George - by tonality I intend to mean the whole perception of tone, which includes the fundamental and all the overtones. Tonal information, as I understand it, is processed differently than time information.
A very interesting, to me, aspect is the interplay between tone and time. I am presently working on a new termination scheme of the piano string at the bridge. Various schemes deliver various temporal envelopes relative to the frequency (tonal) response of the note.
(all related to the impedance variables at the bridge and the length and tuning of the back-scale between the bridge and the string's final termination.) The fascinating aspect is that the fundamental is only required momentarily, for the brain to "get it" (understand the harmonic structure), rather than having to create a phantom fundamental inferred from the upper harmonics (which takes lots of work.) Anyhow, once the real fundamental is there for a instant, the upper harmonics make sense, and then the phantom can drop out and the upper harmonic structure is more intelligible on its own. This harmonic development / sonic motion is related to the phase interactions of the string and bridge, which can be manipulated. Imagine that.