Timbre Timeline

1752

One says that the timbre is shrill not merely that the timbre of a sound is shrill 
- Dictionairre de Trevoux.

1758

Timbre functions to differentiate types of sounds 
- Diderot and D’alambert 

1778

Rousseau used descriptive adjectives for different types of timbre (shrill, soft,
dull, bright) 
- Dictionnaire de Music

1817

All sonorous bodies yield simultaneously an infinite number of sounds of
gradually decreasing intensity. The phenomena is similar to that which
obtains for the harmonics of strings; but the law for the series of harmonics
is different for bodies of different forms. May it not be this difference
which produced the particular character of sound called timbre, which distinguishes
each form of body and which causes the sound of a string 
- Biot

1849

Your voice has another timbre than that hard, deep organ of Miss Mann’s 
- C. Bronte’s Shirley.

1862

 Klangfarbe depends primarily on sound spectrum. Helmholz also mentions the
 beginning and end as well as wind noise and bow noise 
- Helmholz

1899

Clang color, or timbre, refers to the different types of tones (clangs) of musical
 instruments which mainly result from the varied composition of the sounds
 or clangs 
- Rieman in Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Music

1913

Timbre is the quality which differentiates sounds of the same pitch 
and the same intensity 
- Riemann in Dictionnaire de Musique.

1922

Quality serves to distinguish between musical sound of the same pitch and
 intensity produced on different instruments 
- Barton

1929

Quality, timbre, or tone-color depends on the form of the tone-producing
 vibrations. The general motion to and fro is periodic, but the details within
 the period are usually highly complex and this complexity persists in tones
 of a given character. Differences of quality are due to the varying unions of partial tones 
- Pratt

1934

Timbre is frequently defined as that characteristic of the sensation which
enables the listener to recognize the kind of musical instrument producing
the tone, that is, whether it is a cornet, a flute, or a violin. Timbre depends
principally upon the overtone structure, but large changes in the intensity
and the frequency also produce changes in the timbre 
- Fletcher.
 
 One might use the other two characteristics (pitch and loudness) in such a definition
 and say that it is that characteristic which enables one to judge that
 two tones are dissimilar while still having the same loudness and pitch 
-Fletcher.

1937

By timbre is meant the distinguishing or characteristic quality of sound. It is
by their timbre that we recognize an instrument, a voice, or the quality of
an organ stop, regardless of the pitch or intensity of the note that is sound.
Timbre depends only on the relative energies of the various harmonics and
not on their phase differences 
- Sir Jean James.

1938

In general we may say that aside from accessory noises and inharmonic elements,
the timbre of a tone depends upon: (i) the number of harmonic partials
present, (ii) the relative location or locations of these partials in the
range from the lowest to the highest, and (iii) the relative strength or dominance
of each partial 
- Seashore in Psychology of Music

1942

The characteristic tone quality of an instrument is due entirely to the relationship
among the fundamental upper partials which relationship is supposed
to remain unchanged no matter what the fundamental is 
- Bartholomew’s Harmonic Theory.

 
Tone quality depends largely on the degree of complexity of the vibration.The
quality of even a musical tone must be considered usually as a complex of
both harmonic and inharmonic components 
- Bartholomew.
 
 
The characteristic tone quality of an instrument is due to the relative strengthening
of whatever partial lies within a fixed or relatively fixed region of the
musical scale 
- Bartholomew’s Formant Theory.

1952

Timbre may be said to be the characteristic which enables the listener to recognize
the kind of musical instrument which produces the tone. There are six
physical characteristics which determine the quality, namely: (i) the number
of partials, (ii) the distribution of the partials, (iii) the relative intensity
of the partials, (iv) the inharmonic partials, (v) the fundamental tone, (vi)
the total intensity 
- Olson.
 
 
Timbre is that characteristic of a tone which depends upon its harmonic struc-ture.
The timbre of a tone is expressed in the number, intensity, distribu-tion,
and phase relations of its components. Timbre, then, may be said to be
the instantaneous cross section of the tone quality 
- Olson.

1954

Timbre, an expression for quality of sound, especially in orchestration 
- Groves Dictionary of Music.

1958

Timbre is defined as a subjective quality of sound which makes that sound
seem pleasant or unpleasant to the ear. Timbre is dependent on harmonics
as well as the nature of the attack and any formants which may be present 
- Encyclopedia de la musique.

1960

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 are dissimilar 
- ASA.

1964

Harmonic Structure Theory (classical theory) - the acoustic spectrum of a tone
is the primary determinant of musical quality. The physical correlate of
timbre lies in the cross-sectional analysis of a tone represented by the
momentary duration of one cycle 
- Saldanha and Corso.
 
Formant Theory - the characteristic tone quality of an instrument is due to the
relative strengthening of whatever partial lies within a fixed or relatively
fixed region of the musical scale. In contrast with the classical theory that
is based on a fixed spectrum of a tone, the formant theory relies upon
changes in the spectrum of a tone to produce constancy in musical quality  
- Saldanha and Corso.

