A Multidimensional Scaling Analysis of Musical Instruments' Time-Varying Spectra
Christophe Hourdin, G. Charbonneau, Tarek M. Moussa · Computer Music Journal · 1997
A musical sound is usually defined by four qualities: its pitch, intensity, duration, and timbre. Pitch allows a musician to classify a sound on a scale ranging from low to high. Intensity classifies tones from weak to loud, and duration from short to long. The term is difficult to define with any precision. Often, it is considered to be the quality that allows one to distinguish sounds that are identical in pitch, duration, and intensity (American Standard Acoustical Terminology 1960). Composers have used pitch, duration, and intensity in an elaborate way: until the 19th century, timbre seems to have played only a decorative role. Romantic composers, such as Hector Berlioz, as well as later ones, especially Claude Debussy, began to consider timbre as part of the expression of music. Arnold Sch6nberg and the Vienna School tried to enlarge the role of timbre in music, and contemporary composers commonly use timbre as a main element in music aesthetics.