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Timbral listening is the process of actively listening to the
timbral In music, timbre (), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes sounds according to their source, such as choir voices and musical instruments. ...
characteristics of sound.


Concept

In timbral listening, "pitch is subordinate to timbre". Instead, the specific quality of a musical tone is determined by considering "the presence, distribution and relative
amplitude The amplitude of a periodic variable is a measure of its change in a single period (such as time or spatial period). The amplitude of a non-periodic signal is its magnitude compared with a reference value. There are various definitions of am ...
of
overtones An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...
." When using this listening technique/ method of perception / interpretation there is "a relation between timbre and
spectral ''Spectral'' is a 2016 Hungarian-American military science fiction action film co-written and directed by Nic Mathieu. Written with Ian Fried & George Nolfi, the film stars James Badge Dale as DARPA research scientist Mark Clyne, with Max Marti ...
content which is analogous to that between pitch and
frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...
in that one is the prevalent cultural construct of the other." The most common form of timbral listening is listening to
speech Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...
. This is demonstrated by listening to, for example, the vowels /a/ and /i/ spoken at the same pitch and intensity. The difference between the two sounds is entirely one of spectrum, or as the term is used in this article,
timbre In music, timbre (), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes sounds according to their source, such as choir voices and musical instrument ...
.


Nature

It has been suggested that "timbral listening is an ideal sonic mirror of the natural world". It is often (but not always) used in association with musics that are based in
mimicry In evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. In the simples ...
of sounds in the natural environment. Valentina Suzukei suggests that 'it was the
nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...
way of life and its focus on the timbral qualities of natural sounds that created this kind of musicality'. This is especially prevalent in Canada where composers such as
Hildegard Westerkamp Hildegard Westerkamp (born April 8, 1946, in Osnabrück, Germany) is a Canadian composer, radio artist, teacher, and sound ecologist.Kirk MacKenzie. "Westerkamp, Hildegard." ''Grove Music Online''. ''Oxford Music Online''. Oxford University Press ...
apply the thinking of R. Murray Schafer's World
Soundscape A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term, originally coined by Michael Southworth, was popularized by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ...
Project to their compositions.


Descriptive language and notation

As timbre has "no domain-specific adjectives" it "must be described in metaphor or by analogy to other senses". This method also has limitations.


Examples


Traditional music in

Tuva Tuva (; ) or Tyva (; ), officially the Republic of Tyva,; , is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the Federal subjects of Russia, federal sub ...
and other Turkic cultures of inner Asia

The composition of timbre-centered music in the nomadic communities of Tuva involves mimicry of sounds heard in the environment. Timbral listening is a fundamental component of listening to, understanding and being able to correctly perform this music using vocal techniques such as
throat singing Throat singing refers to several vocal practices found in different cultures worldwide. These vocal practices are generally associated with a certain type of guttural voice that contrasts with the most common types of voices employed in singing, wh ...
" khoomei" and harmonic producing instruments such as the
jaw harp The Jew's harp, also known as jaw harp, juice harp, or mouth harp, is a lamellophone instrument, consisting of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or Reed (mouthpiece), reed attached to a frame. Despite the colloquial name, the Jew's harp most like ...
, bzaanchy,
shoor The ''tsuur'' ( цуур, Mongolian), ''choor'' (Kyrgyz), ''chuur'' ( шоор, Tuvan), ''sybyzgy'' (Kazakh), or '' kurai'' (Bashkir) is an end-blown flute of varying lengths that is common among Inner Asian pastoralists. In western Mongolia ...
, qyl qiyak, qyl-gobyz, ku-rai, and
igil The ''igil'' ( Tuvan: игил) is a two- stringed Tuvan musical instrument, played by bowing the strings. (It is called "ikili" in Western Mongolia.) The neck and lute-shaped sound box are usually made of a solid piece of pine or larch. The ...
.


Barundi whispered Inanga or ''Inanga Chucotée'' in Africa

This music employs a fundamental
drone Drone or The Drones may refer to: Science and technology Vehicle * Drone, a type of uncrewed vehicle, a class of robot ** Unmanned aerial vehicle or aerial drone *** Unmanned combat aerial vehicle ** Unmanned ground vehicle or ground drone ** Unma ...
and overtone harmonics. It consists of "a whispered text, accompanied by the ''inanga'', a
trough zither Trough zithers are a group of African stringed instruments or chordophones whose members resemble wooden bowls, pans, platters, or shallow gutters with strings stretched across the opening. A type of zither, the instruments may be quiet, dependin ...
of eight strings. To listen correctly (using timbral listening), one must consider "the effect of the combined timbres of the noisy whisper and the inanga" as a whole sound.


Some forms of contemporary electronic music

More recently, computers and
synthesizers A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
are being used by contemporary composers to produce timbral-centered music. Contemporary composers state timbral listening as the correct technique to adopt in listening to and analysing their timbre (as opposed to pitch) based compositions. In the context of electronic music, the approach of spectromorphology provides ways to describe the temporally shifting nature of timbre, following an article by Denis Smalley named Spectromorphology explaining sound shapes (1997). 'Pure timbres' are explored using methods such as
granular synthesis Granular synthesis is a sound synthesis method that operates on the microsound time scale. It is based on the same principle as sampling. However, the samples are split into small pieces of around 1 to 100 ms in duration. These small pieces a ...
in works such as ''Dragon of the Nebula'' by Mara Helmuth.


Shakuhachi A is a Japanese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the .
music in Japan

The music produced by the Shakuhachi end blown flute such as honkyoku, contains timbral variations that are of equal importance to pitch variations. These timbral variations are indicated in
Shakuhachi musical notation Shakuhachi musical notation is a traditional tablature-style method of transcribing shakuhachi music. A number of systems exist for notating shakuhachi music, most of which are based on the and the systems. Traditional solo shakuhachi music ( ...
.


Application

The technique of timbral listening is used by sound engineers to evaluate timbre difference.Quesnel, R., "Timbral Ear Trainer: Adaptive, Interactive Training of Listening Skills for Evaluation of Timbre Differences", paper presented at the 100th Audio Engineering Society Convention, Copenhagen, May 11th–14th, 1996.


See also

*
Spectral music Spectral music uses the acoustic properties of sound – or sound spectra – as a basis for composition. Definition Defined in technical language, spectral music is an acoustic musical practice where compositional decisions are often inform ...
*
Sound mass In musical composition, a sound mass or sound collective is the result of compositional techniques, in which "the importance of individual pitches" is minimized "in preference for texture, timbre, and dynamics as primary shapers of gesture and ...
* Timbre recognition


References

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Further reading

* Karpinski, G. S., ''Aural Skills Acquisition: The Development of Listening, Reading, and Performing Skills in College-level Musicians'' (US: Oxford University Press, 200). * Sethares, W. A., ''Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale'' (Springer, 2004). * Tomassen, K. P., "Acoustics and Perception of Overtone Singing". ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of America'' 92:4 (Oct. 1992): 1827–1836. * Waters, S., "Timbre Composition: Ideology, Metaphor and Social Process". ''Contemporary Music Review'' 10:2 (1994), 129–134. Listening * Cognitive musicology Ethnomusicology Musical techniques Electronic music Psychoacoustics Throat singing