach, Ricercar a 6 from ''The Musical Offering'' bars 29–31]]

In the keyboard sonatas of [[Domenico Scarlatti]] (1685–1757), we find a more daring and idiosyncratic use of tone clusters. In the following passage from the late 1740s, Scarlatti builds the dissonances over several bars:
[[File:Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143-168.wav|thumb|Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143–168]]
[[File:Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143-168.png|thumb|center|500px|Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143–168]]

Ralph Kirkpatrick says that these chords "are not clusters in the sense that they are arbitrary blobs of dissonance, nor are they necessarily haphazard fillings up of diatonic intervals or simultaneous soundings of neighboring tones; they are logical expressions of Scarlatti's harmonic language and organic manifestations of his tonal structure."<ref>Kirkpatrick (1953), p. 231.</ref> Frederick Neumann describes Sonata K175 (1750s) as "full of Scarlatti's famous tone clusters".<ref>Neumann (1983), pp. 353–354.</ref> During this era, as well, several French programmatic compositions for the harpsichord or piano represent cannon fire with clusters: works by François Dandrieu (''Les Caractères de la guerre'', 1724), [[Michel Corrette]] (''La Victoire d'un combat naval, remportée par une frégate contre plusieurs corsaires réunis'', 1780), [[Claude-Bénigne Balbastre]] (''March des Marseillois'', 1793), Pierre Antoine César (''La Battaille de Gemmap, ou la prise de Mons'', {{circa}} 1794), Bernard Viguerie (''La Bataille de Maringo, pièce militaire et hitorique'', for piano trio, 1800), and [[Jacques-Marie Beauvarlet-Charpentier]] (''Battaille d'Austerlitz'', 1805).<ref>Henck (2004), pp. 32–40.</ref>

A dramatic use of a "virtual" tone cluster can be found in [[Franz Schubert]]'s song "[[Erlkönig (Schubert)|Erlkönig]]" (1815–21). Here, a terrified child calls out to his father when he sees an apparition of the sinister Erl King. The dissonant voicing of the dominant minor [[ninth chord]] used here (C<sup>7{{music|flat}}9</sup>) is particularly effective in heightening the drama and sense of threat.
[[File:From Schubert, "Erlkonig".wav|thumb|From Schubert's "Erlkönig"]]
[[File:Erlking - my father.png|center|thumb|500px|Extract from Schubert's "Erlkönig"]]
Writing about this passage, [[Richard Taruskin]] remarked on the "unprecedented ... level of dissonance at the boy's outcries. ... The voice has the ninth, pitched above, and the left hand has the seventh, pitched below. The result is a virtual 'tone cluster' ... the harmonic logic of these progressions, within the rules of composition Schubert was taught, can certainly be demonstrated. That logic, however, is not what appeals so strongly to the listener's imagination; rather it is the calculated impression (or illusion) of wild abandon."<ref>[[Richard Taruskin|Taruskin, R.]] (2010) ''The Oxford History of Western Music'', Volume 4, p. 149. ''Music in the Nineteenth Century'', Oxford University Press.</ref>

The concluding Arietta from [[Beethoven]]’s last [[Piano Sonata No. 32 (Beethoven)|Piano Sonata No. 32]], Op. 111 features a passage which, according to [[Martin Cooper (musicologist)|Martin Cooper]] “gives a momentary touch of blurredness by the repeated cluster of fourths.” <ref>Cooper, M.,  ''Beethoven, the Last Decade''. Oxford University Press.</ref> [[File:Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96-7.wav|thumb|Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96–97]][[File:Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96-7.png|thumb|center|500px|Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96–97]]

The next known compositions after Charpentier's to feature tone clusters are [[Charles-Valentin Alkan]]'s "Une fusée" (A Rocket) Op. 55, published in 1859, and his "Les Diablotins" (The Imps), a miniature from the set of 49 ''[[Esquisses (Alkan)|Esquisses]]'' (sketches) for solo piano, published in 1861.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} [[File:Diablotins.jpg|thumb|center|upright=3.00|Extract from Alkan's ''Les diablotins'', Op. 63, no. 45, featuring tone clusters[[File:Diablotins.mid]]]]

There is also the solo piano piece ''Battle of Manassas'', written in 1861 by [[Blind Tom Wiggins|"Blind Tom" Bethune]] and published in 1866. The score instructs the pianist to represent cannon fire at various points by striking "with the flat of the hand, as many notes as possible, and with as much force as possible, at the bass of the piano."<ref>Quoted in Altman (2004), p. 47.</ref> In 1887, [[Giuseppe Verdi]] became the first notable composer in the Western tradition to write an unmistakable chromatic cluster: the storm music with which ''[[Otello]]'' opens includes an organ cluster (C, C{{music|sharp}}, D) that also has the longest notated duration of any scored musical texture known.<ref>Kimbell (1991), p. 606; "Earliest Usages: 1. Pitch" and "Duration and Rhythm: 2. Longest notated duration, including ties" in [http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm Extremes of Conventional Music Notation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308113537/http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm |date=2010-03-08 }}.</ref> The choral finale of [[Gustav Mahler]]'s [[Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 2]] features a tone cluster of great poignancy arising naturally out of [[voice leading]] to the words "wird, der dich rief, dir geben":
[[File:Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4-10.wav|thumb|Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4–10]]
[[File:Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4-10.png|thumb|center|600px|Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4–10]]

Still, it was not before the second decade of the twentieth century that tone clusters assumed a recognized place in Western classical music practice.

===In classical music of the early 1900s===
[[File:Leo Ornstein as a young man.jpg|thumb|right|[[Leo Ornstein]] was the first composer to be widely known for using tone clusters—though the term itself was not yet used to describe the radical aspect of his work.]]
[[File:Tintamarre Anger last chord.png|upright|thumb|Final chord of ''Tintamarre''[[File:Tintamarre Anger last chord.mid]]]]

