Timbrarium
The term musical instrument is a very general concept that touches many interdisciplinary aspects in the fields of humanities (such as history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc.), and scientific disciplines (such as acoustics or engineering). All these intertwined dimensions have their specific role in the construction of the mental image of a “musical instrument”. From the point of view of sound perception, the sonic capital of an instrument (all the possible sounds produced by a given instrument) form the main independent corpus that contributes to build this multidimensional portrait of an instrument.
As we have already seen that the term “timbre of an instrument” (for instance, “the timbre of the clarinet” or “the timbre of the violin”) cannot be used to label this constellation of heterogeneous elements because, in fact, there are lots of timbres that can be produced by a single instrument.
As an attempt to designate this global timbre content of an instrument, we propose the term Timbrarium or instrument-based timbrarium. This includes not just the common, well-known sounds, but also unconventional, extended, or experimental techniques that might result in unique and less familiar timbres and…not yet invented sounds!
The concept of Timbrarium is useful for musicians, researchers, sound engineers, music producers, and anyone deeply engaged with sound and music and deepens understanding of an instrument's potential and allows for a more detailed exploration of specific sonic domains; each Instrument-based Timbrarium is a unique imaginative space for exploration and discovery.
Timbrarium(s)
Of course, we can also speak of ensemble-based timbrariums, such as the orchestral timbrarium, the wind-quintet timbrarium, etc. We can speak of the human voice-timbrarium too, but in fact, every voice of every human being has its specific timbrarium.
And, all possible timbres in the known and unknown Universe(s) form itself an overarching Timbrarium from which all other timbrariums are sub-sets.
Where does the word Timbrarium come from?
The suffix "-rium" comes from Latin, and it typically implies a place or location where a certain action occurs or where something is kept or stored.
It is a Latin noun-forming suffix derived from the neuter of "-rius" and "-arius" which were used to form adjectives. "-arium" or "-orium" are its full forms when used in English to create nouns, which when combined with a root word, typically mean "a place for" whatever the root word indicates.
For example:
"Aquarium" (from Latin "aqua" meaning "water") is a place where water-dwelling species are kept.
"Terrarium" (from Latin "terra" meaning "earth" or "land") is a place where land-dwelling species are kept.
"Auditorium" (from Latin "audire" meaning "to hear") is a place where something is heard, typically a speech, music, or a theatrical performance.
“Herbarium” is a systematic arranged collection of preserved plant specimens (usually collected in a book in a dried, pressed form) for scientific study.
“Timbrarium” is a collection or library of timbres.
The personal timbrarium
From the perspective of the listener(s), a personal or a collective Timbrarium of an instrument represents an individual's or a group's cognitive library of timbres which is only a partial sub-set of the global Timbrarium of this instrument. It is formed by what we can call the instrument-referenced sounds (the sounds that a specific listener or group of listeners can associate to a given instrument). D. Smalley refers to this action as source-bonding:
I define source bonding as: the natural tendency to relate sounds to supposed sources and causes, and to relate sounds to each other because they appear to have shared or associated origins.
It depends on the experience and background of every listener. The more the listener is trained or exposed to new sounds the more the timbral data base of instrumental knowledge will be enlarged. The instrument-referenced sounds and the non-instrument-referenced sounds are complementary sets and form together the overall Timbrarium for any instrument or sound source.
Shared Timbrariums
A mental representation of the sound(s) of an instrument which is shared by a community of listeners represents the sonic archetype of this instrument for this social group. The Timbrarium of the clarinet, for example, is not the same if we compare classical music audiences to contemporary music audiences, for whom the “new” sounds produced using extended techniques (such a slap) have been integrated in their common sonic vocabulary.
Expanding Timbrariums
A contemporary violinist's Instrument-based Timbrarium would encompass the timbres produced through conventional bowing, pizzicato, col legno, harmonics, sul tasto, sul ponticello, etc. Moreover, this timbrarium is not closed and will include the timbres of new techniques yet to be discovered or invented.
A Piano-based Timbrarium would include the timbres resulting from traditional key strikes, but it might also encompass the variety of sounds achievable through extended techniques, such as string plucking, using the piano as a percussive instrument, or manipulating the dampers. Additionally, different pianos—whether they're grand pianos, uprights, or electric—have distinct timbres, and these would also find their place in the Piano-based Timbrarium.
Historical Timbrariums
The timbres of a given instrument used commonly at a certain historical period form a sub-set of the global timbrarium of this instrument (all possible sounds). The XVIIIth century clarinet timbrarium, for example, is the collection of timbres that a listener could expect to hear coming from the clarinet at a precise timepoint.
These “timepoint” sub-sets expand through history by the gradual addition of new timbres at a varying growth rate. After having remained almost unchanged until the middle of the XXth century, they have been enlarged exponentially since the emergence of the so-called extended techniques (typical of some experimental music languages of the XXth and XXIst centuries). The non-referenced sounds subset is the main focus for those composers, since it virtually contains any possible unheard sound.
The extended Timbrarium
The use of external exciters and/or resonators, as well as the application of electronic transformation to acoustic sounds lead to an almost infinite expansion of the boundaries of the Timbrarium.