Table of Contents        
I. Traditional Approaches to Timbre


   Physical Attributes of Instrumental Tones 
         Preliminary Definitions 
         Harmonics 
         Formants 
         Time-Domain Envelope 
         Modulation 
   Analysis and Synthesis Studies: 1862 - 1969 
         
         Helmholz 
         Bartholomew 
         James
         Olson
         Tenney
         Beauchamp 
         Risset and Mathews 
         
   Perceptual Correlates of Timbre: 1970 - Present 

         Similarity Studies 
         Multidimensional Scaling 
           Plomp 
           Gordon and Grey 
           McAdams et al 
         Verbal Attributes        
           von Bismark          
           Yankovskii 


Other Approaches to Timbre
L’objet Sonore
Ecological Approach
Timbre Analogies: Wessel and McAdams
Slawson’s Sound Color
II. Acoustic Attributes of Timbre

Physical Description of the Double Bass
Physical Description of the Voice
Acoustic Analysis of Double Bass and Voice
Time Envelope
Fundamental Frequency
Spectral Content
Spectral Envelope

III. Defining and Quantifying Timbre
Definitional Vagueness
Determining and Quantifying Features
Voice Quality
Psychophysics
Multidimensional Scaling Studies

Categorization with Features
IV. Auditory Models and Monaural Phase Perception

Auditory Models for Timbral Analysis
The Auditory System
Spectro-temporal Models
Applying Spectro-temporal Models to Timbre
Monaural Phase Experiments
Sinusoidal Modeling
Pilot Studies
Future Research Directions
V. Four Pieces of Musical Timbre
The Space of Timbre
Sonopoietic Space
Sonopoietic Images
The Place of Listening
Audiogenic Images
Ecological Strategies and Sono-poietic Space
Timbre Pieces
Piece One - from there
Piece Two - nasal lines
Piece Three - the convergence
Piece Five - portraits of a wire

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 1999 John Puterbaugh

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