Music Building Thesis

Samuel D. Tipps

Central Magnet

Honors English IV

Ms. Benjamin

May 2022

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 Abstract

The project was to design a new building for MTSU’s School of Music as well as

develop a new style of rooms that can provide classrooms and offices with better

soundproofing. The current Saunders Fine Arts Building lacks the necessary facilities to

teach their rapidly growing student population and having only one performance hall

makes it difficult to plan more effectively for all the different events. This design expands

the capabilities of the music program as well as its quality by creating more spaces that

incorporate acoustic designs into the construction process of the various rooms.

The other issue that it aimed to solve was the amount of excess noise that the

students and faculty could hear from other classrooms. These noisy interruptions between

classes can cause students to lose their focus on what they are doing, and it distracts the

faculty from teaching effectively. The design of this new room style is heavily influenced

by the soundproofing theory of a room-within-room design that transfers soundwaves

from solid matter to air to dampen the noise level.

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 Acknowledgements

This project would not be possible without the help of the Field of Study Advisor,

Mr. Guthrie, and Ms. Benjamin as they were crucial to completing this project by

keeping it on schedule as well as making sure it is high quality. I would also like to thank

my mentor Mr. Hinton for providing lots of inspiration behind the design of the building,

as well as insights to the architectural field. I am also incredibly grateful to my parents

who provided me with the opportunity to create this project as well as being the

inspiration of designing a new building.

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Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures.......................................................................................v

Chapter 1: Problem Statement.................................................................................1

Problem Relevancy..............................................................................................1

Chapter 2: Research Review....................................................................................3

Chapter 3: Methodology..........................................................................................6

Chapter 4: Conclusion...........................................................................................15

References..............................................................................................................17

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 List of Figures

Figure 1................................................................................................................................6

Figure 2..............................................................................................................................13

List of Tables

Table 1.................................................................................................................................9

Table 2...............................................................................................................................10

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 Chapter 1: Problem Statement

Middle Tennessee State University needs a new music building because they have

reported that there is little space for their quickly expanding population. The building

also needed improved acoustics to increase students and faculties’ ability to focus. The

project planned to design a new space to accommodate the increase in student population

and create a way to improve the acoustic issues of the classrooms, done by isolating the

individual sounds of different classes practicing.

Problem Relevancy

According to the Building proposal (2019), MTSU’s school of music is rapidly

expanding, having a 172% increase in population since the establishment of the Wright

building as the department of music. (p.2) They temporarily fixed this issue by

incorporating the Sauders Fine Arts building into the department, but it was an even older

building that was not initially designed for music. This did not completely fix the

problem. Instead, it introduced some of its own. As stated in the Faculty’s Building

proposal (2019), the school has spent over $4,000,000 to maintain and improve the

Saunders Fine Arts building.

Since these buildings were not designed with a school of music in mind, this left

them incredibly lacking in space and acoustic ability. Classrooms in Saunders end up

being too small for larger instruments, such as harps or basses, and there are only two

rooms designated for group rehearsals. According to the proposal, these larger practice

rooms are so problematic that they require earplugs for constant use (p. 3). The other

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classrooms also create acoustic issues since the small, cramped classrooms mean that

sounds from other classrooms are easily heard and it becomes incredibly difficult to

focus.

Research into this topic is valuable in creating a much more efficient and more

accessible style of music education. The proposal states that the current school of music

graduates 450 music majors and minors by the fall of 2019 (p. 2). By providing a space

that is more effective in a learning environment, this number could increase dramatically

as more students are able to easily apply for these courses since a larger space reduces the

number of rejected applications by letting more students pursue their chosen field without

running out of room.

The building’s new location also provides many more opportunities for students

to be a part of the music industry. The location is out of the way and does not interfere

with the previous music buildings. This can provide other MTSU students with the

opportunity to introduce themselves to music by participating or creating new

organizations that use the previous concert hall as a much more casual venue.

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 Chapter 2: Research Review

Lots of the research contributed to the thesis by providing information on how to

build spaces for concerts. These findings were also backed up by research into the

location and requirements of the proposed building. Others helped incorporate techniques

that can improve the sound reduction between classrooms, and what kind of benefit this

would have on the students and faculty.

Musical Spaces

During the beginning of the process in designing a Music school, one of the most

daunting tasks was creating the space for concerts. Concert halls are massive rooms that

are very specifically designed to produce great sound for several kinds of performances.

This was made easier to manage and incorporate since several articles have determined

specific dimensions and requirements for varied sizes of these spaces.

