Sound language (music)

The term tonal language is used in music in four ways:

• as a synonym for the term “musical language”;
• less often as a synonym in general for music; the music has an alphabet (the tones ), a grammar (in classical music in the rules of counterpoint , harmony and form theory , later defined in new rules such as in dodecaphony ), there is also in music Content and individual expression;
• in program music, in which the music relates to extra-musical (mostly literary) content, in this context tonal language (including tonal painting) is often used;
• the individual style by which experienced listeners recognize a composer is called "individual tonal language"; it can manifest itself in the context of a general style of an epoch or (after approx. 1900) as a completely independent phenomenon, since from this time on there can no longer be any talk of an all-encompassing epochal general style.