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Tonal Color

 Tonal color has to do with the quality of sound produced by an ensemble.  It is the affect the collective sound of the orchestra has upon a listener.  One ought to anticipate that the tonal color of a rock-and-roll band will be very different than that of a symphony orchestra.  Composers and arrangers manipulate tonal color in order to engage the listener. 

The tonal pallet of an ensemble has four divisions:  strings, reeds, brass and percussion.  Not all ensembles use all these voices.  A rhythm and blues band will probably have all these voices.  A classic rock-and-roll band is unlikely to have brass instruments.  An old time band will probably be all strings.  A Celtic band may include whistle and pipes and so have reeds. These orchestral voices are brought together by composers and arrangers to produce the overall tonal color of a piece of music.  Arrangers are equally as important as composers.  They sometimes re-voice a composition and make it more effective than the original concept of the composer. 

Each individual instrument has its own, unique tonal color.  This is usually referred to as “timbre”,  a French term meaning color.  If the violinist plays a concert pitch “A” and then the trumpet player produces that very same “A”, no one can be in doubt as to which tone came from which instrument.  The human ear is very effective in making the distinction of musical voices. Timbre is one of the most vital considerations an arranger will work out.

This is because each instrument, like each person’s voice, has a unique spectral fingerprint.  The concert “A” is not merely a single 440 Hz audio energy wave in air.  Each musical “A” includes harmonic energy at 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x……ad infinitum.  The pattern and strength of these “overtones” or harmonics defines the voice of each instrument.  This allows us to distinguish between the “A” on a banjo, a trumpet, a saxophone and Sarah Brightman’s voice. 

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