Editing Atonality (section)

=== Controversy over the term itself ===
The term "atonality" itself has been controversial. [[Arnold Schoenberg]], whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that "The word 'atonal' could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone... to call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis".{{sfn|Schoenberg|1978|p=432}}

Composer and theorist [[Milton Babbitt]] also disparaged the term, saying "The works that followed, many of them now familiar, include the ''[[Five Pieces for Orchestra]]'', ''[[Erwartung]]'', ''[[Pierrot Lunaire]]'', and they and a few yet to follow soon were termed 'atonal,' by I know not whom, and I prefer not to know, for in no sense does the term make sense. Not only does the music employ 'tones,' but it employs precisely the same 'tones,' the same physical materials, that music had employed for some two centuries. In all generosity, 'atonal' may have been intended as a mildly analytically derived term to suggest 'atonic' or to signify 'a-triadic tonality', but, even so there were infinitely many things the music was not".{{sfn|Babbitt|1991|pp=4–5}}

"Atonal" developed a certain vagueness in meaning as a result of its use to describe a wide variety of compositional approaches that deviated from traditional chords and [[chord progression]]s. Attempts to solve these problems by using terms such as "pan-tonal", "non-tonal", "multi-tonal", "free-tonal" and "without tonal center" instead of "atonal" have not gained broad acceptance.