From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtonalityton‧al‧i‧ty /təʊˈnæləti $ toʊ-/ noun (plural tonalities) [countable, uncountable] technicalAPM the character of a piece of music that depends on the key of the music and the way in which the tunes and harmonies are combined
Examples from the Corpus
tonality• If tonalities are not closely related the tonal conflict will be more evident according to the degree of disagreement between the scales.• Schoenberg represented the other side of the dialectic: the abandonment of tonality.• So long as Stravinsky had led the opposition on behalf of tonality, art music had broadened and deepened in expressive range.• Even up to the present day some composers still use this conflict of tonalities as one of their technical resources.• And he takes a travelling rug with him - another of those fussy bag-and-baggage objects which assert the novel's tonality.• One concerns the tonality of the human voice.• A comparison shows the painting to be executed with very much the tonality of the photograph, from exactly the same viewpoint.• The compromise with tonality is equally clear in Berg. 