Timbre is What Gives Color to Music

Prof. Carol

Timbre. It rhymes with “amber,” not “limber.” So, if you cut down a tree, don’t yell “timbre!” (or don’t yell it too loudly…). Timbre is actually a critical element of music, so let’s look at it. Timbre is the French term for tone quality or tone color. The word goes back to a Middle Greek word for kettledrum called tymbanon. To determine timbre, simply ask: ”Which instrumental or vocal colors are we hearing?”
 
Timbre helps create and distinguish styles of music. Take Big Band Music. If you think of the bands of Benny Goodman, Harry James, or Count Basie, what timbres, or tone colors, come to mind? Perhaps you think of the solo instruments these star leaders played so marvelously, like clarinet (Goodman), trumpet (James), or piano (Basie). Or maybe you hear the overall Big-Band sound: saxophones, trumpets, and definitely trombones. And what about the rhythm section? Without it, there’d be no Swing Era.   
 
Whether we swooned over Frankie Avalon or screamed to Mick Jagger, we witnessed the evolution of a powerful new musical timbre called the electric guitar. In the early years before electric guitars entered the mix, Big-Band guitarists placed their acoustic guitars in front of microphones, so they’d be heard. That amplification added a new twist to the acoustical guitar’s timbre—one that helped define the early Swing sound. 
 
Contrast the playing of Keith Richards or the early Swing sound that to the sound of Roy Rogers playing guitar. Not to mention Jimmie Rodgers! And what about steel guitar? It goes on and on. 

And who decides all of these issues of timbre? In much of music, it’s the composers and arrangers. They usually work in silence, filling the silence with mental sounds and endless questions: Is this musical line (texture) more effective using the timbre of cellos or bassoons? How much of this chord should be played by the harp, and how much by the cellos?  Should the trombones pick up one of those notes? Which sounds better on this melody: trumpet or flute?   What happens if the flute line is doubled below by clarinet? 

If you want a picture of how intense composing and arranging can be, check out the beautiful new autobiography by Grammy-award winner Sammy Nestico: The Gift of Music. Or if you really get interested, get his fantastic and valuable compendium (book and CDs) called The Complete Arranger. 
 
Let’s face it. People aren’t brought up to hear the intricacies of timbre. School curriculums don’t routinely include units where students learn to identify the sounds of instruments, and even draw the instruments to match sounds played on recordings. Some people rarely get to hear live music-making. For them, music happens by pushing a button . . . unless (like the readers of Music After 50!) they take up the hard work of learning to play and sing.

A trained ear can hear a lot more than an untrained one. That’s not to say that music training is a requirement, but that there are ‘secrets’ of music that are revealed to an ear that is trained to hear the basic musical elements: melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, and timbre. Which brings us to the sixth element—the one that’s sometimes present in music: words, or text. Let’s take up text in our next post.

Carol Reynolds, aka Professor Carol, a former music history professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, has launched a new company, Silver Age Music. Her latest product is a multimedia course: “Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Art, History, & Culture.” Prof. Carol now lives on a ranch, raises goats, and writes and lectures on classical music (to humans).