Timbre at the Crossroads

Teaching and Learning | Syllabi

Timbre at the Crossroads
Harvard University Music Department, Fall 2020
Dr. Landon Morrison

Prospectus

In this seminar, we will explore how the idea of “timbre” is constructed across diverse disciplinary frames, including music research, composition, sound studies, media history, psychoacoustics, and the information sciences. Our emphasis here on cross- disciplinarity reflects timbre’s status as a multivalent sonic parameter that is notoriously difficult to define, and which has been theorized according to varying interpretive logics in different historical epochs. Today, it is often defined negatively as the characteristic quality of sound that is neither pitch nor loudness, and which allows listeners to distinguish two instruments playing the same note. But this definition only takes us so far, provoking more questions than answers: what exactly is timbre? What are its physical correlates and how do these features map onto auditory perception? What can such matters of scientific fact tell us about how timbre conveys meaning as an expressive musical element? And what might we gain by considering timbre through alternative lenses of embodiment, semantics, affect, and cultural identity?

Over the next few months, we will open a window into the complex dynamics shaping current discourse in timbre studies, working to make sense of the messy, often conflicting accounts that one encounters in different corners of the field. Moving freely between time scales, we will consider 18th-century organological treatises alongside 21st- century assisted orchestration software, while also attending to the micro-temporal aspects of timbre as a multidimensional psychoacoustic phenomenon. Throughout, we will couch specific approaches to timbre in terms of larger historical debates over the nature of human audition, examining how this knowledge is entangled with a wide range of epistemic instruments and sonic practices. We will also bolster our historical and theoretical lines of inquiry with hands-on activities, learning how to use audio- analysis tools that will help you effectively engage timbre in your own research or musical practice. These complementary approaches will orient our weekly meetings as we progress through four learning modules—Introduction to Timbre Studies (Weeks 1- 2); Historical and Material Perspectives (Weeks 3-6); Timbre, Sound Synthesis, and the Digital Revolution (Weeks 7-9); and Timbre as an Object of Media, Culture, and Politics (Weeks 10-12). Please see the week-by-week schedule below for details on which topics will be covered in each module, as well as information on reading, listening, and related assignments.

Course Schedule

Complete PDF of Syllabus with Weekly Topics here.