Tonality is an organized system of notes of a major or minor scale in which one tone, the tonic, serves as the central point for the remaining tones. It is the target toward which other tones lead in the melody and the seeming point of complete release from tension and the point of stability. Tonality dominated Western music from the mid-seventeenth century to around the start of the twentieth century and still continues to play an important role despite the subsequent ascendancy of atonal music.