Sonance................................................................................................
We are used to thinking of resonance(re-sonance) as something that contin-
ues to sound (re-sound), so we can think of sonanceas a sound that is there
and then gone, sounding only once. These brief sounds are also called tran-
sients. An example of sonance could be the noise that a guitar pick makes as
it starts a string in motion, or the little spitting sound at the beginning of a
trumpet note. The hammers of a piano, the scratching of a viola bow, the
consonants and breathing noises of a singer are more examples of sonance.
Without these noises, the instruments would sound very different indeed.
Though sonance carries no pitch content, it is easy to see how important it
is as a component of music.When writing for multiple voices, always have these elements in the back of
your mind. These five elements are all we have to work with in the universe
of music. If you can control these elements in your compositions, you will
find a vast creative playground to explore. You will be better able to choose
which instruments you want to be playing which parts, and you will also
have a better idea of how to substitute synthesizer sounds for real ones.If you design your synthesizer sounds to replace the timbre, sonance, inten-
sity, duration, and pitch characteristics of an orchestral instrument, instead
of trying to imitate it directly, you will come up with some very interesting
sounds.Some Do’s and Don’ts .................................................................................
As you may have noticed, we like to encourage you to break rules from time
to time, but you can save yourself a lot of aggravation and avoid sounding
amateurish if you at least learn to observe a couple of rules for writing for
multiple voices.Don’t write more than three independent melodies at one time....
If your intention is to create a sense of chaos and leave your listeners confused,
then have at it — but it is almost impossible for a listener to follow four com-
pletely independent melody lines. Even in string quartets it is common for
some instruments to provide parallel or block harmony while the others move
independently. Often one instrument will tacet(rest through a number of mea-
sures) while the others carry on their complicated conversation.Chapter 16: Composing for Multiple Voices 205