533b: Timbre

Timbre or tone color is the term for describing the difference in quality of sound that distinguishes one voice or instrument from another. There is no standardized framework for describing timbre or dynamics.

Researchers are reduced to using analogies and descriptive words. For the human voice at one end of the spectrum, a tone might be described as warm, breathy, clear, relaxed, bright, mellow, soothing, whisperlike, or clarion. Toward the other end of the spectrum, tone might be described as small singing voice with moderate resonance and volume, narrow throat, tight throat, croaky, falsettolike, strained, raspy, dark, guttural, percussive, thin, strident, nasal, or heavy vibrato.

For many musical instruments, timbre influences how a musical pitch is perceived. For drumming, open stroke and closed or damped stroke are often indicated by mnemonic phrases consisting of syllables that convey both timing and timbre. RHYTHM can be conceived as a pattern of timbres. Besides descriptions used for the human voice, other descriptions for instrumental timbre can be reedy, rapid vibrations, staccato, resonant, high amount of enharmonic noise, piercing, or clunky.

• Ocm module: Timbre
• In ocm module:
• In ocm module: Music
• In modular book: Expanded ethnomusicology categories for the Outline of Cultural Materials, by Kenneth R. Hollingsworth
• In bookshelf: Anthropology

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 3.5, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 17 March 1999

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