Howtosignalprocessing
- Which factor is most important in distinguishing sounds from different musical instruments?
- What gives musical instruments their characteristics timbres?
- What are the ways that you can describe timbre or sound quality of a voice or a particular musical instrument?
Which factor is most important in distinguishing sounds from different musical instruments?
Tone color, or timbre, is the distinctive quality of a voice or instrument.
What gives musical instruments their characteristics timbres?
The primary contributers to the quality or timbre of the sound of a musical instrument are harmonic content, attack and decay, and vibrato. For sustained tones, the most important of these is the harmonic content, the number and relative intensity of the upper harmonics present in the sound.
What are the ways that you can describe timbre or sound quality of a voice or a particular musical instrument?
Determined by its frequency composition, the sound of a musical instrument may be described with words such as bright, dark, warm, harsh, and other terms. There are also colors of noise, such as pink and white.
