Comments on ‘‘intimacy’’ and ITDG concepts in musical performing spaces

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The word ‘‘intimacy’’ as related to the initial-time-delay gap (ITDG) measured in halls for musical performance was born in 1961. Of two concert spaces, one was successful acoustically and the other much less so. The halls had the same number of seats and reverberation times, the principal difference being their ITDG’s. To many, the hall with larger ITDG sounded arena-like and thus not ‘‘intimate.’’ The effect of differing ITDGs appears in three of the author’s books (Wiley, New York, 1962), (Acoustical Soc. of America, Melville, NY, 1996), and (Springer-Verlag, NY, 2003), with the conclusion that ITDG is an important parameter affecting the acoustical quality of concert halls and opera houses. The question is whether the word ‘‘intimacy,’’ used in an acoustical sense, should be synonymous with ITDG. Barron (Spon, London, 1993) defines, ‘‘Intimacy refers to the degree of identification between the listener and the performance, whether the listener feels acoustically involved or detached from the music.’’ He found from jury subjective judgments that there was little correlation between ITDG and the word ‘‘intimacy.’’ This paper presents the author’s present thinking on the usefulness of the word ‘‘intimacy’’ in acoustics of halls for music, and discusses experiences with the visual effect on ‘‘intimacy.’’