UKAN SIG Comms and Room Acoustics: 1st Workshop with focus on Musicians and Sound Exposure

Hosted by London Doctoral Academy at London South Bank University

5th June 2018

19 Attending:

Committee:Academic:Guests:

Stephen Dance - LSBUMichael Akeroyd- NottinghamSimon Brown- Charcoal Blue

Mark Plumbley- SurreyBill Davies – SalfordLuca Dellatorre- Charcoal Blue

Eric Ballestero- LSBU ECRToisten Marquardt- UCLChris Bowen- BBC

Lorenzo Morales- ConsultantLorenzo Picinah- ImperialPaul Hughes- BBC

Gordon Hunter – KingstonLuis Gomez- LSBUDominique Perrissin-Fabert ROH

Graeme Littleford- AtkinsHaydarAygun- LSBUChristopher Alderton- LPO

Doug Shearer- LSBU

Apologise:

Bradford Backus- Neurelec

Peter Mapp- Consultant

Minutes:

1. Introduction to Acoustics.ac.uk and the SIG in Comms and Room Acoustics

Explanation of the scope of UK Acoustics Network Special Interest Group which includes Speech, Hearing, Electro-acoustics, Music. Website shown and focus on raising public awareness, encouraging the next generation of researchers.

Introductions undertaken, minutes and expenses form handed out

2. Previous Minutes from 1st Committee Meeting agreed

3. Strategy for Delivery

i. Outreach update through science festivals eg. Bradford Literature Festival 7th July by Stephen Dance and Audio Day at Surrey 6th July by Mark Plumbley. TheScience Museum proposed for the 1st anniversary meeting of the UKAN.

ii. Outreach resources – purchasing of Larson Davis clapper

iii. Planning Workshops – to be held every 6 months each focusing on an aspect of the SIGs scope, a total of 6 workshops will be planned. These workshops could be co-sponsored by the SIG, a discussion of potential partner organisations included Association of British Orchestras, IOA Reproduced Sound, AES,, ASA Technical Committee for Architecture, I-INCE, EAA, DAGA

iv. Links with other similar networks e.g. Acoutect.eu, a EU Marie Curie Scheme which started in January 2017, a possibility which Stephen Dance will explore with Carl Hopkins at Liverpool.

v.Exchange Schemes discussed with Salford University if enough mutual benefit was found Stephen Dance and Bill Davies to explore

vi. Network could help facility new standards, proposed new EU School and Learning Environment standard proposed at Euronoiseby Arianna, Stephen Dance to follow up

vii.Production of a white paper on room acoustics which will form a part of a widen draft to be presented to EPSRC. This should identify new technologies to meet upcoming challenges

4. Short Presentations, preferably 5 minutes

i.Bill Davies of University of Salford presented the current research in room acoustics and soundscapes.

ii.Michael Akeroyd presented the work of University of Nottingham, Medical Research CouncilInstitute of Hearing Research which we found out had yet to collaborate with acousticians

iii. Stephen Dance presented the work of the Acoustics Group, London South Bank University on environmental and architectural acoustics, hearing, speech, and manufactured devices

iv. Gordon Hunter introduced the research at Kingston University on speech

v. Mark Plumbley gave an overview of the large projects currently running at Surrey University focused on audio ,DSP, and sound identification.

5. Funding Opportunities

i. Alternative funding opportunities need to be found

MRC could potential fund work with acoustics - Michael Akeroyd

Ecophon seems to be funding acoustics research - Stephen Dance

Oticon Foundation fund applied research -Brad Backus

InnovateUK funded industry focused research - Mark Plumbley

6. Focus on Sound Exposure of Musicians

Focus on issues related to Loudness and Sound Exposure of Musicians – some ideas have been discussed during the meeting, calling for further research in several sub-areas linked to either loudness and sound exposure, hearing loss and audiology, neurology and psychology, as well as capture and reproduction techniques of musical sound.

1.Definition of parameters – some parameters may need to be revisited and their definition revised, e.g. loudness and sound exposure when related to music, the original research was undertaken in 1960s and 1970s. and consisted industrial noise only - Michael Akeroyd

2.Threshold assessment of musicians’ hearing and how they correlate to literature data – trying to better fathom the human response to musical and non-musical sounds. Michael Akeroyd and Stephen Dance to work together on existing data set.

3.Cognitive assessment of musical stimuli to musicians – a deeper (psychological and neurological) assessment of the latter point- This requires an MRI scanner.

4.Capture and reproduction techniques of sound – accuracy of actual techniques concerning Bekesy tests, orchestra real-time monitoring concerns for sound discrimination, VR reproduction, etc.

5. European directive so establish what other orchestras are doing to solve this problem (Berlin Opera identified).

Big questions of end meeting – asked mostly by the industry community, (BBC, ROH, LPO) so that academics can have starting leads on how to approach the problems.

1.How loud can someone have an orchestra without affecting its performance?

2.What’s safe, and what’s not?

3.What to gather (in terms of data), and what to do with it afterwards?

This can only be solved by industry and academia working together through a consortium perhaps the first step was to approach the Association of British Orchestras - Stephen Dance

7. Future Workshop Ideas

Identified early Autumn as the best time for the next meeting. Then need to establish the subject matter to focus upon.