Timbre
“Timbre tends to be the psychoacoustician's multidimensional waste-basket category for everything that cannot be labeled pitch or loudness …” (McAdams & Bregman, 1979).
Timbre - So What?
As the quote above indicates, timbre (rhymes with "amber") has proven difficult to define (Patel, 2008). In essence, timbre “...is the quality of a musical note, sound, or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments [from each other]” (Timbre, 2015).
Or, as Cornelia Fales, (cited in Starker, 2011) put it: “... pitch and loudness are things a sound does, timbre is what a sound is …”
In the audio below, I play the same series of notes from Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" twice, each time with a different timbre (Joplin, 1902).
- Timbre - so what?
- Musical and linguistic timbre
- Timbre for teachers
Timbre - So What?
As the quote above indicates, timbre (rhymes with "amber") has proven difficult to define (Patel, 2008). In essence, timbre “...is the quality of a musical note, sound, or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments [from each other]” (Timbre, 2015).
Or, as Cornelia Fales, (cited in Starker, 2011) put it: “... pitch and loudness are things a sound does, timbre is what a sound is …”
In the audio below, I play the same series of notes from Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" twice, each time with a different timbre (Joplin, 1902).
Importantly, timbral contrasts are the main way listeners distinguish different English vowel sounds from each other, and play a role in consonant distinctions as well (Bannan, 2008; Patel, 2008; Terrell, 2012). Without the ability to hear the difference between vowel sounds and consonant sounds, students can't comprehend spoken English. If they can’t hear the contrasts, they also won’t know when they are speaking comprehensibly.
Timbral contrasts also contribute to the accenting of syllables (Patel, 2008). Accenting tells listeners which words in an utterance to pay special attention to (Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 2010). I discuss accenting in more depth on the Rhythm page.
Thus timbre plays a central role in both listening comprehension and pronunciation. When it comes to the “particles” of speech sounds - vowels and consonants - timbre plays the central role. If students are not hearing timbral contrasts, they are not hearing vowel and consonant sounds. Teachers need to help them notice.
Music activities revolving around timbre improve awareness of speech timbre, and help improve vocal control (Terrell, 2012). In addition, the timbral contrasts of different musical instruments stimulate a variety of vocabulary-building activities. These uses of music are most effective when teachers musically target the language - when they mickey-mouse it.
Musical and linguistic timbre
Each musical instrument has its own unique sound - its own timbre. But in music, listeners usually recognize the substance of a piece played on different instruments, like a piano and a trumpet, as the same melody. Musical structure is, in this sense, not based on timbre. Musical sound structure is based on pitch relationships. Across the world’s cultures, pitch- and not timbre-based music is almost universal. Exceptions include the lamellophone and the Australian didgeridoo (Patel, 2008). See the Pitch page for a discussion of pitch.
In speech, on the other hand, pitch plays second fiddle to timbre. The structure of speech sound is based primarily on timbral relationships among vowels and consonants (ibid).
Timbral differences in language also help listeners identify the different producers of sound: individual speakers. But in language, much bigger differences in timbre can come from the same speaker saying different words, than from different speakers saying the same words. In music, by contrast, timbre varies primarily from instrument to instrument, not within the sounds of the same instrument. A given instrument plays notes of varying pitch, but its timbre remains its signature quality (ibid).
The human voice is an extremely versatile instrument in terms of timbre (Terrell, 2012). But those sounds it can’t produce, it can’t produce. The possibilities for musical timbre, on the other hand, are limited only by the imaginations of instrument designers.
In speech, timbre, like pitch, glides continuously from one seemingly “distinct” sound to another. But different vowels and consonants do not necessarily fall into distinct categories. Whether a listener interprets a sound as an /i/ or an /e/ varies by context, listener and speaker (Patel, 2008).
Thus the timbral contrasts between vowels and consonants in language are very subtle and slippery, making them difficult for English learners to notice. This is especially true when one of the English sounds is similar to a sound in the student’s mother tongue (Patel, 2008). If teachers carefully chose the music, its sharp instrument-to-instrument contrasts anchor and exaggerate, that is mickey-mouse, slippery vowel and consonant contrasts.
Languages as Orchestras
In view of all the above, we can profitably think of different vowel and consonant sounds not just as their own sounds, but each as its own musical instrument. In this analogy an /e/ is different from an /i/ in the same way a trumpet is different from a flute; they differ in the signature sound they produce: their timbre.
