Perspectives on the Contribution of Timbre to Musical Structure

Timbre is a misleadingly simple word that encompassesnot only a very complex set of auditory attributes,but also a plethora of importantpsychological and musical issues (Risset andWessel 1999; McAdams 1993; Hajda, Kendall,Carterette, and Harshberger 1997). It covers manyparameters of perception that are not accountedfor by pitch, loudness, spatial position, and duration.It is thus, by definition, multidimensional.Musical timbre has been a major component of researchcarried out by the Music Perception andCognition team at IRCAM since the team’s inceptionin 1984, and even before in previous work byDavid Wessel. [...