"Timbre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one song, sung to the American melody of "Marching through Georgia," and celebrating the glories of the great Palmer Goldfield—whence came Palmer Billy's pseudonym. His voice was neither cultivated nor melodious—from a musical point of view; but it was loud, and of the peculiar penetrating timbre which is invaluable for the use of that language which alone serves in inducing a bullock team to pull well, or for sending the stanzas of a bush song hurtling ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... white tabi, donned expressly for the festival. Never before among these people saw I such men, such thews; but their smiling beardless faces are comely and kindly as those of Japanese boys. They seem brothers, so like in frame, in movement, in the timbre of their voices, as ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... companion would have chosen to speak to her, but seeing her out in her hill-side garden, she made some inquiry in Welsh, which was answered in the most mournful tone I ever heard in my life; a voice of which the freshness and "timbre" had been choked up by tears long years ago. I asked who she was. I dare say the story is common enough, but the sight of the woman, and her few words had impressed me. She had been the beauty of Pen-Morfa; had been in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... which sound the simple chords of the tonic and dominant. The archetype of the accordion is the cheng (q.v.), or Chinese organ, between which and the harmonium it forms a connecting link structurally, although not invented for some thirty years after the harmonium. The timbre of the accordion is coarse and devoid of beauty, but in the hands of a skilful performer the best instruments are not entirely without artistic merit. Improvements in the construction of the accordion produced ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... he placed his arm about her, and there was something very far removed from political economy in the timbre ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... achieve, knowing well the while that the ecstasy of longing is better than the assuaging of desire. And though the voice of this spirit speaking in the music disguises itself so variously, it is always the same. For it cannot, and it would not, hide the strange and rare timbre which distinguishes it from all others—that quality which springs from a pure and calm vision, of life. The voice of this spirit says that it has lost every illusion about life, and that life seems only the more beautiful. It says that activity is but ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... seen a bird so evidently rejoicing in his flight; then singing, it sailed away from sight; but the song has lingered ever since in the blessed part of my memory. I often heard it afterward, and many times caught the Blue-jay in a feeble imitation of its trumpet note. I never forgot the exact timbre of that woodland call; so when at length, long after, I traced it to what is known in books as the "Red-shouldered Hawk," it was a little triumph and a little disappointment. The books made it all so commonplace. They say it has a loud call ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... there was no trace in it of the rough quality one might naturally have expected, and, now that I saw the full face of the speaker for the first time, I noted with something like a start that the deep, gentle eyes seemed far more in keeping with the timbre of the voice than with the rough and very countrified appearance of the clothes and manner. His voice set pleasant waves of sound in motion towards me, and the actual words, if I remember ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... The voice was hollow, its timbre distorted by echo. "Throw off your guns an' git down ... one at a time ... ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... four Minims were hurled head over heels a foot away, snapped from their positions. The sound of the wings was almost too exact an imitation of the snarl of a starting plane—the comparison was absurd in its exactness of timbre and resonance. It was only a test, however, and the moment the queen became quiet the upset mechanics clambered back. They crawled beneath her, scraped her feet and antennae, licked her eyes and jaws, and ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... wonder, therefore, when anon he was wending his way slowly back to his lodging he was accosted by a pleasant, cheerful voice, that he responded to it with alacrity. The voice, of a smooth, oily timbre, as if the owner kept it well greased for purposes of amiable speech, was like an echo of the past, when jolly, irresponsible Baron de Batz, erst-while officer of the Guard in the service of the late ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... part, if the timbre of at his voice correctly indicated his feelings, a pause of discomfort. Something was ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... la calle Una ya cascada voz, page 62 Que de un palacio salia Cuya puerta se cerro; Y a la que estaba a caballo Sobre un negro pisador, 5 Siendo en su escudo las lises Mas bien que timbre baldon, Y de pajes y escuderos Llevando un tropel en pos Cubiertos de ricas galas, 10 El gran duque de Borbon: El que lidiando en Pavia, Mas que valiente, feroz, Gozose en ver prisionero A su natural senor; 15 Y que a Toledo ha venido, ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... study