"Around 1910," [[Harold C. Schonberg]] writes, "[[Percy Grainger]] was causing a stir by the near–tone clusters in such works as his ''Gumsuckers March.''"<ref>Schonberg (1987), p. 419.</ref> In 1911, what appears to be the first published classical composition to thoroughly integrate true tone clusters was issued: ''Tintamarre (The Clangor of Bells)'', by Canadian composer [[J. Humfrey Anger]] (1862–1913).{{efn|1=For a discussion of the piece, see {{cite web|author=Keillor, Elaine|url=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/sheetmusic/028008-3200-e.html|title=Writing for a Market—Canadian Musical Composition Before the First World War|publisher=Library and Archives Canada/Bibliothèque et Archives Canada|date=2004-05-10|access-date=2011-08-29}} The [http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/m5/f2/csm456.pdf score] of ''Tintamarre'' and its [https://archive.today/20120629090930/http://amicus.collectionscanada.ca/m5-bin/Main/ItemDisplay?l=0&ID=24441&v=1&lvl=1&coll=15&rt=1&itm=15687551all=1&dt=AN+15687551&spi=- publication record] are also available online via Library and Archives Canada/Bibliothèque et Archives Canada. See also Keillor (2000) and {{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/humfrey-anger-emc|title=Anger, Humfrey|publisher=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Music in Canada|access-date=2007-08-20}} The early performance history of ''Tintamarre'' has not been established.}}

Within a few years, the radical composer-pianist [[Leo Ornstein]] became one of the most famous figures in classical music on both sides of the Atlantic for his performances of cutting-edge work. In 1914, Ornstein debuted several of his own solo piano compositions: ''[[Wild Men's Dance]]'' (aka ''Danse Sauvage''; {{circa}} 1913–14), ''Impressions of the Thames'' ({{circa}} 1913–14), and ''Impressions of Notre Dame'' ({{circa}} 1913–14) were the first works to explore the tone cluster in depth ever heard by a substantial audience. ''Wild Men's Dance'', in particular, was constructed almost entirely out of clusters ({{Audio|Ornstein-Wild Mens Dance.ogg|listen}}).{{efn|See Broyles (2004), p. 78, for premiere of these works. The piano music for Ornstein's Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 31 (1915; not 1913 as is often erroneously given), also employs tone clusters, though not to the extent of ''Wild Men's Dance''. ''Three Moods'' ({{circa}} 1914) for solo piano has been said to contain clusters (Pollack [2000], p. 44); perusal online of the published score, however, does not reveal any. Ornstein's solo piano piece ''Suicide in an Airplane'' (n.d.), which makes incontrovertible use of tone clusters in one extended passage, is often erroneously dated "1913" or "{{circa}} 1913"; in fact, it is undated and there is no record of its existence before 1919 (Anderson [2002]).}} In 1918, critic Charles L. Buchanan described Ornstein's innovation: "[He] gives us masses of shrill, hard dissonances, chords consisting of anywhere from eight to a dozen notes made up of half tones heaped one upon another."<ref>Quoted in Chase (1992), p. 450.</ref>

Clusters were also beginning to appear in more pieces by European composers. [[Isaac Albéniz]]'s use of them in ''[[Iberia (Albéniz)|Iberia]]'' (1905–1908) may have influenced [[Gabriel Fauré]]'s subsequent piano writing.<ref>Nectoux (2004), p. 171.</ref> [[Joseph Horowitz]] has suggested that the "dissonant star clusters" in its third and fourth books were particularly compelling to [[Olivier Messiaen]], who called ''Iberia'' "the wonder of the piano".<ref>Horowitz (2010), p. 18.</ref> The [[Thomas de Hartmann]] score for [[Wassily Kandinsky]]'s stage show ''[[The Yellow Sound]]'' (1909) employs a chromatic cluster at two climactic points.<ref>Finney (1967), p. 74.</ref> [[Alban Berg]]'s Four Pieces for clarinet and piano (1913) calls for clusters along with other avant-garde keyboard techniques.<ref>Pino (1998), p. 258.</ref> [[Claude Debussy]]'s Piano Prelude "[[La Cathédrale Engloutie]]" makes powerful use of clusters to evoke the sound of "pealing bells – with so many added major seconds one would call this [[Pandiatonicism|pan-diatonic]] harmony".<ref>DeVoto, M. (2003, .p190) "The Debussy Sound", in Trezise, M. (ed.) ''The Cambridge Companion to Debussy''. Cambridge University Press.</ref>
[[File:Debussy "La cathedrale engloutie", bars 22-28.wav|thumb|Debussy "La cathédrale engloutie", bars 22–28]]
[[File:Debussy "La cathedrale engloutie", bars 22-28.png|thumb|center|500px|Debussy "La cathédrale engloutie", bars 22–28]]

In his 1913 piano prelude "General Lavine – Excentric", one of the first pieces to be influenced by black American popular styles (the [[Cakewalk]]) Debussy features abrasive tone clusters at the conclusion of the following passage:
[[File:Debussy, "General lavine" - excentric, bars 11-19.wav|thumb|Debussy, "General Lavine" – excentric, bars 11–19]]
[[File:Debussy, "General lavine" - excentric, bars 11-18.png|thumb|center|500px|Debussy, "General Lavine" – excentric, bars 11–18]]

In his 1915 arrangement for solo piano of his ''Six Epigraphes Antiques'' (1914), originally a set of piano duets, Debussy includes tone clusters in the fifth piece, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0F-pWAJ9no&t=10m0s ''Pour l'Egyptienne''].<ref>Hinson (1990), pp. 43–44.</ref>
[[File:Debussy, Pour l'Egyptienne from 6 Epigraphes Antiques (solo piano version).png|thumb|center|500px|Debussy, Pour l'Egyptienne from 6 Epigraphes Antiques (solo piano version)]]  

Russian composer [[Vladimir Rebikov]] used them extensively in his ''Three Idylles'', Op. 50, written in 1913.{{Citation needed|date=March 2020}} [[Richard Strauss]]'s ''[[An Alpine Symphony]]'' (1915) "starts and ends with the setting sun—a B flat minor chord cluster slowly built down."<ref>W.S.M. (1958), p. 63.</ref>

