A Basic Study on the Stage Acoustics from a Viewpoint of Ease of Musical Performance

The object of this study is to clarify what kind of sound field is desirable for musical players on the stage in auditoria and to propose a method to evaluate stage acoustics. In this paper, three psycho-acoustical experiments on stage sound field by clarinetists and horn players are performed. In the experiments, professional clarinetists and horn players are asked to evaluate which sound field is good for their musical performance among the sound fields whose directional reflections are varied. As a result, it is shown that clarinetists evaluate the sound field in which refiections coming from back are prominent as good for musical performance. On the other hand, horn players evaluate the sound field in which reflections coming from below are prominent as good for musical performance. This suggests that reflections coming from different direction from directivity of musical instruments clue musical players about their performance