Everything we can't describe in music • Hacker News Board

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#31

Post by relaxing » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 7:55 PM UTC

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #13

andoando wrote: post #9

Pitch is the frequency of the oscillation, timbre is the internal structure of what's oscillating. Is that right at all?

"Everything is overtones", or so I've heard somewhere. The pitch, or note you hear from an instrument is the fundamental frequency, and the combination of overtones determines the timbre. These overtones are other sine waves at different amplitudes and frequencies, and the combination of these are instrument dependent. Additive synthesizers do this to approximate "real" instruments.

The combination of overtones, but also the change in volume of those overtones over time.

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#32

Post by relaxing » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:01 PM UTC

nicklecompte wrote: post #28

navane wrote: post #7

Timbre is what makes the violin sound different from the bassoon, what makes the strings in general gives them their sound, and brass theirs. Timbre is what makes a singers voice unique. Classical composers had a set of fixed timbres to play with, each instrument having their own. With synthesizers everything is possible.

"everything is possible" except for a synthesized instrument that actually has the expressive range of a real violin or saxophone. Even a synthesized piano is noticeably lifeless compared to the real thing (synthesized piano bass notes are especially thin).

My trombone is lousy at reproducing the sound of a cello, but I don’t consider it inferior.

More to the point, the synthesizer has more options for expressiveness through change in timbre, glissando, microtones, etc.

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#33

Post by kazinator » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:10 PM UTC

hnthrowaway6543 wrote: post #12

> Another way to think about timbre is by comparing instruments. In an old stand-up bit, Steve Martin strummed the banjo and mused, “You just can’t sing a depressing song when you’re playing the banjo . . . You can’t just go, ‘Oh, death, and grief, and sorrow, and murder.’ Anyone who's played Outer Wilds should disagree with this.[0] To say we can't describe timbre is a bit misleading, because there are concrete math…

A banjo is plinky-plonky: it has a sharp attack, but not a lot of sustain. It's not great for playing a melody with long, slow notes. It's better suited for rhythmical patterns, and faster tempos. It's possible that a banjo could have a part in an ensemble piece about death, grief, sorrow and murder, but as a solo work, the idea does seem dodgy.

It's not so much the timbre as the envelope. We have ways to talk about the not envelope. That is complex though, because different components of the sound can have different envelopes: e.g. high harmonics dying off before fundamentals. Envelope is not separable from timbre.

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#34

Post by adzm » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:10 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #19

hnthrowaway6543 wrote: post #12

> Another way to think about timbre is by comparing instruments. In an old stand-up bit, Steve Martin strummed the banjo and mused, “You just can’t sing a depressing song when you’re playing the banjo . . . You can’t just go, ‘Oh, death, and grief, and sorrow, and murder.’ Anyone who's played Outer Wilds should disagree with this.[0] To say we can't describe timbre is a bit misleading, because there are concrete math…

I'd also recommend Timber Zeal - https://www.youtube.com/@SpaceBanjoMusic https://timbrzeal.bandcamp.com/music ... and the Hardspace Shipbreaker opening https://youtu.be/b4LbAr4uz9A You certainly can do minor with a banjo.

Notably easy when you tune the B string to a B flat. Instant minor!

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#35

Post by kazinator » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:11 PM UTC

relaxing wrote: post #32

nicklecompte wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"everything is possible" except for a synthesized instrument that actually has the expressive range of a real violin or saxophone. Even a synthesized piano is noticeably lifeless compared to the real thing (synthesized piano bass notes are especially thin).

My trombone is lousy at reproducing the sound of a cello, but I don’t consider it inferior. More to the point, the synthesizer has more options for expressiveness through change in timbre, glissando, microtones, etc.

But nobody made the claim that everything is possible with a trombone.

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#36

Post by kazinator » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:14 PM UTC

nicklecompte wrote: post #28

navane wrote: post #7

Timbre is what makes the violin sound different from the bassoon, what makes the strings in general gives them their sound, and brass theirs. Timbre is what makes a singers voice unique. Classical composers had a set of fixed timbres to play with, each instrument having their own. With synthesizers everything is possible.

