Terms and Definitions

Balance - Equal loudness among the various orchestral and vocal participants.

Blend - A harmonious mixture of orchestral sounds.

Brilliance - A bright, clear, ringing sound, rich in harmonics, with slowly decaying high-frequency components.

Clarity - The degree to which rapidly occurring individual sounds are distinguishable.

Dry or Dead - Lacking reverberation.

Dynamic Range - The range of sound levels heard in the hall (or recording).

Echo - A long delayed reflection of sufficient loudness returned to the listener.

Ensemble - The perception that musicians are playing in unison.

Envelopment - The impression that the sound is arriving from all directions and surrounding the listener.

Glare - High-frequency harshness, due to reflections from flat surfaces.

Immediacy - The sense that a hall responds quickly to a note. This depends on the early reflections returned to

the musicians.

Intimacy - The sensation that music is being played in a small room. A short initial delay gap.

Liveness - The same as reverberation, above 350 Hz.

Presence - The sense that we are close to the source, based on a high direct-to-reverberant ratio.

Reverberation - The sound that remains in a room after the source is turned off. It is characterized by the

reverberation time (which we will define in next week's lesson)

Spaciousness - The perceived widening of the source beyond its visible limits. The

apparent source width (ASW) is another descriptor.

Texture - The subjective impression that a listener receives from the sequence of reflections returned by the

hall.

Timbre - The quality of sound that distinguishes one instrument from another.

Tonal Color - The balance between tones in different frequency ranges and the balance between sections of the

orchestra.

Tonal Quality - The beauty or fullness of tone in a space. It can be marred by unwanted noises or by resonances in

the hall.

Uniformity - The evenness of the sound distribution.

Warmth- Low-frequency reverberation, between 75 Hz and 350 Hz.