Hello fellow classmates! My name is Ram, from Colombia, and as my first assignment I chose to explore one of the audio fundamental properties: Timbre.
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What is Timbre?
Timber is the quality of a sound independent of its pitch and volume. It is what differentiates one sound from another and one instrument from another. This quality is how we can tell a guitar from a violin when they are playing the same notes (i.e. same pitch) at the same volume.
The timbre results from the combination of all sound frequencies, attack and release envelopes, and other qualities that comprise a tone. The Timbre is determined by the instrument and how theinstrument is played (i.e.: bowed versus plucked) and also by the environment where the sound is being played.
Of all the above factors, the key component of timbre is the combination of sound frequencies.
The sine waves described on a text book are sound signals that are not normally present in the real world. You can create those waves using electronic equipment, but every time you strike a note on a musical instrument, there's not going to be only one frequency. Instead the sound will be comprised of a fundamental frequency plus a set of other frequency components.
The following pictures show a real audio signal from a music instrument, and a frequency spectrum of the signal:
The other frequencies that come about when a sound is created are called harmonics or overtones. Specifically the harmonics are defined as integer
multiples of the fundamental frequency
The relative balance of these overtones is what gives an instrument its distinctive sound. The timbre varies widely between different instruments, voices, and to lesser degree, between instruments of the same type due to variations in their construction, and also due to the performer's technique.
What's the importance :
Understanding this concept is a big part of understanding music. Most of what we are going to do in the studio is going to be related either capturing or playing with all the frequency components of the music sounds.
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Sources Used:
- http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/timbre
- http://education-portal.com/academy/topic/ap-music-theory-fundamentals-of-music.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_theory#Timbre
- http://annieintrotomusicproduction.blogspot.com/2014/05/timbre.htm
Reflection:
Although I wanted to explore multimedia presentations I decided to make the assignments as text-only documents, due to time constraints. Anyway, having this in a blog will hopefully make this material useful for someone else.
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