Dataset Information

Concert halls with strong lateral reflections enhance musical dynamics.

ABSTRACT: One of the most thrilling cultural experiences is to hear live symphony-orchestra music build up from a whispering passage to a monumental fortissimo. The impact of such a crescendo has been thought to depend only on the musicians' skill, but here we show that interactions between the concert-hall acoustics and listeners' hearing also play a major role in musical dynamics. These interactions contribute to the shoebox-type concert hall's established success, but little prior research has been devoted to dynamic expression in this three-part transmission chain as a complete system. More forceful orchestral playing disproportionately excites high frequency harmonics more than those near the note's fundamental. This effect results in not only more sound energy, but also a different tone color. The concert hall transmits this sound, and the room geometry defines from which directions acoustic reflections arrive at the listener. Binaural directional hearing emphasizes high frequencies more when sound arrives from the sides of the head rather than from the median plane. Simultaneously, these same frequencies are emphasized by higher orchestral-playing dynamics. When the room geometry provides reflections from these directions, the perceived dynamic range is enhanced. Current room-acoustic evaluation methods assume linear behavior and thus neglect this effect. The hypothesis presented here is that the auditory excitation by reflections is emphasized with an orchestra forte most in concert halls with strong lateral reflections. The enhanced dynamic range provides an explanation for the success of rectangularly shaped concert-hall geometry.

SUBMITTER: Patynen J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3970476 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Concert halls with strong lateral reflections enhance musical dynamics.

Pätynen Jukka J Tervo Sakari S Robinson Philip W PW Lokki Tapio T

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20140303 12

One of the most thrilling cultural experiences is to hear live symphony-orchestra music build up from a whispering passage to a monumental fortissimo. The impact of such a crescendo has been thought to depend only on the musicians' skill, but here we show that interactions between the concert-hall acoustics and listeners' hearing also play a major role in musical dynamics. These interactions contribute to the shoebox-type concert hall's established success, but little prior research has been dev ...[more]

PMID: 24591584

Similar Datasets

Project description:Music ensemble performance provides an ecologically valid context for investigating leadership dynamics in small group interactions. Musical texture, specifically the relative salience of simultaneously sounding ensemble parts, is a feature that can potentially alter leadership dynamics by introducing hierarchical relationships between individual parts. The present study extended previous work on quantifying interpersonal coupling in musical ensembles by examining the relationship between musical texture and leader-follower relations, operationalised as directionality of influence between co-performers' body motion in concert video recordings. It was hypothesised that the directionality of influence, indexed by Granger Causality, would be greater for 'homophonic' textures with a clear distinction between melody and accompaniment parts than for 'polyphonic' textures with less distinction between melody and accompaniment. This hypothesis was tested by using pose estimation algorithms to track instrumentalists' body movements in a string quartet and a clarinet quintet, and then applying Granger Causality analysis to their head motion to estimate directional influence between instrumentalist pairs for sections of the pieces that varied in texture. It was found that Granger Causality values were generally higher (indicating greater directionality of influence) for homophonic than polyphonic textures. Furthermore, considering melody and accompaniment instrument roles revealed more evidence for the melody instrument influencing accompanying instruments than vice versa, plus a high degree of directionality among accompanying instruments, in homophonic textures. These observed patterns of directional information flow in co-performer body motion are consistent with changing leader-follower relations depending on hierarchical relations between ensemble parts in terms of the relative salience of melodic material in the musical texture. The finding that automatic pose estimation can detect modulations of leadership dynamics in standard video recordings under naturalistic performance conditions has implications for investigating interpersonal coordination in large-scale music video datasets representing different cultural traditions, and for exploring nonverbal communication in group activities more generally.

Project description:Musicians typically rehearse far away from their audiences and in practice rooms that differ significantly from the concert venues in which they aspire to perform. Due to the high costs and inaccessibility of such venues, much current international music training lacks repeated exposure to realistic performance situations, with students learning all too late (or not at all) how to manage performance stress and the demands of their audiences. Virtual environments have been shown to be an effective training tool in the fields of medicine and sport, offering practitioners access to real-life performance scenarios but with lower risk of negative evaluation and outcomes. The aim of this research was to design and test the efficacy of simulated performance environments in which conditions of "real" performance could be recreated. Advanced violin students (n = 11) were recruited to perform in two simulations: a solo recital with a small virtual audience and an audition situation with three "expert" virtual judges. Each simulation contained back-stage and on-stage areas, life-sized interactive virtual observers, and pre- and post-performance protocols designed to match those found at leading international performance venues. Participants completed a questionnaire on their experiences of using the simulations. Results show that both simulated environments offered realistic experience of performance contexts and were rated particularly useful for developing performance skills. For a subset of 7 violinists, state anxiety and electrocardiographic data were collected during the simulated audition and an actual audition with real judges. Results display comparable levels of reported state anxiety and patterns of heart rate variability in both situations, suggesting that responses to the simulated audition closely approximate those of a real audition. The findings are discussed in relation to their implications, both generalizable and individual-specific, for performance training.

Dataset Information

Concert halls with strong lateral reflections enhance musical dynamics.

Publications

Concert halls with strong lateral reflections enhance musical dynamics.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets