- The definition of the genres of sound, or characterology, is the third procedure of the five in the solfège. After typology and morphology, where the criteria of sound are isolated in simple examples, characterology is a return to the concrete, since it considers the main examples of combinations formed in sound and musical reality, by bundles of characteristic criteria, in accordance with natural acoustic laws which most often link them together.
- Characterology and musical analysis complete one another, being respectively the practical pole (timbres, lutherie, registers) and the theoretical pole (research into musical structures) of a process which aims to synthesise the musical. But these two procedures are presented in the Traité as working hypotheses, unlike typology and morphology of which a complete and assured account is given.
(Source –Michel Chion (1983). Guide des Objets Sonores. Eds. Buchet/Chastel, Paris. 1995 translation by John Dack/Christine North.)