Session 5: Class Activities and Resources

Note-Taking Pairs (25 mins)

Watch this video and take notes of most important aspects. If it helps, draw a diagram. Note the names of the main parts of ear. Compare and share your notes with a partner and collate and develop to make useful notes which summarise the hearing process.

As a class, you will discuss your findings.

Speed Interview (5mins) - Safe Listening Levels

In pairs, speed interview a partner about their listening practices.

• Do they listen to music too loud? Headphones? Earbuds?

• Have they been to loud gigs/clubs and suffered damage?

• What's the loudest thing they've heard

• Do they wear hearing protection?

• Ever worked in noisy environment? Drummer? Gun enthusiast?!

Discussion - What if...? (20 mins)

What if...the auditory canal was much longer.

• Listen to sound through tubes of different lengths

• How does the sound change? Any idea why?

• What does this have to do with the Fletcher Munson Equal Loudness contours?

The mathematical explanation for this can be found here

• Read through the explanation and calculate the resonant frequency for these tubes (eg. 10cm or 30cm long!)

Listening exercise : Class activity

How loud is loud?

• Familiarise yourself with the numbers!...Use dB meter to compare different levels - (free dB meter apps available for your smart phone)

• Listen to a music at 3 different listening levels...(Normal, Quiet, Very Quiet) ...What do you notice in regards to the frequency balance?

If you had to mix a song at low listening level, how could this impact your final mix?

To understand why music sounds different at these varying levels, we should first learn how hearing works...

Practical exercise: Test your hearing/equal loudness (30 mins)

We all have slightly different hearing. As an audio engineer it is useful to know how yours may vary across different frequencies.

• Create your own Equal Loudness curve on this website. (Ensure Flash is enabled!) Standalone installer here

• You will need a good set of headphones (preferable closed -not cheap earbuds)

• Screenshot your final version (⌘-SHIFT 3 on Macs) - name the image file (LASTNAME_ELC) and upload to your Google Drive AUD170 folder and share with your facilitator.

• Why is your frequency response curve not flat?