From this vantage point vowels, which involve the relatively free flow of air, are like wind instruments - flutes, trumpets, trombones, saxophones. You blow into them and they make noise. Most consonant sounds, which involve some stoppage of air, are like a percussion instrument; you strike them and they make noise.
There are a few consonants, however, such as the sound "th," which don’t actually involve the tongue striking or touching any solid surface. They involve a sharp restriction of airflow, but not a stoppage. These are "continuants." Any musical instrument which is capable of producing a sustained sound provides an analogue for a continuant. Vowels are all continuants too, because speakers can draw them out for as long as their lungs have air.
In this analogy, every language has its own unique ensemble of instruments. The instruments are the language's vowels and consonants. Spoken accents come from individual musicians imparting their individual styles to the unique flutes and drums of a particular language.
In Summary: The timbre of musical instruments can vary tremendously from instrument to instrument, but each instrument retains its signature timbre. The situation is reversed in language; the timbre varies less from speaker to speaker than within a speaker's repertoire of vowels and consonants. So one way to visualize linguistic timbre is by comparing vowels and consonants to instruments, languages to orchestras, and speakers to musical performers.
Timbre for teachers
Underscoring themes
As with pitch instruction, the focus of timbre instruction should be raising awareness of timbral contrasts. Only after students are hearing the contrasts, can they incorporate them into their own speech (Terrell, 2012).
But my mickey-mousing thesis is that music is a tool which teachers should tailor to language. So one purpose in pairing language sounds with musical timbres is illustration. For this purpose the analogy above of vowels and consonants as instruments helps students who aren't familiar with the labels to conceptualize vowels and consonants.
A musical note, or any noise with a similar timbre, serves as a reference point and reminder of the speech sound. The music underscores the speech. For example, consistently pairing /t/ with a similar-sounding tap on the whiteboard connects the two in students’ minds through classical conditioning, reminding students of the consonant sound every time the teacher taps (Ormrod, 2011).
Analogously, in cartoons, operas, and other musically-accompanied performances, the writers and composers pair different characters and ideas with different instruments, creating a timbral association between the two (Goldmark, 2005). They do this with different melodies too. Mickey-mousing music to content in this way provides an avenue for teachers to create predictability, manage the class, and make material more memorable and lively.
For instance, the teacher plays a recording of the same instrument or the same melody each time the class turns to a recurrent activity like warm ups or journal writing, or when revisiting a particular theme, like present progressive verb tenses or food vocabulary. A new genre, like patriotic songs, introduces a new unit, such as civics.
Students not only collaborate on picking music they think is appropriate for certain topics, they also vote on a class theme song. Which timbres and melodies best capture the character of the class? A discussion of this question raises timbral awareness.
In cartoons, these kinds of associations are often more complex. Composers underscore different characters performing the same action with different instruments playing the same melody (Goldmark, 2005). Thus in a language class, a teacher precedes grammar lessons by playing a given melody, which for verbs is played on a clarinet, and for prepositions is played on a piano. This facilitates comprehension, by activating background knowledge. It also helps students recall what they learn, because the more different mental connections a learner makes around a piece of knowledge, the more likely s/he is to remember it (Ormrod, 2011). These musical interludes provide mini brain breaks for students as well.
This practice is relatively easy if the class has a regular routine. Then the teacher records the segments in sequence, so that when s/he finishes playing one segment of music, the recording is at the right starting place for the next theme. The practice is easier to customize, however, when teachers store the music on a computer; they open the folder with the musical themes before class, and just click on the appropriate one at each transition point in class.
Underscoring Sounds
As I argue throughout this website, when using music in this way, teachers should always be on the lookout for music that somehow fits what it's being matched to. Patel (2008) calls instrument-to-voice similarities “sound symbolism.” I discuss some of the different ways instrumental music is suited to linguistic concepts in more detail on the Lyrics page. But one example appropriate to timbre, and source of fun classroom listening activities, is called “tone painting.”
Though a relatively neglected area now, composers in the past attempted to create speech-like sounds with musical instruments. The Jerry Lewis (2010) video below illustrates the substitution of music for speech.
Timbral contrasts also contribute to the accenting of syllables (Patel, 2008). Accenting tells listeners which words in an utterance to pay special attention to (Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 2010). I discuss accenting in more depth on the Rhythm page.
