MUSIC AND ACOUSTICS
What are Good Acoustics?
Acoustics and the Performers
Conductors
Performers
Acoustics and Musical Periods
Baroque Period
Classical Period
Romantic Period
Twentieth-Century Music
European Opera
Acoustics and Listeners
CHAPTER TWOTHE LANGUAGE OF MUSICAL ACOUSTICS
Definitions and Explanations of Selected Terms
Reverberation and Fullness of Tone
Direct Sound, Early Sound, Reverberant Sound
Early Decay Time (EDT) (Also Early Reverberation Time)
Speed of Successive Tones
Definition (or Clarity)
Resonance
Intimacy or Presence and Initial-Time-Delay Gap
Liveness and Mid-Frequencies
Spaciousness
Warmth
Listener Envelopment
Strength of Sound and Loudness
Timbre and Tone Color
Acoustical Glare
Brilliance
Balance
Blend
Ensemble
Immediacy of Response (Attack)
Texture
Echoes
Dynamic Range and Background Noise Level
Detriments to Tonal Quality
Uniformity of Sound in Audience Areas
Summary of the Musical Qualities Affected by Acoustics
CHAPTER THREEONE HUNDRED CONCERT HALLS AND OPERA HOUSESCHAPTER FOURACOUSTICS OF CONCERT HALLS
Rank-Orderings of Acoustical Quality of 58 Concert Halls
Developed from Interviews and Questionnaires
Reverberation Time: Musicians' Preferences
Reverberation Time for Occupied Halls
Architectural Basics
Age
Shape
Music Power
Audience Absorption and Type of Chairs
Materials for Walls, Ceiling, and Stage
Physical Measures of Acoustical Quality
Reverberation Time (RT)
Early Decay Time (EDT)
Binaural Quality Index (BQI)
Loudness, the Strength of the Sound
Warmth, Bass Ratio (BR) and Bass Strength (Glow)
Intimacy, Initial-Time-Delay Gap (ITDG)
Lateral Fraction (LFE4)
Acoustical "Glare" and Surface Diffusivity Index (SDI)
Listener Envelopment
Clarity
Texture
Orthogonality of Objective Acoustical Measures
Special Structures for Reducing Acoustical "Glare" and for Diffusing Sound
Brilliance
Noise, Vibration and Echo
Further Architectural Considerations
Preferred Values for Acoustical Parameters
Preliminary Design Procedures
Stage Design
Balconies
Models
Multipurpose Halls
Architectural Design of Chamber Music Halls
Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER FIVEACOUSTICS OF OPERA HOUSES
Questionnaire Rank-Orderings of Acousical Quality of 21 Opera Houses
Objective Measurements of the Acousical Properties of 23 Opera Houses
Measurement Procedure
Sound Quality Parameters
Orchestra Pits
Types of Orchestra Pits
Boxes and Balconies
Echo and Distortion
Concluding Remarks
Appendix 1 - Terminology, Definitions, and Conversion Factors
Appendix 2 - Acoustical Data for Concert Halls & Opera Houses
Appendix 3 - Equations, Technical Data, and Sound Absorption
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index
Back to List of Publications
The first question any lover of classical music usually asks an acoustician is, "Which are the best halls in the world?" The
response—the three halls rated highest by world-praised conductors and music critics of the largest newspapers were built
in 1870, 1888, and 1900—always prompts the next query: "Why are those so good while many halls built after 1950 seem to be mediocre
or failures?" You will find answers to these questions in this book, the result of a half-century's research into the very
complex field of acoustics of halls for music.
The dialog re-enacted above bears a close resemblance to another illustration that typically troubles music lovers. They frequently
ask, "Why is a Stradivarius violin so good and so many built since then not in the same league?" In this case, we know that
Antonio Stradivari, working at the turn of the eighteenth century, employed the utmost skill, a good ear, and perhaps a little
luck to capture the dozens of details that make up a great violin. Subsequent violinmakers have learned that only by producing
close copies of his masterpieces can they expect their instruments to be highly acceptable.
Indisputably, the acoustics of halls for music are more diverse than those of violins. As this book will explain in depth, halls
for music encompass a broader range of different types with very different acoustics, and one should always remember that composers
often wrote music for a particular concert hall or opera house. Consequently, a given composition usually sounds best when
performed in its intended acoustics. For instance, Gregorian chants were written for performance in large churches with high
reverberance; a small, quiet church never comes close to doing it justice. As Chapter 1 discusses, compositions of different
musical periods—Baroque, Classical, or Romantic, for example—sound best in halls whose reverberation times vary
from medium low to relatively high. Can one hall serve all purposes? Halls with variable acoustics are among those treated here.
