The colourful life of timbre spaces

As early as the end of the 19th century, the multidimensional aspects of timbre came under the attention of psychologists and musicologists with the works of Carl Stumpf. This chapter deals with the pro and cons of actual known timbre spaces, and looks at the history of timbre concepts, starting with the exploring what the timbre is, how to quantify it, where the concept of musical timbre come from, why musical timbre is so hard to understand, and and which paradigms move(d) ideas in the discussion about the phenomenon of musical timbre. The nature of sound and its propagation without regard to timbre as the quality of sound has been a central topic of acoustical research for many centuries. Carl Stumpf&s;s deep impact on timbre research goes far beyond his intriguing multidimensional description of timbre in a narrow and broad sense.