Klarinet Archive - Posting 000611.txt from 1999/05

From: James Pyne <jpyne@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] tone 2
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 15:16:26 -0400

Documentation I (J M Pyne) prepared for collaborative colleagues
(software engineers and others who were not trained musicians) a couple
of years ago. It outlines part of what my research initiatives have
been involved with.

---------------------

Two major barriers exist that have inhibited the successful development
of a pedagogically and analytically useful, working understanding of
timbre. The first (a) applies across disciplines in music. The second
(b) applies to vocal and wind instrument performance.

(a) There is no established agreement on word labels used for timbre
identification.

Individual notes in a melody are much like the words in a sentence.
They may be intoned and colored in different ways to convey various
intended meanings. In music the intonation or pitch is graphically
represented by a note on the staff but the color (timbre) or
manipulation of color within that note or phrase is in no way
graphically represented. There is no common terminology used by
musicians to identify, notate or clearly explain routinely employed
timberal variations that enhance the communication of emotive content
in music. Concepts involving the physical manipulation of timbre elude
effective verbalization on the part of teachers because there is no
commonly agreed upon timbre vocabulary that will evoke the needed
change in sound production. For example, one can not effectively
evaluate a musical statement without considering "beauty" of tone.
However our subjective perception of "beauty" of tone is highly context
dependent and changes through time in response to the needs of the
musical architecture itself. Colorful words that attempt to describe
variations in a "beautiful" sound (bright, brilliant, dark, somber
etc.) are misunderstood. Even conductors of major symphony orchestras
struggle with instructions describing tone colorations they wish to
employ in their interpretation of the musical architecture. In this
case superb musicians, capable of producing whatever coloration is
asked, cannot clearly understand what it is that they are to do.

In the visual arts there is a much better agreement on identification
of color and shadings of color. That consensus is supported by a
pedagogy that maintains and refines agreed upon definitions of visual
representations. For example <italic>cobalt</italic> blue represents a
particular shade or "timber" of blue. Similarly visual representations
of sound can be computer generated that, even in real time, accurately
represent the quality of tone being produced. This visualization
process, if brought to a sophisticated level, has the power to overcome
the abovementioned liabilities. Visual representations keyed to musical
sounds can form the link to an agreed upon timbre vocabulary.

(b) Producing sounds by mouth involves bone conduction that "colors"
what is internally heard.

Individuals producing sounds by mouth (voice, wind/ brass instruments)
do not internally hear those sounds in the same way as an external
listener. Sound carried by bone conduction to the mechanism of hearing
adds additional "coloration" to the sound as perceived internally by
the performer. An algorithmic process must be learned by the performer
to ensure that the wanted tonal coloration (that heard by the listener)
might be achieved. Visual representations can clarify the differences
in what is heard by the listener and what is "heard" by the performer.

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