A corpus analysis of timbre semantics in orchestration treatises

Abstract

What does the common descriptive lexicon for instrumental sound tell us about how we conceptualize musical timbre? Perceptual studies have revealed a number of verbal attributes that reliably map onto timbral qualities, but the conventions of timbre description in spoken and written discourse remain poorly understood. Books on orchestration provide a valuable source of natural language about instrumental timbre. This article uses methods from corpus linguistics to explore the semantic features of timbre through a quantitative analysis of 11 orchestration treatises and manuals. Findings reveal a relatively constrained vocabulary for timbre: about 50 adjectives account for half of all descriptions in the corpus. The timbre lexicon can be categorized according to affect, matter, metaphor, mimesis, action, acoustics, and onomatopoeia, and further reduced to three latent conceptual dimensions, which are labeled and discussed. Descriptive patterns vary systematically by instrument and instrument family, suggesting certain regularities and consistencies to timbre description in the orchestral tradition. This study helps test the long-held assumption that conventions of timbre description are vague and unsystematic, and offers a cognitive linguistic account of the timbre-language connection.