TONALITY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tonality

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noun

Tonality n. (Mus.) The principle of key in music; the character which a composition has by virtue of the key in which it is written, or through the family relationship of all its tones and chords to the keynote, or tonic, of the whole. "The predominance of the tonic as the link which connects all the tones of a piece, we may, with Fétis, term the principle of tonality."

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Etymology of 'Tonality'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tonality" Quotes from Famous Books

... similar color-quality, are less permanent, and are almost sure to turn to a horny sort of yellow; and a green, which by their use was bright and sparkling, will, in a few months, lose its freshness—this cadmium will not do. Cadmium is also to be preferred to chrome, because it is of a much finer tonality. Greens and yellows made by the admixture of chrome are apt to be crude as compared with those in which cadmium ...

— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... principal subject [that is to say, the ground of the Tree of Jesse] has commanded the tonality of all the rest. This medium was necessary to enable the luminous splendour to display its energy. This primary condition had dictated the red ground for the prophets, and the return to the blue on reaching the outside semicircular ...

— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

Words linked to "Tonality" : key, minor mode, minor key, atonality, major key, tonal