 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Pokenerd
Date: 2023-05-19 09:34
How do you play in a dead hall at all??? I just had to play in one of the most dry sounding place and it was absolutely terrible. I constantly got a feeling to play extra loud since I wasn't getting any feedback, and that just about ruined everything for me. Does anyone have advise for playing in these situations?
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Author: ruben
Date: 2023-05-19 12:28
I have one suggestion: adding vibrato to your tone. I more or less do this unconsciously when the acoustics are horrifically dry. But, you have to practice turning vibrato off and on and having a tasteful vibrato.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Ed
Date: 2023-05-19 16:30
Having played for years in a dead hall, I found that working for focus and resonance in my tone gave it the ability to carry. Sometimes I tried equipment that was a lovely at home but I found I was buried in the hall. I often found that a little lighter reed that might have a bit more highs would help. I avoided equipment that might have been a bit too "warm" or "dark".
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Author: kdk
Date: 2023-05-19 17:22
There are, as I use the description, two different kinds of "deadness" in a hall. Some dead halls make it feel like there's a sock stuffed in my bell. The sound that reaches my own ears is dull and lifeless. Other dead halls are what I would call dry. The sound I hear is clear enough, but people farther away find it lacking presence and life, usually because of little to no reverb time.
I don't think there's much you can do about the room that seems to fight back against the sound you produce. Put up with it and, if you have a choice, don't play there again. The dry hall that doesn't get in your way but doesn't seem to be helping with any kind of enhancing ambiance calls, as Ed suggests, for as pure, clean, "focused" a sound as you can produce. A strong core gives the best projection and carries the farthest.
I have to add that the player is not always - probably not ever - the best judge of what is carrying into the hall and the audience. Players who play in the same hall regularly learn what they need to do to produce the best result for listeners. In a "dry" no-echo hall, in addition to focusing the tone, that may include using softer ("brighter") reeds, interpreting dynamics a few ticks louder, and articulating longer or shorter than otherwise. But in an unfamiliar room the best way to judge projection is to have someone listen from the back of the audience area. Sometimes there's more getting to the back than you think.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2023-05-19 17:50
I know what you mean but I have to disagree on two key points.
In a dry(er) hall (dry is standing in the middle of a grassy field.......try that one on) you can hear yourself and others better. It should encourage you to play with more generated tails to notes and better diminuendo. That is why your practice space should be as dry as possible.
Secondly, one (and by that I mean EVERYONE) is encouraged to play louder (and I mean significantly louder) in a "swishy hall." The reason is that with less distinction in your playing and with less defined beginnings and endings of notes amongst everyone else, your brain tells you to play louder to hear those things. So you actually have to fight that tendency for the sake of your own hearing (depending on how large the ensemble is) and the hearing of the audience. You keep things shorter and softer in those situations.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2023-05-19 21:30
I'm not sure I agree with some of the above comments. Pretty well all halls are dead compared to the room that one tends to practice in. Too often to count I've had the experience of sorting out some reeds that sound nice at home, only to realise after a few seconds on the concert platform that they won't do: they're just too soft, and for playing in a larger space with less of an echo you need a reed that's more robust rather than softer. And the deader the hall, the bigger this difference needs to be.
An important qualification here is the distinction between the sound you hear at the back of the hall, as mentioned above. But I prioritise the sound that I hear: not because I don't care about the customer, but because if things sound awful to me, then I know I'll be so downhearted that I'll be unable to pay attention to playing musically. Being told it sounds great in row Z doesn't help.
But in some halls things aren't going to feel wonderful whatever you do. Jack Brymer's book has words of wisdom on this: "The only thing to do is to use the smoothest reed which can be found - firm but not hard - and above all, resist all temptation to force the sound".
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2023-05-19 23:48
I may be speaking more about ensembles than a recital for just piano and clarinet, but the points are still quite valid. I like the Brymer quote though.
I believe the poster was hunting for the reverb which was there, just in smaller quantities than he/she liked. I don't know if I was clear above but I mean that you are more in charge of SHAPING every note and every attack when things are drier. And who wouldn't want more control?
Of course I am not saying that more reverberation is not euphonic to a degree but if you are considering going to either extreme, the drier hall is easier to work with. Of course I grew up in Chicago where Orchestra Hall had a reputation for being a rather dry concert venue. You could hear every single bit of Clark Brody, Donald Peck and Ray Still phrasing their way though the thickest scores and I loved it.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2023-05-20 00:35
Paul Aviles wrote:
> I believe the poster was hunting for the reverb which was
> there, just in smaller quantities than he/she liked.
>
> Of course I am not saying that more reverberation is not
> euphonic to a degree but if you are considering going to either
> extreme, the drier hall is easier to work with. Of course I
> grew up in Chicago where Orchestra Hall had a reputation for
> being a rather dry concert venue. You could hear every single
> bit of Clark Brody, Donald Peck and Ray Still phrasing their
> way though the thickest scores and I loved it.
