SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Technical music terms
acciaccatura
accidental
aeolian
aleatory
alto clef
antiphonal
discordant
harmonic progression
harmony
hemidemisemiquaver
inversion
Ionian
overtone
rubato
scherzando
scordatura
secco recitative
secondo
staccato
whole step

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Types of music

atonal | American Dictionary

atonal
adjective
us/eɪˈtoʊ·nəl/
music
(of music) not organized based on a particular note

Examples of atonal

atonal
It is a method that, in its most rigorously applied form, avoids tonality and had been originally developed as a criterion for atonal music.
Its nearly atonal effect results from a mesoloop that repeats in other registers and keys.
Nowhere does this book claim to set forth a general theory of atonal practice whether for purposes of analysis or composition.
Shall we consider other musical elements or admit that closure, as we define it in tonal music, is simply not possible in the atonal realm?
In some interpretations of post-tonal or atonal music, analysts often look first to pitchbased elements such as harmony, melody, and voice leading to identify closure.
These developments involved pupils in practical music-making, including composition and improvisation, often in a free and/or atonal idiom.
Furthermore, practical, creative work had no more associations with atonal music by that time than with any other musical area.
When both parts are displayed together, the soundscape of the work is an unusual mixture of extremely low frequencies with atonal scratching.
But the immediate effect of the music is not atonal.
Though the atonal idiom prevails, the use of microtones and glissandi adds an intriguing richness to the language, again suggesting the theme of fading memory.
People in normal conversation speak in atonal cadences because to do otherwise would be personally tiresome as well as expose them to ridicule.
Should we also grant the same license to atonal composers who employ alternative methods of achieving closure?
If we are to search for closure or something comparable in twelvenote or atonal music, it would be profitable to define what our expectations are.
With atonal or twelve-note music, the situation is quite different.
It might be better for listeners and analysts alike to search for alternate notions of closure in atonal music.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.