Musical Timbre Quotes

The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.

A lot of people don't realize that guitar playing is very much like singing or playing any of the glissando-type instruments - you have to do it in tune.

Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.

I love the sound and temperament of an upright piano.

The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.

I remember once, when I started writing for the alto saxophone, a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola, but louder.

When one plays a Steinway, there is a warmth and nobility in the sound that is unequalled by any other instrument.

Take a sound from whatever source, a note on a violin, a scream, a moan, a creaking door, and there is always this symmetry between the sound basis, which is complex and has numerous characteristics which emerge through a process of comparison within our perception.

I suppose I was affected by raw sounds and timbres more than a lot of other composers. Had I been involved with orchestral composing, I think the aspect that would have most endeared me to that field would have been the orchestration.

Marimba is much more of a wood-type experience and there is no real possibility of getting a dry sound, and getting that contrast in the same way that you can in a vibraphone.

I want to know exactly how the first few measures are going to go, and the rough shape of a movement or the whole piece and its essential character.

You can find the whole world of a film in one instrument, or you can find a world of sound in the orchestra.

Piano feels soft. Violins and all different string instruments feel soft. Guitar, even electric guitar before you start adding distortion, that you can play soft.

The cello is a hero because of its register - its tenor voice. It is a masculine instrument, whereas the violin is feminine because of its soprano pitch. When the cello enters in the Dvorak Concerto, it is like a great orator.

I like the sparkle of the vibraphone.

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

The oboe sounds like a clarinet with a cold.

A bass should sound like a bass with the thump of the finger against the wood, like it began with stand up.