Every room you enter or space you occupy is made up of sounds—some you notice and some you don’t. But whether you perceive them or not, they all play an important role in shaping your perceptions and experiences.

Consider office environments, for example. They’re filled with background noise: typing, talking, coughing, phones ringing, footsteps, fans, printers.

In a small restaurant, customers are surrounded by the sounds of music and conversation, utensils being used, the front door opening and closing, the clanging of pots and pans, and servers and cooks passing orders back and forth.

“All these sounds impact how we feel, how we behave, how well we can work when we occupy these spaces, and so much more,” explains Robin Glosemeyer Petrone, a partner and acoustic consultant at Threshold Acoustics & AV. At Threshold, she shares her research and project-specific knowledge of sound behavior with clients, design teams, and contractors to show them how their work impacts the spaces they build together. Her expertise has touched prominent venues such as the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada; Rice University’s Brockman Hall for Opera; and the ongoing Calgary Arts Commons Transformation.

She shares this valuable knowledge with students, too, as an adjunct lecturer for Northwestern’s MA in Sound Arts and Industries program. She leads Introduction to Sound Science—a course designed to help students realize how the spaces they occupy when they create and present their work impact the sounds that others hear.

Awakening Students’ Sense of Sound

Petrone wants MA in Sound Arts and Industries students to understand that, when they know the type of environment they’re working in, and they understand the inherent challenges that come along with it, they can find ways to work around those challenges.

“If you don’t acknowledge your environment, then you’re not likely to be as impactful as you could be with your sound work,” says Petrone. “You won’t get the results you were hoping for.”

Because sound is everywhere, hands-on opportunities naturally present themselves every day in class. “Humans are led to think much more about what they see, taste, and smell. The fun part about sound is that people tend not to focus on it,” she explains. “We let it happen to us, and we’re not always aware of the impacts it has. Our ears are constantly working and engaging with our brain, so it’s always processing sound. Hearing is an important part of creating a sense of awareness about where we are in space. I want to awaken students’ awareness of the sense.”

In the first few days of the class, she asks students to observe what’s happening aurally, as well as what may impact their ability to process it. She also challenges them to spend time at home listening to and documenting everything they hear, paying close attention to sounds they’ve noticed before: clocks ticking, water heaters hissing, birds chirping, pets drinking water.

“Then we all come together and talk about what we heard: the sources that were intentional, the sources that were not intentional, and how those sources moved within the space and impacted us,” she describes.

A Real-Life Lesson in How Sound Behaves

In October, students got to experience another type of hands-on sound lesson when Petrone brought to campus an acoustic panel designed by her and her team at Threshold Acoustics.

“In class, we talk about how we can impact the way sound behaves in an environment by selecting the materials that line these environments,” she explains. “Different materials absorb, reflect, or scatter sound, from ceilings and floors to walls and furnishings—but this panel testing took it to the nth degree.”

As part of a performance theater project, Threshold Acoustics developed a wall finish material to shape and diffuse the acoustic characteristics of the space. The project began with an understanding of the theater’s sound goals and how sound behaved in the space, as well as predictions about how sound would behave with the material the team wanted to use to create the panels.

“We wanted something that would diffuse the sound and expand it in the time domain as well,” says Petrone. “We ran genetic algorithms, established acoustic parameters, and worked with an architect to design something that not only addressed the theater’s acoustical challenges but also aligned visually.”

After the design was complete, the next step was to create a full-scale mockup and conduct physical testing of the panel. Because it was so new, Threshold’s team wanted to see how it would behave in a real environment.

This real-world testing happened on Northwestern’s Hobson/Lucas Soundstage. After her team tested the panel, Petrone brought in her students to have the same experience. She walked students through a listening exercise so they could hear how the panel absorbed and reflected sound.

“We got to see whether our predictions were accurate about how sound would interact with the panel,” explains Petrone. “We learned what we did and didn’t need to tweak. And we made new discoveries about the way the materials should be constructed and mounted.”

Taking Sound to the Next Level

As an acoustic consultant, Petrone has decades of experience working at the convergence of art and science. As a female in construction, she works hard to make sure she’s accepted when she walks onto a jobsite—and to prove that the information she’s sharing is valid and rooted in fact. Her goal is to always find common ground with whomever she talks to.

“Communication is a challenge in any discipline that requires you to share information with someone who works in a different discipline,” she explains. “You have information you need to share with someone else. It’s your area of focus, so you understand it well, and you want to help them understand it, too. I always explain to other professionals, such as contractors, that I want to share what I know so they can elevate the work they do. They’re doing very cool things, and I want to help them do it even better.”

She’s excited to see more women become involved in the sound arts industry and offers this advice to anyone new to the industry: Science only progresses when people ask questions. And when people ask questions, new discoveries are made.

“It’s important to be able to look at something like a building from different points of view,” she says. “Everyone has a different background and a different way of looking at it. It’s all valid. And we can work to bring it all together to help everyone get to that next level of understanding about sound and how it works in a space.”

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