1964

Although spectrum, transient, phenomena, and quasi steady-state modulation
processes may be the most important dimensions, each of these is characterized
by a great many subparameters, and the definitions based upon
Ohm’s Law are inadequate for any definition of timbre which might be of
musical value 
- Tenney.

1966

Timbre may be not too much more than one of these leftovers from a dead
musical system 
- J.K. Randall.

1967

I would hope that we could soon find whatever further excuse we still need to
quite talking about mellow timbres and edgy timbres and timbres altogether,
in favor of contextual musical analysis of developing structures of
vibrato, tremolo, spectral transformation, and all these various dimensions
of sound which need no longer languish as inmates of some metaphor 
- J.K. Randall.
 
Now vibrato is just one of many potentially structurable aspects of
sound which have been too often written off as ingredients of something more vague 
- J.K. Randall.
1968
In the broad sense, timbre depends upon several parameters of the
sound including the spectral envelope and its change in timbre,
periodic fluctuations of the amplitude, and whether the sound is
a tone or noise 
- Schouten in Aspects of Tone Sensation
 
The five major acoustic parameters of timbre: (i) the range between tonal and
noiselike character, (ii) the spectral envelope, (iii) the time envelope in
terms of rise, duration, and decay, (iv) the changes in spectral envelope
(formant-glide) and fundamental frequency (microintonation), and (v) the
prefix, the onset of a sound is quite dissimilar to the ensuing lasting vibration
- Schouten.
 

1969

 Helmholz showed that timbre depends principally upon the number and rela-tive
intensity of the sounding partials of the fundamental 
- Cogan.

1969

Quality of tone - the characteristic of a tone that can distinguish it from others
of the same frequency and loudness. The harmonic structure of a tone is
quite inadequate to specify its quality. It was implied in the theory of quality
outlined above that an instrument has a spectrum characterized by a
particular harmonic structure, which would be the same for each note of
the instrument

The number and positions of the formants determine the tone quality of an
instrument - Formant Theory 
- Backus.

1970

The components of the harmonic content of sound which create its timbre: (i)
the harmonic spectrum, (ii) which partials are present or absent, (iii) their
relative intensities, (iv) the pattern which those that are present form 
- Honegger in Dictionnaire de la Musique.

1970

Timbre is tone quality -- coarse or smooth, ringing or more subtly penetrating,
scarlet like that of the trumpet, rich brown like that of the cello, or silver
like that of the flute. The one and only factor is sound production which
conditions timbre is the presence or absence, or relative strength or weakness,
of overtone 
- Scholes in the Oxford Companion to Music

1972

Acoustical 
- one tries to associate the variation of timbre to physical character-istics.
 
 
Psychological 
- deals with descriptions proceeding from the listeners experience.
The classical theory of von Helmholz holds that differences in the timbreof
tones depends on the presence and strength of partial tones and are independent
of the differences in phase under which these partial tones unite.
The individual character of a certain instrument is its acoustic spectrum.
The purpose is to study the structure of the perception of timbre (tone colour,
musical quality) and try to find physical correlates in the acoustic spectrum.
The most importance correlates to these perceptual factors may be found in the
relative strength of the harmonic partial tones: (i) generally high level overtone
richness, sonority, (ii) successively decreasing intensity of the upper
partials - overtone poorness, dullness, (iii) low fundamental intensity and
an increasing intensity of the first overtones 
- Wedin.

1975

The amount of work done toward specifying the physical qualities of timbre
unfortunately has been much greater than the work done toward finding the
corresponding psychological attributes.
Factor analysis methods have been used to reveal a cognitive classification of
instrument types into woodwind, brass, and string and a classification of
the sounds of these instruments into groups determined by the relative
amplitudes of a sound’s partials.
 
More recently, multidimensional scaling techniques have been developed by
means of which judgements of similarity of stimuli can be interpreted as
cognitive distances between these stimuli 
- Miller and Carterette.

1975

The timbre or tone quality of a musical instrument has been used to denote that
property which enables a listener to identify the instrument 
- Howe.

1975

The chief function of timbre in most Western concert music of the past has
been that of carrier of melodic functions. The differences of timbre at different
pitches and in different registers of instruments has been treated as
nuances.
The approach to timbre from acoustic searches for invariants taking the view
that if we are able to recognize and identify a clarinet under conditions of
changing pitch and loudness, in different environments, and with different
players, then, as David Luce says, the implication is that certain strong reg
ularities in the acoustic waveform of the above instruments must exist
which are invariant with respect to the above variables 
- Erickson.

1975

Timbre perception is just a stage of the operation of tone source recognition –
in music the identification of the instrument 
- Roeder.

1976

Timbre is multidimensional. There is not a unidirectional scale for comparing
the timbres of various sounds. The multidimensional nature of timbre has a
physical counterpart in the many degrees of freedom of a complex tone 
- Plomp.

