Editing Timbre (section)

==Synonyms==
''Tone quality'' and ''tone color'' are synonyms for ''timbre'', as well as the "''texture'' attributed to a single instrument". However, the word [[musical texture|texture]] can also refer to the [[arrangement]]/composition, such as [[polyphony|multiple, interweaving melody lines]] versus [[homophony|a singable melody accompanied by subordinate chords]]. [[Hermann von Helmholtz]] used the German ''Klangfarbe'' (''tone color''), and [[John Tyndall]] proposed an English translation, ''clangtint'', but both terms were disapproved of by [[Alexander John Ellis|Alexander Ellis]], who also discredits ''register'' and ''color'' for their pre-existing English meanings.{{sfn|Erickson|1975|p=7}} Determined by its frequency composition, the sound of a musical instrument may be described with words such as ''bright'', ''dark'', ''warm'', ''harsh'', and other terms. There are also [[colors of noise]], such as [[Pink noise|pink]] and [[White noise|white]]. In visual representations of sound, timbre corresponds to the shape of the image,{{r|Abbado1988_3}} while loudness corresponds to brightness; pitch corresponds to the y-shift of the spectrogram.