Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Lacking a tonal center or key; characterized by atonality.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective music Lacking a
tonal center orkey .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective characterized by avoidance of traditional western tonality
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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"City" is sometimes described as atonal, but perhaps "supertonal" might be a better term, it seems to exist in every key and every tempo at the same: great, towering, unresolved dissonances the size of the Chrysler building are constructed right in front of you and then tumble to the ground "watch out for flying glass!"
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His interest in atonal music drew him on to study composition at the Juilliard School of Music (M.S., 1962) in New York City and then to Paris to study under Nadia Boulanger.
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(Seriously, every Spanish-English dictionary I have says "atonal" is the same in both languages.
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(Seriously, every Spanish-English dictionary I have says "atonal" is the same in both languages.
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In the early twentieth century, however, composers led by [Arnold] Schoenberg began to rally against the traditional conventions of music to produce compositions which lack tonal centres, known as atonal music.
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In the early twentieth century, however, composers led by Schoenberg began to rally against the traditional conventions of music to produce compositions which lack tonal centres, known as atonal music.
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph
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Guitarist Dimitri Coats, best known for the band Burning Brides, hammers out his riffs like a drummer and, in a live version, offers a pithy solo that recalls the atonal squirm of Black Flag founder Greg Ginn.
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In the early twentieth century, however, composers led by Schoenberg began to rally against the traditional conventions of music to produce compositions which lack tonal centres, known as atonal music.
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph
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In the early twentieth century, however, composers led by Schoenberg began to rally against the traditional conventions of music to produce compositions which lack tonal centres, known as atonal music.
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph
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I thought for sure that "atonal" would first turn up in a discussion of Liszt's music, but "omnitonal" seems to be the phrase that his contemporaries — those who had the chance to hear pieces like the Bagatelle, at least — used.
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