Wismer’s thesis provided several good aspects to consider in the construction of a

building as it pertains to a musical facility. They provided several aspects of the designs

of these buildings such as density, structure, materials, and an intended emotional impact

(p. 5). This provided several factors of the design that are particularly important to

incorporate. This information was paired with the building processes described by M.

Howard. Howard explains in his article how music schools make new buildings. This

was useful for the project in case the proposal is accepted.

The article written by Guyer was also highly informative on how to design

musical spaces, more specifically performance halls. He shows several examples and

illustrations of how performance spaces function and how to effectively increase the

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acoustic ability of a space. Thanks to his work on this subject, the required 650-person

concert hall has already been effectively designed in an audience that spans 85ft. by 85 ft.

space (p. 13).

One of the most important documents in the research is the building proposal that

the school of music made. This proposal sets the minimum requirements for the design,

such as the square footage, number of rooms, and the several types of rooms needed.

With these requirements in place, the Thesis becomes much more manageable and

provides a metric for the success of the project. Another crucial aspect of the project is

the site where it is built. The site information is provided by Xome’s real estate report.

The website shows that the lot is 370,000 square feet and has a parking lot nearby.

Soundproofing

The reports done by Szentgyorgyi and Busch provided the justification for

innovating an efficient method of dampening sounds between the classrooms. They

discuss the effects of hearing music while trying to study. They both agree that students

performing in quiet environments is much more effective for the students’ learning,

showing that an innovative design incorporating soundproofing technology would be

beneficial.

The article written by Acoustiblock describes various aspects of soundproofing

and ways of dampening noise. It shows several techniques to create slight improvements

in the soundproofing of residential buildings, but these are usually done after

construction. It suggests that drop ceiling tiles are easily fixed by sound blocking material

being installed above the tiles. For the design, it was easily incorporated into a

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soundproofed ceiling to prevent noise travelling between floors. It also provided the

option of creating an outdoor performance space by using surrounding landscaping to

dampen the noise.

Audorama also provides several similar suggestions for soundproofing, but most

importantly it gives the idea of creating a room-within-a-room design. With this

technique, the building could become a series of independent rooms, not only helping the

sound, but also saving on cost since there would be less need to fill the empty spaces in

the walls, meaning that it required much fewer building materials. Considering this

would be the case for many of the rooms, it led to no disturbance.

This led to researching the idea of designing the classrooms as a series of

seperated walls, and the article written by White discusses how to create these spaces.

The figures and descriptions can help provide a starting point for the design of the rooms.

The resources in this Thesis provided both constraints and possibilities for the

new music building, and they act as a good starting point for creating an effective design

and a fresh style of room that can allow for minimal acoustic interference.

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 Chapter 3: Methodology

Conceptual Design

Classrooms

The design of the soundproofed classrooms was a scale model of the room

that shows how a room within a room design can effectively block sound (see

Figure 1). This design will be tested using quantitative data of how many decibels

that it can block. It was determined that the structure would need to use realistic

materials in order to properly replicate the accoustics of a full-sized room. This

would also have been able to help visualize the increase in space that the building

would experience using larger rooms and give a better idea of how teachers and

students would be able to navigate and utilize these areas.

Figure 1

CAD (Computer Aided Design) Room Model

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 Music building

The initial design of the building consisted of meeting the requirements in

the proposal by maintaining a similar structure to the current music building. The

way that the current building opperates works well since it has classrooms in one

section and the performance hall in another. It was theorized that that same design

only needed to be scaled up to accommodate the larger population. This, however

would be reliant on help from the project’s mentor as his background in

architecture was invaluble.

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Preliminary Design

Classroom Model

The first rendition of the scale-model classroom was unsuccessful.

Somewhere in its design some parts must have been measured incorrectly, so the

inside room was far too small on the scale it was built at. This also led to issues

with the soundproofing since the inner room was small enough so that it did not

completely seal with the outer wall, so the concept of having a room within a room

would not work.

Testing

The process for testing the room's capabilities involves a small, wireless

speaker and a decibel gauge. First, I made a music playlist to represent various

genres of music so the room could be tested as a universal design that would

accommodate any type of instrument. The playlist included music that included

classical instruments, such as strings, brass, and choral music, as well as more

modern music that used more piano, guitar, and percussion. The first song that was

chosen was the 4th movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, a piece known

for a very loud and sudden entrance that would be a good example of a large

orchestra. The Next song was Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata which served as an

example of piano music. Then Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture for loud percussion,

Mozart’s Requiem for Choral Music, and Imagine Dragon’s Believer both for

modern music as well as for more bass-heavy songs.

