Evaluation Guide for Music Performance Spaces

How to Use the Guide

The scales on the data collection sheet can be used by listeners to record their subjective impressions of spaces for music performance. Place a check mark in the section of the scale which best represents your individual judgment of the specific attribute or condition. The primary purpose of the data collection sheet is to encourage users to become familiar with important acoustical properties of rooms where music is performed. The data collection sheet is not intended to be used to rank the best or worst spaces, because there will always be a wide range of individual judgments, even among experienced listeners and performers. Recognize also that it is extremely difficult to separate judgment of a hall from either judgment of the quality of a particular musical performance, or from longstanding personal musical preferences.

Subjective Judgments of Music Performances

Subjective impressions can be recorded for the following conditions:

• Clarity (listen to the beginnings of musical notes and observe degree to which individual notes are distinct or stand apart)
• Reverberance (listen to the persistence of sound at mid-frequencies)
• Warmth (listen for strength or liveness of bass compared to mid- and treble frequencies)
• Intimacy (listen to determine if music sounds as though played in a small room regardless of actual size)
• Loudness (listen for direct sound and reverberant sound; evaluate during louder passages for comfort conditions and weaker passages for audibility)
• Diffusion (listen for envelopment of terminal sounds or feeling of immersion in sound; compare conditions with eyes open and closed)
• Balance (listen for relative strength and quality of various sections of orchestra and soloist or chorus)

Sounds which interfere with perception of music performances may also be observed. The most common are the following:

• Background noise (sounds other than music or from audience, heard during times solo instruments play faintest notes, or when hall is empty)
• Echoes (notice direction and strength of any long-delayed, discrete sound reflections)

Use a separate data collection sheet for each seat where performance is to be evaluated. Absence of "dead spots," that is, locations where music is very weak, and minimum variations in listening conditions throughout space indicate good uniformity. Remember, there are no absolute or correct answers. Subjective impressions by individuals are the only evaluations that really matter.

Overall Impression

The box at the bottom of the data collection sheet should be used to record your overall impression of the musical performance at a given seat location. It is suggested that traditional academic ratings be used: A for best ever, a most memorable listening experience; to F for one of the worst, a truly bad listening experience; with C for an average experience. Always keep in mind that this guide is intended to be used to develop an understanding of specific music performance conditions and, by careful observation, how they can be affected by architecture.

Source

Architectural Acoustics, M. David Egan, McGraw-Hill, ©1988