THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

‘timbre’ must be viewed not as a difficult psycho-acoustical problem, but as a
sloppy habit. 27
A number of music theorists have taken up this project and applied it differently to musical
analysis and composition.
Randall’s own discussion of the individual elements of timbre divides them into the
following dimensions:
1. Registral position (regardless of “fundamentals”)
2. Intervallic spread
3. Density
4. Total number of elements in a set
5. Distribution of relative amplitude over any set
6. Physical place or places from which any set, or any element of a set, seems to
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emanate.
Elsewhere, he lists vibrato, tremolo, and envelope as elements that fall under the auspice
of timbre, and here he states that, “this list could obviously be extended; but it is already
sufficiently detailed to provide a basis for defining some musical operations on sets of
partials–operations many of which may be viewed as attempts to capitalize upon the
capacities of electronic media in order to subject to elaborate and continuous musical
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structuring aspects of sound....” This list will need some expansion to be of analytical use
for Ligeti’s music. Particularly problematic is the fact that this list was developed
primarily for the presentation of a compositional design involving operations on sets of
sine-tone partials, and does not have categories which describe the noise content of a
particular sound.
27J.K.
Randall, “Theories of Musical Structure as a Source for Problems in Psycho-acoustical Research,”
reprinted in Being About Music, vol. 1 (Red Hook, NY: Open Space Publications, 2003), 149.
28J.K.
Randall, “Operations on Waveforms,” reprinted in Being About Music vol. 1, 157.
29Randall,
“Operations on Waveforms,” 157.
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