Swipe Left for Timbre
What I love about an orchestra playing Classical or Romantic period music is how many sounds you are hearing at one time. It takes some practice to learn how to pick out certain instruments from the orchestra and what their purpose is, but when you do learn, it sounds amazing. Many old fogeys discount modern music because of its lack of nuance and complexity (see Nickelback’s hit songs for example) which usually means those songs have very little timbre.
Timbre is a musical term for identical notes that have a different sound. For example, playing the same note on a guitar and a keyboard. Musically they are the same, but to your brain they sound quite different. The more timbre you add to a piece of music, the more interesting it can sound. Take Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven, for example. It’s a fantastic rock song, but check out how different and amazing it sounds when you add in a choir.
I love to listen to electronica, dubstep, rock and folk music when I am concentrating on things. The (usually) simple rhythms and the great tunes really help me get in the zone. Whenever I want to enjoy music, though, I look for more complicated sounds. That’s when videogame and movie soundtracks come in. Not all soundtracks are created equal, and many fall under what I would classify as simple and repetitive. I often have to swipe left on Spotify Radio to skip to a new track, but composers like Hans Zimmer, Steve Jablonsky, James Horner and John Williams keep me interested. I would go so far as to say that one or two men in that list will go down in history as some form of influential 21st century composer (like Beethoven or Mozart did for their eras). But despite the complexity of sound tracks by those composers, sometimes you need some rock — complex rock.
One of my favorite rock bands of all time is the symphonic power metal band, Nightwish. What I love about Nightwish is that there’s so much going on. There’s drums, vocals, choir, synths and an orchestra. Other songs have uilleann pipes, piano, and an opera singer. There’s such a wide range of sounds and timbre that I soak up the sounds like a sponge. I generally prefer high-energy music and Nightwish delivers. While the guitar riffs and the drums might be classified as simple, adding in the background synths, orchestra and choir keeps the complexity-loving part of my brain happy.
My all time favorite album by Nightwish is Dark Passion Play. This was their foray into a new style, one with even more complexity and timbre. The third song on the album, Amaranth, is the track I’ve listened to the most. It starts off with a semi-slow piano intro for 15 seconds and then hits you hard with energetic guitar and choir before throwing in some strings.
So if you find yourself swiping left on Spotify and can’t find something intense to get you going in the morning, or energize you on the commute home with a myriad of fantastic sounds, check out Nightwish.
