tone row (r?)n. Music An ordering of notes employing all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale.American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.tone row or tone seriesn (Classical Music) music a group of notes having a characteristic pattern or order that forms the basis of the musical material in a serial composition, esp one consisting of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. Also called: note row See also serialism, twelve-toneCollins English Dictionary ? Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014twelve?-tone` row? (ro?) n. the 12 chromatic tones of the octave arranged by a composer in a particular sequence and used more or less as the fixed melodic and harmonic basis for a piece. [1940?45] Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.