TONALITY

Tonality

Tonality is a system/language of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center"—the tonic triad; that is, on hierarchical relationships between the triads. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840 . Although Fétis used it as a general term for a system of musical organization and spoke of types de tonalités rather than a single system, today the term is most often used to refer to major–minor tonality, the system of musical organization of the common practice period, and of Western-influenced popular music throughout much of the world today.

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tonality

Noun

  1. The system of seven tones built on a tonic key; the 24 major and minor scales.
  2. A sound of specific pitch and quality; timbre.
  3. The quality of all the tones in a composition heard in relation to the tonic.
  4. The interrelation of the tones in a painting.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: tonality
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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