Spatial awareness, including height, in live performances

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  • Dave2002
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 18038

    Spatial awareness, including height, in live performances

    Last night's performance of Tannhäuser at the RAH was a curious affair, and in some ways splendid. The sheer size of the RAH compared with an opera house enabled some rather striking spatial effects, including several off-stage brass bands, placed high up in the gallery, and also a small choir - also in the gallery. A cor anglais soloist played from the stalls area way off to the left of the stage - really nice playing that.

    Probably it would not be feasible to achieve the same or similar effects in an opera house, though a staged performance would have scenic back drops etc., which could compensate artistically for the lack of such enhanced aural spatial devices.

    From my seat in the stalls slightly to the left, the orchestra subtended an angle of about 45 degrees. I was well aware of the off stage effects, and the effect of height for the off-stage bands and choir. The cor anglais soloist confused me somewhat, and it took a while to resolve this. He sounded to the left, and this gave a visual conflict since there was no correspondence with players seated in the orchestra. His real position was even further to the left than I expected, and slightly raised, once I looked for him.

    Some aspects of the instrumentation, such as the woodwind, seemed very much clearer and precise than one could experience from reproduced sound, but this was not always the case. Localisation of low frequency instruments - double basses, cellos seemed vague, barely even in a general area.

    Voices seemed quite easy to pick out - perhaps because our perception is optimised to pick them out, while percussion appeared to be sharply located in the soundfield. Despite that, even with the added benefit of keeping my eyes open, I at first placed the castanets which were played by a percussionist who also appeared to be in charge of the bass drum in the first part, further to the left - a couple of players further to the edge of the stage. I would say the error in my spatial localisation was perhaps a couple of degrees.

    Perception of the localisation of the first violins also seemed a bit vague. It was easily possible to pick out the leader, placed close to the centre of the stage, but the rest of the violins formed a sort of spatial smear extending mostly to the left. It was almost impossible to say for sure by listening that any of them were situated at the extreme left of the stage.

    Some of the spatial effects seemed to me to really add to the overall pleasure which could be obtained from such a performance, and I doubt that they can easily be reproduced by audio systems, and certainly not by stereo.
    Last edited by Dave2002; 05-08-13, 07:57.
  • Nevalti

    #2
    Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post
    Last night's performance of Tannhäuser at the RAH was a curious affair, and in some ways splendid. The sheer size of the RAH compared with an opera house enabled some rather striking spatial effects, including several off-stage brass bands, placed high up in the gallery, and also a small choir - also in the gallery. A cor anglais soloist played from the stalls area way off to the left of the stage - really nice playing that.

    Probably it would not be feasible to achieve the same or similar effects in an opera house, though a staged performance would have scenic back drops etc., which could compensate artistically for the lack of such enhanced aural spatial devices.

    From my seat in the stalls slightly to the left, the orchestra subtended an angle of about 45 degrees. I was well aware of the off stage effects, and the effect of height for the off-stage bands and choir. The cor anglais soloist confused me somewhat, and it took a while to resolve this. He sounded to the left, and this gave a visual conflict since there was no correspondence with players seated in the orchestra. His real position was even further to the left than I expected, and slightly raised, once I looked for him.

    Some aspects of the instrumentation, such as the woodwind, seemed very much clearer and precise than one could experience from reproduced sound, but this was not always the case. Localisation of low frequency instruments - double basses, cellos seemed vague, barely even in a general area.

    Voices seemed quite easy to pick out - perhaps because our perception is optimised to pick them out, while percussion appeared to be sharply located in the soundfield. Despite that, even with the added benefit of keeping my eyes open, I at first placed the castanets which were played by a percussionist who also appeared to be in charge of the bass drum in the first part, further to the left - a couple of players further to the edge of the stage. I would say the error in my spatial localisation was perhaps a couple of degrees.

    Perception of the localisation of the first violins also seemed a bit vague. It was easily possible to pick out the leader, placed close to the centre of the stage, but the rest of the violins formed a sort of spatial smear extending mostly to the left. It was almost impossible to say for sure by listening that any of them were situated at the extreme left of the stage.

    Some of the spatial effects seemed to me to really add to the overall pleasure which could be obtained from such a performance, and I doubt that they can easily be reproduced by audio systems, and certainly not by stereo.
    Can I make some obvious comments first. I suspect that you already know all of these but it may be worth making the point for those who may not......

    1. LF sounds are notoriously difficult to locate.
    2. Locating the massed violins is bound to present problems because there is no single point source.
    3. From the left of the orchestra, the violin soundboards are pointing away from you so that the first reflections of that sound are likely to be just as loud as the direct sound-path. That is bound to confuse the brain.
    4. The leader presents a point source sound - unlike the massed violins.
    5. As you have pointed out yourself, the RAH presents significant acoustic challenges to 'locating' a sound source.
    6. Spacial localisation within a 'couple of degrees' is remarkably good in those circumstances. You could have shot the leader in the dark with a shot-gun.


    I am not going to pretend that I understand how it works but, with some recordings and with good equipment, you can get an illusion of height just from stereo. 'Impossible' - yes, I know it is, but I have heard it many times. NOT vast differences in height such as you describe here though, just a height difference between violins and flute or cello and brass etc. Far more commonly, sound appear to emanate from beyond the left of my left speaker beyond the right of my right speaker on a great many recordings. Are these illusions both in my head? Maybe, but many others hear it too.

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