How to Use sonority in a Sentence

sonority

noun

• Long phrases sung by the men were layered with the lush sonorities of the women’s voices.
  — Washington Post, 10 June 2019
• The clarinet then falls silent, yet the sonority retains a sickly air.
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2022
• Much of that is helped along by the use of the Baroque flute, whose sonorities have a woody luster a modern instrument can’t always match.
  — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Mar. 2018
• Throughout, the 13-minute work impressed with deft part writing and handling of sonorities.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 2 Mar. 2020
• There is a sonority to both that encourages people to sit back and listen and, yes, learn.
  — John Baldoni, Forbes, 22 Mar. 2023
• Sometimes a bed of strings will swell with a prolonged sonority, though the component notes are too restless to stay put.
  — New York Times, 11 May 2018
• Ronald Thomas was the ensemble’s cellist; Li brought a wealth of sonorities to the piano part, from warm lyricism to glittery cascades of sound.
  — Seattle Times Staff, The Seattle Times, 11 July 2017
• Tendler offered a focused six-minute study in sonority and its absence.
  — Mark Swed, latimes.com, 15 Mar. 2018
• Its creative sonorities — the tissue-thin fairy music or the earthy braying of a donkey — had never been heard before.
  — Christian Hertzog, sandiegouniontribune.com, 23 June 2017
• But the murky sounds and tense sonorities that Ms. Thorvaldsdottir creates are at once eerie and beguiling.
  — Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 5 Apr. 2018
• The cello section wasn’t able to always find a uniform sonority.
  — Peter Dobrin, Philly.com, 9 Mar. 2018
• The final work on the program was the Ravel quartet, and the musicians reveled in the richly varied sonorities of this masterpiece.
  — Jeremy Yudkin, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Sep. 2023
• Though there is plenty of content, the manipulation of sonorities drives the music.
  — New York Times, 6 Feb. 2020
• Some scholars have compared him to Brahms in concept, but with a different sonority.
  — Cheryl North, The Mercury News, 6 Mar. 2017
• Variations on a Burgundy Noel by André Fleury showed off more piquant sonorities.
  — Dallas News, 15 Feb. 2023
• Which is a big difference both in power and quality of sonority.
  — Alan Artner, chicagotribune.com, 30 June 2018
• Mr. Dohnanyi, looking hale at 85, almost seemed at times to be playing an organ, pulling this or that stop to shift colorations seamlessly and blend sonorities smoothly.
  — James R. Oestreich, New York Times, 4 Mar. 2016
• The smooth melodic contour and noble warmth of this sonority is an Elgar fingerprint.
  — Barrymore Laurence Scherer, WSJ, 4 Sep. 2020
• McCarthy’s imagery is strikingly visual and the rhythm of his prose has a sonority to it that, when read aloud, flows like music and puts most capital P poets to shame.
  — Caine O'Rear, Rolling Stone, 3 July 2023
• Blocks of sound battle it out through shifting sonorities, punctuated by sharp attacks on drums and cymbals.
  — Stuart Isacoff, WSJ, 20 Apr. 2018
• But throughout the program Tarrant played with absolute authority, a fine ear for sonorities and, where called for, real panache.
  — Dallas News, 15 Feb. 2023
• Her arresting wall-of-sound sonority is used more sparingly.
  — David Patrick Stearns, Philly.com, 11 May 2018
• Not so in soloist Paul Jacobs’ magisterial playing of the organ part, which built to a thrilling roar of low pedal sonority in the final pages that must have set off every seismograph in the state.
  — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 12 May 2018
• When the ruckus dissipated into delicate tones with the strings at the forefront, the piece invited listeners to notice the subtleties in each sonority.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 21 Sep. 2019
• Mäkelä has an excellent ear for sonority, especially in the string section.
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 19 Dec. 2022
• In effect, though, its laws lead to the further abandonment of sonority and all the pleasing pattern-making and expected cadences of older music.
  — Michael Dirda, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2023
• Muti shaped a flowing performance, although more resonant stage sonics would have better served the lush string sonorities.
  — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 13 Apr. 2018
• A canny ear for sonority and its expressive uses is always in evidence.
  — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 23 May 2017
• Acosta and the unaccompanied singers filled the church with Schumann’s big, full sonorities — a musical astringent to Alice Parker.
  — San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 Oct. 2019
• His new work, which had its origin in a series of guitar etudes, is similarly kaleidoscopic in its shifting masses of sonority and hazy bands of color achieved in part through the use of microtones.
  — Jeremy Eichler, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Jan. 2023

Last Updated: 15 Aug 2024