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Timbre Quotes

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Timbre Quotes

“Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for a while. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way. We articulate the truth of a situation by carrying the whole experience in the voice and allowing the process to blossom of its own accord. Out of the cross-grain of experience appears a voice that not only sums up the process we have gone through, but allows the soul to recognize in its timbre, the color, texture, and complicated entanglements of being alive.”

WayHas BeensSoulWholeCoursesProcessVoiceSituationGoneAliveColorCrossesAdversityComplicatedStuckRealmsPleasantAllowingGrainSailingAccordTextureEntanglementTimbre
Book:The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America
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“There are things about how a note sounds on a violin that are really analogous to the human voice - you have a frequency and the air, and then you have a timbre which really is overtones - and making those things work together is one thing. The other thing is mechanical: If you can use your hands and arms to create sound on a fiddle, then learning to sing with it is like adding a third body part. And it's all training.”

IfsHumansUseBodyHandsTogetherSoundVoiceOne ThingAirArmsTrainingThirdsNotesWorking TogetherFrequencyViolinFiddleHuman VoiceTimbre
Author:Bruce Molsky
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“The problem with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones...If...we are obliged to create our own language, it is because there are dimensions to ourselves absent from clichés, which require us to flout etiquette in order to convey with greater accuracy the distinctive timbre of our thought.”

IfsIdeasProblemOrderLanguageGreaterVery GoodDimensionsOur ThoughtsSuperficialObligedAbsentEtiquetteAccuracyDistinctiveArticulationTimbre
Author:Alain de Botton
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“Lennon's was one of the first voices I emulated when I began to sing. When we held tryouts in my pal's dad's living room for the singer in our band, I sang a Beatles song that Lennon sang. There is something about the timbre of his voice, something that it conveys, that still gets to me. The quality and the poetry of his lyrics. The wry sense of humor. And the boyishness, in the beginning. There are a great many things that touch me about him... Lennon was, to put it in his own words, a 'working-class hero.'”

FirstsStillsSongVoiceRoomsQualityClassHeroDadBandSingersGreat MenSense Of HumorWorking ClassLiving RoomTouch MeLennonPalsWryTimbreWorking Class HeroTryouts
Author:Don Henley
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“Within the context of Western music, jazz has always contained certain radical or revolutionary aspects. These are: improvisation, collective composition and individuality or the personal sound (based on amazing variations in sonority, timbre and pitch).”

CertainSoundAspectJazzWesternIndividualityRadicalRevolutionaryCollectivesCompositionVariationImprovisationTimbreWestern Music
Book:The Collected Writings of Michael Snow
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“There are some superficial things that connect me to the stream. There's instrumentation, there's timbre, use of electronics, the way that samples are used, the way the electric guitar is used. I'm thinking of things that are particular to this era. But I don't always feel particularly close to the music of my peers. I often feel that I have more in common with writers and visual artists. I try to connect to people in an emotional kind of way.”

PeopleThinkingWayFeelsTryingKindUseUsedArtistCommonEmotionalParticularGuitarErasStreamsVisualsElectricPeersSuperficialSampleVisual ArtElectronicsElectric GuitarVisual ArtistInstrumentationTimbreSuperficial Things
Author:Missy Mazzoli
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“Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.”

WayYearsChildrenAbleNightParentRealizingLosesHurtLossSleepLove IsGriefMorningLaughingSadnessMinesPureHusbandEdgesGhostGrievingBreakfastFadesReplacedGrandchildrenWidowsGood NightUnwaveringGreat GrandchildrenTimbre
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“Let me guess,” Eli said, his voice that low, even timbre, as always. “Drinking from kegs also falls under outdoor activity.” I just looked at him, standing there in jeans and the same blue hoodie he’d had on the first time I met him. Maybe it was the embarrassment, which had been bad enough before I had an audience, but I was instantly annoyed. I said, “Are we outside?” He glanced round, as if needing to confirm this. “Nope.” “Then no.” I turned my attention back to the keg.”

IfsFirstsSaidEnoughFallVoiceAttentionAudienceMetsActivityLowsFirst TimeStandingLet MeBlueDrinkingRoundsJeansEmbarrassmentAnnoyedStanding ThereTimbreKegsOutdoor Activities
Book:Along for the Ride
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“I knew I had to have a hit. I would get no more chances. Analyzing what they had in common I discovered they had many similar elements: harmonic rhythm, placement of the chord changes, choice of harmonic progressions, similar instrumentation, vocal phrases, drum fills, content, even the timbre of the lead solo voice. I decided to write a song that incorporated all these elements in one record.”

WritingSongChoicesVoiceChanceCommonRecordsElementsDecidedRhythmPhrasesSongwritingSoloChordsVocalProgressionAnalyzingPlacementInstrumentationTimbre
Author:Neil Sedaka
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“Voice is the je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. It separates brochures and brilliance, memo and memoir, a ship's log and The Old Man and the Sea. The best writers stamp prose with their own distinctive personality; their timbre and tone are as recognizable as their voices on the phone. To cultivate voice, you must listen for the music of language-the vernacular, the syntactic tics, the cadences.”

MenWritingLanguageVoiceSeaPersonalityPhonesMemoirShipsToneProseOld ManStampsBrillianceDistinctiveSpiritedCadenceVernacularTicsMemosTimbreBrochures
Book:Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose
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“The emotional, physical and aesthetic value of a sound is linked not only to the causal explanation we attribute to it but also to its own qualities of timbre and texture, to its own personal vibration. So just as directors and cinematographers (even those who will never make abstract films) have everything to gain by refining their knowledge of visual materials and textures, we can similarly benefit from disciplined attention to the inherent qualities of sounds.”

FilmValuesSoundAttentionQualityEmotionalMaterialsDirectorsBenefitsGainsExplanationAbstractVisualsAttributesAestheticInherentLinkedVibrationsTextureRefiningCinematographersTimbre
Author:Michel Chion
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“The force of what was called Panther rhetoric or word mongering resided not in elegant discourse but in strength of affirmation (or denial), in anger of tone and timbre. When the anger led to action there was no turgidity or over-emphasis. Anyone who has witnessed political rows among the Whites will have to admit that the Whites aren't overburdened with poetic imagination.”

ActionPoliticalForceImaginationDenialTonePoeticRhetoricAffirmationDiscourseEmphasisElegantFanaticismPanthersTimbre
Book:Prisoner of Love
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