LOCUST PARKING GARAGE
By Jonathan Mendez
Is a parking garage a viable space for making music?
Is a parking garage a viable space for performing music? More often than not, a commuter will park their car in the parking garage, grab their things, and head off to class. Thinking about the garage from a musician’s perspective, I notice how sound travels and resonates throughout the garage. The Locust garage has acoustics that are quite different from a standard practice room or recital hall. My goal is to compare music-making in these locations and to consider how spaces can deeply affect musical experiences.
In each of the following recordings, I play a small excerpt from J. Hartmann’s “Wiederkehr” (The Return) on euphonium.
PRACTICE ROOM
To start, here is a recording taken in a standard practice room here at the Mary Pappert School of Music. In the beginning, you can hear the sounds of trumpets rehearsing in the background. This is followed by the sounds of a practice room door closing and then the excerpt is played. Notice how the trumpets continue throughout the excerpt and as the door opens. Normally, a musician would ignore the ambient sounds and focus only on what he or she is playing. With all of these distractions, it can sometimes be difficult to immerse oneself in their music-making.
RECITAL HALL
Next is a recording made in the PNC Recital Hall in the music building. In this recording, notice the lack of background noise. The sound of footsteps on the wooden stage creep into the room. Once the excerpt starts, the soundscape becomes noticeably empty, however there is more apparent resonance in the tone of the euphonium. The sound also takes longer to bounce around the room this time. This environment, in contrast to the practice room, is designed to help the sound resonate more, which makes it easier and more enjoyable for the performer to make artistic decisions and risks. This could be emphasizing a crescendo through a phrase of music or attempting more rubato and vibrato, giving the music more character.
PARKING GARAGE
This final recording was created in the Locust parking garage. Straight away, there is a noticeable difference in this soundscape. The tone from the euphonium echoes for longer in the garage until it disappears from the lack of surrounding walls. There is a constant white noise throughout the recording as well as the sounds of cars driving by. If we are even more mindful with our listening, we can hear the sounds of footsteps on the concrete. In this environment, the reverb is almost immediate, requiring the musician to make adjustments quickly, however there is a trade off in the resonance throughout the instruments range. This means that due to the amount of white noise that is present, which generates interference in the soundwaves, the lower tessitura of the euphonium will have a harder time being heard in comparison to the instrument’s upper range.
Do you think a parking garage is a viable space for making music?
Yes, the acoustics are great!
No, who would listen to music in a garage?
Something else?