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Inside The Mind of the Acoustician.
Dick Letts interviews Ed McCue about the acoustic design of the performing spaces at the new Sydney
Conservatorium of Music

Dick Letts interviewed Edward McCue of Kirkegaard Associates, the acoustics consultants for the new
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and found that acoustic design these days is as much about
musicians and audiences as about technical calculations.
(See the previous issue for Inside the Mind of the Architect, an interview with Barry McGregor, the
leading architect for this most complex and contemporary of music buildings.)
We join the conversation when Ed is talking about how he and his colleagues work with musicians and
other clients.

EM: … Part of Kirkegaard's success has come from the fact that many of us are musicians as well as
architects or scientists. We're comfortable working with a musical vocabulary and visual imagery that
musicians might use when they explain to each other what they expect to hear. Our practice is based on
providing the performers and listeners with an environment that meets their expectations.
Very rarely do we attempt to convince a party that excellence should be defined in acoustic parameters
that are exclusively physics or mathematics based. That approach generally frustrates musicians
because it involves a vocabulary that may be entirely foreign to them.
We admire musicians' ability to differentiate between very small changes in an acoustical environment.
As a result, we are very trustful of what they hear and hope that we can provide them with enough
adjustability or tuneability in a space to allow them to experiment and create for themselves a new
environment according to their personal taste, the instrumentation or musical style they wish to
perform.
Consider that a professional musician has developed an ability to go into a room, sing or play an
arpeggio or scale, and within 30 seconds make a determination of how they need to alter their playing
technique to convey, with the use of the room, what their message is. The young person has no idea
how to do this.
In a music teaching facility, acoustics can also be used as a pedagogical tool. Good acoustics, or
variable acoustics in this case, can contribute to musical training - the teacher can take one of the
performing spaces here, alter the acoustical response and challenge the student to change something
about the way they are playing.
DL: You said that you and your colleagues are mostly musicians too, so you're not going to present
musicians with a lot of statistics about the room. But on the other hand, you yourselves are not just
looking for statistics either, I imagine. You're going in with some sort of holistic notion about sound…
EM: How interesting that you use the words 'statistics' and 'holistic'. There is a branch of acoustics
called statistical acoustics, and we all know how statistics can be misinterpreted. That was our art, our
science, for a long time. In our effort to understand what the musician needed, we oversimplified the
topic by solving for averages.
When I was very young, those were our tools. Terms like reverberation time or relationship of the
length of the room to its width or the amount of geometrical volume per listener, all those things come
under that heading. Unfortunately, because of the imprecision, or because the fine details are obscured,
they're not very helpful rules of thumb for building rooms for music.
Over the years, most acousticians have abandoned blind dependence upon the statistics of acoustics
and are looking much more for the way a room shapes sound in time and how it affects the directional
characteristics of sound. This has much more to do with the way performers describe their experience
with respect to hearing themselves, hearing each other, and the way that a listening patron expresses a
preference for one environment over the other.
So when we say holistic point of view -- I think you've also hit something on the head - we believe that
a good acoustical environment is attractive to all the senses. We cannot believe that people will fully
experience a beautiful sound in a room full of visual glare or a room that is uncomfortable because it is
too cold, or the seat so uncomfortable that they can't ease into environment - so for us it's a matter of
making sure that all those other senses are well satisfied before we then begin to claim any prominence
for the acoustical design.
What I like about this approach is that it allows us to collaborate so closely with the other design
disciplines. In this way, there is no mismatch between the architect and the acoustician because we
believe that the architecture is the acoustical design. The acoustical design also pervades the work of
the mechanical engineer, the electrical engineer, and others.
DL: If a classical musician is interpreting something off the notated page, he or she makes a lot of
subtle changes that are almost indescribable in their totality. Is there an equivalent for you in trying to
find a good sound in a space you are creating?
