Rehearsal Room Research Articles

Architectural improvements to increase reverberation and reduce flutter echo in two music rehearsal rooms

New music rehearsal rooms at a small college suffered from flutter echo and very short reverberation times. The architecture of these rooms included visually elegant designs which the college wanted to retain if feasible. We coordinated with the college, the architect, and a wood worker to develop concept ideas for improvement which would be cost effective and retain the elegant architectural. By using finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation and mock-up listening tests, we evaluated the acoustic properties of these concept options. After completion of these tests and simulations, a design was implemented in each room based on acoustic performance and visual impact. We will present measurement results pre- and post-renovation, along with our methodology used for the FDTD analysis and mockup testing.

A new variable acoustics technology and the research behind it

The paper presents the room acoustic research behind the choice of design of a new variable acoustics technology. It discusses measurements from installations in labs and in a concert hall. Performing arts centres face the challenge of providing a good sound-experience for performers and audiences for a wide variety of types of performances. From theatre or amplified music one night to concerts of quiet chamber music the next. This calls, according to for instance ISO 23591, “Acoustic quality criteria for music rehearsal rooms and spaces”, for a variability of the reverberation time of a factor of almost 2 at lower frequencies. This standard, as well as recent research by the author is also debated.

Ceiling impact on air disinfection performance of Upper-Room Germicidal Ultraviolet (UR-GUV)

This study used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to investigate air disinfection for SARS-CoV-2 by the Upper-Room Germicidal Ultraviolet (UR-GUV), with focus on ceiling impact. The study includes three indoor settings, i.e., low (airport bus), medium (classroom) and high (rehearsal room) ceilings, which were ventilated with 100% clean air (CA case), 80% air-recirculation with a low filtration (LF case), and 80% air-recirculation with a high filtration (HF case). According to the results, using UR-GUV can offset the increased infection risk caused by air recirculation, with viral concentrations in near field (NF) and far field (FF) in the LF case similar to those in the CA case. In the CA case, fraction remaining (FR) was 0.48–0.73 with 25% occupancy rate (OR) and 0.49–0.91 with 45% OR in the bus, 0.41 in NF and 0.11 in FF in the classroom, and 0.18 in NF and 0.09 in FF in the rehearsal room. Obviously, UR-GUV performance in NF can be improved in a room with a high ceiling where FR has a power relationship with UV zone height. As using UR-GUV can only extend the exposure time to get infection risk of 1% (T1%) to 8 min in NF in the classroom, and 47 min in NF in the rehearsal room, it is necessary to abide by social distancing in the two rooms. In addition, T1% in FF was calculated to be 18.3 min with 25% OR and 21.4% with 45% OR in the airport bus, showing the necessity to further wear a mask.

A pilot randomized controlled clinical trial of dance practice for functionality in autistic children and adolescent with all levels of need support

ObjectiveThis study addressed dance practice intertwining communication, functional independence and social behavior in autistic children and adolescents with all levels of need support. DesignA pilot randomized clinical trial with seventy-two participants between 8 and 15 years old were assessed for eligibility. SettingTheater rehearsal room and mental health clinic. InterventionsDance group (n = 17) or control group (n = 19), 24 sessions, once a week, lasting 40 min. Main outcome measuresThe Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC), Autistic Screening Questionnaire (ASQ), Childhood Autism Rate Scale (CARS), Functional Independence Measure (FIM), and World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS, version 2.0, to assess mothers’ functioning) were applied at two time points: baseline and end-point. ResultsDifferences between dance and control groups were significant at post-intervention for communication (mean difference: 1.31; 99.8%CI: 0.29, 2.32, p < 0.001, d = 0.93); social cognition (mean difference: 1.01; 99.8%CI: 0.13, 1.89, p < 0.001, d = 0.82); autistic behavior (mean difference: 11.82; 99.8%CI: 17.33, −6.31, p < 0.001, d = 1.45). ConclusionsIn this preliminary study, the findings provide ways of communication and social interaction through dance practice by autistic children and adolescents with all levels of support needs. Research on neurodiversity is needed to understand its feasibility and the lifestyle appropriation.

