Designing a secondary music suite.

An expert outlines four factors that can make your school's music space draw rave reviews.

There's a lot that can go right - or wrong - when designing a secondary school music facility, either renovation or new construction. We also refer to this area as the "music suite," and it includes rehearsal rooms, practice rooms, offices and storage space. The specialized equipment needs and activities of the music suite make it unique within a school, and construction costs reflect this

To maximize the investment in a music suite, administrators and music educators should clearly articulate special requirements, the size of the music program and the music program's educational philosophy very early in the construction or renovation process. This is best accomplished during the "programming" phase, when the architect is defining the requirements of the spaces to be designed. Administrators can help by ensuring that music educators have the chance to provide input. In designing a music suite, there are four critical factors to consider: acoustics, floor plan, storage and equipment.

Acoustics

More than any other subject, music is learned by critical listening. Musicians must be able to hear even the smallest variations in pitch, dynamics, tone color, articulation and balance. Therefore, acoustical considerations are a primary consideration in a music suite's design.

Cubic Volume. The most basic acoustical requirement in the rehearsal room is adequate cubic volume, which equals floor area multiplied by ceiling height. If the space isn't large enough, the sound will overwhelm the room and musicians will be unable to hear clearly. The excessive loudness can even cause hearing damage to students and educators. We recommend a minimum of 1,800 square feet of floor space for a choral rehearsal room, and 2,500 square feet minimum for a band/orchestra rehearsal room. Ceilings should be 18-22 feet.

Maintaining adequate cubic volume is one benefit of using portable risers instead of poured concrete steps. The space under portable risers, if left open, will not reduce the room's total cubic volume. A flat floor in the rehearsal room also offers flexibility for other activities, such as marching band practice.

Room Shape. The shape of the rehearsal room's walls and ceiling is very important. A common pitfall is designing a space with "visual acoustics" - such as curved walls or domes - that are attractive to the eye but disastrous to the ear, producing hot spots of concentrated sound.

A good, cost-effective solution is a rectangular-shaped room with a proper mixture of absorber and diffuser panels. Untreated parallel walls cause direct sound reflections between opposing surfaces, producing a negative acoustic result called a flutter echo. Non-parallel or splayed walls can eliminate flutter echo, but they cost significantly more per square foot than acoustical treatments.

Sound Isolation. The rooms in the music suite should be acoustically separated and insulated from each other, and from the rest of the school. Classic mistakes include locating the music suite next to the industrial arts area or gymnasium, or building two rehearsal rooms that share a common wall. It is crucial that all wall seams are finished off and sealed from roof deck down to the floor, including electrical outlets and HVAC ducts. Even gaps as small as one square inch can render a sound-isolating wall ineffective.

Acoustical Treatments. Good acoustics requires a combination of absorption to control excessive loudness and diffusion to distribute sound evenly throughout the space. This ensures musicians can hear themselves, and everyone hears a balanced representation of the ensemble. The proper location of absorber and diffuser panels on the walls and ceiling is dependent upon the shape and volume of the room, the construction materials used and the groups using the space.

A common mistake in a rehearsal room is relying on carpet for sound absorption. Carpets do not absorb all sounds equally, but reduce only higher frequencies. This means that overtones (the upper partials of sound that give an instrument its tone color) and other high-frequency sounds will be lost. The remaining lower frequencies become overpowering and distort the group's true sound.

Mechanical Systems. The same mechanical equipment and HVAC systems used in non-music areas of the school will create noisy distractions in the music suite. This includes fluorescent lighting ballasts or drinking fountains. Plans must be made to reduce or isolate this noise.

HVAC systems should account for the fact that music is a physical activity, requiring an air exchange rate roughly double that of other classrooms. Larger air ducts and grilles are required to reduce the 'whooshing' sound caused by increased air volume and velocity. If not reduced, this air noise will "mask" musical sound and severely limit critical listening.

Floor Plan

The layout of rooms in the music suite, traffic flow patterns and room adjacencies should all be considered.

Floor Space. Because music education is a physical activity, with instrumentalists and vocalists requiring room to move, the most critical element is adequate floor space. When you factor in the instruments, chairs, music stands, aisles and storage space, each band or orchestra student requires 30-35 square feet of floor space - twice the space students require in a non-music classroom. As noted earlier, adequate floor space with corresponding ceiling height is also necessary for proper acoustics.

Traffic Flow. In the music suite, students need to move quickly between storage and rehearsal areas twice in a single class period. A well-designed music suite promotes proper traffic flow, reducing the risk of damage to instruments and increasing the time available for learning. Separate entry and exit doorways for storage and rehearsal areas minimize congestion. Room adjacencies are crucial; some rooms logically need to be near each other, and some do not.

Access to Related Areas. The ideal music suite will be located in close proximity to other related school areas. These include the auditorium and performance areas, athletic fields and the parking lot. Hallways, doorways, corners and ramps should be sized to allow movement of large equipment, such as grand pianos.

Storage

Music suite equipment - including instruments, uniforms and sheet music - represents more than a $300,000 investment at a typical high school. To protect this investment, specialized storage areas and compartments are necessary.

Underestimating overall storage needs is a common problem. Sheet music, for example, requires a tremendous amount of space. A typical high school has at least 1,000 music titles - enough to fill 15 standard four-drawer file cabinets. High-density storage systems provide an alternative, requiring only one-half the square footage and one-third the width.

Storage areas should maintain consistent, year-round temperatures and humidity levels to protect garments and instruments.

Equipment

It's often easy to focus too much on the overall design, and put off budgeting for the equipment that makes the music suite usable. Equipment planning should be done from the beginning, and equipment needs should be continuously re-examined. Because additional funding is often obtained in later years, consider which purchases can be deferred. In the long run, budgeting for durable, high-quality equipment will save money on replacement costs and repairs. Equipping, like educating, is an investment for the future.

These four critical factors - acoustics, floor plan, storage and equipment - are vital to the success of a secondary music suite. By addressing them early in the planning process, and staying involved, school administrators and music educators can help orchestrate beautiful results.

Mike Smedstad is vice president, Education Marketing, with the Wenger Corp., Owatonna, Minn. Resources are available for school administrators and educators involved in planning a music suite, including publications from the Music Educators National Conference and Acoustical Society of America.

Wenger Corporation has published a 50-page planning guide for secondary school music facilities, including worksheets, guidelines and a bibliography of other resources. To request a free copy, contact Wenger at 800/733-0393.