Though much of his work was made public only years later, [[Charles Ives]] had been exploring the possibilities of the tone cluster—which he referred to as the "group chord"—for some time. In 1906–07, Ives composed his first mature piece to extensively feature tone clusters, ''Scherzo: Over the Pavements''.{{efn|1=Thomas B. Holmes (1985; 2002: p. 35{{Clarify|date=November 2015|reason=Which of the two editions is meant? The pagination is not the same in the two versions.}}) notes that the song ''Majority'' (aka ''The Masses''), written by Ives in 1888 at the age of fourteen, incorporates tone clusters in the piano accompaniment. He correctly describes this as "a rebellious act for a beginning composer". He errs in calling it "probably the first documented use of a tone cluster in a score". Swafford (1998) observes that Ives chose to begin his ''114 Songs'' (publ. 1922) with the work (pp. 227, 271, 325). And he too miscredits Ives with the "invention of the tone cluster" (p. 231). On the other hand, he valuably points to Ives's awareness that "tone clusters...had been there since time immemorial when large groups sang. The mistakes were part of the music" (p. 98).}} Orchestrated for a nine-piece ensemble, it includes both black- and white-note clusters for the piano.<ref>Nicholls (1991), p. 57.</ref> Revised in 1913, it would not be recorded and published until the 1950s and would have to wait until 1963 to receive its first public performance. During the same period that Ornstein was introducing tone clusters to the concert stage, Ives was developing a piece with what would become the most famous set of clusters: in the second movement, "Hawthorne", of the [[Piano Sonata No. 2 (Ives)|''Concord'' Sonata]] ({{circa}} 1904–1915, publ. 1920, prem. 1928, rev. 1947), mammoth piano chords require a wooden bar almost fifteen inches long to play.<ref>Reed (2005), p. 59; Swafford (1998), p. 262. The "Hawthorne" movement was based on the unfinished ''Hawthorne'' Concerto of 1910, from which it was recomposed largely in 1911–12. See Ives (1947), p. iii.</ref> The gentle clusters produced by the felt- or flannel-covered bar represent the sound of far-off church bells ({{Audio|Ives-Concord Sonata M2.ogg|listen}}).<ref>Shreffler (1991), p. 3; Hitchcock (2004), p. 2.</ref> Later in the movement, there are a series of five-note diatonic clusters for the right hand. In his notes to the score, Ives indicates that "these group-chords...may, if the player feels like it, be hit with the clenched fist."<ref>Ives (1947), p. 73. Ives's orthography was not consistent. When the term "group chord" is introduced earlier in the notes, it appears without a hyphen.</ref> Between 1911 and 1913, Ives also wrote ensemble pieces with tone clusters such as his Second String Quartet and the orchestral ''Decoration Day'' and ''Fourth of July'', though none of these would be publicly performed before the 1930s.{{efn|1=Swafford (1998), pp. 251, 252, 472, for descriptions; Sinclair (1999), ''passim'', for proper dating of ''Scherzo: Over the Pavements'', ''Concord'' Sonata, and other named pieces: Second String Quartet (1911–13, prem. 1946, publ. 1954); ''Decoration Day'' ({{circa}} 1912–13, rev. {{circa}} 1923–24, prem. 1931, publ. 1962); ''Fourth of July'' ({{circa}} 1911–13, rev. {{circa}} 1931, publ./prem. 1932).}}

===In the work of Henry Cowell===
[[File:Henry Cowell portrait NYPL 4002097 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|As a composer, performer, and theorist, [[Henry Cowell]] was largely responsible for establishing the tone cluster in the lexicon of modern classical music.]]
{{Listen|type=music|filename=Cowell-Tides of Manaunaun.ogg |title=''Tides of Manaunaun'' (1917) |description=The opening of Cowell's seminal piece}}
In June 1913, a sixteen-year-old Californian with no formal musical training wrote a solo piano piece, ''Adventures in Harmony'', employing "primitive tone clusters".<ref>Nicholls (1991), p. 134.</ref> [[Henry Cowell]] would soon emerge as the seminal figure in promoting the cluster harmonic technique. Ornstein abandoned the concert stage in the early 1920s and, anyway, clusters had served him as practical harmonic devices, not as part of a larger theoretical mission. In the case of Ives, clusters comprised a relatively small part of his compositional output, much of which went unheard for years. For the intellectually ambitious Cowell—who heard Ornstein perform in New York in 1916—clusters were crucial to the future of music. He set out to explore their "overall, cumulative, and often programmatic effects".<ref>Broyles (2004), p. 342, n. 10.</ref>

''[[Dynamic Motion]]'' (1916) for solo piano, written when Cowell was nineteen, has been described as "probably the first piece anywhere using secundal chords independently for musical extension and variation."<ref>Bartók et al. (1963), p. 14 (unpaginated).</ref> Though that is not quite accurate, it does appear to be the first piece to employ chromatic clusters in such a manner. A solo piano piece Cowell wrote the following year, ''[[The Tides of Manaunaun]]'' (1917), would prove to be his most popular work and the composition most responsible for establishing the tone cluster as a significant element in Western classical music. (Cowell's early piano works are often erroneously dated; in the two cases above, as 1914 and 1912, respectively.<ref>Correct dating of Cowell's early works is per Hicks (2002), pp. 80, 85. Correct dating of Cowell's work in general is per the standard catalogue, Lichtenwanger (1986).</ref>) Assumed by some to involve an essentially random—or, more kindly, [[aleatoric music|aleatoric]]—pianistic approach, Cowell would explain that precision is required in the writing and performance of tone clusters no less than with any other musical feature:
<blockquote>
Tone clusters...on the piano [are] whole scales of tones used as chords, or at least three contiguous tones along a scale being used as a chord. And, at times, if these chords exceed the number of tones that you have fingers on your hand, it may be necessary to play these either with the flat of the hand or sometimes with the full forearm. This is not done from the standpoint of trying to devise a new piano technique, although it actually amounts to that, but rather because this is the only practicable method of playing such large chords. It should be obvious that these chords are exact and that one practices diligently in order to play them with the desired tone quality and to have them absolutely precise in nature.<ref>Cowell (1993), 12:16–13:14.</ref>
</blockquote>
Historian and critic [[Kyle Gann]] describes the broad range of ways in which Cowell constructed (and thus performed) his clusters and used them as musical textures, "sometimes with a top note brought out melodically, sometimes accompanying a left-hand melody in parallel."<ref>{{cite web|author=Gann, Kyle|url=http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2003/10/rosens_sins_of_american_omissi.html|title=Rosen's Sins of American Omission|work=ArtsJournal|date=2003-10-21|access-date=2007-08-18}}</ref>

