Talk:Timbre

message: I tried to clean the article a bit up and organize it in a structured form, in order to make it more simple to work on it. I did not incluse Psycho accustica, not because it should not be in, but because it was not well enough explained to be usefull. Please Put it back in when you have the relevant knowledge.
Please take this stuctur, expand it and work on the article.
--Taghawi-Nejad 15:42, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleaning Up 

message: Shouldn't "In music" (or most of its content) be under "Attributes"? -Pgan002 20:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article structure 

message: I'm not sure what the many editors of this article had in mind but stripping it of information and sources probably wasn't the true goal. As such I've reverted back to a version with a source and internal links. Hyacinth 21:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know exactly what this venerable post is referring to, but sometimes one feels duty bound to clean the Augean Stables, even knowing they will soon be filled up again. Fenneck (talk) 01:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like it was an ordinary difference of opinion, over three years ago. Dicklyon (talk) 04:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Revert

message: As a music teacher explaining this word to students I've always found that a discussion on "what causes differences in timbre" is helpful...
for example, material that an object is made of, age, air support, gender, etc.
:I also agree that a section on the physical characteristics impact timbre (temperature, material of instrument/source, etc.) would be very helpful. 144.80.110.197 19:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  what impacts timbre 

message: The article currently has this sentence: "The fundamental is not necessarily the strongest component of the overall sound. But it is implied by the existence of the harmonic series -- the A above would be distinguishable from the one an octave below (220 Hz, 440 Hz, 660 Hz, 880 Hz) by the presence of the third harmonic, even if the fundamental were indistinct."  This makes no sense to me.  What is implied by the existence of the harmonic series?  Please rewrite this sentence, someone.  --LostLeviathan 00:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The fundamental 

message: The article contains the following:
"To a marked degree the music of Debussy elevates timbre to an unprecedented structural status; already in L'Apres-midi d'un Faune the color of flute and harp functions referentially," according to Jim Samson (1977). Surpassing Debussy is Klangfarbenmelodie and surpassing that the use of sound masses.
* What is meant by "supassing"?
* A discussion of Timbre in music should have a global perspective. Debussy might have his place in such a discussion, but other types of music should also be mentioned here. Nannus 23:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Debussy etc. - NPOV

message: Why is it spelled "timbre" and not "tambre"?
:It's from the French.  See etymology. Dicklyon 23:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Online Etymological Dictionary in the link above suggests it comes from the Greek word for drum, which I will humbly take to be the bell-like sound produced by striking a gong.  Still, an argument could be advanced that it has been influenced from close connection to words like tinkle and thump, which are onomatopoeic in origin.  198.177.27.28 (talk) 08:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Very possibly onomatopoeic in origin, and you seem to have intuitively picked up the intermediate sense of "bell". According to the OED, there are several stages in the etymology: (1) Greek "tympanon" > Latin "tympanum" > pop. Latin "tymbano". (2) In the 13th century, the further worn-down French "timbre" was used to translate the Latin "tympanum" in Psalm 150 of the Vulgate. (3) In the 14th century, the sense of French "timbre" was transferred to a "kind of bell, esp. a hemispherical clock- or table-bell, and thence to a skull-cap of metal, a helmet, and in Heraldry to the crest over the shield in a coat of arms", as well as to a crest stamped on a legal document, and further to a stamp generally, as in "timbre-poste" = revenue or postage-stamp. (4) Finally, in the mid-19th century (when the phenomenon of sound character was being studied intensively by—mainly German—physicists), the "bell" sense had evolved to "sound of a bell", and was generalized to "sonorous quality of any instrument or voice" and finally to "character or quality of sound". The word at this point was used to translate the German "Klangfarbe" (literally "sound colour"), and was also adopted into English, in part through Ellis's translation of Helmholtz's landmark book, On the Sensations of Tone.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Spelling

message: "When the orchestral tuning note is played, the sound is a combination of 440 Hz, 880 Hz, 1320 Hz, 1760 Hz and so on. The balance of the amplitudes of the different frequencies is responsible for the characteristic sound of each instrument. This is used in FM synthesis."
I think 'additive synthesis' is a better description than 'FM synthesis' for the process of changing timbre by varying the balance of the amplitude of the different partials/harmonics, no?
-- Anonymous Coward —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.139.134.135 (talk) 
:Don't be afraid.  The dangling "this" is also a problem in terms of interpreting what he was trying to say.  I'll just take it out, since it's not very relevant to the topic. Dicklyon 19:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could someone please correct this? 