Thus timbre plays a central role in both listening comprehension and pronunciation. When it comes to the “particles” of speech sounds - vowels and consonants - timbre plays the central role. If students are not hearing timbral contrasts, they are not hearing vowel and consonant sounds. Teachers need to help them notice.
Music activities revolving around timbre improve awareness of speech timbre, and help improve vocal control (Terrell, 2012). In addition, the timbral contrasts of different musical instruments stimulate a variety of vocabulary-building activities. These uses of music are most effective when teachers musically target the language - when they mickey-mouse it.
Musical and linguistic timbre
Each musical instrument has its own unique sound - its own timbre. But in music, listeners usually recognize the substance of a piece played on different instruments, like a piano and a trumpet, as the same melody. Musical structure is, in this sense, not based on timbre. Musical sound structure is based on pitch relationships. Across the world’s cultures, pitch- and not timbre-based music is almost universal. Exceptions include the lamellophone and the Australian didgeridoo (Patel, 2008). See the Pitch page for a discussion of pitch.
In speech, on the other hand, pitch plays second fiddle to timbre. The structure of speech sound is based primarily on timbral relationships among vowels and consonants (ibid).
Timbral differences in language also help listeners identify the different producers of sound: individual speakers. But in language, much bigger differences in timbre can come from the same speaker saying different words, than from different speakers saying the same words. In music, by contrast, timbre varies primarily from instrument to instrument, not within the sounds of the same instrument. A given instrument plays notes of varying pitch, but its timbre remains its signature quality (ibid).
The human voice is an extremely versatile instrument in terms of timbre (Terrell, 2012). But those sounds it can’t produce, it can’t produce. The possibilities for musical timbre, on the other hand, are limited only by the imaginations of instrument designers.
In speech, timbre, like pitch, glides continuously from one seemingly “distinct” sound to another. But different vowels and consonants do not necessarily fall into distinct categories. Whether a listener interprets a sound as an /i/ or an /e/ varies by context, listener and speaker (Patel, 2008).
Thus the timbral contrasts between vowels and consonants in language are very subtle and slippery, making them difficult for English learners to notice. This is especially true when one of the English sounds is similar to a sound in the student’s mother tongue (Patel, 2008). If teachers carefully chose the music, its sharp instrument-to-instrument contrasts anchor and exaggerate, that is mickey-mouse, slippery vowel and consonant contrasts.
Languages as Orchestras
In view of all the above, we can profitably think of different vowel and consonant sounds not just as their own sounds, but each as its own musical instrument. In this analogy an /e/ is different from an /i/ in the same way a trumpet is different from a flute; they differ in the signature sound they produce: their timbre.
From this vantage point vowels, which involve the relatively free flow of air, are like wind instruments - flutes, trumpets, trombones, saxophones. You blow into them and they make noise. Most consonant sounds, which involve some stoppage of air, are like a percussion instrument; you strike them and they make noise.
There are a few consonants, however, such as the sound "th," which don’t actually involve the tongue striking or touching any solid surface. They involve a sharp restriction of airflow, but not a stoppage. These are "continuants." Any musical instrument which is capable of producing a sustained sound provides an analogue for a continuant. Vowels are all continuants too, because speakers can draw them out for as long as their lungs have air.
In this analogy, every language has its own unique ensemble of instruments. The instruments are the language's vowels and consonants. Spoken accents come from individual musicians imparting their individual styles to the unique flutes and drums of a particular language.
In Summary: The timbre of musical instruments can vary tremendously from instrument to instrument, but each instrument retains its signature timbre. The situation is reversed in language; the timbre varies less from speaker to speaker than within a speaker's repertoire of vowels and consonants. So one way to visualize linguistic timbre is by comparing vowels and consonants to instruments, languages to orchestras, and speakers to musical performers.
Timbre for teachers
Underscoring themes
As with pitch instruction, the focus of timbre instruction should be raising awareness of timbral contrasts. Only after students are hearing the contrasts, can they incorporate them into their own speech (Terrell, 2012).
But my mickey-mousing thesis is that music is a tool which teachers should tailor to language. So one purpose in pairing language sounds with musical timbres is illustration. For this purpose the analogy above of vowels and consonants as instruments helps students who aren't familiar with the labels to conceptualize vowels and consonants.