Beginning in 1921, with an article serialized in ''The Freeman'', an Irish cultural journal, Cowell popularized the term ''tone cluster''.<ref>Hicks (2002), pp. 106–108.</ref> While he did not coin the phrase, as is often claimed, he appears to have been the first to use it with its current meaning.{{efn|1=See Seachrist (2003), p. 215, n. 15, for an example of a claim that the "term was invented by Henry Cowell". ''Tone cluster'' had been used with a different meaning since at least 1910 by music theorist and educator [[Percy Goetschius]] (n.d., 111): referring to an example of three-part [[counterpoint]], "there is some good chord-form at almost every accent, some harmonic tone-cluster towards which the parts unanimously lead." See also his correspondence, "Schoenberg's 'Harmony,'" in ''The New Music Review and Church Music Review'', vol. 14, no. 168 (November 1915), p. 404: "I have regretted that I did not, in revising my 'Material', lay still greater stress upon the accidental tone-clusters such as you illustrate"; "in Ex. 318, No. 5, you will find the Mozart tone-cluster which you give in your Ex. 11."}} During the 1920s and 1930s, Cowell toured widely through North America and Europe, playing his own experimental works, many built around tone clusters. In addition to ''The Tides of Manaunaun'', ''Dynamic Motion'', and [[Dynamic Motion#Five Encores to Dynamic Motion|its five "encores"]]—''What's This'' (1917), ''Amiable Conversation'' (1917), ''Advertisement'' (1917), ''Antinomy'' (1917, rev. 1959; frequently misspelled "Antimony"), and ''Time Table'' (1917)—these include ''The Voice of Lir'' (1920), ''Exultation'' (1921), ''The Harp of Life'' (1924), ''Snows of Fujiyama'' (1924), ''Lilt of the Reel'' (1930), and ''Deep Color'' (1938). ''Tiger'' (1930) has a chord of 53 notes, probably the largest ever written for a single instrument until 1969.<ref>"Other: 1. Vertical extremes" in [http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm Extremes of Conventional Music Notation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308113537/http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm |date=2010-03-08 }}.</ref> Along with Ives, Cowell wrote some of the first large-ensemble pieces to make extensive use of clusters. ''The Birth of Motion'' ({{circa}} 1920), his earliest such effort, combines orchestral clusters with glissando.<ref>Yunwha Rao (2004), p. 245.</ref> "Tone Cluster", the second movement of Cowell's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1928, prem. 1978), employs a wide variety of clusters for the piano and each instrumental group ({{Audio|Cowell-Piano Concerto M1.ogg|listen}}).<ref>Zwenzner (2001), p. 13.</ref> From a quarter-century later, his Symphony No. 11 (1953) features a sliding chromatic cluster played by muted violins.<ref>Yunwha Rao (2004), p. 138.</ref>

In his theoretical work ''New Musical Resources'' (1930), a major influence on the classical avant-garde for many decades, Cowell argued that clusters should not be employed simply for color:
<blockquote>
In harmony it is often better for the sake of consistency to maintain a whole succession of clusters, once they are begun; since one alone, or even two, may be heard as a mere effect, rather than as an independent and significant procedure, carried with musical logic to its inevitable conclusion.<ref>Quoted in Gann (1997), p. 174.</ref>
</blockquote>

===In later classical music===
[[File:Bartók Béla 1927.jpg|thumb|right|[[Béla Bartók]] and Henry Cowell met in December 1923. Early the next year, the Hungarian composer wrote Cowell to ask whether he might adopt tone clusters without causing offense.]]
In 1922, composer [[Dane Rudhyar]], a friend of Cowell's, declared approvingly that the development of the tone cluster "imperilled [the] existence" of "the musical unit, the note".<ref>Quoted in Hicks (2002), p. 108.</ref> While that threat was not to be realized, clusters began to appear in the works of a growing number of composers. Already, [[Aaron Copland]] had written his ''Three Moods'' (aka ''Trois Esquisses''; 1920–21) for piano—its name an apparent homage to a piece of Leo Ornstein's—which includes a triple-[[Dynamics (music)|forte]] cluster.<ref>Pollack (2000), p. 44.</ref> The most renowned composer to be directly inspired by Cowell's demonstrations of his tone cluster pieces was [[Béla Bartók]], who requested Cowell's permission to employ the method.<ref>Stevens (1993), p. 67.</ref> Bartók's [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Bartók)|First Piano Concerto]], [[Piano Sonata (Bartók)|Piano Sonata]], and the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xU-p9wmSqg&t=6m40s "Night Music"] from the [[Out of Doors (Bartók)|''Out of Doors'']] suite (all 1926), his first significant works after three years in which he produced little, extensively feature tone clusters.<ref>Steinberg (2000), p. 37; Satola (2005), pp. 85–86; Lampert and Somfai (1984), p. 60.</ref>

In the 1930s, Cowell's student [[Lou Harrison]] utilized keyboard clusters in several works such as his Prelude for Grandpiano (1937).<ref>Miller and Lieberman (2004), pp. 10, 135.</ref> At least as far back as 1942, [[John Cage]], who also studied under Cowell, began writing piano pieces with cluster chords; ''In the Name of the Holocaust'', from December of that year, includes chromatic, diatonic, and pentatonic clusters.<ref>Salzman (1996), p. 3 (unpaginated).</ref> [[Olivier Messiaen]]'s ''[[Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus|Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus]]'' (1944), often described as the most important solo piano piece of the first half of the twentieth century, employs clusters throughout.<ref>Meister (2006), p. 131–132.</ref> They would feature in numerous subsequent piano works, by a range of composers. [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]]'s ''[[Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)#Klavierstück X|Klavierstück X]]'' (1961) makes bold, rhetorical use of chromatic clusters, scaled in seven degrees of width, from three to thirty-six semitones, as well as ascending and descending cluster arpeggios and cluster glissandi.<ref>Harvey (1975), p. 43; Henck (1980), p. 17; Maconie (2005), p. 217.</ref> Written two decades later, his ''[[Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)#Klavierstück XIII|Klavierstück XIII]]'' employs many of the same techniques, along with clusters that call for the pianist to sit down on the keyboard.<ref>Rigoni (2001), p. 53.</ref> [[George Crumb]]'s ''Apparitions, Elegiac Songs, and Vocalises for Soprano and Amplified Piano'' (1979), a setting of verse by [[Walt Whitman]], is filled with clusters, including an enormous one that introduces three of its sections.<ref>Kramer (2000), p. 137.</ref> The piano part of the second movement of [[Joseph Schwantner]]'s song cycle ''Magabunda'' (1983) has perhaps the single largest chord ever written for an individual instrument: all 88 notes on the keyboard.<ref>"Other: 1. Vertical extremes" in [http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm Extremes of Conventional Music Notation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308113537/http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm |date=2010-03-08 }}.</ref>

