Atonality, the absence of a tonal center and of the harmonies from a diatonic scale that correspond to that center, has become more common since it was first commonly used. As Ross describes it, it was "destined to raise hackles" (p. 61) because it sounds illogical and brusque. In an atonal compositions the music may have no identified order and these can have any intervals without they being "wrong". Still, atonality is almost always identified due to its its liberty and that is why critics of Schoenberg were so skeptical of what he described in a letter to Wassily Kandinsky as "liberation from all forms, from all symbols of cohesion and of logic" (p. 62).
I first encountered atonality when I began to play guitar. At first, since I knew nothing about playing and about music theory, I would play whatever my fingers could manage. That was the first time I played atonal music. I had no guiding scale that a harmony could match. Of course, this type of atonality is one that we should be real skeptical about. There was no real composition. Schoenberg's atonality represented a degeneration that cannot be truly explained, one may only speculate about its origin. Since I feel unsure about this atonality I prefer arguing about an atonality that I have heard before and that I recognize.
In King Crimson's popular "21st Century Schizoid Man" their is a definite use of atonality once the bridge enters. At first the song follows a C key with flat A's, B's and E's, but after two minutes, when the song drifts into a much more rapid and galloped rhythm, the harmony deviates from the initial C and does not follow any particular key. This I perceive as a "liberation" similar to the one that Schoenberg embraced because it leaves the classical rock structure that the song begins with to enter a much more jazzed face. To do this, music many times emancipates from the standard it follows and follows no regular key.
Atonality:
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