ABSTRACT
There is no subjective rating scale against which timbre judgements can be made, unlike pitch and loudness which can, on average, be reliably rated by listeners on scales from ‘high’ to ‘low’. The commonly quoted American National Standards Institute formal definition of timbre reflects this: ‘Timbre is that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which a listener can judge two sounds similarly presented and having the same loudness and pitch as being dissimilar’ (ANSI, 1960). In other words, two sounds that are perceived as being different but which have the same perceived loudness and pitch differ by virtue of their timbre. The timbre of a note is the aspect by which a listener recognises the
instrument which is playing a note when, for example, instruments play notes with the same pitch, loudness and duration. The definition given by Scholes (1970) encompasses some timbral descriptors: ‘Timbre means tone quality-coarse or smooth, ringing or more subtly penetrating, “scarlet” like that of a trumpet, “rich brown” like that of a cello, or “silver” like that of the flute. These colour analogies come naturally to every mind ... The one and only factor in sound production which conditions timbre is the presence or absence, or relative strength or weakness, of overtones’. (Table 3.1 gives the relationship between overtones and harmonics.) Whilst his colour analogies might not come naturally to every mind, Scholes’ later comments about the acoustic nature of sounds which have different timbres are a useful contribution to the acoustic discussion of the timbre of musical sounds.
