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Definition: atonality from Philip's Encyclopedia

Musical composition without reference to traditional keys and harmony. Examples include Pierrot Lunaire (1912) by Arnold Schoenberg.


atonality

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(ā´´tōnăl'ĭtē), in music, systematic avoidance of harmonic or melodic reference to tonal centers (see key ). The term is used to designate a method of composition in which the composer has deliberately rejected the principle of tonality . Tonality is a form of musical organization that involves a clear distinction between consonance and dissonance, a definite classification of harmonic results as more and less dissonant, and arrangement of tones in a scale that contains common harmonic and melodic functions and goal points. The gradual rejection of this principle has been apparent since the later 19th cent., when greatly increased use of chromatic harmonies in the music of Liszt , Wagner , and Richard Strauss and the use of nonfunctional harmonies in the music of Debussy almost completely obscured whatever basic tonalities were present in their music. The abandonment of tonality in the early 20th cent. by Schoenberg , Berg , Webern , Ives , and many other composers was the next logical…
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Full text Article atonality

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Music that has no sense of tonality and no obvious key. Atonal music uses the notes of the chromatic scale and, depending on the system employed, uses all twelve pitch classes in hierarchies other than triadic harmony. This means that there is no pull towards any particular tonic note. Arnold…
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Full text Article Atonality

From The Harvard Dictionary of Music
Literally, the absence of tonality, the absence of key; the opposite of tonality . Atonal music is marked by a weakening or suppression of the defining conditions of tonality. At first used to describe characteristics of certain pioneering works by Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, atonality meant the…
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Full text Article atonality

From The New Penguin Dictionary of Music
Absence of tonality: the term only makes sense in the context of this binary opposition. Atonal music is music freed from the sense of a keynote, or of a note or chord towards which the piece must move to close. Also, the term belongs to a particular period. At a time when tonality was universal — …
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Full text Article Atonality

From A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes
(1908) This term became current in the 1910s among Viennese musicians who felt they were avoiding the traditional bases that defined both major and minor scales. The technique of atonal writing depended upon the unconstrained use of all notes, as though they had equal weight, regardless of previous…
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Full text Article atonality

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(ā´´tōnăl'ĭtē), in music, systematic avoidance of harmonic or melodic reference to tonal centers (see key ). The term is used to designate a method of composition in which the composer has deliberately rejected the principle of tonality . Tonality is a form of musical organization that involves a…
| 320 words
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Full text Article ATONALITY

From The Edinburgh Dictionary of Modernism
Contrary to appearances, this term in Western art-music does not signify music that has no tone but rather music that breaks away from the conventions of the traditional Western system of tonality. That system assumes a particular hierarchy of the twelve different notes within the octave: a…
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Full text Article atonality

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
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Full text Article atonality

From The Macquarie Dictionary
| 26 words
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Full text Article atonality

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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Full text Article atonality

From The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language
| 53 words
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