In order to investigate the effect of hall response on players, field measurements on the stage of a concert hall and laboratory experiment using digital simulation technique were performed. In the field experiment, the subject, a professional violinist, was asked to play and to make comments on her acoustical impression of five points on the stage. As a physical measurement, impulse responses were obtained at the same points by using omni-directional loudspeakers as a sound source and an omni-directional microphone and directional microphones as receivers. As a result, it has been found that not only the strength of the early reflections but also their direction influences the subject’s impression. In the laboratory experiment (anechoic chamber), the sound field was modeled and synthesized by using a 13 channel reproduction system; ambient reverberation judged as being natural was provided by simple digital reverberators and different strength and direction of early reflections were obtained by real-time convolvers. For a constant value of reverberation, several conditions with a different level and direction of the early reflections were created. For each condition, the violin player was asked to make similar judgments as in the field experiment. The results of two experiments were examined.
Music performance, a ‘‘momentary and spatial art,’’ is finally completed in a concert hall. Even with the same elements such as a musical instrument, a piece by a composer, imagination and technique of a soloist and their co-players, totally different music can be created according to the acoustics of a concert hall. Before a concert, players carefully grasp the acoustical nature of the hall and adapt their technique to harmonize with the hall. When players are successful in their adjustment, they, together with the audience in the hall, can truly create art. As is often said, a concert hall is the greatest musical instrument and, as such, its role in the performance of music cannot be underestimated. This fact demands attention and is worthy of far greater discussion by players, acousticians, and architects. In this paper, a consideration of concert hall acoustics is described from the standpoint of a violin soloist.
Psychological experiments and analyses have been done to investigate quantitatively how the ideas of a musician are conveyed to the audience. The musician performed 1 minute of the beginning of the first movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with 10 different nuances: weak, powerful, bright, sad, sophisticated, beautiful, dreamy, fashionable, simple, and deep. Sixteen listeners, including the violinist, were asked to give their impressions of each of the 10 performances by the semantic differential method. The data obtained were analyzed by Kruskal's multidimensional scaling technique. The results revealed that, on the whole, the player's intention and the listener's impression, although there were individual discrepancies, were in general agreement.
In order to investigate the effect of hall response on players, a subjective test was performed in an artificially simulated sound field in an anechoic room. By referring to the data obtained in actual concert halls, the sound field was modeled and synthesized by using 14-channel reproduction systems: 12 channels for the ambient reverberation using simple digital reverberators, and two channels for late reflections from the rear part of the audience area using real time convolvers. In the test, the reverberation was fixed and the level and delay time of the late reflections were changed in three steps, respectively. Under each condition, the subject, a professional violinist, imagining that he/she was playing on a stage, played various pieces in a variety of playing styles and responded to questionnaires. As a result, it has been found that favorable stage conditions for a player differ as to the style of playing; solo, with piano, with orchestra, and in a quartet, and that the late reflection from the audience area is, to some extent, necessary in order to get ‘‘hall reaction.’’