"everything is possible" except for a synthesized instrument that actually has the expressive range of a real violin or saxophone. Even a synthesized piano is noticeably lifeless compared to the real thing (synthesized piano bass notes are especially thin).

Only the the best grand pianos have any bass. Your cheap 43" tall console piano for apartment use will not have much bass to speak off. The strings are too short, the box is too small. We have to restrict ourselves to True Scotsman's pianos.

Bass is easy to obtain out of a synthesizer: just make sure you have a subwoofer in the speaker system. It doesn't have to be a True Scotsman's synth or subwoofer.

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#37

Post by logrot » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:29 PM UTC

Timbre can vary a lot day by day on the same instrument.

Violin and the bow are both made of wood and a rainy damp day can easily sound different than dry summer's day.

You can get good carbon fiber bows and they are much less weather sensitive.

You can also get carbon fiber violins but I haven't heard one that sounds as good as one made from wood.

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#38

Post by tetha » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:44 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #11

I've gotten a lot of use out of thinking of genre in relation to timbre. Not as the only relevant thing, but part of a constellation. In most genres you have a palette of timbres to work with for each instrument based on the genre conventions. You can push at the edges or add things in, but have to balance audience expectations carefully as you do it. So for example the way an electric bass sounds in contemporary met…

Well there is Dimmu Borgir, with an orchestra and a choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El4zsUZjsDc - and it is just nuts. Yes that's 90 minutes, but watch 5 and then decide.

And that's why I love folk-ish metal so much.

Why shouldn't we have a lead/harmony violin on top of a metal rhythm section? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F17sxgZdXZw

Or a hurdy gurdy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT7HqIP55tI

Or a pipa, which was btw very hilarious in poland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpKZtPBIEQ

I'm honestly thinking of dropping some money to get myself an A-tuned drone flute[0]. Drone flutes sound really cool, and the drone would be tuned to just about the highest two notes on the guitar... and if you work with it a bit, drums/bass/rhythm guitars helping with rhythms, chords and harmony could really push that somewhere really interesting.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3OlNNEuu88

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#39

Post by sdwr » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:44 PM UTC

odyssey7 wrote: post #4

Arnold Schoenberg observed the deep connection between music, perception, and cognition; anticipated composers applying timbral control as is now commonly done with synthesizers; and apparently did not anticipate non-subtlety of the effect in EDM: "I think the tone becomes perceptible by virtue of tone color [timbre], of which one dimension is pitch. ... Pitch is nothing else but tone color measured in one direction.…

Pop music really does do this as he described. There are lots of songs that play with expectations of timbre in the same way that normal music plays with expectations of pitch.

When I get mentally crystallized, I hear music as proof-of-work in the vein of Bitcoin hashes.

Re: Everything we can't describe in music

#40

Post by artimaeis » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:53 PM UTC

taco_emoji wrote: post #2

"Terroir" is a terrible way to metaphorize timbre. The only similarity is that they're both hard to describe. Terroir is there before the wine is made and can't really be controlled by the winemaker (except insofar as they choose where to plant or what grapes to blend). Timbre is absolutely under the control of the musician.

I think this is just another point of frustration with trying to define timbre. There's definitely some points directly under control: attack and brightness come to mind. Then there's some that are less directly under control: the room and the instrument itself.

It's no accident that musicians spend a lot of money on instruments -- even electric guitar players -- an instrument that is electronically amplified and often distorted and otherwise augmented -- will have strong feelings about the particular type of guitar they use. Leaving shape-based decisions out of it (and pickups), hollow bodies are going to produce a different sound than solid. Different wood types will produce different tonal characteristics.

So the things that are directly controlled are less like terroir, more like choice of grape used maybe? While the make of the instrument, the shape of the room a recording was made in, these are much more like terroir I think.

But it's probably just not a great metaphor.