By Olivia McConney

Timbre is known as the “the quality of the sound” or “tone color”. Timbre has to do with describing a sound you hear, not the pitch or dynamic but more to do with the way the note sounds. For example the note can sound dark, mellow, light or sharp.

You can tell the difference between 2 instruments by just the timbre of the sound it makes. For example, if an oboe and a trumpet play the same note you can tell that they are 2 different instruments because of the way the note sounds. AN OBOEA TRUMPET

When a composer writes a piece of music he or she might want the listener to feel a certain way. To do this the composer will use a certain timbre to create a mood for us, such as making the piece sound dark or bright. In this piece the timbre is light and relaxing. The flute sounds like the singing of a bird. 98E

Timbre is caused by the note of an instrument creating a certain sound frequency. If for example, a violin and a viola play the same note you can tell the difference between the two because the viola has a deeper sound then the violin. When we are listening to a piece of music we are not listening to each individual frequency that the instrument produces but we are listening to all the frequencies together. This allows us to feel the ‘mood’ of the piece of music or the ‘color’ of the music.

We can hear the difference between 2 instruments because of the frequency it plays at. For example, if one person is playing the violin with pizzicato and the other person is not, we are able to hear the difference in the 2 instruments even though they are both a violin. This can cause a different timbre in the instruments because the violin that is played with pizzicato can make the sound feel quick and jumpy but the other violin can make us feel calm and relaxed.

  music/elements/elemofmusic/timbre.htm music/elements/elemofmusic/timbre.htm  %20pdf%20files/journal2timbre05.pdf %20pdf%20files/journal2timbre05.pdf  hmi/142-understanding-basic-music- theory-timbre.html hmi/142-understanding-basic-music- theory-timbre.html