Timbre!
Timbre is a beautifully dyslexic word. It is also the subject of a recent post over at Black Dogs (one of the rare blogrolled blogs I really regularly read, and not just for the food and gratuitous cleavage) in which R.A.D. Stainforth discusses the topic of orchestras covering rock songs, and vice versa. His particular complaint is that whoever orchestrated Queen for the RPO decided to do it in a fairly mundane fashion. Instead of rearranging the songs in a musically interesting way, they decided to simply let the novelty of the re-instrumentation sell the performance.
The thing that really interested me was the issue of timbre. Stainforth reckons that whoever orchestrated the music failed to recognize that this is a defining feature of much rock/pop music. Or maybe that shouldn’t be rock/pop… perhaps a more appropriate description is music which is primarily heard in a pre-recorded fashion.
It’s probably exactly because the music is pre-recorded as opposed to being performed live that there are such possibilities for a varied sonic palette. Sounds can be layered, altered, edited, without needing to conform to the requirement that live performers with instruments must be able to reproduce the sounds.
As Mr. S points out, this overabundance of timbre in non-classical music means that listeners who come to classical from this direction (like me) can have a hard time adjusting to the relatively limited amount of sounds an orchestra can produce. After a year or so of listening your ears adjust and it’s easier to pick stuff out, but initially everything just sounds kind of “orchestra-ey”.
Is there any particular reason why “classical” music has to be able to be performed live? It seems in a sense that this is a defining feature of the genre, that it must be reproducible. The unit of classical musical creation is the score, not the recording. This reminds me of the process (a bit too close to my heart) of writing science papers, where an experiment (and thus a publication) is totally useless unless it contains enough information for someone else to reproduce it. Classical music is fundamentally open-source.
Can anyone think of examples of music considered “classical” which doesn’t conform to this conception? Or alternatively, examples of music which might be considered classical if only they did conform to it?
July 15th, 2008 at 7:33 am
First of all there are a number of Contemporary Classical Music (CCM) pieces which use electro-acoustic material (pre-recorded sounds) and/or alternative instrumentation, incorporating instruments from pretty much every culture in the world.
Secondly, a large portion of our current CCM isn’t performed live, but rather we hear it in film. Howard Shore was awarded 2 Academy Awards for his music from the Lord of the Rings movies and, while it was a live orchestra recorded, don’t mistake the idea this sound was enhanced by effects much the same as you’d have on any pop album - just maybe not so recognisable. Jan Hammer & Klaus Badelt with the “Pirates of the Carribean” films certainly used both electronic instruments and live orchestral sounds (with effects) to give us their CCM.
Thirdly, there are a number of things you can do with a live orchestra which doesn’t need effects and yet still has a change in timbre. If you want to create a delay effect (very popular in urban music), just write the music in a slight canon (I do) and you have the same thing. Reverb is also possible by creating a slight delay in parts over octaves. Distortion can be achived with Sol Ponticello wooden effects with col legno - and these standard elements used by orchestrators since early 20th century. Many composers have gone well beyond these to find very new ways of getting different timbres out of an orchestra.
But really, what you’re asking is why do most orchestrators not explore the full range of the orchestra - relying on only a few “standard” elements?
Because it’s easy. Unfortunately, orchestration can be boring and rather thankless work, so (I suspect) most orchestrators are just getting the job done in the fastest most expedient way. If you want to listen to some more adventurous CCM - listen to some of us composing (and therefore arranging) our own music. I think you’ll find it is have a pretty wide range of timbre.
July 15th, 2008 at 7:35 am
In addition - I feel composers of CCM ought be trying to reach people just as yourself, those who aren’t CCM lovers and yet might be if they find the right music. I feel much of my music in influenced by Rock of the late 70’s and 80’s - with jazz and urban music as well. So… I try to incorporate that sort of feel into what I write.
Drop me a line and I’ll send you a link to some examples.
July 15th, 2008 at 9:19 am
“this overabundance of timbre in non-classical music means that listeners who come to classical from this direction (like me) can have a hard time adjusting to the relatively limited amount of sounds an orchestra can produce.”
