Electrical Engineering and Information Technology

Ray tracing simulation in the acoustic 3D model of Cluny III (Image: Lukas Aspöck, CC-BY 4.0).

What was it like back in the Middle Ages? Experiencing history and feeling the spirit of the times – musicologist Professor Stefan Morent from the University of Tübingen, together with his project team and in cooperation with the Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics at RWTH Aachen University, is reconstructing the soundscape of this era. At the center of the music-historical experiment is the monastic church of Cluny III between 1130 and 1790.

3D model of Cluny III. Black and dark gray parts show the still existing remains of the church (Image: Lukas Aspöck, CC-BY 4.0)

The Benedictine Abbey of Cluny was one of the most influential religious centers in Europe until the destruction of significant parts of the imposing building. Clergymen practiced their faith in its rooms: “Only through music and if the liturgy was performed flawlessly could a connection to God be established,” Professor Morent explains the monks’ conviction. But how did their singing sound in the spacious and magnificent halls?

Ensemble Ordo Virtutum during the recording session in the anechoic half-room of the institute (Photo: Lukas Aspöck, CC-BY 4.0)

Cluny III is a virtual version of the historical original, which enables a room-acoustic computer simulation. For this purpose, medieval choral songs of the ensemble Ordo Virtutum were recorded in IHTA’s laboratory – an anechoic room without reverberation. In real time, the singers experienced the reflections of the virtually constructed church space via headphones. This auralization makes it possible to embed the musical compositions in the architectural-historical context of their creation. But what role does the interaction of architecture and sound play for future spatial concepts? To answer this question, the recordings will be analyzed from a musicological point of view in further project steps in order to investigate the influence of architecture on the musical performance.

Within the framework of the priority program AUDICTIVE of the DFG (German Research Foundation) three projects with the participation of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Janina Fels were approved. On the one hand, the coordination project, which focuses on interdisciplinary exchange and research data management, was approved. On the other hand, the project “Listening to, and remembering conversations between two talkers: Cognitive research using embodied conversational agents in audiovisual virtual environments”, which is a joint proposal with Prof. Dr. Torsten W. Kuhlen and Prof. Dr. Sabine J. Schlittmeier, will be funded. Furthermore, the project “Evaluating cognitive performance in classroom scenarios using audiovisual virtual reality – ECoClass-VR”, which is a joint proposal with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Raake, TU Ilmenau and apl. Prof. Dr. Maria Klatte, TU Kaiserslautern, will be funded.
The priority program “Auditory Cognition in Interactive Virtual Environments – AUDICTIVE” is intended to make it possible, by linking the three disciplines – acoustics, cognitive psychology and virtual reality/computer science – to significantly expand the knowledge about hearing-related cognitive performance in real scenes and thus to realize the development of an “auditory-cognitive-validated” VR technology. By applying interactive VR technology, it should be possible to understand auditory perception in complex audiovisual scenes that are close to real life. Situations such as classrooms, open-plan offices, multi-party communication or outdoor scenarios with multiple (and moving) sound sources should be better understood with the help of the results.