Tuning In To Timbre

Timbre is often described as the “quality” of a sound. Our brains typically interpret timbre as telling us about a sound’s source (the instrument or material), the action that made the sound, and the space where it occurred. For example, we might think, “That sounds like a piece of metal hit with a stick in a big, echoey room.” Timbre is important when working with acoustic music, as it helps us distinguish different instruments and make more beautiful or effective sounds in performance. It is also crucial when working with recorded or synthesized music: audio engineers, for example, put a lot of effort into making sure the timbres they are recording sound as good as possible and work together well.

Timbre has two sides: scientific and subjective. We can measure several important aspects of timbre, separating out different components of a sound and modeling how they change over time. But it’s biologically important for humans to know where a sound is coming from and what it means, so whenever we hear timbres we’re always adding our own interpretations. This can make it hard for us to focus on timbre itself.

One way to understand a timbre better is to imitate it with your voice. Translating a sound into your own vocal mechanism allows you to experience it more directly and feel its components as you think about questions like the following:

• Does the sound feel like it should start with a consonant like “b” or “t” or does it feel right to leap right into a vowel?
• For sustained sounds, which vowel sound matches best?
• How much effort does it take to make the sound?
• Does the sound change over time or stay roughly the same?

This procedure works particularly well for non-vocal timbres; voices are complicated and difficult to simplify in this way. They are also strongly linked to identity, both of specific people (“That sounds like my friend Jane”) and of categories like class, geographic origin, gender, and race. When we imitate others’ voices, we sometimes fall into stereotypes, and we may feel discomfort if what we’re imitating doesn’t feel authentic for us. Imitation can still be a useful tool; we just need to make sure we use it in respectful ways.