Klarinet Archive - Posting 000057.txt from 1996/06

From: Grant Green <gdgreen@-----.COM>
Subj: Timbre Vocabulary
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 14:10:13 -0400

>An interesting issue is raised by this discussion that may be worth
>mentioning. We have no "timbre vocabulary" in music that can be
>consistently understood by musicians to describe variations in tone color
>that are essential to our art. Visual artists can describe "cobalt blue"
>and have a good understanding of what that means to their community. Their
>training includes that information. One goal of our research group is to
>explore the possibility that computer-controlled, real-time visual
>representations (spectra) of musical tones may give us a way to "teach" an
>agreed-upon timbre vocabulary.

Here's a suggestion: why don't we (or some of us) record several samples of
different clarinet timbres, make WAV or AU files out of them, and post them
on a web page. Then, we all listen to the samples, and provide our
descriptions. We see if there is substantial agreement in how we describe
the timbres, and thereafter label those sound files "bright", "covered",
"dark", "focussed", or whatever. In any event, we have a *common* reference
standard.

I'm willing to help, but don't have time to do everything myself. Any takers?

Grant

Grant D. Green
gdgreen@-----.com
http://www.crl.com/~gdgreen/index.html
Still hunting sarussophones!