Acoustical Demands for the Conductor's Location

Abstract

For a conductor standing in front of an orchestra, some requirements place special demands on the room-acoustical conditions at his location: the control of a homogeneous sound of the individual string groups, the dynamic balance between different instrument sections, the orchestral dynamics as a whole and the balance between soloists or singers and the orchestra, and the spaciousness of the full sound to be expected in the audience area. Furthermore the conductor has to choose the seating arrangement of the orchestra. Whereas the listeners' loudness impression mainly is determined by the diffuse field level in the hall, the conductor's loudness impression depends predominantly on the direct sound and maybe additionally by early reflections coming from the walls around the orchestra and from above. Spatial impression is perceived generally in the frontal hemisphere; this leads to difficulties for the conductor in assessing the spatial impression in the audience area: As in the horizontal plane, he hears predominantly the direct sound of the orchestra, he can perceive a spatial impression only from the space above his location or from higher room sections behind the orchestra. Because of the directivity of the musical instruments, different seating arrangements of the instrument sections affect the tonal impression of the listeners; but as in all arrangements the players sit facing the conductor, he does not hear the influence of the directivity at his location and can assess it only by listening from the audience area.