Compositional Languages
Fall 2012
Instructor: Prof. SIGMAN
Tuesday 13:00-15:00
Lecture XII (LAST LECTURE!)
End-of-Semester Schedule
• 12/04: Musical “Timbre”
• 12/11: Final Project Presentations; Study
Guide distributed
• 12/18: FINAL EXAM (시험)
Assignment III
• DUE TODAY! (오늘)
Topics
• I. Musical Timbre Defined (?)
• II. Musical Timbre Structured:
Klangfarbenmelodie
• III. Musical Timbre Classified: Musique
concrète
• IV. Musical Timbre Analysed I: MelodyHarmony-Timbre-Orchestration
• V. Musical Timbre Analysed II: Cross-Synthesis
• VI. Noise
I. Musical Timbre (음색) Defined
A. Dictionary Definition
• “the character or quality of a musical sound or
voice as distinct from pitch and intensity”
• Origin: French (timbre); Greek (tumpanon) =
“drum”
What does this mean?
Timbre is:
• NOT pitch/harmony (but related)
• NOT rhythm
• NOT intensity
• NOT register
• So what is it?
(Imprecise) Timbre descriptors
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Rough/smooth
Rich/poor
Thick/thin
Complex/simple
Nasal
Flute-ish, Violin-ish, etc.
Stable/unstable
Attack-oriented/resonant
???
B. Classical Definition: Helmholtz,
On the Sensations of Tone (1863)
Helmholtz/Fourier Definition
• Complex tone = sum of sinusoids
Problem with Helmholtz’ Theory
• Timbre defined as time-constant (or “steadystate”) spectrum
• Most sounds are time-varying (change in
time)
C. Time-Varying Timbral
Parameters
1. Amplitude Envelope
Components
2. Spectral Envelope
• Unfolding of a sound’s spectrum over time
e.g., brass instruments: high harmonics rise
later than lower ones
3. Other Sources of Time Variation
• Vibrato (frequency variation) and tremolo
(amplitude variation)
• Crescendo: gradual shift in spectral energy,
tuning, resonance, pitch-to-noise ratio
D. J.K. Randall, “Three lectures to
scientists” (1967)
“It seems to me that any psycho‐acoustician
who forges ahead blithely out of touch with
current concerns in musical analysis and
musical composition is putting himself in an
excellent position to produce silly science,
silly music, or silly both.”
E. Composer Definitions
• 1) timbre as distinct and mobile “parameter”?
• 2) as reducible to quantifiable, atomic
parameters?
• 3) timbre-harmony-pitch (+ rhythm)
continuum/ambiguity/fusion? In Ravel,
Wagner, Scelsi, spectral music…
• 4) as determined by human “modes of
production” and/or anatomy of the
instrument (e.g., scordatura)
• 5) as multi-dimensional and constantly in flux
II. Timbre Structured:
Klangfarbenmelodie
A. Klangfarbenmelodie
• “The evaluation of tone color, the second dimension of tone,
is in a much less cultivated, much less organized state than is
the aesthetic evaluation of pitch…Now, if it is possible to
create patterns out of pitches, patterns we call ‘melodies,’
progressions, whose coherence evokes an effect analogous to
thought processes, then it must be also possible to make
progressions out of…tone color, progressions whose relations
to one another work with a kind of logic entirely equivalent to
that logic which satisfies us in the melody of pitches.” –
Schönberg, Harmonielehre, 1911
Summary
• “tone colour” progressions = structured like
chord progressions and melodies
• Tone colour = “the second dimension of tone”
B. A.Schönberg, “Farben”
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5 Orchestra Pieces, op. 16, no. 3 (1909)
Use of Klangfarbenmelodie
Process: harmony changes slowly
Canon between 2 groups of instruments
Tone colour “progression” as second layer to
harmonic progression
Score/Analysis/Recording
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFT6NIYM
F1I
•
III. Timbre Classified: Pierre
Schaeffer
A. Musique concrète
• 1940s: Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry
experiment with transforming recorded
sounds using analog equipment in Radio
France studios
• Sources: sounds from the outside world
• Processes: Classical forms and phrase
structure applied
Musique concrète example: Etude
aux chemins de fer (1948)
• Sources: train (railroad) sounds
• “Unnatural” ordering and repetition
• Source sounds -> SOUND OBJECTS (objets
sonores), separated from their original
CONTEXT
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuFTo4UV
YG8
B. Pierre Schaeffer, Traité des
objets musicaux (1968)
• “Treatise on musical objects”
• Treatise on the classification (분류하기) of all
timbres into a solfège
1. “Reduced Hearing”
• Separation of objet sonore (sound object)
from its source
• Elimination of source-bonding (pairing of
source with sound object)
• Reduction of universe of sounds to soundobject categories
• Psychological, rather than acoustic
classification system
2. Schaeffer’s sound classification
scheme
• 2 main criteria: mass and treatment
Mass
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M1 = pure tones
M2 = complex pitched sounds
M3 = complex, non-variable sounds
M4 = slightly varying sounds
M5 = highly varying sounds
Treatment (facture):
• F1-F3: Continuous
• F4: Impulsive
• F5-F7: Discontinuous
[Chart]
Schaeffer and the Objet musical
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Musical contexts for sound objects
Class: musical morphology
Genus: musical character
Species: musical character, intensity, etc.
• This classification system encourages analytic
and intimate listening experience of sounds
Schaeffer Introduction: Solfège de
l’objet sonore (1967)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWMA_iR
QSFg
Objections
• Can the sound really be separated from its
source? Does the sound not contain its
source?
• As sounds change in time, are they best
described as objects?
IV. Timbre Analysed I: MelodyHarmony-Timbre-Orchestration
Example: Jean-Claude Risset,
Mutations (1969)
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For electronics
Melody-> harmony-> bell timbre
Steady-state (time-constant) timbre
Inharmonic partials
Similar to harmonies and orchestration based
upon trombone spectrum in Grisey’s Partiels
Score and Recording Excerpt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRxTGLp8AY
V. Timbre Analysed II: CrossSynthesis
A. Cross-Synthesis Defined
• Creation of hybrid sound by combining
spectral or temporal properties of timeconstant OR time-varying sounds
• E.g.: a violin with a trumpet amplitude
envelope
• E.g.: A bell with a voice spectral envelope
• https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/SpecEnv/App
lication_Example_Cross_Synthesis.html
B. Jonathan Harvey (b. 1939):
Mortuous plango, vivos voco
(1980)
• What’s going on here?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdRzDx1
_J4
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VI. Noise
A. Definitions
• 1) loud, unpleasant disturbance
• 2) confusion
• 3) irregular fluctations (변동) in a signal
B. Acoustic Reality
• Random amplitude fluctuations
• No regular integer harmonics: all frequencies
present
C. Types of Noise
• White
• Pink
• Brown
D. Noise-Tone Continuum
• There is no place where tone ends and noise
begins
• Therefore: tone and noise fall along a
continuum
E. Peter Ablinger: Der Regen, das
Glas, das Lachen (1992)
• Explores continuum between pure tone and
white noise
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuf0IcZ0
dVc
너무 감사합니다!
• Next week: PRESENTATIONS! 