"Playing the Room".

[bigboom]

I personally think it makes a huge difference on how you ound when you play in different rooms. I used to practice in the basement at my parent's house but didn't like playing down there with all the rattling of the heating vents and such. I moved up to our living room which has a vaulted ceiling. I like it better because it is much more like most places I perform because I have never performed in a room as small as a bedroom and most halls are acoustically designed in some way and when they aren't there probably isn't much hope so practice where you like the sound because I'm sure you know what you want it to sound like.

Ben

[Tuba-G Bass]

Hi Mandrake,

My two favorite "rooms" are both in Moravian Churches.

The Kleiner Saal at Central Moravian in Bethlehem, is a
second floor room behind the Pulpit area, so the one wall
is round, with the bulge into the room, and the room is
rectangular, with a rounded ceiling. When I played my
4/4 Tuba up there, it sounds HUGE! At nearby Advent
Moravian Church, the Sanctuary is "A" Frame shaped inside,
I played Bass Trombone there with seven other trombones,
and we sounded Great! Very Full!

When acoustics is on your side, it rules!

Tonight, I play with the Trombone Choir for the
Midnight Service, we get to interrupt the sermon at the
stroke of midnight! An old tradition to illustrate that Time
and God waits for no man, even if he is the Senior Pastor.

I plan to play very bombastically!

[tubatooter1940]

The Crystal Ballroom at the old Battle House Hotel in Mobile,Alabama is the most accoustically wonderful room I have ever played.The ceiling was arched in segments in such a way that if you were upstairs in the orchestra balcony and spoke in a normal voice you could be heard at every spot on the floor below as if you were standing right next to the listener.I could play horn there effortlessly and at my best volume and be heard so perfectly down on the dance floor.
They keep announcing that someone is about to renovate and restore the old hotel.If they do I hope they keep the Crystal Ballroom accoustically as it was.
tubatooter1940

[UDELBR]

The room in which you play makes a big difference on how you sound. I knew this before, but never realised that one can sometimes even play better in a more-suitable room.

Unfortunately, in a flattering acoustic it's easy to start believing the flattering feedback. When you can't hear your less-than-perfect attacks, etc., it's too easy to stop focusing on meticulous practice.

I like playing in a variety of acoustic settings, as I feel it keeps my ears fresh.

[Rick Denney]

The room in which you play makes a big difference on how you sound. I knew this before, but never realised that one can sometimes even play better in a more-suitable room. ...What kind of room do you find suits you best?

Two stories:

Mike Sanders plays a Yorkbrunner, and switched to that instrument many years ago from an Alexander. He has always been careful to quality his selection of instrument based on the hall in which he plays. Now that he is in St. Louis, I've heard him routinely say that the Yorkbrunner is a good choice for Powell Hall. And when he switched to that instrument, the San Antonio Symphony where he served played in the Lila Cockrell Theater (at that time the Convention Center Theater), a very large 3000-seat auditorium. I've played in that venue myself, and it requires some confidence: the feedback coming to us was substantially delayed.

My second story concerns the band room in which my current band rehearses. It is quite live, and really provides a good, rich resonance for the tuba players. After rehearsing in that place, we played our Christmas concert at an ancient roller-skating rink that has a low, insulated roof that slopes up from the sides at a shallow angle. The insultated is covered with paper. The result of this treatment is that our sound was absorbed to the point that the audience could not hear us well. Our brass quintet played an opener, and one of the two tunes we played was a very pretty arrangement of "O come, o come, Emmanuel". It sounded good to the five of us, but my wife, sitting 30 feet away, could not even tell what tune we were playing. (It was frustrating because I had advocated that number as one of the two we would play.)

So, the room matters. Does it make you play better? I suppose it shouldn't (though it does with me). It sure does make you sound better, though.

Rick "who has lost programming credibility in his quintet" Denney

[Alex Reeder]

All through high school, I practiced in the living room of my house- a smallish carpeted room with plenty of couches and chairs and a low ceiling. I didn't sound my best there, but I was really able to hear all the little bad things clearly and I think the feedback really helped me to improve by listening to my own sound.

Now at college, my practice room has a similar acoustic feel with lots of clear feedback bouncing from the tiny walls and low ceiling.

Are these acoustical properties of practice rooms intentional? Does anyone else think that practicing in a room where you have to work extra hard to sound good is beneficial? I think it could be like baseball players swinging a bat with a weight on it.

[CJ Krause]

***

[Biggs]

I have recently been evicted from the living room and now practice in my bedroom (low ceilings, carpet, furniture, etc). I have noticed that some notes have a change in color as they are now reaching my ears via a different route (perhaps this is due to my own weaknesses as a player that I had been previously unaware of). Is it also possible for the room to change the tuning of the note? I.e., certain notes (mainly within the staff) that I could easily center on the tuner while in the living room now seem to be way off (mostly in the flat direction). Is this room-related?

[scottw]

Of course the room matters--sometimes a lot! I just got home from a job in a lovely historic ballroom that seemed like a dream venue when I got there about 10: this AM. Then I discovered where the director was going to place the 2 tubas; along with the 3-man percussion section, we were back in a ..well, cave is a good term. A bump-out from the room about 6'x12' with soft draperies behind and a high curtain at the front of our cave, with carpeted risers underneath. We could not hear ourselves (nor could we see the music, but that's another matter!) and we couldn't hear anyone else except the bass drum. Not what you'd want to practice doing!

[Leland]

Is it also possible for the room to change the tuning of the note? I.e., certain notes (mainly within the staff) that I could easily center on the tuner while in the living room now seem to be way off (mostly in the flat direction). Is this room-related?

I honestly think that it's possible.

My guess is that when you get in a room -- or vertical space -- that's smaller than the wavelengths of the notes, then you end up making the airspace resonate rather than being able to send your sound into open air.

I was practicing in our small rehearsal area (small for 50 horns!) and kept feeling like the notes just weren't right. Some were very present, some were muted, intonation felt awkward, etc. A few days later I went down to the Marine Band's hall to make a recording, and everything sounded a hundred percent better. All the notes responded evenly, and intonation issues were entirely predictable.

Another story: Back in college, I practiced fairly often outside the practice room, whether it was outside, in the band room, in the recital hall, or even the choir room. The recital hall, as expected, sounded best when I sat front & center on the stage -- almost zero extra reflections from the ceiling. The choir room was actually built to reverberate (at least I hope it was!), and the interesting part was that it had a VERY strong resonance at a bottom space Ab. The kicker was that the room's "Ab" was about 30 cents flatter than it should be, so if you played with a goal of a resonant sound, you can easily play that note (and its harmonics) out of tune just because the room wants it that way.