1979

Timbre refers to the color of quality of sounds and is typically divorced conceptually
from pitch and loudness. Perceptual research on timbre has dem-onstrated
that the spectral energy distribution provided the acoustical
determinants of our perception of sound quality 
- Wessel.

1980

A term describing the tonal quality of a sound; a clarinet and an oboe sounding
the same note are said to produce different timbres. It is usually reserved
for descriptions of steady state notes and therefore the physical quantity
with which it is most closely associated in the harmonic mixture, or the
formant, or the spectrum 
- Groves.

1982

Timbre is an attribute of the subjective experience of musical tones.
 
 
Timbre is coded as the function of the sound source or of the meaning of the
sound.
Sounds cannot be ordered on a single scale with respect to timbre. Timbre is a
multidimensional attribute of the perception of sounds 
- Plomp.

1986

Timbre is the miscellaneous category for describing the psychological
attributes of sound, gathering into one bundle whatever was left over after
pitch, loudness, and duration had been accounted for. - Dowling and Harwood.

1989

Timbre is the subjective correlate of all those sound properties that do no
directly influence pitch or loudness: sounds spectral power distribution, it’s
temporal envelope, rate and depth of amplitude and frequency modulation,
and degree of its partials – Houtsma.

1989

Levels of timbre description include: (i) commonalities shared by all oboe
tones, commonalities shared by all bowed tones, commonalities shared by
all timpani tones, (ii) expressive variation available to performing musi-cians
and(iii) broader family distinctions of method-of-production distinc-tions
(i.e., blown and bowed instruments whose behavior is controlled
continuously; percussive instruments whose behavior is determined com-pletely
at the instant when they are set into motion - Krumhansl.

1990

Until such time as the dimensions of timbre are clarified it is better to drop the
term timbre.

When we do find a characteristic of sound that can be obtained on different
instruments, such as vibrato, the characteristic tends to be given a label and
no longer falls into the nameless wastebasket of timbre – Bregman.

1990

Timbre or tone quality depends upon the frequency of a tone, it’s time enve-lope,
it’s duration, and the sound level at which it is heard – Rossing.

1991

The character or quality of musical or vocal sound (distinct from its pitch and
intensity) depending upon the particular voice or instrument producing it
from sounds proceeding, from other sources; caused by the proportion in
which the fundamental is combined with the harmonics or overtones –
OED.

1992

Timbre is the subjective attribute of source (instrument) that is based on invariant
properties that uniquely characterize the tones produced by the source.
An adequate definition of timbre is both related to and dependent upon
establishing which characteristics are important for perceptually determining
an instrument’s distinctive sound quality – Chi, Hall, and Pastore.

1994

A timbre is a simple perceptual object. Adjectives for constellation of overtones:
bright, dark, mellow, hollow, pure. Noise content: raspy, breathy,
hoarse. Attack: smooth, abrupt, sharp, gentle, easing. We attempt to categorize
timbre mainly by relating what we hear to what we have seen and
heard of other musical instruments. Timbre is the aggregate effect of the
periodic and nonperiodic components of a sound and their envelopes - Pellman.

1995

Timbre is the perceptual quality of objects and events; that is, what it sounds
like.
Due to the interactive nature of sound production, there are many stable and
time-varying acoustic properties. Timbre is an emergent property that is
partly a function of the acoustic properties and partly a function of the perceptual
process.
Timbre generally has a certain constancy over large changes in the acoustical
environment.
Timbre is perceived in terms of the actions required to generate the event.
Timbre is perceived in terms of the acoustic properties and that the connection
between acoustic properties and object is learned by experience - Handel.

1996

Timbre groups fall into categories that are constrained by the underlying
physic of the sound-generating systems and that it is the goal of the ear/
brain system to discover such commonalities in the sounding world.
Parameters should be estimated in order to represent the articulatory aspect
of timbre perception - Casey et. al.

1997

Timbre is not a thing. It is an abstraction.
Timbre is not an object. It does not exist in the real world as an object.
Timbre is an attribute of a musical tone that is abstracted from the entity that
we call a musical tone
Timbre is not even the only attribute of tone connected to tone quality: consider
volume and density.
Timbre does have a perceptual order – actually, as a multidimensional
attribute, it has several. In general, instruments are ordered first along
impulse vs. continuant characteristics (relating to the rms amplitude attack
and overall envelope) and secondly along nasality or brightness (relating to
the spectral centroid) - John Hajda

1997

Timbre is an emergent property of a stream – a grouping of the acoustic array
influenced by acoustic context, and the attention and learning of the listener.
– Stephen Malloch’s summary of Albert Bregman

Timbre can be defined as the primary aural information that is used in the perceptual
task of assigning an identity to sound – Stephen Malloch

1997

Electroacoustic musicians/composers and people doing analysis/synthesis
would tend to think of timbre as a gestalt that includes time variations. It is
difficult to decide whether the whole thing is a timbre or whether timbre
itself is varying with time - James Beauchamp

1997

Timbre becomes a rhetorical catch-all subsuming many diverse preoccupations
- Born.

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