tone

Writing

(noun)

The writer's attitude towards the subject and the audience, especially as influenced by diction and syntax.

Related Terms

  • Syntax
  • Tone
  • Credibility
  • denotation
  • connotatio
  • Diction
  • satire
  • thesis statement
  • credibility
  • diction
  • syntax
  • organization
  • clause
  • connotation
  • rhetorical question

(noun)

Tone is a literary technique that is a part of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work.

Related Terms

  • Syntax
  • Tone
  • Credibility
  • denotation
  • connotatio
  • Diction
  • satire
  • thesis statement
  • credibility
  • diction
  • syntax
  • organization
  • clause
  • connotation
  • rhetorical question
Business

(noun)

The manner in which speech or writing is expressed.

Related Terms

  • reaction
  • subordination
Art History

(noun)

The shade or quality of a colour.

Related Terms

  • line

Examples of tone in the following topics:

  • Appropriate Tone

    • In writing, tone is defined as the author's attitude or emotion toward the subject and the reader.
    • Most business correspondence is written in the formal tone.
    • Even the most positive message can be misunderstood if the tone is not correct.
    • Most business correspondence is written in the formal tone .
    • In a negative message, it is best to use a gracious and sincere tone.
  • Embellishing Tones

    • A passing tone is a non-chord tone (dissonance) that occurs between two chord tones, creating stepwise motion.
    • The typical figure is chord tone – passing tone – chord tone, filling in a third (see example), but two adjacent passing tones can also be used to fill in the space between two chord tones a fourth apart.
    • Like the passing tone, a complete neighbor tone is a non-chord tone (dissonance) that occurs between two chord tones; however, a complete neighbor tone will occur between two instances of the same chord tone.
    • Also like the passing tone, movement from the chord tone to the neighbor tone and back will always be by step.
    • Between those two instances of the chord tone are tow non-chord tones—one a step above and the other a step below the chord tone.
  • Analyzing 12-Tone Music

  • Common Tones under Inversion

  • Common Tones under Transposition

    • It can also tell us how many common tones are retained when a set is transposed.
    • Because there is a 2 in the fifth column, it will retain2 common tones when transposed by either T5 or T7.
    • As indicated above, only T2, T10, T5, or T7 will keep common tones.
    • Any other transposition will have zero common tones.
    • When transposed by T6, it will have 2—not 1—common tones.
  • Muscle Tone

    • Muscle tone is a measure of a muscle's resistance to stretching while in a passive resting state.
    • Muscle tone is controlled by neuronal impulses and is influenced by receptors found in the muscle and tendons.
    • To maintain tone spindles also operate a feedback loop through by directly triggering motor neurons linked to their associated muscle.
    • If tone decreases and the muscle stretches the spindles trigger an impulse resulting in the contraction of the muscle.
    • Muscle tone ensures that even when at rest the muscle is at least partially contracted.
  • Scales and Western Music

    • In a whole tone scale, every interval is a whole step.
    • In both the chromatic and the whole tone scales, all the intervals are the same.
    • Listen to a whole tone scale: http://cnx.org/content/m11636/latest/WholeTone.mid.
    • There are basically two possible whole tone scales.
    • Now write a whole tone scale beginning on an a flat.
  • Tendency Tones and Functional Harmonic Dissonances

    • In strict keyboard style, there are two main types of pitch tendency to keep in mind: tendency tones and functional dissonances.
    • The most prominent tendency tones in Western tonal styles are ti (not te) and le (not la).
    • This is called a frustrated leading-tone.
    • In strict keyboard style, these functional dissonances should be "prepared" (approached) by common tone or by step.
    • Thus, though they are proper members of the chord, melodically they will look like one of the three dissonance types of species counterpoint: a passing tone or neighbor tone dissonance that is approached by step, or a suspension dissonance that is approached by a common tone.
  • The Importance of Wording

    • Subjective tone: "I always tell people if you want to work with wood, you've got to know what it is.
    • [Does this tone refer mostly to the author and reflect a conversational tone including his or her opinions?]
    • Tone shows the writer's attitude towards the subject and the audience.
    • The writer's tone can influence the reader's response to the writing.
    • In academic writing, it's important to maintain an appropriate tone throughout.
  • Timbre

    • Variations in timbre between specific instruments - two different trombones, for example, or two different trombone players, or the same trombone player using different types of sound in different pieces - may be called differences in timbre or color, or may be called differences in tone or in tone quality.
    • Tone quality may refer specifically to "quality", as when a young trombonist is encouraged to have a "fuller" or "more focussed" tone quality, or it can refer neutrally to differences in sound, as when an orchestral trombonist is asked to play with a "brassy" tone quality in one passage and a "mellow" tone quality in another.
    • Here are a few words commonly used to describe either timbre or tone quality.
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