EM: I'm going to answer that by being performer-oriented. My aesthetic is to create an environment
that allows the performer to dare to take chances, to stretch their expression to a point where they can
turn a phrase in a way that they wouldn't dare in another room. To emphasise dynamic contrast in a
way that would be impossible in another room. To create a new timbre that might not be noticed in
another room. We're creating a vehicle that allows a performer to feel comfortable to the point where
they are emboldened.
DL: So how do you do that? Is there any way of describing the properties of a room that allow that…
EM: Well, there are…
DL: …for classical musicians?
EM: There are. Number one is removing the veil of noise that pervades our daily lives - that is ridding
the space of all the annoyance of the intruding sound from the environment and making sure that the
music-making in the adjacent room doesn't intrude into our space. Believe me, there's very little reason
to lavish attention on room acoustical niceties if the musician is constantly being bothered by this
intrusion of sound. That goes farther. Making sure that the air-conditioning system is silent, making
sure that the lighting system doesn't introduce, say, tonal components that force the musician always to
play in one key just so that they're in tune with the balast of the fluorescent lights. ..
DL: So the light fittings don't start resonating with the piano…
EM: [And other electrical apparatus such as fans can create an acoustic colouration in a room that
affects the musicians' perceptions.]
DL: And what else?
EM: Well then, we recognise that there is a striking difference between music that is played
traditionally out of doors and music that is played within a room. The rooms can vary in size and finish
and furnishings. We try to take cues from the composers and the societal norms of the time during
which the music was first played and provide that opportunity in our modern rooms. So if we are going
to be playing music from the 18C, we would recognise that a lot of music-making was in lounge
rooms, in theatres, in churches. There really weren't concert halls. But there was enough variety
there…
DL: There was a lot of difference in acoustics there…
EM: It doesn't make sense to say "This is a Baroque acoustic"; it would be better to say "This is an
acoustic for a northern German tracker organ playing the works of J.S. Bach". In that way we would be
describing an environment different from that appropriate for Gabrieli's antiphonal choirs at St. Mark's
in Venice.
Please also realise that there's really no such thing as perfect acoustics. There are appropriate acoustics
for the musical style. And then it's up to the modern interpreter to decide how close they care to come
to those historical conditions, or whether there's something new to be learned by wiping away
acoustical aspects of the room - the colouration of the music by the architecture. They might choose
then to perform a work in an environment strikingly different from that experienced during its first
performance. Polyphony might become clearer in another room; the timbre might reveal a new truth.
So I think the acoustician has to become very sensitive to the work of each particular musician.
DL: We haven't yet made it clear to the readers that you can change the acoustic at will in all the
performing spaces here by moving drapes and, I think, by making other changes.
EM: The most basic way a room can be changed is to alter the audience and performer relationship.
The Music Workshop in the redeveloped Conservatorium, for example, can allow the listeners and the
performers to be one and the same group. The performing area can be cleared for use just by an
ensemble - e.g. a full-size orchestra, with no intention to have an audience. The performers are meant
to hear themselves and each other quite clearly. The room can also be used as a lecture environment or
a recital environment.
But most interestingly, the flexibility of the seating systems and the extensive overhead catwalk system
allow soundscapes to be created where the performers are surrounding the audience rather than the
more traditional way with the performers being at one end of the room opposite the audience.
The second way to effect acoustical adjustability is to move the architecture. What I mean by that is
either to expose the hard wall, floor and ceiling surfaces so that they are sound-reflecting or,
alternatively, you would be able to turn off the sound-reflecting surfaces by replacing them with sound-
absorbing surfaces. That is the function of the upholstered seats and the various forms of adjustable
draperies, or absorption, which are horizontally moving 'travellers' and vertically moving 'banners'. It's
the sound designer who can then make a decision about how the room interacts with the sound made by
the performer. In this way the Workshop is not oriented towards just 'acoustic' instruments; it will also
allow electronic music to take place.
In contrast, spaces such as the Recital Halls and the Verbrugghen Concert Hall are much more closely
patterned after historical precedents of public concert spaces that orient the audience in a very formal
way: with audience and performers in opposition. But we even break down that distinction a bit in
Verbrugghen … Audience members can be seated behind the performers, and performers can surround
the audience.
