It’s often referred to as the ‘tone color’ or ‘tone quality’. Just what is timbre, and how does it impact on the way we experience music? Read on for an introduction to one of music’s most fundamental elements.
What is timbre?
Timbre is the quality that makes a musical instrument or a voice sound different from another, even when they play exactly the same note, for the same duration, in the same location and at the same volume.
It’s what makes a violin sound different from a flute, even if they are playing the same note, or what allows you to recognize someone’s voice instantly. You can also describe timbre as the ‘tone colour’, or the texture of a sound.
How do you pronounce it?
Not the way it looks, that’s for sure! Timbre is pronounced ‘Tam-bur’.
Why is it so important?
Imagine wearing clothes of exactly the same colour and texture every day. The clothes themselves would be different, yes, but the overall effect would be dead boring. The same goes for music: without timbre, pieces of orchestral or chamber music would lack variety as every instrument would sound the same. And it’s the precise combination of instrumental timbres that gives some pieces their magic.
Some works that employ timbre to great effect
By way of example, we could cite any number of works by the great French composer Maurice Ravel: he was a master of timbre, often generating stunning effects out of the most unusual instrumental combinations. One example is Boléro, in which he sonically fuses a French horn, celesta and two piccolos to sound like some kind of phantasmagoric instrument.
Other composers noted for their approach to timbre include György Ligeti, Luciano Berio, and Krzysztof Penderecki. Then there’s Arnold Schoenberg, whose Farben from his ‘Five Orchestral Pieces’ creates a kaleidoscopic flow of sequentially changing orchestral colours.
For Schoenberg, in fact, timbre was so important that he introduced a whole new musical concept based on it: Klangfarbenmelodie, which involves splitting a melody across multiple instruments to add colour and texture to the line (though some say that direct precedents for Klangfarbenmelodie can be traced back to Gustav Mahler.)
More recently, the contemporary composer Dani Howard has done extraordinary things with timbre, not least in her Concerto for Trombone, which is a riot of orchestral colour and energy.
What determines timbre?
There are a whole range of factors, but some of them include an instrument’s shape and size, the frequency range within which the instrument can produce overtones, and the attack, sustain and decay of the sound it produces. Then, of course, there is the playing style: a violin played pizzicato (plucked) for example will have a different timbre to a violin played with a bow.
What are different types of timbres?
To some extent, you can define timbre by broad instrumental/vocal categories. There are similarities of timbre between, say, all the brass instruments, or all the woodwind, string or percussion instruments. You will even notice some shared timbre between all soprano, or tenor, or bass voices. But of course, no two instruments or voices within those categories will have exactly the same timbre.
Some words used to describe timbre include ‘breathy’, ‘nasal’, ‘thick’, ‘bright’, and ‘dark’. The list goes on – and you can get pretty creative with it.