Acoustic Characteristics Of Cantonese Opera Performers And The Loudness Subjective Preference Of Opera Hall

Chinese opera is one of three ancient theatrical cultures in the world and plays an important role in world culture treasury.There are rare data of the acoustic characteristics of Chinese opera,and the design of most Chinese opera halls refers to the acoustical design theory of western opera hall,short of independent and systematical research.Cantonese Opera is an important part of Chinese opera culture.Taking the Cantonese Opera as example,this paper made frequency characteristics test and sound power level test about Cantonese Opera performers,and made a subjective preference study on the loudness of Cantonese Opera hall.It summarized the development of the music,characters,musical instruments and band of Cantonese Opera to offer the necessary basic knowledge for the following experiment and research.Through teasing the evolution process of Chinese opera performance place,we found the differences in stage space,band position and the size of audience hall,etc.between Chinese traditional opera field and modern theatre.The systemic acoustic characteristics research about Chinese opera performer is conductive to the scientific solution of these problems.In order to analyze Cantonese Opera music,audio signals were recorded for 14 performers including four performers of civil & military character type,four performers of young female character type,two performers of colorful face character type,two performers of middle-aged female character type,one performer of old man character type and one performer of old female character type in anechoic chamber by investigating the properties of the Long-term average spectrum(LTAS)curves.Recordings were made of the performers' speech,recitatives and singing from their roles with three different vocal intensities “loud”,“medium” and “soft” in this study.Equivalent continuous A weighted sound pressure level at 0.3 m,dynamic range and spectrum characteristics were discussed.It also discussed acoustic characteristics between different roles and vocal intensities,vocal manners as well as vocal contents.It established a spherical experimental platform in a full anechoic room and formed a 20-channel simultaneous measurement system for the sound power measurement of Cantonese Opera performers by referring to the international standard ISO3745.The number of performers involved in the test,vocal manner,vocal content,and vocal intensities were as same as those of the acoustic frequency characteristics test.The experiment scientifically and systematically obtained sound power levels,dynamic ranges,and the spectral data of sound power for different roles in sing,recitative and speech with different vocal intensities.Binaural impulse response in the auditorium was measured and loudness preference experiment was performed by using headphone playback method.The signal of the auralization experiment adopted the recorded civil & military character type's singing and Gaohu accompaniment music in the anechoic room.There were 12 listeners,and paired comparison method was adopted to make subjective preference of eight different average sound pressure level samples.The results show that the average sound pressure level of Cantonese opera hall is 79.0 dBA,and the optimal range is 76.0-82.0 dBA.This study systematically and scientifically measured the acoustic frequency characteristics and sound power of the Cantonese Opera performers by the first time.These measurement data not only fill the gap in the acoustic data of Chinese opera performances,but also provide scientific basis for the acoustical design,building sound insulation design and electroacoustic system design.The loudness preference value obtained by subjective listening experiments can be used to guide the sound quality design and comprehensive evaluation of Chinese opera hall.