[
US
/ˈtoʊnəɫ/
]
[ UK /tˈəʊnəl/ ]
[ UK /tˈəʊnəl/ ]
ADJECTIVE
- having tonality; i.e. tones and chords organized in relation to one tone such as a keynote or tonic
-
employing variations in pitch to distinguish meanings of otherwise similar words
Chinese is a tonal language
How To Use tonal In A Sentence
- Lambert isn't against atonalism, and admires Berg a great deal, but he's against any sort of dogmatism, and the atonalists had become dogmatic even by then.
- Eschewing schools and musical fashions, he wrote a great deal of music which is seldom heard, exploring bitonalites and partly delving into the realm of atonality.
- There are, true, a few tonal changes: the jokes are jokier, the touches of malice heavier, and she revels more obviously than before in the playfulness she brings to her performances. What Sarah Palin Doesn't Know
- One reason for his relative obscurity has been the general unavailability of his music: his works remained unpublished during his lifetime and, apart from some ‘easy’ tonal compositions, largely unperformed.
- Rounds are no longer written in modern musical styles, and remain untouched by developments in chromatic harmony, atonality, jazz idioms, serial structures and folk modes.
- Arabic influence may have some part in the genesis of the songs, although the tonality of the Cantigas (mainly Dorian and Mixolydian modes) and basic structure are European; the virelai serves as the basic form, already in use with the Latin conductus, and divided into refrain – mudanza – vuelta – refrain (AA-bb-aa-AA, as in N.º 361). Archive 2009-07-01
- Mr. Weber is not a moralist and does not claim that, by preferring Tchaikovsky to, say, the current-day atonalist Charles Wuorinen, we are philistines or reactionaries. That Melody Sounds Familiar
- Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships. Ansel Adams
- ‘Mäander’ is an incredible, multi-layered sound world of 4 or 5 layers of clarinets that is atonal, arrhythmic, ominous, and funereal.
- Lenero balances tonal subtleties with his right-angled shapes.