While tone clusters are conventionally associated with the piano, and the solo piano repertoire in particular, they have also assumed important roles in compositions for chamber groups and larger ensembles. Robert Reigle identifies Croatian composer [[Josip Štolcer-Slavenski|Josip Slavenski]]'s organ-and-violin ''Sonata Religiosa'' (1925), with its sustained chromatic clusters, as "a missing link between Ives and [[György Ligeti|[György] Ligeti]]."<ref>{{cite web|author=Reigle, Robert|url=http://www.lafolia.com/archive/reigle/reigle200204gems.html|title=Forgotten Gems|work=La Folia|date=April 2002|access-date=2007-08-19}}</ref> Bartók employs both diatonic and chromatic clusters in his [[String Quartet No. 4 (Bartók)|Fourth String Quartet]] (1928).<ref>{{harvnb|Trueman|1999}}. See also Robin Stowell, "Extending the Technical and Expressive Frontiers," in ''[[Cambridge Companions to Music|The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet]]'', ed. Stowell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; {{ISBN|0-521-80194-X}}), pp. 149–173; p. 162.</ref> The [[sound mass]] technique in such works as [[Ruth Crawford Seeger]]'s [[String Quartet (Crawford-Seeger)|String Quartet]] (1931) and [[Iannis Xenakis]]'s ''[[Metastaseis (Xenakis)|Metastaseis]]'' (1955) is an elaboration of the tone cluster. "Unlike most tonal and non-tonal linear dissonances, tone clusters are essentially static. The individual pitches are of secondary importance; it is the sound mass that is foremost."<ref>Reisberg, Horace (1975). "The Vertical Dimension", ''Aspects of 20th Century Music'', p.355. Wittlich, Gary; ed. Prentice-Hall. {{ISBN|0130493465}}.</ref> In one of the most famous pieces associated with the sound mass aesthetic, containing, "one of the largest clustering of individual pitches that has been written",<ref>Reisberg (1975), p.358.</ref> [[Krzysztof Penderecki]]'s ''[[Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima]]'' (1959), for fifty-two string instruments, the [[quarter-tone]] clusters "see[m] to have abstracted and intensified the features that define shrieks of terror and keening cries of sorrow."<ref>Hogan (2003), p. 179.</ref> Clusters appear in two sections of the electronic music of Stockhausen's ''[[Kontakte]]'' (1958–1960)—first as "hammering points...very difficult to synthesize", according to Robin Maconie, then as glissandi.<ref>Maconie (2005), p. 217.</ref> In 1961, Ligeti wrote perhaps the largest cluster chord ever—in the orchestral ''[[Atmosphères]]'', every note in the chromatic scale over a range of five [[octave]]s is played at once (quietly).<ref>Steinitz (2003), p.&nbsp;108.</ref> Ligeti's organ works make extensive use of clusters. ''Volumina'' (1961–62), graphically notated, consists of static and mobile cluster masses, and calls on many advanced cluster-playing techniques.<ref>Steinitz (2003), pp. 124–126; Herchenröder (2002), p. 303.</ref>

The eighth movement of Messiaen's [[oratorio]] ''[[La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ]]'' (1965–1969) features "a shimmering halo of tone-cluster glissandi" in the strings, evoking the "bright cloud" to which the narrative refers ({{Audio|Messiaen-Transfiguration M8.ogg|listen}}).<ref>Smither (2000), p. 674.</ref> Orchestral clusters are employed throughout Stockhausen's ''[[Fresco (Stockhausen)|Fresco]]'' (1969) and ''[[Trans (Stockhausen)|Trans]]'' (1971).<ref name="Maconie 2005, p. 338">Maconie (2005), p. 338.</ref> In [[Morton Feldman]]'s ''Rothko Chapel'' (1971), "Wordless vocal tone clusters seep out through the skeletal arrangements of viola, celeste, and percussion."<ref>{{cite web|author=Swan, Glenn|url=http://www.windowsmedia.com/MediaGuide/Templates/AlbumInfo.aspx?a_id=R%20%20%20201863|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930194316/http://www.windowsmedia.com/MediaGuide/Templates/AlbumInfo.aspx?a_id=R%20%20%20201863|url-status=dead|archive-date=2007-09-30|title=''Morton Feldman: Rothko Chapel (1971) for Chorus, Viola and Percussion/Why Patterns? (1978)'' (review)|publisher=WindowsMedia|work=Allmusic|access-date=2007-08-18 }}</ref> [[Aldo Clementi]]'s chamber ensemble piece ''Ceremonial'' (1973) evokes both Verdi and Ives, combining the original extended-duration and mass cluster concepts: a weighted wooden board placed on an electric [[Pump organ|harmonium]] maintains a tone cluster throughout the work.<ref name=HR624/> Judith Bingham's ''Prague'' (1995) gives a brass band the opportunity to create tone clusters.<ref>{{cite web|author=Hindmarsh, Paul|url=http://www.4barsrest.com/articles/2002/art274.asp|title=The Regional Test Pieces 2003|publisher=4barsrest.com|access-date=2007-08-19}}</ref> Keyboard clusters are set against orchestral forces in piano concertos such as [[Einojuhani Rautavaara]]'s first (1969) and [[Esa-Pekka Salonen]]'s (2007), the latter suggestive of Messiaen.<ref>Tommasini (2007).</ref> The choral compositions of [[Eric Whitacre]] often employ clusters, as a trademark of his style.<ref>Larson (2006), p. 23</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.a-cappella.com/product/5068/classical-byusingers |title=''Brigham Young Univ. Singers: Eric Whitacre: Complete A Cappella Works'' (review) |publisher=a-capella.com |year=2002 |access-date=2008-02-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080209211548/http://www.a-cappella.com/product/5068/classical-byusingers |archive-date=2008-02-09 |url-status=dead }} {{cite web |author=Paulin, Scott |url=http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?ean=34571175430 |title=''Whitacre: Cloudburst and Other Choral Works'' (review) |publisher=Barnes & Noble |year=2006 |access-date=2008-02-25 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Whitacre's chord clusters are fundamentally based around [[voice leading]] and not easily interpretable by traditional harmonic analysis.<ref>Larson (2006), pp. 23–24</ref>

