On Timbre

Phy103 Physics
of Music

image by Hans-Christoph Steiner based on Grey, JM 1979, JASA, 61, 1270

 Four complex tones in which all
partials have been removed by
filtering (Butler Example 2.5)
One is a French horn, one is a violin, one is a pure sine,
one is a piano (but out of order)

It’s hard – but not impossible to identify the instruments.

Clues remain (attack, vibrato, decay) and these
contribute to the “timbre”. Timbre is not just due to the
spectral mix.
 The importance of attack
transients in sound identification
• Listening example 4.8 (Butler) Three sustained tones
are presented, each with the attack transient (initial
60 milliseconds) removed. Identify the instruments
• Listening example 4.9. First the sound of a violin
(C4). Next the attack transient of that tone elongated
to a hundred times its normal length through digital
time expansion.
• Note this scratchiness makes it difficult for computer
programs to transcribe music played by violins.
 Mixed timbres
• Butler Listening example 8.3. Starting
with a French horn sound and ending with
a clarinet sound. 11 short tones each
shifted 10% further toward the clarinet
tone.
• Butler Listening example 8.4.
Intermediate between piano and violin
timbre. Both spectral mix, and attack
envelope is intermediate.
 Attributes
from Erickson’s Music Structure

Subjective Objective
Tonal character, usually Periodic sound or sound
pitched composed of only a few
frequencies
Noisy, with or without some Random pulses or broad
tonal character, including band spectrum
rustle noise
Vibrato Frequency modulation
Tremolo Amplitude modulation
 More Attributes
Coloration Spectral envelope

Coloration glide or Change of spectral

formant glide envelope

Attack Prefix
Final sound Suffix

Beginning/ending Rise/decay time

 Schouten’s “Acoustic
parameters”
1. The range between tonal and noiselike character.
2. The spectral envelope.
3. The time envelope in terms of rise, duration, and decay.
4. The changes both of spectral envelope (formant-glide)
and fundamental frequency (micro-intonation).
5. The prefix, an onset of a sound quite dissimilar to the
ensuing lasting vibration.
This represents way too many free parameters for an engineer
to cover the complexity of sounds.
 Timbre
space

• Grey’s Timbre cube

• Is it possible to classify
timbres, for example
recognition of instrument
from audio?
image by Hans-Christoph Steiner based on Grey, JM 1979, JASA, 61, 1270
 Grey’s axes

overtones arise and decay together or not

 Timbre space
based on
nearness ratings
by people
Psychology
experiment

From McAdams, S. et al. Psychological Research, 58, 177-192 (1995)

 Broad band vs Tonal

“Beat That” by Beat Kaufmann

Hz The
Syrinx
 Filtered Broad Band
• ASA demo 5
• A Low pass filter cuts off all high
frequencies
Blending of harmonics into one
tone or timbre
ASA Demo 1 Cancelled Harmonics
20 harmonics of 200Hz are played
together.
When the relative amplitudes of all 20
harmonics remain steady they blend and
we hear them all as one tone
When one harmonic is cancelled or given
a vibrato then it stands out and we hear it
separately
 How many harmonics are needed for a
tone to have its recognizable character?
• ASA Demo 28a Adding in
partials of a carillon bell

Hum note 251 Hz

Prime or fundamental 501Hz
Minor Third and Fifth 603,750Hz
Duodecime or Twelfth 1506Hz
Upper Octave 2083Hz
Next two partials 2421,2721Hz
Remainder of partials
 Adding in partials for a guitar
ASA Demo28b In order
• fundamental
• 2rd harmonic
• 3rd harmonic
• 4th harmonic
• 5th and 6th harmonic
• 7th and 8th harmonic
• 9th, 10th and 11th harmonic
• Remainder
What are the characteristics of
sounds used for music?
 Properties of musical sounds
• Composed of tones, not a lot of broad band
noise
• Overtones are nearly harmonic
---Lots of exceptions to the above rules
A rich musical sound has a strong set of tones
in the vocal formant region
-- Combining instruments with different
timbres
Timbre classification in terms of
spectrum only
Disordered wind,
Noise
pattern radio static
Definite pitch
Electronic beep,
steady oscillation Tone lacking
Ocharina
character
strings
Fundamental plus Definite pitch
woodwinds
harmonic series Clear tone
brass
Definite pitch clarinet low
Fundamental plus Tone depends on register,
some harmonics which harmonics marimba with
are present tuned overtones
 Timbre continued
Fairly definite
Fundamental with pitch but sense of strings, winds,
mistuned pitch may depend brass, piano,
harmonics on the digeridu
fundamental
Pitch and tone
Fundamental with Marimbas without
quality dependent
non-harmonic tuned overtones,
on the nature of
overtones bells, digeridu
the overtones
Close non Ambiguous pitch,
triangles, gongs,
harmonic depending on
bells
frequencies overtones
Fundamental +
Some sense of
few tones plus some drums
pitch
broad band
 Timbre classification
and sound excitation
Harmonic spectrum:
strings – chordophones, string is vibrating
winds – areophones, column of air is vibrating
Richer tone made by ensuring high frequency
overtones are present in spectrum.
Spectral envelope for guitar, piano, violin affected by
resonating chamber
Temporal envelope: plucking vs hammer vs friction
excitation: guitar vs piano vs violin
 Timbre classification and sound
excitation
Non-harmonic spectrum:
Ideophones: Solid object vibrating: e.g., marimba,
xylophone, bells, gongs, forks
Membranophones: membrane vibrating: drums
Richer tone made by tuning overtones, ensuring that
many overtones are present, coupling motion of
vibrating object to resonating chamber
 Timber and Transposition
• High and low tones from a musical instrument do
not have the same relative spectrum.
• Low notes on the piano have week fundamentals
whereas high notes have strong ones
• ASA Demo30 shifting the spectrum of a bassoon
down
 Timbre depends on frequency
• First tone has partials 1,2,3,4,5
• Second tone has partials 1,3,5,7,9
• Difference in timbre depends on frequency
of fundamental
• Butler demo 3.5a
 The effect of Tone Envelope
on Timbre
ASA demo29
Piano envelope is normally decaying
but here it is reversed
 Tones and Tuning Stretched
The scale can be stretched
The partials can be stretched
Here are examples of all 4 combinations
-- pure harmonics and normal scale
-- scale stretched
-- partials stretched
-- stretched harmonics and scale 1 octave=2.1
ASA demo 31
 Changes in Timbre The normal 3
The singer’s “formant” formants are brought
close together to
form a broad spectral
Cook demo 42 Singing with peak between 2500-
and without the singer’s formant 4000Hz
spectrum with singer’s format spectrum without
 Changes in timbre with vocal
effort
Cook demo #78
a) Successive vocal tones, amplitude only turned down
b) Same as a) but high end of spectrum is also turned
down, as would happen for decreasing effort
c) Same as b) but with additional reverb that is held
constant so voice sounds like it is getting quieter in a
fixed location
d) Same as a) but with increasing reverb so the voice
sounds as if it is getting further away
 Discussion

• What accounts for the differences in timbre for oboes,

clarinets, flutes and horns?
• Strings vs winds?
• Piano vs violin?
• Acoustic vs classical guitar?
 More Discussion
• Evolution of sound synthesis: What properties let
you know that the music or sounds are
synthesized?
• How can we tell?
• Is there a body of psychoacoustic tests on how big
a change is required before we notice a timbre
change?
• Sound synthesis: a lack of quantitative measures
of how well timbre is matched with computerized
sound synthesis?
 Terms Introduced
• Timbre space and popular choices for their
dimensions
Reading:
• Butler chapter 8
• Hopkins chap 1