DL: In the last issue of Music Forum, we published an interview with Barry McGregor, who is the lead
architect for the project. He noted that the acoustic design was the starting point in many ways for the
architecture, and that what you guys told him was "Build us a cave, and then we'll come in and add
sound absorption in various ways to produce an acoustic…"
EM: That's not too far off the mark. We contrast the acoustical conditions for playing music out of
doors with acoustical conditions for music always intended to be played in rooms. The limits of this
spectrum of possibilities are sounds that are made out of doors versus sounds that are made in a cave.
Within those limits are found pairings of rooms and musics that are ideal for each other within this
spectrum of possibilities.
DL: Presumably having the outdoors indoors, as it were, means that you've got total absorption.
EM: It would be true, except in the case of the ground reflection, or in the case of extremely large
rooms, such as St. Peter's in Rome. There the dimensions are so vast that, because of the time it takes a
sound to reach a boundary, that is the walls or ceiling of the room, be reflected and come back, one of
two things happens: either the brain no longer correlates the reflected sound with the sound that's
coming directly from the person talking, or whatever. And then also there is the very interesting
phenomenon that sound is actually absorbed by the air and lost to heat. So in vast spaces like that
cathedral, you have the impression that you are out of doors. But we're certainly not in that realm here
at the Conservatorium.
DL: So what sort of considerations come into deciding the dimensions of a room or the proportions of a
room?
EM: I'll speak to that with respect to Verbrugghen. We were introduced to Verbrugghen four years ago.
What we found was a very dim, even dark, dank, dull! room - all these words that were antithetical to
joyous music making.
DL: So a coat of paint wouldn't have fixed that, or new lighting…
EM: No no no, it needed much more than that. But once we began to look at the geometry of the room,
we found some wonderful characteristics. You asked, "What is it about dimensions?" In the first place,
we discovered that the clever architect of the early Conservatorium had created a hall that was between
18 and 19 metres wide - which is exactly the right dimension for encompassing a symphony orchestra.
It was remarkable to discover that we had that dimension, which is just the comfortable width for an
orchestra of a hundred persons.
The other thing that was quite remarkable was that the walls were up to 900mm thick masonry - solid
masonry. Now this is gold to the acoustician.
DL: Really!
EM: Really. Because to ask a design team to build a wall that thick these days is thought to be asking
too much.
DL: Now the sound is only going to hit the surface fraction of a millimetre in depth of the wall. Why is
it important that the wall be thick?
EM: That's not true that it just hits the surface. Any sound intended to be turned around has to
encounter adequate resistance. While we're able to take a piece of paper and use it to reflect very high
frequency sounds, low frequency sounds go right through it. We need a massive construction of at least
300mm to begin to turn around the sound of the pedal division of the organ, or the string basses, or to
hold enough bass energy in the room and distribute it so that people begin to feel the bass. Bass energy
is not just perceived with your ears. We try to make it energise the floor, move the seats, and shake the
body.
DL: I noticed in the performance of the Beethoven 9th that there were some places where the bass
sound was wonderfully rich, and I guess that's what you're talking about.
EM: Musicians also hear through their feet and through their chair and it's very important in the design
of the flooring for the platform that the end-pinned instruments - the cellos and the basses - can actually
dig right into the timber floor and set it into motion, as well as other sounds in the room. We take cues
not only with our ears, not only visually, but tactilely through the floor. That's why an orchestra hates
to play on a concrete floor. It's lifeless.
Anyway, back to Verbrugghen and things that were wonderful, or horrible. Let's look at a horrible one.
The timber boards of the heritage ceiling were an important visual end to the room, but they weren't
appropriate as an acoustical end to the room. Because they were thin boards, they tended to flex with
the sound of the bass instruments, thereby robbing the room of the bass frequencies. Through that
flexing, they were just turning valuable energy, that should have been heard, into heat. So one of our
challenges was to get rid of them and thereby also improve the isolation from the out-of-doors.
