Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site


In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Lecture on history of architectural acoustics
Post Subject: Alas we will never knowPosted by Nicanor on: 4/15/2010
fiogf49gjkf0d
 Romy the Cat wrote:
Well, Nicanor, I very much disagree that room acoustic being basically invisible to us. People who deal with sound more or less intelligent always not only pay attention to room acoustic but recognize sound ONLY in context of room acoustics. Take for instance musicians. Talk to them or read what they say: whatever they do is very strongly bind to acoustic of performing environments.


I was talking of the adaptation that we are capable of doing without thinking that is necessary for basic perception of surroundings. I would not suggest that someone who is serious about audio or music is deaf to acoustics but rather they just have more frequent cause to pay attention. All of us have an incredible perception of sound, we can understand a voice in a crowded bar, we can hear a slight signal in lots of noise, we can filter out repetitive annoying noises in order to sleep (I grew up around the area you have moved to, incidentally, and always found the chirping frogs to be very relaxing).

 Romy the Cat wrote:
I think that in past music was played way less articulate then it is playing nowadays.  The expressivity in the past, I think, was not via articulation and phrases verbalization but via other means. If so, then how to assess our change in acoustic perception but in the same time to subtract out of it your change in musical perception?


I would like to read more of what you believe this other mechanism of expressiveness was, I have noticed something similar but cannot put my finger on it. As far as assessing change in acoustic perception - I am not sure if this is possible at all, especially if we have only recordings of classical music as data! The lecture itself only implies that for the period discussed in western first world people saw quiet as something to aspire to in architecture, nothing more interesting than that unfortunately.

 Romy the Cat wrote:
I do not think that we, the humans can differentiate it clearly.


I agree completely - but as idle and unprovable as these hypothesis are, they do have some applicability to our experience and by extension our hobby.

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site