The acoustical design of the Imig Music Building addition—An end user’s perspective and an acoustician’s perspective

The design of the Imig Music Building addition at the University of Colorado/Boulder, which started in 2017, culminated in a building opening in Spring 2021. The facility includes a dedicated recital hall, a large ensemble rehearsal room with flexibility to double as a recital hall, a choral rehearsal room, theatre rehearsal room, and dance rehearsal studio along with many music teaching studios, practice rooms, and other acoustically sensitive spaces to support the College of Music’s program. The footprint of the building addition was very limited, resulting in an unusually large number of acoustically critical horizontal and vertical adjacencies. Perspectives on the design process and the successful resulting building will be presented by the end user and the acoustician. One goal of this presentation is to help attendees understand how to translate end user goals into acoustic design criteria and communicate those criteria to the other design team members (architects, engineers, and other specialty consultants such as theatre consultants).

Too loud? Sound absorption and volume as related to music educators’ subjective response to rehearsal room loudness

Controlling loudness is important for successful music rehearsal rooms. Volume, sound absorption, and often shaping strongly influence music faculty acceptance regarding room loudness. We assessed various rehearsal rooms, as well as data collected by Ron McKay in his BBN days, regarding the sound absorption, volume, and educators’ subjective responses to loudness within the rooms, in an attempt to better understand correlations among these parameters.

Choral Conductors Vocal Loading in Rehearsal Simulation Conditions

Choir conductors represent a profession with an intensive vocal load. The present study aims to investigate the impact of 40 minutes vocal loading tasks on fundamental frequency (F0), jitter (Jitt), shimmer (Shim), median cepstral peak prominence (CPPs), and CPPs standard deviation in specific acoustic conditions. Eighteen amateur choir conductors (13 female, five male) participated in the study. The vocal loading experiment was organized in rooms where each conductor usually had choir rehearsals. The vocal loading experiment included vocal warm-up, singing, and loud reading. The STIPA test signal provided the background noise with 60 dBA @ 1m during the singing and reading tasks. The F0, Jitt, Shim, CPPs, and CPPs SD were extracted before and after vocal loading by the Vocal Holter Med (VHM) device. Additionally, Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) was estimated for participants, and all of them completed the Voice Handicap Index-30 (VHI-30) and the Singing Voice Handicap Index (SVHI). Finally, reverberation time (T30) was measured in each rehearsal room. A statistically significant decrease of CPPs SD by 0.1 dB was observed in male conductors. Associations between CPPs SD and VHI-30 (r = 0.789, P = 0.001) were found in female conductors, and between Jitt and SVHI (r = 0.9, P = 0.037) in male conductors. Female conductors with higher total score of SVHI demonstrated increase of postloading F0 (r = 0.612, P = 0.026). Forty-minute vocal loading tasks that included warm-up, intensive singing, and loud reading did not significantly impact vocal parameters in female and male conductors. In addition, the rehearsal room volume and length of reverberation time did not affect obtained vocal parameters after vocal loading.

Welcome to the JCBP

In lieu of an abstract, here is an excerpt: &#x0D; Things are changing. Consent and factors that complicate consent are finally being recognized as central, foundational considerations in production processes and in performing arts education. People are beginning to think critically about how they approach intimacies in the rehearsal room, in the classroom, on set, in theory, in practice, and in pedagogy. As theatres and producing organizations hire more and more intimacy professionals, we need to meet the educational, resource, partnership, and access needs of this growing, learning community.&#x0D; And no one organization, school of thought, or individual has all of the answers. &#x0D; We need this community’s knowledge, big ideas, and resources to be accessible in order for the field of consent-based performance to grow. &#x0D; We need to work together to learn from--and to teach--one another to pause, interrogate what we’re doing, and then create more equitable and competent consent-based practices. As a collective, we need to recognize the value of the work that has come before us and the work our peers are doing now, and consciously recommit ourselves to growing, learning, and doing better now and in the future.

Creative collaboration in the cloud

This article details online education design at an Australian university undergraduate music program. The author reviews the rapid development of online learning activities relating to music performance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic enforced lockdown. The lockdown imposed serious challenges for music educators, the overarching one being how to engage students via a screen rather than in a rehearsal room. As the unit designer/assessor, the author utilized specific cloud-based audio software networking tools that are accessible to students (Audiomovers, Splice Studio) to devise learning activities that encouraged creative interactive learning. The author details the advantages and disadvantages of each learning activity. As a substitute for face-to-face interaction, online learning has substantial limitations in relation to music education. Student engagement with accessible online audio tools can enhance skills and knowledge development and interactive learning, thus maximizing student satisfaction and collaborative learning outcomes.