Do you recall that the birdcalls from the Botanic Gardens were clearly audible within the auditorium
before redevelopment? The vehicular traffic in Macquarie Street was also a problem. So what we did
was kill two birds with one stone…
DL: As it were…
EM: We cleared away the flat portion of the boarded ceiling and replaced it with sound-transparent
mesh. We also replaced the old roof of Verbrugghen with very dense concrete planks. By doing these
two things, we were able to harvest the volume that was created in the attic space that was now open to
the rest of the hall. Because the roof was dense and airtight, we kept the sound of the world out of
Verbrugghen, and because of its massiveness, it was able to contain the bass energy…
DL: … and reflect it back…
EM: … and reflect it back in a very attractive way. So this is the stuff of acoustical design: finding
ways to use elements within the room for multiple purposes. When we are able to add up all the
acoustical effects, they should be consistently positive. For example, all decisions should be efficient in
the sense that they don't waste sound but direct it between the performers and the listeners.
DL: Two questions about dimensions. One is that you said that by allowing the sound to go through to
the attic space in Verbrugghen, you get more volume. I notice also the Recital Halls are quite high
rooms given their lateral dimensions. My first question is: What's the deal about height? The other is:
you've lengthened Verbrugghen, so what's the deal about length?
EM: The ensembles that are meant to play in Verbrugghen are very powerful. The Beethoven 9th, that
we heard the other night, has a full orchestra and a choir…
DL: … of 80 voices, approximately…
EM: That's right. The point is that that's a lot of sound output. Our charge was to create an environment
where the listening patrons would not be assaulted by overly loud sounds within the room.
But there is certainly plenty of excitement during a fortissimo in Verbrugghen. We took care that the
dynamic contrast could range from pianissimo to fortissimo and not just from piano to forte in the
room. You can only do that if you have adequate volume in the room. Loudness control is the number
one reason for finding additional volume.
DL: What do you mean loudness control? It makes it softer?
EM: To use a technical term, the 'energy density' in the room is such that it does not exceed a threshold
of comfort for human listeners. That's for the musical enjoyment of the audience. Also, from the point
of view of a conductor or a student playing in the room, you don't want to subject them to sound levels
that are so high that, over a term of long exposure, they might actually suffer hearing damage.
DL: In this performance of Beethoven 9th, you have maybe 180 performers all pumping it out as
loudly as they can in some sections, and it certainly was loud in there but it wasn't unbearable. But on
the other hand, you might want to have a harpsichord playing solo and the space also has to be good for
that.
EM: The room doesn't get in the way of the harpsichord being appreciated for all its fine detail because
the room has a lot of clarity and we took care of the intrusion of the noise from outdoors and from the
building systems.
Concerning the lengthening of the room, not only to increase its volume, but again because of this
relationship of performer to audience, it's a well known fact that much of the blend and balance of the
orchestra is best appreciated at some distance away from the platform. What we tried to do in
Verbrugghen was tip the scale so that more of the audience was farther away from the platform. That's
quite different from the way the old Verbrugghen was designed with a very deep balcony that overhung
the stalls by ten metres! It was putting quite a large percentage of the audience quite close to the
platform.
DL: I had thought this might have to do with changing the proportion of length against width. One
hears "classic shoebox shape" used to describe a lot of favoured old halls. I thought this might be about
approaching whatever that means.
EM: Verbrugghen in cross section was wider than it was high. The width of the original Verbrugghen
was 18 or 19 metres. Its height was only 12. That's not an attractive proportion acoustically. We
wanted to come closer to creating a square cross section.
DL: So a square is something ideal…
EM: Well, it's a point of departure. This is a place to segue into talking about the Recital Halls, because
they're in no way squarish.
DL: Are they higher than wide?
