Sound Quality In Small Music Classrooms

Good conditions for teaching, learning and practicing a musical instrument are crucial for a musicians progress. Small rooms for teaching and practicing musical instruments have specific requirements about acoustic performance and strong influence on the perception of the users. Acoustical problems in music classrooms may cause difficulties for teachers to identify mistakes from the young students performance other than those originated from the room itself. For this paper, three music classrooms were evaluated according to reverberation, background noise and airborne sound insulation between rooms. Thus, reverberation time (RT), background noise level and standardized level difference (DnT), as a function of frequency and according to ISO 3382-2:2008 and ISO 140-4:1998 standards, were measured and judged. As some results have disagreed from literature recommendations, the main faults of each room were highlighted, considering the type of instrument that is taught, and suggestions for acoustic adjustment were made. © 2013 Acoustical Society of America.19(1987) ABNT NBR 10152: Níveis de Ruído para Conforto Acústico, , Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas, Rio de Janeiro)(1997) ISO 717-1: Acoustics - Rating of Sound Insulation in Buildings and of Building Elements, , International Organization for Standartization Part 1: Airborne sound insulation (British Standard, Brussels)(1998) ISO 140-4: Acoustic - Measurement of Sound Insulation in Buildings and of Building Elements, , International Organization for Standartization Part 4: Field measurementes of airborne sound insulation between rooms (British Standard, Geneva)(2009) ISO 3382-1: Acoustics - Measurement of Room Acoustic Parameters, , International Organization for Standartization Part 1: Performance spaces (British Standard, Brussels)Koskinen, H., Facilities for music ediucation and their acoustical design (2010) International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics (JOSE), 16 (1), pp. 93-104Lamberty, D.C., Music practice rooms (1980) Journal of Sound and Vibration, 69 (1), pp. 149-155Osman, R., Designing small music practice rooms for sound quality (2010) Proceedings of 20th International Congress on Acoustics, , (ICA, Sydney)Paek, H., Case studies of acoustical design of rooms for music instruction in schools (2003) Proceedings of NOISE-CON 2003, , (NOISE-CON, Cleeveland