Images taken by myself

During December I made a visit to the Royal College of Music to ask about the designs and uses of the Concert Hall, Practice rooms and Studios. These are all mainly for classical use. The college dates back to 1882 and was founded by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and is situated in South Kensington opposite the Royal Albert Hall.

 

I met with Matt Parkin and Richard Stephenson to talk through the uses of the rooms in the College. The Concert Hall has been altered via hanging panels, so the players can hear themselves better. The reflective panels hanging from the ceiling can be raised and lowered to help prevent the sound from reflecting and creating musical disharmony and distortion in the room. The panels send the sound back down much more clearly. The smaller the group is the lower the panels are lowered to them. With the room being so old and historic it is not possible to change much in terms of the existing walls, so panels are used to separate the players if needed.

 

The original Practice Rooms (Parry Rooms) were designed to absorb and create a dead sound so that the players can hear every detail. In some rooms the walls are lined with hard wood, whereas the temporary practice rooms  have reversible panels, with a hard wood side and on the reverse side, a more absorbent material covered panel. This gives the players the opportunity to alter the room to suit their needs. The Opera Theatre has absorbent panels around the balcony edges, and the seating tiers have been designed to be high so the singers learn to project their voices up to the back.

 

I asked Matt what would be his ideal features in a recording studio; His response was for it to be a place designed for equipment to be changed easily, cable traps so they are hidden and a studio that has flexibility for reverberations or dead sound.