Pressure Level Ranges of Various Musical Instruments, and the Effects of Different Rooms on These Instruments
Neil R. Sorensen · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1954
The pressure level ranges for the musical notations from ppp to fff were studied for the cornet, the clarinet, the flute, and the violin. The effect upon the sound power produced by the player when in an anechoic chamber, a reverberation room, and a room designed to simulate an average living room was also studied. The results show that the different rooms have little or no effect on the total sound power produced or the extent of the sound level range from ppp to fff. The sound pressure level for an individual instrument was highest in the reverberation room and lowest in the anechoic chamber. Calculations show these differences are mainly the product of the room characteristics. The acoustical power output of the instrument appears to be constant for the different rooms within the observable experimental errors. For the average player the range of levels from ppp to fff is 19 db for the cornet, 13 db for the clarinet, 11 db for the flute, and 19 db for the violin. For a large orchestra and a large chorus these ranges are much larger, sometimes being as much as 60 db.