I always thought sort of the opposite. I mean, most rock/pop stuff is a couple of guitars and some drums. Sometimes a keyboard, and on rare occasions something like a sax or a harmonica. There is, to me, a lot more going on in a symphony. And there is some really different classical stuff out there too. Have you heard Messiaen’s Turangalîla symphony?
July 15th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Why is “classical music” (still looking for a good replacement for that term!) biased toward live performance? Probably because it has a history stretching back centuries before there was such a thing as recorded, whereas rock has always been recorded.
For reverberation, check out what the Renaissance musicians did with palaces, cathedrals, etc. Nothing new there.
And “classical” musicians — composers and performers — have always striven to enlarge the range of timbres available to them. Compare the 18th-century orchestra with Wagner’s, Strauss’s, Stravinsky’s, etc., etc. This process is continuing, of course, especially in the percussion section. I agree with Andy that there is a much greater variety of instruments in the modern “classical” orchestra than in rock, so it’s a little puzzling to hear that someone thinks rock has more variety in timbres.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Chip,
I hadn’t noticed the film scores using effects as you mentioned, I’ll keep my ears open wider next time I see them. Still… maybe I’m being snobbish… but film scores don’t do it for me in the same way that an independent pieces of music does. Perhaps because they are generally designed to shoehorn around the movie, instead of unfolding in their own way.
Your first (particularly the electro-acoustic bit) and third points I’d be interested in hearing examples of. Please do send me a link!
Andy,
I was thinking about your comment on the way to work today and realized that the reason I don’t see it like that is because almost all of the non-classical stuff I listen to is not played by the typical garage-band group setup (i.e., the two guitars and drums dealie), but is instead heavy on the electronics, sampling, etc. I think a a lot of the default top-40 pop people are exposed to is filled with blips and beeps and electronic effects so that’s what we get used to.
I agree that there is *way* more going on in a symphony, but it took me a while to work that out at first, a major reason being because I found it really hard to separate out all of the relatively similar sounding instruments.
Turangalila is a pretty awesome (literally) example of hardcore timbre changes… but it’s also been really hard for me to get into
July 15th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
JonJ,
Yeah… it’s not just “classical” which sucks as a descriptive term, but “pop” and “rock” are also pretty terrible. In fact the whole genrefication of music is pretty lame. Oh well.
I suppose when describing rock/pop as the timbre king, I am really referring to pop, as opposed to the two guitar/one drumset combo. I agree that particular configuration more sonically limited than an orchestra… although the significant presence of the drums can make it feel a lot more contrasty than it is (which is related to your comment about the percussion section). What I am really referring to is the huge use of synthesized sounds in lots of non-classical stuff (which I guess unfortunately ends up being labelled as “pop”). There are an enormously greater number of “instruments” which can be — and are — created digitally than there are instruments in an orchestra.
The increased use of percussion and variation in timbre is one of the reasons I strongly prefer 20th century “classical” (eugh), but I’m curious as to how far this has progressed. Any modern composer suggestions?
July 16th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Christopher Rouse is one contemporary composer who is experimenting a lot with sounds, though not so much electronic as conventional instruments (check out his Trombone Concerto). Also John Corigliano, of course. Charles Wuorinen has done a lot with combining conventional instruments and electronic/synthesized sounds. But there are many others I am not aware of, because this isn’t quite my bag.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Hi Ben,
You certainly have a knack for opening cans of worms, first 4′33″ and now timbre; once every while, a bunch of musicologist, linguists or scientists start a religious war over what timbre means, and what it does not
You can find more exotic use in timbre in composers such as Varese, Reich, Xenakis or Carter (especially their percussion pieces, but hey, I’m prejudiced :-). Someone who completely redefined the use of the singing voice (at least, in my ears) is Meredith Monk; take everything that you can do with your voice, plus everything you deem impossible, and that pretty much sums up her music.
