Trends in Description of Saxophone Timbre

Abstract

Three studies examined how listeners use adjectives to describe saxophone timbres. Descriptions were collected from 97 untrained non-musicians who were exposed to recorded tones of tenor saxophones of stylistically distinct jazz musicians. A lack of universality in characterizations of timbre was found when subjects were required to supply their own adjectives and when they were required to select from a list of 43 adjectives. Of course, considerable agreement among listeners occurred with respect to several timbres when the use of seven-point bipolar scales (hard/soft, rough/smooth, etc.) was required. Scale descriptions matched many ratings which are popularly applied by musicians and journalists. It was concluded that certain adjectives are particularly appropriate for describing saxophone timbres and that their appropriateness has led to their common use among musicians. It was also noted that the nature of these characterizations (calling a tone “hard” or “rough”, for example) is consistent with the idea that cross-modal and cross-material relations exist in cognition.