Ep. 010: Tone can have color?? Bright vs. Dark!

What do people mean when they talk about the "color" of a sound? Let's talk about bright vs. dark sounds, and everything in between.

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Vocal Pedagogy Consultant: Dr. Rebecca Sherburn, DMA (Director of Voice at Chapman University)
Check out Dr. Sherburn's voice videos through Virtual Sheet Music:

[briannaknightmusic]

one of the few people who explained it PERFECTLY and CONCISELY! Beautiful!

[LuxAeterna]

What you said about stretching the lips horizontally for brighter sounds and vertically for darker sounds is super interesting in terms of sound design. I tried that while singing a middle C and using an EQ to analyze the effect, and holy gosh does it make a difference! With the dark sound everything past the 1K frequencies just gets SQUISHED.

[lizettegratacoswys]

You are such a good comunicator. Thanks!

[Tuliomurillo]

I was not clear on the concepts until now… thanks so much.

[Brooklin.Zabala]

Best choir teacher!! She's my choir teacher at my highschool, love having her as a teacher! ❤

[Harlem]

By way of analogy: A dark sound supports the note firmly from below and is both mellow and full like a cello, a barritone horn, bass clarinet and notably the Horn in F outside its top octave when it starts sounding more of a trumpet. The tone is said to feel hallow in the middle due to the subdued resonation of the sound creating a full firm but mellow sound. A bright sound is everything else that is polar opposite of a dark sound.

[thatdrummeroz]

This is an awesome interpretation of sonic frequency.
I found this video in search of how dark vs bright resonances can correspond to the nature of drums, or in my search, how to distinguish the nature of different types of woods for drums.
This brings incredible perspective that kind of parallels a coinciding path in the realm of drums while understanding bright vs dark for vocalists.
Thank you for the relatable analogies and examples towards tonality.
My goal is to apply this concept to drums in how can complement other musicians while standing out sonically as a drummer.
Subscribing!

[BigBoss]

Thank you, you are a life savior. Finally I know what warm sound is.

[annar]

This is a wonderful explanation. Thank you!

[SuLokify]

This is cool. We use similar descriptors in my field of work when talking about wave qualities

[tommydaniels]

So glad you added the brilliant Florence Foster Jenkins to the extreme end of the Classical brightness scale.

[eldritch]

my choir ta told me i had a dark tone to my singing and i never knew what that meant, so thank you for the explanation! :)

[laudemgloriae]

Wow this is really helpful for understanding sounds from instruments as well. I was looking this up to understand it better in different violins. Also one of my carbon fiber bows makes a particular nasal sound that my teacher pointed out. I guess the solution for that wouldn’t be to touch or hold my nose though ☺️ thanks again for the great video!

[abhijaymohapatra]

IT WAS BRILLIANT EXPLAINATION WITH GREAT COMMUNICATION. I LIKR THE VIDEO

[erdem]

Really apprecate it for this information.

[gallifreyandefense]

It's also based very much off culture and social ideas.

[scottlarson]

You cannot make a blanket statement like opera is dark. Luciano Pavarotti, Stan Olsen, and Jussi Bjorling are very bright indeed. Dimitri's voice is rich but not dark. Kurt Moll, Samuel Ramey, Thomas Allen are dark. Some good stuff here but I think you are over generalizing when it comes to opera. Let's not mistake rich, powerful, full, for dark.

[EricTanGHST]

Tend to avoid Nasal sound lol.
Disturbed, David Draiman has entered the chat LOL

[jcepri]

More examples needed. Too much talking