atonality
Noun
Meaning
the absence of a key; alternative to the diatonic system
Source: WordNetSynonyms
Antonyms
Hypernyms
Examples
Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic center and feature much atonality along with synthesized chords.
In many art forms this often meant startling and alienating audiences with bizarre and unpredictable effects, as in the strange and disturbing combinations of motifs in Surrealism or the use of extreme dissonance and atonality in Modernist music.
Free atonality The twelve-tone technique was preceded by Schoenberg's freely atonal pieces of 1908–1923, which, though free, often have as an "integrative element.
Notably from Tristan und Isolde onwards, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system, which gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to atonality in the 20th century.
The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism ( Schoenberg and Berg ), Neoclassicism ( Stravinsky ), and Minimalism ( Philip Glass and John Adams ).
Donald Jay Grout similarly doubted whether atonality is really possible, because "any combination of sounds can be referred to a fundamental root".