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
  • Tendler offered a focused six-minute study in sonority and its absence.
    — Mark Swed, latimes.com, 15 Mar. 2018
  • There is a sonority to both that encourages people to sit back and listen and, yes, learn.
    — John Baldoni, Forbes, 22 Mar. 2023
  • The cello section wasn’t able to always find a uniform sonority.
    — Peter Dobrin, Philly.com, 9 Mar. 2018
  • Throughout, the 13-minute work impressed with deft part writing and handling of sonorities.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 2 Mar. 2020
  • 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
  • Which is a big difference both in power and quality of sonority.
    — Alan Artner, chicagotribune.com, 30 June 2018
  • Blocks of sound battle it out through shifting sonorities, punctuated by sharp attacks on drums and cymbals.
    — Stuart Isacoff, WSJ, 20 Apr. 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
  • Its rapturous central fugue, its searing sonority and plunging depths were all brought to gleaming life.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 24 Sep. 2023
  • 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
  • Some scholars have compared him to Brahms in concept, but with a different sonority.
    — Cheryl North, The Mercury News, 6 Mar. 2017
  • Though there is plenty of content, the manipulation of sonorities drives the music.
    — New York Times, 6 Feb. 2020
  • Mäkelä has an excellent ear for sonority, especially in the string section.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 19 Dec. 2022
  • The smooth melodic contour and noble warmth of this sonority is an Elgar fingerprint.
    — Barrymore Laurence Scherer, WSJ, 4 Sep. 2020
  • 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
  • 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
  • Variations on a Burgundy Noel by André Fleury showed off more piquant sonorities.
    — Dallas News, 15 Feb. 2023
  • 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
  • That sonority, at once hazy and precise, soft and powerful, builds into an overwhelming wave of melody, carrying us nearly to midnight.
    — Justin Davidson, Vulture, 11 Mar. 2026
  • Minarelli’s two bagatelles, backed by a few delicate electronic sounds, each put a single individual sonority through its paces.
    — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Apr. 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
  • The four-movement composition is a sonic adventure of rhythms, intricate sonorities and emotions.
    — Washington Post, 16 Nov. 2019
  • 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
  • Number 6 begins with the beautiful sonority of the violas, gamba, two cellos and bass or violone.
    — James Bash | For The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 17 Oct. 2019
  • 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
  • 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
  • Cloudy chords, meditative tintinnabulation, the whoosh of wind and rain, blocks of iridescent brass — all these discrete sonorities trundled by, like a train of boxcars with panoramas painted on their sides.
    — Justin Davidson, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2025
  • 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

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sonority.' 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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