>
I grew up hearing the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Academy of Music, which also was quite dry sounding but, like Orchestra Hall as you describe it, allowed an absolutely crystalline transmission of sound to every point on the stage and to every part of the audience. The orchestra did have to play differently from the way it has played since Verizon Hall, its home for the past 20 years, was built. Other orchestras visiting the Academy on tour often complained, but if you learned to play there, every note you played could be heard clearly.
Gigliotti used to describe his teaching/practice studio, which was dry in the same way, as "honest," meaning you got what you produced with no help, but also no muffling, from the room itself.
Karl
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2023-05-20 01:09
Would it be okay to ask what it is about the physics of the room that makes it dry?
Is it because the sound is being absorbed by the walls rather than bouncing back, so that it is like playing a piano with the sustain pedal off, when really it should be on to make the sound warm?
I haven't done much music in big halls, but I used to have to do a lot of public speaking and there was one room that I had to speak in, where the sound seemed to get about 20cm from the person's mouth and just vanish into thin air. Frequently even the people in the front row couldn't hear the speaker. Conversely in the new hall up the road you could hear a pin drop on stage from the back row.
In the old hall the audience seats were wooden and very steeply raked, whereas in the new hall the seats were fabric, and the back wall had millions of little holes punched in it.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2023-05-20 01:47
SunnyDaze wrote:
> In the old hall the audience seats were wooden and very steeply
> raked, whereas in the new hall the seats were fabric, and the
> back wall had millions of little holes punched in it.
I think the difference starts with the design of the stage area. Some stages don't project much out to the hall to begin with, whatever the rest of the room does with the sound.
One fault that doesn't apply to places like the Academy of Music (or Verizon Hall, which is the opposite acoustically - live with lots of reverb time) but does to many school auditoriums is the fly space above the stage where much of the sound goes to die. A good concert hall has a shell and reflective clouds over the stage to prevent that kind of trap.
Also, the angles of the walls make a big difference. Badly designed, they can create acoustical effects that muffle the sound regardless of the materials they're made of.
Karl
Post Edited (2023-05-20 01:47)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2023-05-20 04:48
Right on the mark about the open space above the front of stage Karl.....just sucks the sound out.
It's a very interesting topic with lots of variables. One thing to keep in mind is that when we hear sound it is not just direct sound but all the reflections of the sounds from EVERY surface of and in the room and how much difference there is in the time those sounds take to get to our ears (this is how we perceive the location of the sound generator in the space).
But it is amazing how some rather old structures have better acoustics than many new ones (take the Musikverein in Vienna for instance). This just was the result of acoustic engineers/architects being mindful of what worked beforehand and worked to reproduce that.
So there are "dry halls" that allow all levels of sound to reach the back quite easily and reverberant halls that are just a big mess (common example would be a high school gymnasium). I'll leave off with the basic idea that a cube shape for a space is very bad because there are so many possible reflections that come back at so many different times. A rectangular shaped space such as the Musikverein is much better......as a start.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: Julian ibiza
Date: 2023-05-20 15:17
Perhaps I'm reading something into Paul's first reply that wasn't maybe there ,
but I think that our brains make certain adjustments to the sound we hear depending on the acoustics ,volume, distance etc . Hence , as Paul is suggesting, maybe less is more in an acoustic environment that swallows the sound ,because our brain may well kind of "graphic equalizer" what we are physically hearing . Bad acoustics tend to favor certain frequencies above others , so as you play louder ,perhaps our brains get their " graphic equalizer " maxed-out so that the perceived sound balance further deteriorates .
This may all be rubbish , but I have read that with vision , our brains actually receive a pixilated image from our eyes and then interprets it into a smoother image . If the brain does something similar with our hearing I would not be surprised , and if so ,then this would be something one could presumably be " played into ".
Julian Griffiths
Tel. 34 696 798 853
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2023-05-20 18:44
Thank you very much for explaining that. It does make a lot of sense.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2023-05-20 21:57
Yes, I have been irresponsibly blending the science of acoustics with psycho acoustics. My apologies. Yet we are all subject to the end results of both whenever we hear something. Ever look up at the sound of a very loud, unusual sounding aircraft only to find that it is in a different spot than we thought or traveling in a different direction from what we thought? That is caused by the sound reflections presenting a false image to our brains.
Ever think you were a great singer in the shower but come out and find you are not the Jonas Brothers?
Acoustics can be FUN!!!!!
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Julian ibiza
Date: 2023-05-21 00:54
Paul,
I suspect that any "irresponsible blending" was probably done by me .
I tend to throw stuff out there in the hopes that someone more knowledgeable than me will tell me what I'm talking about ...Ha-ha!
But I think that this topic touches upon something very central and perhaps ironic about playing live , which is just how much a venue can take all that dedicated practice and costly and meticulously chosen equipment by musicians and make it sound dull and lackluster. Musicians tend to dedicate obsessively to the quality of their sound .....but how much of that reaches the ears of the audience .
Acoustics can be fun ....but also highly treacherous.
Julian Griffiths
Tel. 34 696 798 853
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