Three composers who made frequent use of tone clusters for a wide variety of ensembles are [[Giacinto Scelsi]], [[Alfred Schnittke]]—both of whom often worked with them in microtonal contexts—and Lou Harrison. Scelsi employed them for much of his career, including in his last large-scale work, ''Pfhat'' (1974), which premiered in 1986.<ref>Halbreich (1988), pp. 9, 11 (unpaginated).</ref> They are found in works of Schnittke's ranging from the Quintet for Piano and Strings (1972–1976), where "microtonal strings fin[d] tone clusters between the cracks of the piano keys",<ref>{{cite web|author=Drury, Stephen|url=http://www.callithumpian.org/html/news/fund05.htm |title=Callithumpian Consort Announces March Fund Rasing Concert at West Roxbury's Theodore Parker Church|publisher=Callithumpian Consort|date=2005-02-15|access-date=2009-06-03 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070928060034/http://www.callithumpian.org/html/news/fund05.htm |archive-date = 2007-09-28}}</ref> to the choral ''Psalms of Repentance'' (1988). Harrison's many pieces featuring clusters include ''Pacifika Rondo'' (1963), Concerto for Organ with Percussion (1973), Piano Concerto (1983–1985), Three Songs for male chorus (1985), Grand Duo (1988), and ''Rhymes with Silver'' (1996).<ref>Miller and Lieberman (2004), pp. 10, 99, 135, 155.</ref>

===In jazz===
[[File:Scott Joplin.jpg|thumb|[[Scott Joplin]] wrote the first known published composition to include a musical sequence built around specifically notated tone clusters.]]
Tone clusters have been employed by [[jazz]] artists in a variety of styles, since the very beginning of the form. Around the turn of the twentieth century, [[Storyville, New Orleans|Storyville]] pianist [[Jelly Roll Morton]] began performing a [[ragtime]] adaptation of a French [[quadrille]], introducing large chromatic tone clusters played by his left forearm. The growling effect led Morton to dub the piece his "Tiger Rag" ({{Audio|Morton-Tiger Rag.ogg|listen}}).<ref>Lomax (2001), pp. 66–69; Spaeth (1948), p. 420.</ref> In 1909, [[Scott Joplin]]'s deliberately experimental "Wall Street Rag" included a section prominently featuring notated tone clusters.<ref>See Floyd (1995), p. 72; Berlin (1994), p. 187.</ref>
[[File:Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag 01.wav|thumb|Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag]]
[[File:Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag 02.png|thumb|center|500px|Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag]]

The fourth of [[Artie Matthews]]'s ''Pastime Rags'' (1913–1920) features dissonant right-hand clusters.<ref>Magee (1998), p. 402.</ref> [[Thelonious Monk]], in pieces such as [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RTUlX1P6aU "Bright Mississippi"] (1962), "Introspection" (1946) and "Off Minor" (1947), uses clusters as dramatic figures within the central improvisation and to accent the tension at its conclusion.<ref>Meadows (2003), ch. 10.</ref> They are heard on [[Art Tatum]]'s "Mr. Freddy Blues" (1950), undergirding the [[polyrhythm|cross-rhythms]].<ref>Harrison (1997), p. 315.</ref> By 1953, [[Dave Brubeck]] was employing piano tone clusters and dissonance in a manner anticipating the style [[free jazz]] pioneer [[Cecil Taylor]] would soon develop.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jazzimprov.com/links/legends.cfm?legend_id=4|title=Jazz Legends: Dave Brubeck|work=Jazz Improv|access-date=2007-08-18 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070418205405/http://jazzimprov.com/links/legends.cfm?legend_id=4 |archive-date = April 18, 2007}}</ref> The approach of [[hard bop]] pianist [[Horace Silver]] is an even clearer antecedent to Taylor's use of clusters.<ref>Hazell (1997); Litweiler (1990), p. 202. See also Watrous (1989).</ref> During the same era, clusters appear as punctuation marks in the lead lines of [[Herbie Nichols]].<ref>Litweiler (1990), p. 23.</ref> In "The Gig" (1955), described by Francis Davis as Nichols's masterpiece, "clashing notes and tone clusters depic[t] a pickup band at odds with itself about what to play."<ref>Davis (2004), p. 78.</ref> Recorded examples of [[Duke Ellington]]'s piano cluster work include "Summertime" (1961) and ''[[...And His Mother Called Him Bill]]'' (1967) and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpf5e2pecnI&list=PLyHn3f7-9IULMiUmc6vLeVHIrrDldflO8 ''This One's for Blanton!''], his tribute to a former bass player, recorded in 1972 with bassist [[Ray Brown (musician)|Ray Brown]].<ref>{{cite web|author1=Blumenfeld, Larry|author2=[[John Szwed|Szwed, John F.]]|editor=[[Gary Giddins]]|url=http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-06-08/news/rockin-in-rhythm/|title=Rockin' in Rhythm|work=[[The Village Voice]]|date=June 15, 1999|access-date=2009-06-03}}</ref> [[Bill Evans]]' interpretation of "[[Come Rain or Come Shine]]" from the album ''[[Portrait in Jazz]]'' (1960), opens with a striking [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDSXk0fWCN8 5-tone cluster].<ref>Lee, W. F. (2002, p. 6) ''Bill Evans Piano interpretations''. Hal Leonard.</ref>

In jazz, as in classical music, tone clusters have not been restricted to the keyboard. In the 1930s, the [[Jimmie Lunceford|Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra]]'s "Stratosphere" included ensemble clusters among an array of progressive elements.<ref>Determeyer (2006), p. 78.</ref> The [[Stan Kenton|Stan Kenton Orchestra]]'s April 1947 recording of "If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight", arranged by [[Pete Rugolo]], features a dramatic four-note trombone cluster at the end of the second chorus.<ref>{{cite web|author=Vosbein, Terry|url=http://www.vosbein.com/rugolo.html|title=Pete Rugolo and Progressive Jazz|publisher=Self-published (scholarly paper by established composer and educator presented at the IAJE International Conference, Chicago)|date=January 2002|access-date=2007-08-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070912140200/http://www.vosbein.com/rugolo.html|archive-date=2007-09-12|url-status=dead}}</ref> As described by critic [[Fred Kaplan (journalist)|Fred Kaplan]], a 1950 performance by the Duke Ellington Orchestra features arrangements with the collective "blowing rich, dark, tone clusters that evoke Ravel".<ref>{{cite web|author=Kaplan, Fred|author-link=Fred Kaplan (journalist)|url=http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111310&|title=All That Jazz: The Year's Best Records|work=Slate|date=2004-12-22|access-date=2007-08-18|archive-date=2007-09-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930203734/http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111310&|url-status=dead}}</ref> Chord clusters also feature in the scores of arranger [[Gil Evans]]. In his characteristically imaginative arrangement of [[George Gershwin]]'s "There's a boat that's leaving soon for New York" from the album ''[[Porgy and Bess (Miles Davis album)|Porgy and Bess]]'', Evans contributes chord clusters orchestrated on flutes, alto saxophone and muted trumpets as a background to accompany [[Miles Davis]]' solo [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElKVdkSRe0c&t=1m14s improvisation]. In the early 1960s, arrangements by [[Bob Brookmeyer]] and [[Gerry Mulligan]] for Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band employed tone clusters in a dense style bringing to mind both Ellington and Ravel.<ref>{{cite web|author=Kaplan, Fred|url=http://www.avguide.com/film-music/music/musicreviews/tas146/146-jazz-caps.new.php |title=Jazz Capsules: ''The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band Sessions''|publisher=AVguide.com|year=2003|access-date=2009-06-03 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071221033642/http://www.avguide.com/film-music/music/musicreviews/tas146/146-jazz-caps.new.php |archive-date = 2007-12-21}}</ref> [[Eric Dolphy]]'s bass clarinet solos would often feature "microtonal clusters summoned by frantic overblowing".<ref>Weinstein (1993), p. 84.</ref> Critic [[Robert Palmer (American writer)|Robert Palmer]] called the "tart tone cluster" that "pierces a song's surfaces and penetrates to its heart" a specialty of guitarist [[Jim Hall (musician)|Jim Hall]]'s.<ref>Palmer (1986).</ref>

