While the emphasis of tone-clock theory is on creating the chromatic aggregate, it is not a serial technique, as the ordering of pitch-classes is not important.
However, it bears a certain similarity to the technique of serial derivation, which was used by Anton Webern and Milton Babbitt amongst others, in which a row is constructed from only one or two set-classes.
In her monograph Chromatic Maps, New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod extended and expanded Schat's focus on trichords to encompass all 223 set-classes, thus becoming a true tone-clock theory.
[3] She also introduced new terminology in order to "simplify" the labelling and categorization of the set-classes, and to draw attention to the specific transpositional properties within a field.
The tone-clock creates vast possibilities of intervals, yet are confined into a single clock of usable triads.