 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2012-02-02 10:42
Question, especially to those of you with lots of performance and/or recording experience.
Do hall (room) characteristics restrict the dynamic range?
I'm asking because, at home it seems like I can never do a decent forte, let alone a real fortissimo. But at the oboe event of the university of Ottawa (a few weekends ago), I was surprised to make the halls ring so loud it almost shook the floor! I was happy to note that my pianissimos were truly soft.
The recital hall was an average construction small concert hall, and there was an instrument exhibit in a "group rehearsal hall" that was essentially a small warehouse.
Wondering if acoustical properties, size or even climate control might have something to do with the ability to play loudly.... or even the perception of loudness.
What do you think?
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: WoodwindOz
Date: 2012-02-02 15:28
Yes!!
This is why some rooms are perfect for chamber music, but you'd never put an orchestra in there for fear of going deaf.
Never more did I realise this than at my last ensemble placement audition, which we did in a theatre designed for speech. It did not matter what I did, mp was about the loudest I felt I could go. Ugh. I felt like I was shrinking.
I know very little about physics and acoustics, but I know that certain spaces can also promote certain pitch ranges better than others (resonating chamber?) In our concert venue here at Illinois, we call it the 'bat cave', everything rings afterwards for days, and high frequencies stick out like crazy.
Love to hear a scientific take on this!
Rachel
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2012-02-03 00:38
Thanks for confirming Rachel.
You're mentioning static waves: when the wave length of a note is an exact multiple of a distance between parallel walls, the room becomes like a guitar box and they stick out like a sore thumb. There's just nothing to do about it.
For the orchestra, one could play ffff in my study and not worry about sounding more than p!
That's what really surprises me is the feeling of air - I get the impression the crescendo is going nowhere. So I thought my range was just feeble... untill I played in those halls!
The nice thing is that my pianissimo was responsive and soft too.
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-02-07 23:11
Being both an experienced recording engineer and an oboist, here are my thoughts on this. In loudspeaker testing they use a room with very little reflection called an “anechoic chamber”. Associates, who have been inside one, tell me that you can’t hear very much of your own, normal speaking voice, due to the almost complete lack of reflected sound. Now, if you are in a fairly reverberant hall, you will have a fair amount of reflected sound, which of course, will add to your direct sound, which will tend to make it louder. There would be a question though, about whether there is actually an increase in dynamic range, as softer sounds may be added to, by the reflections, in the same amount, as the louder sounds, so the dynamic range (ratio of loud to soft) will remain the same. I’ll see if I can find an answer. Regards, Loree BF 51
R. Still former student
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2012-02-08 00:29
You might be still a student, but that was a fantastic answer!
I hope you can find more. Perhaps you can explain this: the feeling I get in my dry, sound absorbing room is that when I pass mezzo-forte, I can still blow much more pressure and air volume into the reed, but the reed essentially stops increasing in output...... it's a little like pushing against a rubber o-ring on a metal shaft: the extra force will not move the ring any more quickly.
However, in the concert hall and in the small warehouse, I did not get that feeling. In other words, when I passed mf, I got the impression that the crescendo continued untill I was not able to give any more.
Same thing for the pianissimi, I had no feeling of amplified sound.... but I suppose it's possible that the reverberated sound was faint enough that I would not notice the amplification.
If you can find more info. be it academic, professional or just your experience, that would prove most encouraging!
Thanks again!
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-02-08 00:47
Thank you for your reply. I will see what more I can find out on this subject. It's possible that at a certain sound level or threshold, that above that point, in a smaller space, some of the reflected sound becomes "out-of-phase" with the original and therefore subtracts from it somewhat, not allowing the expected increase in sound level to occur. This is just a guess though.
The "s" in still, really should be capitalized, as I was a student of Ray Still. He had a very strong, technical background and it showed up in his teaching, too. Regards.
R. Still former student
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2012-02-08 00:57
AAHHH,
so you are "student of Still" and not "still a student"... I like the play on words!
Your guess about phasing makes sense. I did not do much (if any) digital signal processing, but the math I learned suggests exactly that. A very effective noise-cancellation mechanism is made by recording and playing back just out of phase. I believe it is still used (despite practical limitations) in some Mercedes and BMWs. Laboratory demonstrations are just plain astounding: the actual air-pressure waves are stopped!
So the small room, it's not so much that the room is absorbing the sound, nor even that the reed refuses to give any more, it's just that whatever little reverberation there is is enough, and fast enough, to actually silence the extra sound....
Again, I'm not equipped to research this (not in my free time), but if you can find anything to support this (formal or anecdotal), this would be great!
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: JRC
Date: 2012-02-09 09:17
Dynamic range to whom? For the player or audience? In full hall or empty hall? The audience at particular sit?
You are opening a 50 gallon size worm full of can.
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