Since we can, today, identify the acoustical characteristics of the finest halls in existence, we could create an unerring
duplicate of any one of the several best and thus reproduce its acoustics exactly. Why not do so? Because building committees
generally select architects not to make exact copies of a great hall but to do something original and visually inspiring,
with the hope that the halls will have excellent sound. Most architects will not argue with that approach. Who would
be awarded an architectural prize for the construction of an exact copy? Consequently, the acoustical consultant is faced with
a dilemma. To have the best acoustics, the hall should be close in design to one of the great halls—and should yield
similar electro-acoustic data when measured. So the consultant usually follows a subtle path, pushing for as many similarities
as possible and making recommendations, where differences occur, of features—often novel—that may salvage the
new design.
For every new hall, with its untried acoustics, opening night may become a trial by fire. Of course, the local orchestra
and conductor may do all in their power to adapt their playing style to the new acoustics, as the history of the Philadelphia
Academy of Music in Chapter 1 illustrates. But well-traveled music critics, often in attendance only this once, may judge the
acoustics of the new venue against those of the four or five top-ranked old halls, and opening night reviews may set the reputation
of the hall, negatively, for years to come. On occasion, these assessments turn out to be unjust, failing to account for how a
hall's acoustics may be adjusted over time or the possible misuse of the hall that first night. Such bad fortune befell one
important hall that was designed for a standard-sized orchestra playing the kinds of compositions that make up the bulk of the
repertoire of today's symphonic concerts. For the opening night, however, the conductor chose a new composition, with a double-
sized orchestra and a chorus of several hundred. The stage had to be extended to over twice its normal size, and the choristers
in the back row stood on bleachers so high that their heads threatened to touch the stage ceiling, thus amplifying their voices
unevenly. In some parts of the composition, the musicians created unusually loud sound effects, in one case by hitting a suspended
three-meter section of railroad track with a sledge hammer. Nearly everybody in the audience went home with a headache. The
music critic's response? The hall was at fault.
Following the first chapters, which establish a base for understanding the effects of acoustics on composers, performers, and
listeners, and guiding the reader to a common vocabulary, the bulk of this book, Chapter 3, contains the write-ups, photographs,
drawings, and architectural details on 100 existing halls in 31 countries. Thirty of the halls are completely new. Although the
remainder appeared in earlier books by the author, the materials have been updated wherever necessary. The later chapters present
the relation of a hall's acoustics to its age, shape, type of seats, and the materials used for the walls and ceiling. The
sequence of events that led to Boston Symphony Hall's excellent acoustics, which opened in 1900, is covered in detail—although
it went through a troubled first few years because the leading local music critic considered the predecessor hall as better.
Detailed discussions also appear for balcony, box, stage, and pit designs. All the known electro-acoustical measurements on 100
existing halls are examined and compared with the rank orders of 58 concert halls and 21 opera houses that were obtained from
interviews and quesitonnaires. Finally, the optimal electro-acoustical results are presented for concert halls and opera houses
used for today's repertoires.
Three appendices supplement the chapters: the first gives definitions of all of the major acoustical and architectural terms
and symbols used in the book; the second provides the electro-acoustical data available on the 100 halls; and the third presents in
tabular form much of the dimensional and electro-acoustical data for the 100 halls.
Hundreds of persons are responsible for the material presented in this book: conductors, music critics, composers, musicians,
orchestra and opera directors, hall managers, architects, acousticians, and musical friends.
The largest contributors of new information were Takayuki Hidaka, Noriko Nishihara, and Toshiyuki Okano, devoted members of the
acoustical department at the Takenaka Research and Development Institute in Chiba, Japan. They are responsible for the electro-acoustical data in this book on twenty-two concert halls and seven opera houses in nine nations of Europe, the Americas, and Japan.
Other major contributions came from experts at Mueller-BBM of Munich/Planegg, Germany; the National Research Council of Canada;
the Technical University of Denmark; ARTEC Consultants of New York; Kirkegaard Associates of Chicago; Jaffee Holden Acoustics
of Norwalk, Connecticut; Michael Barron of Bath University; Jordan Acoustics of Denmark; Arup Acoustics of Winchester, Hampshire, U.K.; Sandy Brown Associates of London; Nagata Acoustics of Tokyo; InterConsult
Group of Trondheim, Norway; Garcia-BBM of Valencia; ACENTECH (successor to Bolt Beranek and Newman) of Cambridge, Massachusetts;
Cyril Harris of New York; and Albert Yaying Xu of Paris. Others too numerous to name here also provided invaluable information for
this volume.
For the "biographies" of the 100 halls, the architectural drawings for 64 were produced by Richard Shnider, 30 by the late
Wilfred Malmlund, and 6 by Daniel Chadwick. Important editorial assistance on the first two chapters was rendered by Ondine
E. Le Blanc.