Right-ear treble preference may explain traditional orchestral seating arrangements.

Evidence

The finding that the majority of listeners to the stimuli shown in Figure 5.12 hear the high notes in the right ear and the low notes in the left ear may have some bearing on the natural layout of groups of performing musicians. For example, a string quartet will usually play with the cellist sitting on the left of the viola player who is sitting on the left of the second violinist, who in turn is sitting on the left of the first violinist as illustrated in Figure 5.17. This means that each player has the instruments playing parts lower than their own on their left-hand side, and those instruments playing higher parts on their right-hand side. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1676

Categorization

• XREF: Ties psychoacoustic ear asymmetry to musicology and performance practice — connects to thinking about how perceptual mechanisms shape cultural conventions.
• SHARE: Would interest a classical musician friend who’s noticed the fixed seating layout and wondered why.