How do humans tell the difference between a violin and a clarinet playing the same tune? Why does a French horn sound so different when it's playing loudly compared to when it's playing softly? And why do electronic producers spend so much time listening to and selecting specific drum samples and synthesiser settings in their music? Tone colour describes the unique way that each voice, instrument, and noise sounds. Tone colour is sometimes referred to as timbre.

At a scientific level, tone colour is the result of the unique combination and ratio of overtones within a sound wave. A sound with only a few low overtones may sound muffled or dull, whereas a sound with lots of mid and high overtones may sound bright and buzzy.

When describing tone colour, sounds may be described with:

• Instrument name/s

• Brightness

• Playing style and expressive techniques

• Material

• Electronic terms (for synthesised sounds)

In a tone colour question, you can:

• Identify the instruments/ensemble. Explicitly state what the instruments are (e.g., "This excerpt is performed by two violins, one viola, one cello, and a harpsichord."). Make note if there is an unorthodox combination of instruments.

• Describe the tone colour of the instruments and how this changes through the excerpt. Describe how tone colour is affected by the other concepts such as:

  • • Register (e.g., "The flute begins to play in its extreme high register, creating a shrill and piercing tone.")

    • Dynamics (e.g., "The sudden change to fortissimo (ff sub.) in bar 32 creates a brighter and airier tone.")

    • Expressive techniques (e.g., "The use of pizzicato in the Violin I and II from bar 17 onwards creates a short, plucky tone which contrasts with the smooth arco style of bars 1-16")

• Describe how different tone colours blend or juxtapose one another

Bright

Words associated with a "bright" tone colour may include:

• Bright

• Clear

• Buzzy

• Shimmering

• Piercing

• Harsh

• Shrill

• Scratchy

Electronic terms

• Oscillator

• Sine wave

• Triangle wave

• Saw wave

• Square wave

• Rectangle wave

• Filter

• Resonance

• High cut

• Low cut

• EQ

• Overdriven

• Distorted

• Saturated

• Fuzz

• Reverb-y

• Chorused

• Phased

• Flanged

• ADSR envelope

• Frequency modulated (FM)

• Sync

• Sine wave - A single frequency (with no overtones), considered to be an acoustically pure tone.

• Complex tone

• Harmonic series

• Fundamental

• Overtones

• Partial

• Spectral analysis

• Spectrogram

• Inharmonic

• Transient

• Fourier transform

• Sympathetic resonance

Most tone colour questions are directly worded with the term "tone colour". Occasionally, there will be a more complex question that requires you to apply an analysis of tone colour (see "leggiero" question below).

Here are a few questions from past papers:

Directly-worded

• Describe how tone colour is used in this excerpt.

• Outline the use of texture and tone colour in this excerpt.

Indirectly-worded

• Explain how the leggiero style is realised, with specific reference to the score.

A printable version of this vocabulary list is available to download. It does not include descriptions and definitions in the interest of both space and formatting, and as a means to promote academic inquiry. Students may use this as a word bank to test their understanding of tone colour vocabulary and/or to pique interest in words that they do not yet know.

1. Complete the table with the English names (and abbreviations) of common orchestral instruments. Some information has been provided to assist you.

2. Highlight the instruments that are typically transposing instruments (B♭, E♭, and F instruments). Do not include instruments that transpose at the octave (e.g., piccolo or double bass).

3. Complete the following table.