A musical note, or any noise with a similar timbre, serves as a reference point and reminder of the speech sound. The music underscores the speech. For example, consistently pairing /t/ with a similar-sounding tap on the whiteboard connects the two in students’ minds through classical conditioning, reminding students of the consonant sound every time the teacher taps (Ormrod, 2011).
Analogously, in cartoons, operas, and other musically-accompanied performances, the writers and composers pair different characters and ideas with different instruments, creating a timbral association between the two (Goldmark, 2005). They do this with different melodies too. Mickey-mousing music to content in this way provides an avenue for teachers to create predictability, manage the class, and make material more memorable and lively.
For instance, the teacher plays a recording of the same instrument or the same melody each time the class turns to a recurrent activity like warm ups or journal writing, or when revisiting a particular theme, like present progressive verb tenses or food vocabulary. A new genre, like patriotic songs, introduces a new unit, such as civics.
Students not only collaborate on picking music they think is appropriate for certain topics, they also vote on a class theme song. Which timbres and melodies best capture the character of the class? A discussion of this question raises timbral awareness.
In cartoons, these kinds of associations are often more complex. Composers underscore different characters performing the same action with different instruments playing the same melody (Goldmark, 2005). Thus in a language class, a teacher precedes grammar lessons by playing a given melody, which for verbs is played on a clarinet, and for prepositions is played on a piano. This facilitates comprehension, by activating background knowledge. It also helps students recall what they learn, because the more different mental connections a learner makes around a piece of knowledge, the more likely s/he is to remember it (Ormrod, 2011). These musical interludes provide mini brain breaks for students as well.
This practice is relatively easy if the class has a regular routine. Then the teacher records the segments in sequence, so that when s/he finishes playing one segment of music, the recording is at the right starting place for the next theme. The practice is easier to customize, however, when teachers store the music on a computer; they open the folder with the musical themes before class, and just click on the appropriate one at each transition point in class.
Underscoring Sounds
As I argue throughout this website, when using music in this way, teachers should always be on the lookout for music that somehow fits what it's being matched to. Patel (2008) calls instrument-to-voice similarities “sound symbolism.” I discuss some of the different ways instrumental music is suited to linguistic concepts in more detail on the Lyrics page. But one example appropriate to timbre, and source of fun classroom listening activities, is called “tone painting.”
Though a relatively neglected area now, composers in the past attempted to create speech-like sounds with musical instruments. The Jerry Lewis (2010) video below illustrates the substitution of music for speech.
As an exercise, students write down what they think Jerry Lewis is saying, then compare and justify their answers (Terrell, 2012). This increases phonological awareness, as well as stimulating reflection on the production of speech sounds. To scaffold this process, students first dictate what they hear to the teacher, who then writes it on the board (Ortega, 2001). The video is fast, however; if I used it in class, I would play a short section of it repeatedly for the written part of the exercise. But on a first or even second viewing, I would play the whole thing, so students understood the full context.
More musically-inclined students can experiment with composing their own tone paintings, imitating language sounds with music. Dialogues are an ideal format for tone paintings. Students don't need conventional musical instruments; they can use classroom objects, body sounds, or whatever else is available. Tapping a variety of objects on a variety of classroom surfaces, for example, provides a rich source of musical sounds for comparison with, and thereby underscoring of, speech.
In addition to imitating speech, some tone paintings imitate other sounds, like machines and animals. Selections like Prokofiev's "Peter Wolf" (1994), in the audio below, springboard vocabulary work, discussions, and creative writing about the sounds. In this excerpt, the narrator explains which instruments describe a few of Peter's co-stars. The entire musical story runs about 50 minutes, and so provides a treasure trove of material for timbral awareness and vocabulary work.
More musically-inclined students can experiment with composing their own tone paintings, imitating language sounds with music. Dialogues are an ideal format for tone paintings. Students don't need conventional musical instruments; they can use classroom objects, body sounds, or whatever else is available. Tapping a variety of objects on a variety of classroom surfaces, for example, provides a rich source of musical sounds for comparison with, and thereby underscoring of, speech.
In addition to imitating speech, some tone paintings imitate other sounds, like machines and animals. Selections like Prokofiev's "Peter Wolf" (1994), in the audio below, springboard vocabulary work, discussions, and creative writing about the sounds. In this excerpt, the narrator explains which instruments describe a few of Peter's co-stars. The entire musical story runs about 50 minutes, and so provides a treasure trove of material for timbral awareness and vocabulary work.
