Compositions for a solo Chinese instrument with the Western orchestra require the composer to consider ways in which orchestration techniques might function in different ways so as to either bring out the solo instrument or to have it blend with the orchestra.

Timbre is an important stylistic and structural parameter in popular music, yet its specific functional roles in this repertoire have not yet been theorized. Most music-analytical scholarship on timbre in popular music to date consists of case studies of individual artists, bands, studios, or genres. There have been no broad corpus studies establishing timbral norms for genres or eras of popular music.