Clusters are especially prevalent in the realm of free jazz. Cecil Taylor has used them extensively as part of his improvisational method since the mid-1950s.<ref>Litweiler (1990), p. 202. See also Anderson (2006), pp. 57–58.</ref> Like much of his musical vocabulary, his clusters operate "on a continuum somewhere between melody and percussion".<ref>Pareles (1988).</ref> One of Taylor's primary purposes in adopting clusters was to avoid the dominance of any specific pitch.<ref>Anderson (2006), p. 111.</ref> Leading free jazz composer, bandleader, and pianist [[Sun Ra]] often used them to rearrange the musical furniture, as described by scholar [[John Szwed|John F. Szwed]]:
<blockquote>
When he sensed that [a] piece needed an introduction or an ending, a new direction or fresh material, he would call for a space chord, a collectively improvised tone cluster at high volume which "would suggest a new melody, maybe a rhythm." It was a pianistically conceived device which created another context for the music, a new mood, opening up fresh tonal areas.<ref>Szwed (1998), p. 214.</ref>
</blockquote>
As free jazz spread in the 1960s, so did the use of tone clusters. In comparison with what John Litweiler describes as Taylor's "endless forms and contrasts", the solos of [[Muhal Richard Abrams]] employ tone clusters in a similarly free, but more lyrical, flowing context.<ref>Litweiler (1990), p. 182.</ref> Guitarist [[Sonny Sharrock]] made them a central part of his improvisations; in Palmer's description, he executed "glass-shattering tone clusters that sounded like someone was ripping the pickups out of the guitar without having bothered to unplug it from its overdriven amplifier."<ref>Palmer (1991).</ref> Pianist [[Marilyn Crispell]] has been another major free jazz proponent of the tone cluster, frequently in collaboration with [[Anthony Braxton]], who played with Abrams early in his career.<ref>Enstice and Stockhouse (2004), p. 81.</ref> Since the 1990s, [[Matthew Shipp]] has built on Taylor's innovations with the form.<ref>Weinstein (1996).</ref> European free jazz pianists who have contributed to the development of the tone cluster palette include [[Gunter Hampel]] and [[Alexander von Schlippenbach]].<ref>{{cite web|author=Svirchev, Laurence|url=http://www.jazzhouse.org/library/?read=svirchev11|title="If You Start from Point-Zero, You Have to Imagine Something": An Interview with Alexander von Schlippenbach|publisher=Jazz Journalists Association Library|year=2006|access-date=2007-08-17}}</ref>

[[Don Pullen]], who bridged free and mainstream jazz, "had a technique of rolling his wrists as he improvised—the outside edges of his hands became scarred from it—to create moving tone clusters", writes critic Ben Ratliff. "Building up from [[arpeggio]]s, he could create eddies of noise on the keyboard...like concise Cecil Taylor outbursts."<ref name=R205/> In the description of [[Joachim-Ernst Berendt|Joachim Berendt]], Pullen "uniquely melodized cluster playing and made it tonal. He phrases impulsively raw clusters with his right hand and yet embeds them in clear, harmonically functional tonal chords simultaneously played with the left hand."<ref>Berendt (1992), p. 287.</ref> [[John Medeski]] employs tone clusters as keyboardist for [[Medeski Martin & Wood]], which mixes free jazz elements into its [[soul jazz]]/[[jam band]] style.<ref>Pareles (2000).</ref>

===In popular music===
Like jazz, [[rock and roll]] has made use of tone clusters since its birth, if characteristically in a less deliberate manner—most famously, [[Jerry Lee Lewis]]'s live-performance piano technique of the 1950s, involving fists, feet, and derrière.<ref>Tyler (2008), p. 76; Morrison (1998), p. 95.</ref> Since the 1960s, much [[drone music]], which crosses the lines between rock, [[electronic music|electronic]], and [[experimental music]], has been based on tone clusters. On [[The Velvet Underground]]'s "[[Sister Ray]]", recorded in September 1967, organist [[John Cale]] uses tone clusters within the context of a [[drone (music)|drone]]; the song is apparently the closest approximation on record of the band's early live sound.<ref>Schwartz (1996), pp. 97, 94.</ref> Around the same time, [[The Doors|Doors]] keyboardist [[Ray Manzarek]] began introducing clusters into his solos during live performances of the band's hit "[[Light My Fire]]".<ref>Hicks (1999), p. 88.</ref>

[[Kraftwerk]]'s self-titled 1970 [[Kraftwerk (album)|debut album]] employs organ clusters to add variety to its repeated tape sequences.<ref>Bussy (2004), p. 31.</ref> In 1971, critic [[Ed Ward (writer)|Ed Ward]] lauded the "tone-cluster vocal harmonies" created by [[Jefferson Airplane]]'s three lead singers, [[Grace Slick]], [[Marty Balin]], and [[Paul Kantner]].<ref>Quoted in Brackett (2002), p. 217.</ref> [[Tangerine Dream]]'s 1972 double album ''[[Zeit (Tangerine Dream album)|Zeit]]'' is replete with clusters performed on synthesizer.<ref>Patterson (2001), p. 505.</ref> The [[Beatles]]' 1965 song "[[We Can Work It Out]]" features a momentarily grating tone cluster with voices singing A sharp and C sharp against the accompanying keyboard playing a sustained chord on B to the word "time".<ref>"We can work it out" (1986, p.990, bar 7) ''The Beatles Complete Scores''. Hal Leonard</ref> [[The Band]]'s 1968 song "[[The Weight]]" from their debut album ''[[Music from Big Pink]]'' features a dissonant vocal refrain with [[suspended chord|suspension]]s culminating in a 3-note cluster to the words "you put the load right on me."

