"tonal differences" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it to refer to differences in the way people express themselves through their voice. For example, "The tonal differences between the two speakers was clear."
I like the tonal differences in how people communicate.
That is an example of how the tonal differences between the two "Tens" are sometimes unexpected.
Despite the thematic connections between the two films, their stylistic and tonal differences are drastic.
Their tonal differences notwithstanding, what unites Mr. Darabont's films is their steady emotional pulse -- their unembarrassable bid for all the major-league emotions: self-possessed pride, steeliness in the face of adversity, uplift in response to fate's downturns.
The vast tonal differences between Flynn's and Hawkins's novels seem instead to have demonstrated to publishers that readers are not looking for only one kind of story or one way of telling it.
I wanted contrast and color in the shot but what I realized as it came out of the oven was that we had incredible texture and tonal differences to work with.
And he discerned a tonal difference between Ravi and his friends.
The tonal difference between the narrative passages and the dialogue is sharp (and often very funny).
They might almost be considered very thin, three-dimensional models of photographs, in which the camera's impartial record of tonal difference is delicately pulled apart into successive scrims of varying density.
Richman's work, though, reveals a vast tonal difference: his songwriting was open-eyed, childlike, and whimsical, whereas the Velvets, old before their time, anatomized the demimonde in every grimy detail.
But still, such a tonal difference, from "the miseries of the Church" to "who am I to judge," on a fraught, high-profile topic is surely newsworthy, even if the news media inevitably offered misinterpretations of its significance as well.
