The Influence of Room Acoustics on Solo Music Performances

This book addresses the question of how musicians are influenced by their room acoustical environment when playing on a concert hall stage. Even though the concept of adapting a music performance to room acoustics is often taken for granted by musicians, it is unclear if and how such adjustments take place in practice and which aspects of room acoustics play a role in this context. Empirical investigations in both real-world and simulated concert halls are presented in the book to shed light on the question. A case study with a cellist performing in European concert halls as well as a laboratory study with musicians playing in virtual room acoustical environments simulated by means of dynamic binaural synthesis were conducted. Both investigations make use of room acoustical computer models to determine the room acoustical conditions typically encountered by musicians on stage. Software-based performance analysis is employed to quantify musically and perceptually relevant aspects of performance. The influence of diverse room acoustical parameters on numerous performance characteristics is investigated with the statistical methods of multilevel regression models.