And there’s a whole bunch of composers who take instruments and put them to a completely new use, such as Alvin Lucier, but that’s another story I guess. I mean, he apparently wrote pieces for amplified brainwaves. And of course, John Cage, who wrote a lot for prepared piano.
Which reminds me, some scientists have researched timbre and sound characteristics of instruments by combining the onset/attack of one instrument with the nucleus/tone of another (e.g. piano attack with violin tone). I’ve got a bookmark somewhere, can’t find it right now.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Awesome suggestions guys, that’s exactly what I was looking for. That onset/attack stuff sounds really interesting as well, please let me know if you find the link!
July 19th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Gevonden!
Pierre Schaeffer, a French sound technician/composer experimented with electronics, sounds & accoustics in the 1950’s. Here’s a link to part of his ‘Solfege de l’objects sonors’ on youtube, which features a sample of a piano/flute synthesis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZDRlpAr6Hs&NR=1
More info here: http://againstthemodernworld.blogspot.com/2007/11/case-study-pierre-schaeffer.html
July 21st, 2008 at 4:41 am
This may be so blindingly obvious that no one has said it but in classical music, the music is now regarded as primarily the composer’s work and we listen to different interpretations. But the notes and orchestration typically remain the same. In pop or rock, the music is regarded primarily the interpreter’s work, and though they may perform a song recorded by someone else, it is regarded as a different beast, although for progressive rock there is a greater ‘compositional’ focus (prog usually involves original composition, the more extended/experimental varieties of which are rarely taken up by others); also for that essentially created electronically/in the studio (including an awful lot of dance music from the late 1980s onwards), the ‘performer’ isn’t really perceived as important (although the DJ may take their place).
Or have I got that wrong?
I often wonder if I would enjoy Gil Evans’s Little Wing if it didn’t always drive me back to the Jimi Hendrix original which I consider to be the ‘real thing’ even though I usually enjoy Gil Evans’ own work. Or, to take a negative example, would I like John Coltrane’s My Favourite Things or Miles Davis’s Time after Time more if they didn’t remind of originals that I don’t particularly like. I often wonder (in very idle moments, admittedly) what Beethoven would have made of the main theme of, say, Whole Lotta Love. Would he have turned it into a magnificent symphony or string quartet or would any attempt to do anything with it send me scurrying for my Led Zep II?
July 21st, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Maaike,
Nice! That strong similarity in the video between the flute and piano when you give them the same dynamics is what I was getting at with my statements that the range of timbres in the orchestra is more limited. I suspect the fact that acoustic instruments produce sounds by exciting natural modes of vibration forces them to share a lot more timbre characteristics than digital instruments, which have all kinds of crazy transforms applied to them. I’m starting to get mathsy about this though. I’ll restrain myself.
R.A.D. Stainforth,
I absolutely agree. That’s why I see classical music as “open source”, since it is the set of instructions (and hence the guy who wrote the set of instructions) to produce the music which is the celebrated aspect. It’s up to other people to actually turn those instructions into a performance. In pop and rock it’s basically impossible to replicate a piece accurately once the original performer stops performing it. It’s not the same song anymore. Different interpretations of a piece in the rock/pop/etc world differ a lot more dramatically than in the classical one, to the extent that it isn’t really the same piece. I suppose that is because (with a few exceptions) no-one dares to mess with the notes of, for example, a Beethoven symphony. I actually think that’s a shame, and perhaps that’s one reason that re-orchestrations are so appealing to me; it’s one of the rare times that you can hear a genuinely radical (well, comparatively) re-interpretation of an established classical piece.
It’s funny how melodies become so biased purely due to their association with a performer. Sometimes I get worried that the only reason I dislike cheesy pop songs is because I know they are cheesy pop songs, and I’m not giving the musical content a fair shake. not too worried though.
I’d love to hear Beethoven doing “Whole Lotta Love”. Or hell, “Oops… I Did It Again”. Now that would be a well attended concert.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Speaking of re-interpreting an established classical piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
July 30th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Maaike:
I remember seeing that one a while back, I just watched it through again nonetheless, and it’s still funny