Word Finder - tones

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A specific pitch.

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(in the diatonic scale) An interval of a major second.

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(in a Gregorian chant) A recitational melody.

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The character of a sound, especially the timbre of an instrument or voice.

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General character, mood, or trend.

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Her rousing speech gave an upbeat tone to the rest of the evening.

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The pitch of a word that distinguishes a difference in meaning, for example in Chinese.

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A whining style of speaking; a kind of mournful or artificial strain of voice; an affected speaking with a measured rhythm and a regular rise and fall of the voice.

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Children often read with a tone.

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The manner in which speech or writing is expressed.

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State of mind; temper; mood.

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The shade or quality of a colour.

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The favourable effect of a picture produced by the combination of light and shade, or of colours.

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This picture has tone.

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The definition and firmness of a muscle or organ; see also: tonus.

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The state of a living body or of any of its organs or parts in which the functions are healthy and performed with due vigor.

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Normal tension or responsiveness to stimuli.

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A gun

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To give a particular tone to

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To change the colour of

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To make (something) firmer

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To harmonize, especially in colour

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To utter with an affected tone.

Officer David said in tones as sweet as they were bitter toward her.

Her tones rose and fell, her hands and arms animated.

Then he motioned to the others and pointed up at Bordeaux, speaking in guttural tones.

A waitress neared them but beat a quick retreat when she heard their strained tones.

When dinner was over, Alex escorted her out the door, leaving the rest of the party talking in low tones.

It is not easy to determine the exact point at which the impulses fuse into a continuous tone, for higher tones are usually present with the deepest of which the frequency is being counted, and these may be mistaken for it.

If, for instance, a note is struck and held down on a piano, a little practice enables us to hear both the octave and the twelfth with the fundamental, especially if we have previously directed our attention to these tones by sounding them.

A practised ear easily discerns the coexistence of these various tones when a pianoforte or violin string is thrown into vibration.

As the interval between two tones, and consequently the number of beats, increases the effect on the ear becomes more and more unpleasant.

Suppose that we start with two simple tones in unison; there is perfect consonance.

The two tones are now dissonant, and, as we have seen, about the middle of the scale the maximum dissonance is when there are between 30 and 40 beats per second.

If all tones were pure, dissonance at this part of the scale would not occur if the interval were more than a third.

Let the two tones with their harmonic overtones be 256 512 768 1024 1280 1536 512 1024 1536.

But obviously in either the octave or the fifth, if the tuning is imperfect, beats occur all along the line wherever the tones should coincide with perfect tuning.

When two sources emit only pure tones we might expect that we should have no dissonance when, as in the major seventh, the beat frequency is greater than the range of harshness.

But the interval is still dissonant, and this is to be explained by the fact that the two tones unite to give a third tone of the frequency of the beats, easily heard when the two primary tones are loud.

Formerly it was generally supposed that the Tartini tone was due to the beats themselves, that the mere variation in the amplitude was equivalent, as far as the ear is concerned, to a superposition on the two original tones of a smooth sine displacement of the same periodicity as that variation.

We shall conclude by a brief account of the ways in which combination tones may be produced.

There appears to be no doubt that they are produced, and the only question is whether the theory accounts sufficiently for the intensity of the tones actually heard.

Let us suppose that with constant excess of pressure, p, in the wind-chest, the amplitude produced is proportional to the pressure, so that the two tones issuing may be represented by pa sin 27-nit and pb sin 21rn 2 t.

The amplitudes of these tones are proportional to the products of a and b multiplied by X or µ.

These combination tones will in turn react on the pressure and produce new combination tones with the original tones, or with each other, and such tones may be termed of the second, third, &c., order.

It is evident that we may have tones of frequency hn 1 kn 2 hn i - kn 2 hnl+kn2, where h and k are any integers.

The combination tones thus produced in the source should have a physical existence in the air, and the amplitudes of those represented in (35) should be of the same order.