Post-anthropocentric Rehearsal Studies. A conceptual framework to account for the social and material mediations in performance-making

ABSTRACT This article uses the concept of ‘mediation’ to account for the sociomateriality involved in the rehearsal of a new play. Drawing on ideas from the ‘New Sociology of Art’ that has its origins in Science and Technology Studies, we show how the sociomateriality of the rehearsal is an essential part of the process of theatre-making. It means giving to materials, bodies and matters in the rehearsal room a crucial role in the process of developing and refining a scene. Using ethnographic research methods, with particular emphasis on excerpts from video recordings, we analyse specific activities that take place in the rehearsal room to give a less anthropocentric and a more nuanced reading of the processes that contribute to the creation of a scene. Analysing the dynamics of entanglements in work practices of performance-making, we reveal the material base of the easily overlooked professional processes that constitute the craft of theatre.

Il paesaggio sonoro in relazione. Suono, movimento e immagini per stimolare complessità percettiva

This article wants to explore the topic of the soundscape in the context of dance and video, especially in the site-specific creation process of dance live performances and video dance, with a brief mention to a particular type of audiovisual installations. The exploration develops starting from the soundscape that two dancing bodies produce merely moving in a dance rehearsal room, it continues with the description of a soundscape composed with sounds detected by a specific environment, and it ends with the analysis of the dance movie Car Men, by Paval Conen. The final reflections start from an example of dramaturgical use of sound in the context of film production and arrive at the description of laser drawing performance as a final example of perceptive complexity.

Does the wall sound different? Variable acoustics in rehearsal rooms using small resonator structures in an acoustic panel.

As the name already states, multipurpose rooms are often used from various people for different intentions like meetings or musical practicing. One example are musical rehearsal rooms, where the acoustic specifications have to meet the requirements of musicians playing different instrument groups. To meet the desire for variable acoustics in a rehearsal room, musicians often like to adjust the room to there personal preferences, what is mostly done by adjusting the frequency dependent room decay curve (T60). Hence, a variable acoustic panel has been developed which consists of several small adjustable resonator structures. In a closed state, the structure acts like a resonator. Although Helmholtz resonators are mostly used at low frequencies, the acoustic panel can address acoustic resonance absorption in the mid-frequency range between 500 Hz and 1.500 Hz. The paper highlights especially the dimensioning of the resonators and its measurements in an impedance tube, a reverberation cabin and a reverberation room. Finally, the prototype of the acoustic panel has been analysed in different rehearsal rooms where musicians examine the panel and T60 differences between the open and closed state of the panel were measured.

Taking a stance: mentalization and the Stanislavskian rehearsal process

ABSTRACT In this article, we suggest that the psychological process of mentalization – that of perceiving and interpreting behaviour as conjoined with intentional mental states – might have a key role to play in Stanislavskian rehearsal practice, both in terms of developing relationships in the rehearsal room and in terms of interpreting dramatic characters. We discuss key concepts such as the dimensions of mentalizing, non-mentalizing modes, the mentalizing stance, and epistemic trust, and highlight the potential relevance of these to the work of the acting ensemble. Our aim is to provide practitioners, and especially those charged with leading rehearsal processes, with an introduction to mentalization, allowing them to identify mentalizing problems as they arise and to be proactive in demonstrating and encouraging effective mentalizing within the rehearsal environment.

Editing Hamlet for Performance

In the wake of the publication of the new Arden Performance editions of Shakespeare, launched in 2017, this paper examines the history of the use of Acting editions and scholarly edited texts in the preparation of theatrical productions in the professional theatre. It argues that the time is ripe to reconceive the nature of an Acting edition, and to consider what actors and directors need from a rehearsal room text.

Rehearsal rooms in the context of norwegian standard ns 8178:2014

Music school students spend much more time rehearsing than performing in concert halls. Individual and small ensemble exercises are a major part of daily practice. The aim of the article is to verify whether the areas of rehearsal rooms given in functional programs attached to architectural contests for music schools, are sufficient to provide required acoustic conditions inside the chamber such as sound power level (SPL) and reverberation time (RT) which is preferred by musicians. The Norwegian Standard NS 8178:2014 was used to calculate the sound level generated by instruments. In this paper, the author will focus on small rehearsal rooms dedicated to individual practice and small practice groups of two or three members.