message: What's the source for the "timber" spelling, and it's tie to the USA? Dicklyon 00:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Keller and Steinmann's Good Grammar Made Easy (2000, p.319, ) "timbre" and "timber" are "sometimes confused". Hyacinth (talk) 09:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Spelling

message: Editor Mcld in good faith spent a lot of effort changing the reference formats in this article from parenthetical referencing to footnotes, which I subsequently reverted, with a note referring to Wikipedia:Citing_sources. Since then, editor Dicklyon has expressed the opinion that Mcld's changes were "a big improvement". Dicklyon is entitled to his opinion, which I do not share, but personal preferences do not override the Wikipedia guidelines, which clearly state "Citations are usually presented within articles in one of five ways". These ways include General references, found only in a citation list at the end of an article, and Inline references, which may be of four types: (1) Full footnote, (2) Shortened footnote, (3) Parenthetical reference, and (4) embedded links (if the source is a web page). Further, and specifically to avoid opinion wars, it states at Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Consistent_style: "The best practice is for a given article to be consistent in internal markup or formatting. It is better to follow the patterns in place if an article has a stable citation structure. Changing existing citations from one format to another should generally be done only with local consensus, and should never be the subject of an edit war", and at Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Citation_templates_and_tools, "editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus. Where no agreement can be reached, defer to the style used by the first major contributor". With respect for the hard work done by Mcld, and the personal opinion of Dicklyon, it is clear that the present system of parenthetical referencing should be respected.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm happy to stick with the standard for the page - however, the style is inconsistent and this should be fixed. Jerome Kohl, you've talked about consistency but reverted the page to an inconsistent state in which there are 3 ref-style citations and 7 parenthetical-style citations - if you prefer the parenthetical style please could you change all of them rather than just reverting my edits? It looks rather unprofessional to have a "References" section and a "Sources" section, both of which are doing the same job different ways. --mcld (talk) 13:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

text: Further, you've done more than simply change the reference formatting, you've also reverted my content edits. I spent a while yesterday improving the layout of a poorly-structured page and I don't appreciate the global revert. If you wanted to revert the citation style it would have been much nicer to actually do that, rather than reverting my content as well. I can't decide whether I should simply un-revert, or whether I should spend another hour un-picking the changes so I can set the referencing style back to an inconsistent state - seems rather senseless --mcld (talk) 13:18, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about that, on two counts. First, I thought I had danced around your content edits, but evidently I missed some. Secondly, I saw only the changes from parenthetical referencing to footnotes, not that there was originally a mix of the two. Checking the edit history, I now see that this state of affairs goes back to 2005, when an editor added one footnote to the article which, up to then had only parenthetical references. In the meantime, some other references have been added, some parenthetical, and some in footnotes. I personally prefer parenthetical referencing but, as I said before, personal likes and dislikes don't count on this issue. Given that parenthetical referencing was the original format, I suggest that all footnotes be corrected to match, as should have been done five years or so ago.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

text: Further note: I have resolved the formats in favour of parenthetical referencing on two grounds: first, it was the original format, up until those rogue footnotes began appearing in 2005; second, there were still more parenthetical references than footnotes, even after the recent edits. In addition, I found many different reference styles within both the footnotes and the parenthetical referencing, not to mention the list of references at the end. I have done my best to resolve these differences, as well. Once again, let me apologise for not having paid sufficient attention to your edits, which in my haste I had mistaken for a simple change of some of the parenthetical refs to footnotes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks for this. This article is steadily improving --mcld (talk) 06:15, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Reference formatting

message: What about the other changes, such as the removal of the "Spectra" heading? Hyacinth (talk) 02:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I renamed "Spectra" to "Harmonics", it's not been removed. --mcld (talk) 13:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: "Spectra" heading

message: Why, what, where, and how does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 02:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I personally think it now has enough citations to support its content. It would be nice for the music-theory angle to be expanded a bit (with citations) since there's been so much discussion through the ages (see all the quotes added to this talk page...) --mcld (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional citations

message: I'm puzzled as to why one or more editors are resisting moving from a mix of two ref formats, to a single format.  What's the logic or policy that's relevant here?  Dicklyon (talk) 15:41, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Who is resisting this? It is absolutely against Wikipedia guidelines (policies are another matter) to mix reference formats in a single article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Consistency is obviously best, and Jerome's now made the style consistent. An issue is whether my change to footnote style was something that should be reverted, given that the style was previously inconsistent. I would argue that I'm being bold and there wasn't a problem. Jerome would argue that I should follow the guideline that says that if in doubt, stick with the original style of the article, rather than risking starting an edit war - and so I should have worked out which was the original style used and gone with that. This makes a lot of sense, since the choice of reference style is largely a matter of opinion. Following Jerome's recent edit the style is consistent so I think we're all happy. --mcld (talk) 06:33, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ref format? 

message: In what way is the section "Timbre in music history" biased?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it just wasn't clear that it was about an attributed opinion.  I fixed it up some, with the actual quote (indirectly sourced, so I still don't know the page number).  Dicklyon (talk) 23:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: More of a question about whether this should be included under the objective description of timbre or left to being referred to in the DSP articles on audio analysis?? Bandcoach (talk) 07:56, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Analytical models of timbre 

message: The lede huffs and puffs with vague or undecipherable jargon sometimes with origins in electronic audio editing (and oscilloscopes?) until finally the last paragraph nails it.   HAPPY!   I think that last paragraph should be merged into the first paragraph, and most of the first moved elsewhere.  
"For instance, it is the difference in sound between a guitar and a piano playing the same note...," is an exquisitely clear example of elegant explanation.  (A list of truisms is NOT an explanation.) <BR> --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:DD77:7AF:B261:CFE9 (talk) 03:24, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarity in the Lede section.