The conditions assumed in this investigation are probably nearly realized in a harmonium and in a double siren of the form used by Helmholtz, and in these cases there can be no doubt that actual objective tones are produced, for they may be detected by the aid of resonators of the frequency of the tone sought for.

If the tones had no existence outside the ear then resonators would not increase their loudness.

Suppose now that F =a sin 22rn i t+b sin 21rn 2 t, the second term will evidently produce a series of combination tones of periodicities 2n 1, 2772, n, - n2, and n 1 -1-n 2, as in the first method.

There can be no doubt that the ear is an unsymmetrical vibrator, and that it makes combination tones, in some such way as is here indicated, out of two pure tones.

Probably in most cases the combination tones which we hear are thus made, and possibly, too, the tones detected by Koenig, and by him named " beat-tones."

The difficulty in Helmholtz's theory is to account for the audibility of such beat tones when they are of a higher order than the first.

If we are to assume that the tones received by the ear are pure and free from partials, the loudness of the beattones would appear to show that Helmholtz's theory is not a complete account.

The third mode of production of combination tones, the production in the medium itself, follows from the varying velocity of different parts of the wave, as investigated at the beginning of this article.

It is easily shown that after a time we shall have to superpose on the original displacement a displacement proportional to the square of the particle velocity, and this will introduce just the same set of combination tones.

But probably in practice there is not a sufficient interval between source and hearer for these tones to grow into any importance, and they can at most be only a small addition to those formed in the source or the ear.

Koenig, Quelques experiences d'acoustique (1882) describes apparatus and experiments, intended to show, in opposition to Helmholtz, that beats coalesce into tones, and also that the quality of a note is affected by alteration of phase of one of its component overtones relative to the phase of the fundamental.

Four of the simple tones are marked in the written character by signs placed over the consonant affected, and the absence of a mark implies that the one remaining tone is to be used.

Though he is wanting in moderation and in luminous warmth, his tones are by no means always harsh; and as an author he ever aspired with longing after humility and love and patience, though his whole life was lived in the atmosphere of conflict.

Jaeschke first noted the existence of tones in Tibetan, and these have been found by Professor Conrady to have developed on the Tones .

The old language seems to have pronounced prefixes extensively which in modern pronunciation in central Tibet are largely lost, whilst the soft initials have become aspirated or hardened and tones have developed, and in the west and east, where prefixes and soft initials have been preserved, there are no tones.

After being unhaired the darkest wools are the most valuable, although many people prefer the bright, lighter brown tones.

The colour varies according to the district of origin, from a blue grey to yellow with reddish tones.

The tender, half-broken tones in which these words were said, the inexpressible pathos of his voice and manner, were never forgotten by those who heard that Wednesday morning speech.

In fact, it is not too much to say that it was the sophists who provided those great masters with their consummate instrument, and it detracts but little from the merit of the makers if they were themselves unable to draw from it its finer tones.

Although we find Siricius a year later writing to the African Church on this same subject in tones rather of persuasion than of command, yet the beginning of compulsory sacerdotal celibacy in the Western Church may be conveniently dated from his decretal of A.D.

But with half-tone process illustrations very little overlaying is required, provided the blocks have been brought up to the proper height by underlaying in the first instance - the various tones being already in the block itself - and it is little more than a matter of sharp, hard impression to give full effect to these, if both paper and ink are suitable.

He also developed the theory of differential and of summational tones.

The long vault has a certain keynote of its own, which, when firmly struck, excites harmonics, including tones of incredible depth and sweetness.

It is true that to some extent these means of utterance are common to the lower animals, the power of expressing emotion by cries and tones extending far down in the scale of animal life, while rudimentary gesture-signs are made by various mammals and birds.

To how many sad hearts did he come like an angel, with the rich tones of his voice waking harmonics of hope, where before there had been despair and silence?

In 1709 a sermon preached by Dr Sacheverell (q.v.) denounced toleration and the right of resistance in tones worthy of the first days of the Restoration.