The Philosophical Attitude of Eugene Hütz, Singer of Gogol Bordello

The Philosophical Attitude of Eugene Hütz, Singer of Gogol Bordello

Equity in Black theatre history classrooms

This article reflects on the experiences of a white male faculty teaching Black theatre history at a predominantly white institution. It views the Black theatre history classroom as a potential haven for theatre students of colour, and highlights the critical role of a white faculty member in honouring and protecting that space. It argues for the importance of self-reflection and humility on the part of white faculty as we engage with topics surrounding Black history. This piece references the traditional power dynamics between students and faculty, and reimagines those power dynamics when white faculty members teach Black theatre history to Black students. In our current moment of racial upheaval and reckoning within the rehearsal rooms and on our stages, this reflection contends that we must also examine the ways in which our pedagogy in Black theatre history can be actively antiracist. Ultimately, this piece advocates that white faculty work to de-centre their own whiteness in their theatre history classrooms and commit to humility and a willingness to learn from their students of colour.

The comparison of design airflow rates with dynamic and steady-state displacement models in varied dynamic conditions

A temperature-based method is usually applied in displacement ventilation (DV) design when overheating is the primary indoor climate concern. Different steady-state models have been developed and implemented to calculate airflow rate in rooms with DV. However, in practical applications, the performance of DV depends on potentially dynamic parameters, such as strength, type and location of heat gains and changing heat gain schedule. In addition, thermal mass affects dynamically changing room air temperature. The selected steady-state and dynamic models were validated with the experimental results of a lecture room and an orchestra rehearsal room. Among the presented models, dynamic DV model demonstrated a capability to take into account the combination of dynamic parameters in typical applications of DV. The design airflow rate is calculated for the case studies of dynamic DV design in the modelled lecture room in both dynamic and steady-state conditions. In dynamic conditions of heavy construction in 2–4 hours occupancy periods, the actual airflow rate required could be 50% lower than the airflow rate calculated with the steady-state models. The difference between steady-state and dynamic multi-nodal model is most significant with heavyweight construction and short occupancy period (17%–28%). In cases with light construction, the dynamic DV model provides roughly the same airflow rates for four-hour occupancy period than the Mund’s model calculates. The dynamic model can significantly decrease the design airflow rate of DV, which can result in a reduction of investment costs and electrical consumption of fans.

Diffractive Dramaturgy

This article explores how aspects of posthuman theory, and in particular diffraction as theorised by Haraway and then Barad, can be used by theatre makers to develop the practice of being and making in company at this current moment in time. I begin with an analysis of the ways stories (including stories within plays) are shared in the rehearsal room. When framed as a diffractive practice that allows for the 'iterative (re)configuring', difference can be foregrounded both as a radical dramaturgy, and a process tool for collaborating, creating and developing performance material—new ways of being together. Donna Haraway, in Staying with the Trouble, references an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin, who calls for the need for new kinds of stories, that gather many strands together by a process of exploring the potential connections between all things: explorations of multiples and difference rather than egos and individualism. Here, I consider diffraction in the context of the work of Flute Theatre where Kelly Hunter MBE has developed a dramaturgical process for using Shakespeare's later plays when working with children with severe autism and their families. This diffractive dramaturgy explores the way we audience / perform work for each other. Subjectivity and objectivity for example, are experienced differently when explored from the point of view that all matter is entangled. There is the potential for a dramaturgy of agential cuts that manifest as a kaleidoscope of intra-actions and material manifestations: a myriad of entwined textures diffracted through and with the participants own experience and context. This is a new experimental, experiential landscape, where we feel for and towards (in a tentacular way) a collaborative making process that tilts the optic away from traditional expectations. It is a multi-perspective way of working; a posthuman process that finds form in difference.

A pedagogy for twenty-first century actor training: intracultural theatre practice which embraces pluralistic identity and plays with difference

Embracing difference in theatre arts training requires pedagogical as well as philosophical adjustments in classrooms and rehearsal rooms. The unique cultural context of the individual actor is a r...