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 The gauge had a setting that would record the loudest sound’s decibels, and

these numbers were to be graphed to show the results of the tests. Then, the

speaker was placed one foot away from the gauge as a control test to see how loud

the music was uninterrupted by walls. Next, it was placed in a similar room

consisting only of half-inch concrete walls to approximate the effects of a normal,

single-walled classroom. Finally, the speaker was placed inside the room with the

gauge remaining one foot away from the best guess of the center of the room. If

the room works, there should be a noticeably lower maximum reading between the

room and both the control and one wall test.

Initial Results

The first model was expectedly unsuccessful as the failed seal effectively

only acted as the equivalent of the one wall test since the sound was not diluted in

the room within a room system. These results made it evident that very drastic

changes were needed.

Table 1

Sound levels of first prototype

Songs Played Open Air Single Room Room Prototype

Song one 75.9 dBA 75.2 dBA 74.1 dBA

Song two 76.4 dBA 75.9 dBA 73.9 dBA

Song three 77.1 dBA 75.7 dBA 74.2 dBA

Song four 73.4 dBA 72.6 dBA 72.2 dBA

Song five 74.2 dBA 74.1 dBA 73.6 dBA

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 Redesigns

The first thing that needed to be fixed was the seal between the walls. It

was found that a change in the dimensions of the outer walls went unaccounted for

in the translation from the C.A.D. model to the prototype. This was easily adjusted

so the new model was now flush with the outer walls. Although, the smaller inner

room of the first model posed a question. How much space should be in between

the walls? With this new idea in mind, two more models were made, one with

walls closer together and another with walls that left more space in between.

Testing

A similar test was conducted as the first, but the open room and single

walled room were not repeated. Instead, the control fot this test was a properly

sealed version of the first model. The test used the same distance between the

speaker and decibal gauge.

Table 2

Room Spacing

Songs ½" Gap (original) ¼" Gap 1” Gap

Song one 71.3 dBA 76.2 dBA 73.3 dBA

Song two 72.4 dBA 77.2 dBA 75.0 dBA

Song three 69.8 dBA 74.5 dBA 73.9 dBA

Song four 71.1 dBA 71.6 dBA 72,0 dBA

Song five 71.9 dBA 76.5 dBA 72.4 dBA

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 Results

The results of this test yielded very interesting and unexpected results. It

was initially thought that there would be some trend between the gap between the

walls, specifically that a larger gap would show a larger drop in noise. However,

the trend showed that there is a sweet spot between the two measured gaps. This

was likely due to the acoustics of the room started amplifying the sound and

negating the effect of the soundproofing design. Despite the unexpected pattern,

the test was still able to show that the room, of any size, was still effective in

reducing the sound coming from the room.

Building Design

The plans for the building were much less testable so the result came down

to whether the requirements of the building proposal were met and if it was

efficient in providing a helpful learning environment. The plans consisted of two

parts, a performance area, and a classroom area. These areas seemed better to

remain as separate wings of the building so the attendees of a concert do not have

to see all the students and teachers working.

Performance Area

The requirements for the performance halls were easy to meet since the

document Written by Guyer provides the necessary dimensions for performance

halls, and the Proposal gives the required numbers such as seating numbers and

the uses for the spaces. The challenges of the performance area came with trying

to keep the different halls removed from each other enough to prevent sound from

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one interrupting the other. However, this was solved by creating plenty of storage

space to house janitorial supplies as well as music supplies such as chairs, music

stands, and lesser used instruments. This section of the building also required

space for Rehearsal halls. More specifically, a rehearsal area for choirs, orchestras,

and smaller ensembles. It was easy to create and add these spaces since they were

smaller.

The arrangement of the area was easy to create. There is a car park to the

northwest of the building that was great for visitors. It was decided that the

performance spaces would need a large lobby to accommodate many people in the

event of a massive concert. This placed a large entrance towards the north of the

construction site that was well suited for multiple different events. The rehearsal

rooms were best placed between the classrooms and performance halls so the

students and faculty could easily access them from any of the entrances. This easy

access is also helpful to loading and unloading these large instuments which would

be crucial to providing access to pianos to the rest of the building, a crucial part of

practicing music.

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Figure 2

Note: E.R.H. are Ensemble Rehearsal Hall

Classroom Area

The classrooms were unique to arrange since they incorporated the

soundproof design, meaning the space the room would take up would be larger

than the actual space the faculty could use. However, the considerable size of the

plot made it easier to manage. Another unique feature to incorporate was the

practice rooms. The current SFA building puts these spaces in sectioned off

hallways. This does not necessarily create any major problems, but it did separate

many of the faculty from the rooms so that they would rather practice in their own

offices or classrooms that lacked proper acoustics and soundproofing.

