A Study of the effect of music sound-related activities in urban open spaces

The sound of music plays an important role in urban open spaces, yet there are limited studies on the characteristics and effect of music sound-related activities. Music sound-related activities are defined as people performing with music. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore how music sound-related activities influences people behaviors in urban open spaces. Two typical squares in Harbin, China, were selected for on-site observation. Two typical types of music sound-related activities, which are singing and dancing, were selected. The result shows that the sound pressure level (SPL) affected the areas covering music sound-related activities, but not the number of participants of the music sound-related activities. The number of groups of music sound-related activities affected the total number of people and the percentage of different behaviors of people in the square. The number of singing groups increased the total number of people but decreased when the number of dance groups was larger than three groups. At the same time, the number of singing groups has a greater effect on the percentage of people exercising and sitting and the number of dance groups has a greater effect on the percentage of people sitting and walking.