Effect of reverberation and dynamics on musicians’ ratings of choral tone quality and intonation

This study examined the effect of reverberation time and dynamics on musicians’ ratings of choral tone quality and intonation. Undergraduate and graduate vocal students (N = 50) at a large southeastern university participated in the study. Participants listened to recordings of an ensemble comprised of vocal majors singing a 12-second excerpt of a choral piece with a consistent forte dynamic level throughout. The amplitude of the initial recording (forte stimulus) was decreased by 20 dB to create a stimulus with lower amplitude (piano stimulus) and .5 seconds of reverberation time was added to both, resulting in four stimuli (forte with reverb, forte without reverb, piano with reverb, piano without reverb). Participants listened to the stimuli and rated the tone quality and intonation on two 7-point Likert-scales. A repeated-measures MANOVA indicated that auditors preferred the forte and piano reverberant recordings over the forte and piano non-reverberant recordings. Results also ind