a chatty exposition, for clients of acoustic consultants
If you are an acoustic consultant or designer, buy this pleasant little monograph (147 pp.) to give to your commercial clients. But if you really want to learn about the design of halls, you probably want Beranek's "Concert Halls and Opera Houses" instead. If you want graphs, formulas, and construction ideas for recording and listening rooms, spend the same amount of money (amazon net prices) and get "Master Handbook of Acoustics" (615 pp.) instead.
This book adds precious little to the available literature on acoustics or concert hall design. The first 60 pp. is the "technical" portion, which is pretty basic. The remainder is principally anecdotes of successes and failures in the field, which repeats itself, like a series of articles pasted together. A few scenarios are presented which culminate in "rules of thumb," but sometimes no conclusion is given -- maddening to a technician, but of less import to a client. One other possible target audience: If you were hoping they published a "For Dummies"-series book on acoustics, this would be an easy read, only not as organized or thorough as that series.
I would have given it fewer stars, but it has a short bibliography of REAL acoustics books. So I read it thru, and I didn't hate it, but my copy is now up for sale...
An architect looking for practical information...
With prudent editing, this rambling, discourse of music and architectural aesthetic psuedo-philosophy could be reduced to a thick pamphlet about architectural acoustics.
ignore rating, just replying to another review
The babysnatcher, this goes to you. The reason it says nothing about the accoustics of rock'n'roll is because accoustics are of little interest to most rock'n'roll musicians/fans because they have a little thing called the amplifier. Classical music, when performed properly, is never amplified. Excluding some modern music, it is all created by accuoustic instrumetns. That is why this book was not directed towards you.
A garden of Sound
This book does a wonderful job of explaining the principles behind sound waves. The launguage is easy to understand, and the pages not darkened by excessive mathmatics. If you are looking for the best classical music acoustic design book out there, you have found it.However. C. Brooks seems to beilieve that the only people that care about acoustics are classical music fanatics. From the offset he talks about his love for clasical music and hearing a single note fade away to silence. I didn't buy the book for classical music, I bought it to enhance my rock and roll experince. The book is centered towards classical music and the acoustics there in, but I did glean a few gems from the pages, allowing me to better the acoustics in my room, but those were few and far between.
Classical music fans, rejoice! Rock and roll fans, keep your hands away. I'm sure there's a book for you somewhere out there.
Architectural Acoustics
I just recently read Architectural Acoustics by Christopher Brooks. It is easy to read and quite interesting. It kept my attention, and I was anxious to get back to it. Chris is able to explain how soundwaves behaves in rooms in a way that is easy to understand. This book is excellent.