of sound we can employ an acoustic apparatus for the purpose of decomposing any proposed note, and finding not only the main undulation itself, but the several superposed harmonics which give to the note its timbre. So also we can analyze the undulation of the tide, and show the component parts. The decomposition is effected by the process known as harmonic analysis. The principle of the method may be very simply described. Let us fix our ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... answer this time was startlingly clear and loud and nearly perfect in intonation, but again betrayed by the human timbre of the aw. A minute or two more and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... that it contained within itself descant and harmony. She knew it well; it is a strict canon in unison, and she had heard it sung by two grey-haired men in the Papal choir in Rome, soprano voices of a rarer and more radiant timbre than any woman's sexful voice, and subtle, and, in some complex way, hardly of the earth at all—voices in which no accent of sex transpired, abstract voices aloof from any stress of passion, undistressed by any longing, even for God. They were not ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... elements of Style in singing, the most potent and effective—the one, indeed, that is essential for the success of the lyric artist—is the ability to vary the vocal timbre; that is, to sing with Colour. This desideratum of varied tone-colour is sought even by instrumentalists. Nay, the instrument itself is sometimes constructed with this object in view. Witness the invention of the "soft" pedal, which is intended not solely to reduce the intensity ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... itself; here was a man's holding, one man's, and it was as big and wide as a king's estate. She looked swiftly at the tall man at her side; it was his or would be his. And he need not have told her; what she had read in the timbre of his voice she saw written large in his eyes; they were bright with ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... suddenly he begins the same song over again, and keeps up this continuous performance for nearly half an hour. The noonday heat of an August day that silences nearly every other voice, seems to give to the indigo bird's only fresh animation and timbre. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... ordinary performers, which lessened the immense superiority of Vivier over horn-players in general. Vivier, however, was troubled by no considerations of that kind. The Saxhorn, moreover, did not possess the timbre of the horn. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... know that it requires measurable time to charge an electro-magnet to saturation (about one-fifteenth of a second for those employed in telegraphy), were surprised that the telephone could follow the slightest change of timbre, requiring almost innumerable changes of force per second. I believe the free rotation I have spoken of through a limited range explains its remarkable sensitiveness and rapidity of action, and, according to this view, it would also explain why loud sounding telephones can ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... and gait inimitable, Back from the fading lessons of the past, I'd call, I'd tell and own, How much from thee! the revelation of the singing voice from thee! (So firm—so liquid-soft—again that tremulous, manly timbre! The perfect singing voice—deepest of all to me the lesson—trial and test of all:) How through those strains distill'd—how the rapt ears, the soul of me, absorbing Fernando's heart, Manrico's passionate call, Ernani's, sweet Gennaro's, I fold ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... reached forward and pinched the little arm. The result was electrifying. From the upended slit of mouth in that goggling face, came a scream. It pierced the heavy tense silence of the hall, ghastly in its timbre, like nothing any of us had ever heard before. And in it was conveyed agony as though Brayley had not merely pinched that flabby arm, but had thrust a red-hot knife ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... and walked back to the dead embers of the fire. Kemper had merely changed the timbre of his snore to a whistling aria, which at any other time would have enraged me. Now, somehow, it ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... conversation. Like all finely tempered natures, he vibrated in harmony with the subjects of his thought. Excitement made his utterance shrill and sharp. Deep feeling of the sense of beauty lowered its tone to richness; but the timbre was always acute, in sympathy with his intense temperament. All was of one piece in Shelley's nature. This peculiar voice, varying from moment to moment, and affecting different sensibilities in divers ways, corresponds to the high-strung passion ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... like a Greek rhapsodist. Tall, imposing in bulk, his regular features, mild, light-blue or grey eyes, clear ruddy skin, plentiful white hair and beard, evoked an image of the magnificently fierce old men he chants in his book. But he wasn't fierce, his voice was a tenor of agreeable timbre, and he was gentle, even to womanliness. Indeed, he was like a receptive, lovable old woman, the kind he celebrates so often. He never smoked, his only drink was water. I doubt if he ever drank spirits. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker |
