"evolving" timbre

Daniel White wrote:

>Absolutely, but I think it can go one further than this. Imagine that
>for every note played in a tune, the harmonic partials are tailored
>for that moment in the instrument. This means the timbre of an
>instrument would evolve throughout the tune according to what chords
>are playing at the time. This would be incredibly unfeasible and
>impractical, but maybe the best music would actually do this - who
>knows!

I think the "unfeasible and impractical" part of this is premature.
In fact, there's a pretty easy way to do this electronically.
First, define a set of frequencies from which all the partials
of all the notes will be drawn, and assign them to the various
keys of a keyboard. Make each key sound a sine wave (so that you are
building up a "note" by playing its partials directly).
Then you can easily play "in tune" (in whatever sense you choose)
tailoring the partials from moment to moment.

This strategy was employed in the "Duet for Morphine and Cymbols",
which you can hear at:

http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/mp3s/Morphine_and_Crystal.mp3

Of course, I did not use harmonic partials, but chose a set more
to my liking.

--Bill Sethares