Timbre
This seminar takes as its starting point a collection of commonplace complaints and petitions in music studies around timbre: timbre is misunderstood; it is difficult to define; it is a woefully understudied musical parameter; it lacks a standardized theory and vocabulary; it needs more systematic analysis. All this we might call the “timbral litany,” to adapt a phrase from Jonathan Sterne. At the same time—and perhaps paradoxically—with the recent publication of books, edited volumes, special issues, and conferences devoted to timbre, people have also begun to speak of timbre studies as an emerging, discrete subfield.