Timbre in music - what is this category? What is it for?

In the music of the 20th century, this characteristic of sound, like timbre, began to play a key role in the concept of new musical styles and in the formation of new vocal techniques. What is timbre and what are its varieties?

Timbre in music - what is this category?

"Timbre" is translated from French. As a "distinctive sign". The timbre in music is a specific coloration of the sound. If you take the same note of the same height or volume on different instruments, still the sound will differ significantly due to the timbre characteristics of the instrument. The same vocal parts, performed by two different vocalists, can easily be discerned by hearing due to the special timbre coloring of the voice.

The term "timbre" definition in music is not the only one, but all of them boil down to the fact that timbre is the same important characteristic of sound as, for example, volume, height or duration. A variety of adjectives are used to describe a timbre: low, dense, deep, soft, bright, muffled, sonorous, etc.

Types of timbres by A.N. Sochor

The timbre in music is a multi-component phenomenon. The famous musicologist A.N. Sohor allocates four kinds of timbre:

• Instrumental - depends on the features of the structure of the instrument and the nature of the extraction of sound;
• Harmonic - depends on the nature of the combination of sounds;
• Register - depends directly on the natural tessitura voice or register instrument;
• Textural - depends on the level of density and "viscosity" of sound, acoustics, etc.

Voice Voices

Timbre in music is an important characteristic for the singing voice. Especially in the conditions of variety competition it is important how much the vocalist has a memorable timbre.

The timbre of the human voice depends primarily on the structure of the voice apparatus. The timbre characteristics are also sufficiently influenced by the degree of development and "training" of the vocal apparatus. Often, after persistent studies, the vocalists change the timbre of the voice to a higher one, and after the transferred diseases of the vocal apparatus, the timbre becomes lower.

One way or another, among the male voices there are three main timbres - bass, baritone and tenor. Among female - contralto, mezzo-soprano and soprano.

What are the important timbre characteristics

The need to distinguish among the characteristics of sound another category - timbre - is dictated by a number of reasons. The most important of them is that the timbre (no matter instrumental or voice) helps to give the musical work the right mood, place important accents.

When a musical arrangement is made (especially if it is an orchestration), it is simply impossible not to take into account the creative task and the timbre characteristics of the instruments. For example, it will not be possible to give lightness and airiness to the sound, if you entrust the execution of a musical piece to a double bass or trombone, in which the timbre of sound differs by a large number of low overtones; It is impossible to achieve the effect of forcing the atmosphere, using the gentle replay of the harp.

The same thing happens during the selection of the repertoire for the vocalist. As a rule, blues and jazz parties do poorly to soprano performers or tenors, because this requires a dense, velvety, juicy, low timbre of sound, perhaps even with a "hoarse" - this is required by the specific nature of the genre (smoke-filled cabaret, cafes and Etc.). At the same time, performers with low voices are unprofitable in many other musical genres and performing techniques (for example, in "screaming", which is designed just for high voiced voices).

Thus, timbre is the characteristic that in many respects determines the atmosphere of the sounding musical work, and most importantly, it evokes in the person those or other emotions about what he heard.