Performers like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald took advantage of sound symbolism in the opposite direction. They used their voices not as tools for singing words, but rather as instruments in their own right, in what was called “scat vocalization,” or just "scatting" (Bannan, 2008). Other modern artists have tried their hand at scatting too. Emulating them is a fun way for students to increase phonological awareness and vocal control. In the video below Ella Fitzgerald scats (Ella Fitzgerald the master of scat singing, 2013).
Underscoring words
Timbral contrasts are a useful tool for vocabulary building beyond just naming the things whose sounds are being imitated. To start with, students try to name the instruments making the sounds. Then they practice sequencing and ordinal numbers by answering “Which instrument/sound came first? Which second … ?” (Pearman & Friedman, 2009).
Students might also act as marketing executives, and decide, based on timbre and melody, which products they think a piece of music would be appropriate for advertising (Murphey, 1992). Then students write ads for the products. To target this activity at particular vocabulary or grammatical categories, teachers provide a list of items whose names the class is studying for students to choose from, or provide lists of adjectives, verbs or adverbs from which students must choose a certain number to use in their ad scripts.
Students don't have to advertise objects; they could just as well advertise family members, activities, or something from any other theme the teacher picks. Students then perform the ads in front of the class with musical accompaniment. A teacher selecting themes enables the learning-goal customizing so integral to a mickey-mousing approach.
Students practice country names by using timbral contrasts to identify the music’s country of origin. They practice musical style names like "Rock n' roll" and "New Age" using timbral and pitch contrasts as well (Terrell, 2012). Students practice feeling words by identifying how the different instruments make them feel. Do the instruments sound like anyone they know? Remind them of any movies? Many of these vocabulary activities are open-ended. So students of different levels use less or more vocabulary with more or less nuance as they are able.
Murphey (1992) offers the possibility of constructing a "Proximity Genre Map." Integrating all their different descriptive criteria, students draw the names of songs, artists or genres closer together when they seem related, and farther apart when relatively unrelated. They then justify their maps to partners or to the class.
Murphey (ibid) also suggests using music to practice adjectives. This is a very targeted use of timbre, one with great potential in the category it is targeting. Literally every adjective in existence potentially describes a sound: green, rude, clear, industrial, married ... it all depends on the imaginations of students and teachers, and on clever music selection. To get this use of music off the ground, Murphey suggests teachers create a worksheet with a list of adjectives, each accompanied by scales from 1 to 5.
After students circle the degree to which they agree with each adjective description, teachers mix up the worksheets and distribute them at random. Classmates then write paragraphs describing the person who filled them in. In this case students shouldn't write their names on the worksheets, but rather a code name (ibid). To add a game quality to this variation, Terrell, (2012) has students wad up worksheets and throw them like snowballs at each other while music plays. When the teacher stops the music, students pick up whichever snowball is near them. At this point they describe the author of their snowball, try to guess the author, write questions for the author, or write a critique of the author's answers (Murphey, 1992).
The outside-the-box thinking inherent in an arbitrary list of adjectives make these worksheets a useful tool for sparking a more imaginative use of metaphors. Or teachers can use the worksheets to introduce the very concept of a metaphor.
Underscoring awareness
When it comes to pronunciation and listening comprehension, the real basis for the use of timbre in instrumental music is as a departure point for conversations, reading and writing about how words sound (Terrell, 2012). Do students think a certain musical instrument “goes with” a certain word or accent? Why? If they could be an instrument, which one would would they want to sound like? Which one do they think their classmates sound like? Do they think certain musical instruments or English words sound ugly, or beautiful? How would students describe the differences between two versions of the same song? Most importantly: How can they use what they are learning to improve their pronunciation (ibid)?
Thus the ultimate avenue to studying timbre in ESL is engaging students in their own study of mickey-mousing. They gain control over their language learning by reflecting on the different ways of expressing musical sounds in words, and the ways of mimicking words with musical sounds. This is synchronized underscoring at its best.
In Summary: Awareness of timbre improves pronunciation and listening skills. Imitating and describing musical timbre is a very open-ended undertaking for students, one which has the potential to provide both concrete support for beginners, and a challenge for more advanced students. Timbral contrasts provide a useful tool for targeted vocabulary work. Timbre is material especially well-suited to practicing imaginative descriptions and metaphorical thinking. But the main justification for studying timbre is that it sparks student conversations and reflections on the way words sound.