The phrase "a dominant note" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a prevailing theme, idea, or characteristic in a particular context, such as music, literature, or discussions.
Example: "In her latest novel, the theme of loss serves as a dominant note throughout the narrative."
Alternatives: "a prevailing theme" or "a key element".
The transience of material things is a theme that recurs throughout her poetry, and the resigned but passionate sadness of unhappy love is often a dominant note.
Indeed, his generation, which came of age with the fall of the Berlin Wall, is one that (for a long and pleasant while) had optimism as a dominant note.
Skepticism may be a dominant note here: no, we can't ever know exactly who we are or why we do what we do; yes, we all exist in a state of contingency.
Soon vanillin, which was synthesized from pinewood sap, became a crucial ingredient in perfume (it's a dominant note in Guerlain's Jicky), and then, in 1888, a chemist accidentally invented synthetic musks while fooling around with TNT.
Opening up television to programming made by and for people other than white men was a dominant note during the show.
Giorgio de Chirico's 1917 work "Il Condottiere (The Captain)," with its blank mannequin, at once a monster and a joke, strikes the dominant note.
Although some harsh realities are depicted, such as violent oppression in Fascist Spain in Cruz's "The Lover's Jacket" and the brutal rape of a newly married woman in Nottage's "A Wedding Dance," the dominant note is somber and meditative.
In the strongest type of authentic cadence, called the perfect cadence, the upper voice proceeds stepwise either upward from the leading tone (seventh degree of the scale) or downward from the second degree to the tonic note, while the lowest voice skips from the dominant note upward a fourth or downward a fifth to the tonic note.
A Ferrari 458 Italia is a multitalented machine, but its dominant note is delivered by the yowling V-8 behind the seats.
And where episodes of "Sanders" would often go out on a moment of discomfort -- the dominant note for clever comedies over the last decade -- "Shandling" likes a happy ending, sincerely, and without irony.