The sound of tone clusters played on the organ became a convention in [[radio drama]] for dreams.<ref name="Maconie 2005, p. 338"/> Clusters are often used in the [[film score|scoring]] of horror and science-fiction films.{{efn|1=For a discussion of the use of tone clusters in film scoring, see Huckvale 1990, pp. 1–35. For descriptions of their role in three individual films, Hosokawa 2004, p. 60n21; for ''To the Devil a Daughter'', Huckvale 2008, pp. 179–181 ; and, for ''Close Encounters'', Neil Lerner, "Nostalgia, Masculinist Discourse, and Authoritarianism in John Williams' Scores for ''Star Wars'' and ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind''," in ''Off the Planet'', pp. 96–107; 105–106.}} For a 2004 production of the play ''Tone Clusters'' by [[Joyce Carol Oates]], composer [[Ash Black Bufflo|Jay Clarke]]—a member of the indie rock bands [[Dolorean]] and [[The Standard (band)|The Standard]]—employed clusters to "subtly build the tension", in contrast to what he perceived in the cluster pieces by Cowell and Ives suggested by Oates: "Some of it was like music to murder somebody to; it was like horror-movie music."{{sfn|Chandler|2004}}

==Use in other music==
In traditional Japanese ''[[gagaku]]'', the imperial court music, a tone cluster performed on ''[[Shō (instrument)|shō]]'' (a type of [[free reed aerophone|mouth organ]]) is generally employed as a [[matrix (music)|harmonic matrix]].<ref>Malm (2000), pp. 116–117.</ref> [[Yoritsune Matsudaira]], active from the late 1920s to the early 2000s, merged ''gagaku''{{'}}s harmonies and tonalities with avant-garde Western techniques. Much of his work is built on the ''shō''{{'}}s ten traditional cluster formations.<ref>Herd (2008), pp. 373–374.</ref> Lou Harrison's ''Pacifika Rondo'', which mixes Eastern and Western instrumentation and styles, mirrors the ''gagaku'' approach—sustained organ clusters emulate the sound and function of the ''shō''.<ref>Miller and Lieberman (2004), p. 155.</ref> The ''shō'' also inspired [[Benjamin Britten]] in creating the instrumental texture of his 1964 dramatic church parable ''[[Curlew River]]''. Its sound pervades the characteristically sustained cluster chords played on a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UElSN7HTSeM&t=2m25s chamber organ] .<ref>Cooke, M. (1999, p. 183) "Distant Horizons", in ''The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten''. Cambridge University Press.</ref> Traditional Korean court and aristocratic music employs passages of simultaneous ornamentation on multiple instruments, creating dissonant clusters; this technique is reflected in the work of twentieth-century Korean German composer [[Isang Yun]].<ref>Howard (2006), p. 152.</ref>

Several East Asian [[free reed aerophone|free reed instruments]], including the ''shō'', were modeled on the ''[[sheng (instrument)|sheng]]'', an ancient Chinese folk instrument later incorporated into more formal musical contexts. ''Wubaduhesheng'', one of the traditional chord formations played on the ''sheng'', involves a three-pitch cluster.<ref>Wang (2005), p. 65.</ref> [[Peninsular Malaysia|Malayan]] folk musicians employ an indigenous mouth organ that, like the ''shō'' and ''sheng'', produces tone clusters.<ref>''Musical Courier'' 164 (1962), p. 12.</ref> The characteristic musical form played on the ''bin-baja'', a strummed harp of [[Madhya Pradesh|central India]]'s Pardhan people, has been described as a "rhythmic [[ostinato]] on a tone cluster".<ref>Knight (1985).</ref>

Among the [[Ashanti people|Asante]], in the region that is today encompassed by Ghana, tone clusters are used in traditional trumpet music. A distinctive "tongue-rattling technique gives a greater vibrancy to...already dissonant tonal cluster[s].... [I]ntentional dissonance dispels evil spirits, and the greater the clangor, the greater the sound barrage.<ref>Kaminski (2012), p. 185.</ref>

==Notes and references==
===Notes===
{{notelist|45em}}

===References===
{{reflist}}

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{{div col end}}

==External links==
* [http://www.poonhill.com/list_of_works.htm Leo Ornstein Scores] several scores, including ''Wild Men's Dance'', featuring tone clusters
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060909164313/http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04142005-124248/unrestricted/StallingsThesis.pdf "New Growth from New Soil"] 2004–05 master's thesis on Cowell with detailed consideration of his use of tone clusters (though both ''The Tides of Manaunaun'' and ''Dynamic Motion'' are misdated); by Stephanie N. Stallings

===Listening===
* [http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/programs/program1.html American Mavericks: Program 1—The Meaning of Maverick] three works by Cowell on demand, including Concerto for Piano and Orchestra—its second movement is titled "Tone Cluster", though all three movements feature them
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20051215141826/http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/composer.pl?comp=117 Art of the States: Henry Cowell]}} six works by the composer, including ''The Tides of Manaunaun'' and ''The Harp of Life,'' with their chromatic and diatonic clusters, and ''Exultation,'' which features pentatonic clusters
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20021003111449/http://www.artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/composer.pl?comp=1 Art of the States: John Cage]}} three works by the composer, including ''In the Name of the Holocaust''
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q865x7K_QP4 John Cage—In The Name Of The Holocaust] video of performance by Margaret Leng Tan
* [https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67320 Ornstein Piano Music], [[Marc-André Hamelin]]'s performance of ''Suicide in an Airplane'' from ''Leo Ornstein: Piano Music'' (Hyperion 67320)

{{atonality}}
{{Chords}}
{{Modernism (music)|state=autocollapse}}

{{good article}}

[[Category:Chords]]
[[Category:Extended techniques]]
[[Category:Post-tonal music theory]]
[[Category:Simultaneities (music)]]