How to Use atonal in a Sentence
atonal
adjective-
The atonal ethos of that film and the short video works Lynch has made since are present now in Twin Peaks.
—Corey Atad, Esquire, 22 May 2017
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Most of the initial score's lyrics were from the Episcopal hymnal and the songs were atonal.
—Mark Kennedy, Star Tribune, 10 May 2021
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But these faint traces of the familiar are swept away in the same current — subsumed by the atonal crush of the music.
—Washington Post, 28 Jan. 2022
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The result is a distant, atonal film that feels more slippery than evocative.
—Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Oct. 2022
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Not unexpectedly, the horror films had a lot of harsh and atonal screams.
—Rachel Ehrenberg, WIRED, 26 May 2010
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The trio ripped through their set, which also featured a Cline cameo, and brought an atonal, free-jazz element to their old-school punk pedigree.
—Jonah Bayer, SPIN, 31 May 2022
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The episode lurched between the show’s typical style and scenes enhanced by atonal, suspenseful sounds and a shaky-cam effect.
—Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 19 June 2017
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When quirkily melodious new wave tried to make punk cute, the Bowery gobbled it all up and puked up atonal filth-art no wave.
—Jonathan Rowe, Spin, 11 Aug. 2023
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The collection’s other works are atonal and process-driven.
—Allan Kozinn, WSJ, 30 May 2018
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Too many scenes were undone by an aspiration to be both flimsy and profound: the comedy felt as atonal as the tragedy.
—Hazlitt, 17 May 2023
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Blood, on the other hand, has the size and shape of an old-school Hollywood epic but also the anxious, atonal soul of something more contemporary.
—A.a. Dowd, Chron, 10 Mar. 2023
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It’s on the verge of Neo romantic, very tuneful and melodic, whereas George Walker’s work is verging on atonal.
—Julian Sancton, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Apr. 2022
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Some have compared Benjamin’s music to an atonal Pelléas et Mélisande.
—David Patrick Stearns, Philly.com, 10 Feb. 2018
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One afternoon, we were presented with an avant-garde, atonal work featuring, among other things, singers dressed as large, iridescent worms that writhed across the stage.
—New York Times, 2 Jan. 2022
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The liveliness of the first movement returns in the atonal finale, with pitch slides and vocal gargling effects, fast tremolos in the cello and thwacking accents and flutter-tonguing for the clarinet.
—Tim Diovanni, Dallas News, 21 Apr. 2021
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There are a lot of atonal, amelodic ways of being in it that were just wholly improvisational and textural.
—Chris Willman, Variety, 21 June 2023
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But if the avant-garde nature of Cahill’s projects evokes fear of music that’s atonal, noisy or too experimental, down-to-earth Cahill explains that much of it is beautiful and accessible.
—Martha Ross, The Mercury News, 16 Mar. 2017
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Amir ElSaffar has composed new music, an atonal jazz that Shepherd bangs out on keyboard when Pavel transitions into talky song.
—Charles McNultytheater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 9 Feb. 2023
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Conservatives cherished him as a bulwark against atonal chaos.
—Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2022
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The serenade moves from traditional harmonies to atonal stylings.
—Tim Diovanni, Dallas News, 21 Apr. 2021
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The sounds of the city — traffic, construction, voices, the muezzins’ calls to prayer — are deftly orchestrated and integrated with the exquisite, atonal soundtrack by Ali Helnwein.
—Peter Keough, BostonGlobe.com, 24 Feb. 2021
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The opera, with its historical sweep and its mix of atonal passages, folk melodies, popular songs and electronic elements, is considered by some to be the great Canadian opera.
—Michael Cooper, New York Times, 19 Apr. 2017
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The author jumps from one abstruse analysis to another, each chapter ending like a piece of atonal music, with no resolution or sense of closure.
—Barton Swaim, WSJ, 22 Feb. 2019
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Toshio Hosokawa’s monodrama for mezzo-soprano and 12 players, probes deeply into the terror and loss of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem through a jagged, atonal setting that stretches the scansion out of its familiar rhythm.
—Heidi Waleson, WSJ, 4 Oct. 2022
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Murky, atonal music swells into collections of chords that resembles human moans.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 19 Sep. 2023
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Here, the atonal strings and pipes seem to conjure ghosts, with echoes of elemental and intergenerational human violence, and the jarring music is mixed with a murky soundscape to foster a growing sense of dread.
—David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 May 2022
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DeAngelis’s novel, in which Maren road-trips around 1980s America trying to stay ahead of the law and her own homicidal impulses, is appealingly atonal.
—David Sims, The Atlantic, 30 Nov. 2022
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First came a short atonal improvisation, just because, Lang explained.
—Los Angeles Times, 30 July 2019
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Loosely atonal, the piece is characterized by brooding passages and accented, Stravinskian rhythms.
—Barbara Jepson, WSJ, 21 June 2022
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Inside these tender, atonal tracks are discreet, cryptic ruminations on growing a family, building a little colony of your own.
—Sheldon Pearce, The New Yorker, 5 Oct. 2021
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'atonal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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