Klangfarbenmelodie (German for sound-color-melody) is a musical technique that involves breaking up a musical line or melody out from one instrument to between several instruments. It adds greater color and texture to a melodic line, instead of just one timbre in playing the line. Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Look up Music on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikisource, as part of the 1911 Encyclopedia Wikiproject, has original text related to this article: Music Wikicities has a wiki about Music: Music MusicNovatory: the science of music encyclopedia Science of Music... Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary In music, a melody is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord. ... A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ... In music, timbre is determined by its spectrum, which is a specific mix of keynote, overtones, noise, tune behaviour, and envelope, as well as the temporal change of the spectrum and the amplitude. ...

The term was coined by Arnold Schoenberg in his text on harmony, Harmonielehre (1911), where he actually discusses the creation of "timbre-structures", which, in Jim Samson's (1977) words, "successions of changing tone-colors might create independent formal shapes which might be organized in a manner analogous to pitch structure." He and Anton Webern are particularly noted for their use of the technique, Schoenberg most notably in the third and the last of his Op. 16 pieces, and Webern in his Op. 10, a response to Schoenberg's Op. 16, and his Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24. Even his Op. 11 pieces for solo cello use harmonics, am Steg, pizzicato, and am Griffbrett in the opening bars, and his orchestration of the six-part ricecare from Bach's Musical Offering, "betrays the same preoccupation". Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 For the American music critic and journalist, see Harold Charles Schonberg. ... Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was a composer of classical music and a member of the so called Second Viennese School. ... A ricercar (or ricercare; the terms are interchangeable) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. ... Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748 portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann Johann Sebastian Bach (21 March 1685 – 28 July 1750)[1] was a German composer and organist of the baroque period, and is widely acknowledged[2] as one of the greatest composers in the Western tonal tradition. ... The Musical Offering (German title Musikalisches Opfer or Das Musikalische Opfer), BWV 1079, is a collection of canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, based on a musical theme by Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great) and dedicated to him. ...

However, "To a marked degree the music of Debussy elevates timbre to an unprecedented structural status; already in L'Apres-midi d'un Faune the color of flute and harp functions referentially," according to Samson (see also Debussy). Claude Debussy Claude Achille Debussy (August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918), composer of impressionistic classical music. ...

Isao Tomita also uses the technique in his works, instead of musical instruments, he uses different synthesizer voices. One of the most renowned electronic music composers in the world, Isao Tomita (冨田 勲; Tomita Isao, April 22, 1932 - ) was born in Tokyo and spent early childhood with his father in China. ... A classic FM synthesizer, the Yamaha DX7. ...

There is also a French term, mélodie de timbres, which means much the same and was used by Olivier Messiaen to describe his Couleurs de la cité céleste. Olivier Messiaen (IPA: or ; December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist. ...

Source

• Samson, Jim (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900-1920. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393021939.