EM: Yes. So what that allows us to do is to create a "reverberant cap': it allows the sound to reach the
upper volume of the room where the audience isn't present, to be repeatedly reflected and conserved
and then be reintroduced back down to the audience at a later point in time.
DL: Why is that a good thing?
EM: When we ground all the sound immediately into the audience, there is none of this sensation of
blend or relative balance. A good analogy is a Seurat painting. If you get too close to all the point
sound sources, you see the individual dots, the individual instruments, and you perceive them as
individuals. What's important is to have enough distance, both dimensionally and in time, that those
dots begin to blend, are perceived by the ears as a combination of sounds, a new sound, not a
cacophony of individual colours or points, rather a blended impression. The composers work so hard at
that in their experimentation with instrumentation, but those experiments are only successful when the
room is able to deliver the combinations as they intended.
DL: The building's built, the spaces are being used, but you are finding things to do still as you hear the
musicians in the spaces. This is really a part of the process, isn't it? It's not like, oh, we made a mistake
there, we've got to fix that. You always knew you were going to come in and tune the rooms up. How
do you go about that?
EM: In architectural terms, this is called 'commissioning'. In a sense, we've created lists of defects that
have to do with the work of the contractor, and they will be fixed. But the acoustician's work really
only begins at the point that the building is completed.
At this point, we begin to reveal to the musicians the potential of the rooms, give them some hands-on
experience about what elements of the rooms can be varied: the draperies, the layout of instruments…
But a great deal of discovery takes place now, because the musicians begin to compare their first
impressions of the new rooms with their memories of music making in other spaces. What we look
forward to, over the period of the next 6, 12, 24 months, is that the musicians, as they become
accustomed to the spaces, begin to reveal to us some potentials of the rooms that we hadn't anticipated.
DL: So you're on deck for quite a while yet.
EM: Oh, emotionally we've just begun. Because now it's real. Before design, we were constantly
confirming our understanding of the musicians' expectations. But now it's to ascertain how well their
expectations have been met, and what's particularly exciting is that again the expectations will continue
to grow for this next period of time. The musicians will say, "Oh I love the way this room works for
this or that, but I'm having problems with understanding how to create an environment that's
appropriate for, say, opera".
We look forward to collaborating with the musicians to find the best ways to use each room.
DL: This is not just a matter of figuring out how high the drapes should be, or that sort of thing. You
could for instance add more drapes that you hadn't planned on. Up to a point…
EM: Yes; or in the case of opera, the impact of set design is profound. One can go to any opera house
and acoustically the production can be judged to be successful or unsuccessful, not because of the
quality of the voices, not because of whether the orchestra was on or off that night, but because the set
was collaborating with the architecture to project the sounds of the voices.
DL: I wonder how often sets are built with that in mind.
EM: Oh, they are surprisingly frequently. More and more designers are sensitive to that.
DL: Well, anyway, this is quite a different notion to that when, say, the concert hall of the Sydney
Opera House was built. There's not much flexibility, on the face of it. You got the finished space and
that was more or less the end of it. The idea that there can be much more to do when you've finished
the actual architectural space is a relatively new one, I suppose.
EM: It's not new; it's just the degree to which we all pursue the details. It's absolute folly to believe that
all the work is done when the building is handed over!
[The tape ran out at this very appropriate moment!]
August 27, 2001
Edward McCue is Senior Consultant and Associate with Kirkegaard Associates, Consultants in
Architectural Acoustics, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. Mr. McCue has
authored numerous articles concerning historical music spaces and the interrelationships between
acoustics and music performance practice. He is coeditor of Acoustical Design of Music Education
Facilities, published by the American Institute of Physics for the Acoustical Society of America, and
has addressed the International Congress on Acoustics in Rome, the Australian Acoustical Society, and
the Acoustical Society of Japan.
As a professional hornist, Mr. McCue has performed with numerous orchestras, chamber ensembles,
and organists. Other musical interests include composition and musicology. With his wife and two sons
he lives in Boulder, Colorado and enjoys travel, cooking, and gardening.