Another challenge of this area was trying to accommodate the space needed

for larger instruments, most notably pianos. This led to much larger hallways on

the first floor so it would be easier to transport instruments from room to room
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without having to worry about stairs or an elevator. The rest of the rooms upstairs,

however, were given more standard hallways since the higher floors would have

smaller, more mobile instruments. Aside from these size issues, the space was

easily arranged in a similar design to other schools.

A question was also raised about the school’s marching band and that their

practice location is notably far from the building. This resulted in the creation of a

large outdoor space. This space could also be used as an outdoor venue for

performing.

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 Chapter 4: Conclusion

Summary

Overall, this thesis was able to provide information about acoustics and soundproofing, a

field that used to be very poorly understood by the researcher. The project was able to

convey the importance of architectural design being crucial to the quality of sound made

in an area, as well as the difficulties that building music-friendly designs can have. It also

demonstrated how much architects must consider in both large and small buildings to

create a space that not only meets the needs of the client, but also improves upon what is

asked.

Limitations

One of the largest limitations of the project was the inaccuracy of the building materials

and size of the scale model of the classroom. The materials used were like a final

iteration of the rooms since concrete was used for each as it is very commonly used for

construction, however, the material used differed from the idea as the thinner, more

workable concrete was a tiling composite, while a larger scale would use true cement and

rebar. This meant that the soundwaves, while being effectively stopped, were altered

inaccurately compared to the materials of a more accurate model.

There was also the issue of cost. Since it is a state school, the designs needed to be cost

effective. This came at the cost of higher quality facilities. This was most notable in the

design of the model rooms since the idea of a room-within-room design uses some form

of suspension to further limit the sound that travels through the floor. This feature had to

be removed since having a system of “floating” rooms is much more demanding than

simply adding another room into a pre-existing room.

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Another issue was the distortion of the sound that came naturally from the music coming

through the speaker. This could mean that a real acoustic instrument such as the brass and

strings that were tested could have a varied response to the soundproofing. However,

there was no alternative way to have a small enough instrument in the space.

Implications

This project may be used as a point of reference for other buildings that wish to

incorporate soundproofed rooms into their design. With further development this design

type could be implemented in a lot of applications. As for the building design, there was

not a lot to be implied by its development since it was made specifically to fit a niche for

MTSU rather than develop a fresh style or innovation in the architectural world.

Suggestions for Future Study

In the future, more accurate models of the room should be tested, as well as rooms with

different dimensions to find out if the design of the inner room could amplify or dampen

the sound. It would also be beneficial to try on a full-scale room to find the effect proper

building methods can have.

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 References

Architectural Design Soundproofing Materials (2017). Acoustiblok.

https://www.acoustiblok.com/2017/10/12/architectural-design-soundproofing-

materials/

Adorama. (2018, March 12). How to Soundproof a Room for Audio Recording

https://www.adorama.com/alc/how-to-soundproof-a-room-for-audio-recording/

Busch, B. (2018, March 14). Drowned in sound: How listening to music hinders learning.

The Guardian. Retrieved November 12, 2021, from

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2018/mar/14/sound-how-listening-

music-hinders-learning-lessons-research.

Guyer, J. P. (2014). An Introduction to Architectural Design: Theaters & Concert Halls,

Part 1. CED engineering. Retrieved from

https://www.cedengineering.com/userfiles/Intro%20to%20Architectural

%20Design%20-%20Theatres%20&%20Concert%20Halls,%20Part%201.pdf.

Howard, M. (n.d.). Chapter IX Music Facilities, Architecture, and Planning. music.org.

Retrieved 0AD, from https://www.music.org/pdf/pubs/musicalchairs/chapter9.pdf.

Middle Tennessee State University School of Music faculty(2019, April 4). A New Music

Building Proposal Narrative.

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s_net/EVEFEswjtlpCg4Ak76q7WIQB9dCAoVPjbxHs3fdxG8-PEg?e=oW2a13

Szentgyorgyi, E. A. (2015, May). IMPACT OF MUSIC ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT.

SUNY. Retrieved n.d., from

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 https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/65757/Szentgyorgyi_E

mily_Masters_Spring2015.pdf;sequence=1#:~:text=According%20to%20the

%20data%2C%208,music%20playing%20in%20the%20background.

White, P. (n.d.). Room-Within-A-Room Construction. Practical studio design: PART5.

Retrieved November 1, 2021, from

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/practical-studio-design-part5.

Wismer, L. R. (2004). Musical Architecture: Layers of Sound & Space - core. Retrieved

October 29, 2021, from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5007453.pdf.

Xome Retail: Real Estate & Homes For Sale. Xome. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23,

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