can any racquetball players comment on whether they find there to be a special sort of trance-inducing rhythm that accompanies playing the game in such a room, or any other sort of odd personal acoustic experience? Presumably such an experience would be more profound if your opponent was in the groove as well.
anybody ever listen to music in a racquetball court? If so, how were the acoustics compared to, say, a specially designed performance room?
I haven’t played much Racquetball myself, but I’ve spent thousands of hours in various Squash courts (similar layout, but 32ft x 21ft – at last for International standard courts – rather than Racquetball’s 40ft x 20ft), and further hundreds of hours in the enclosed courts of the somewhat more obscure sports of Real Tennis and Rackets.
The acoustics of any given court will depend on the site (isolated court with exterior walls vs court in a sports complex), wall material (usually various types of plaster, but anywhere from 0 to 4 of the walls may be glass in upscale venues), and adjacent facilities (e.g. swimming pool vs basketball court). However, judging from the look of the court in the OP’s video link, I would have no reason to assume that there’s any acoustical trickery involved. If there’s nothing to absorb the sound, enclosed racket-sport courts can be very reverberant.
It’s not hard to use the echoes in a squash / racquetball court; I often used to train (either solo or while coaching groups of teen players) with a boombox against the front wall and program material matched to the acoustics of a particular court. Good for building team spirit!
However, during a competitive match one wouldn’t generally try to match the groove of an opponent – on the contrary, one does everything one can to break their rhythm. Make the rally’s tempo complex enough so that only you can follow the score!
[I used to have a Squash colleague/adversary who made a particularly loud sound when his foot hit the floor to push back off while playing a shot – in an acoustically-lively court, one couldn’t use auditory clues to tell how hard he was striking the ball, since one’s ears were assailed by the reverberating foot-stamp.]
I have played racquetball but not listened to music in a court, but as a musician I will say that “live” rooms like that are the worst possible place to play. The echoes turn the music into mush. Recording studios are designed to provide the least echo and reverberation. Other performing venues are designed to have even acoustic response, so you have don’t get “wolf tones”–a note that matches the resonant frequency of the room, or echo.
The courts are very reverberant–so much so that’s it’s sort of hard to talk to each other in them unless you’re pretty close to each other or speak rather loudly.
And, IME, no, there is no trance-inducing anything going on with noise. A good player will cue off his opponent with his eyes, seeing the position the other guy is setting himself up in and how he begins his swing. From there you can predict where the ball will go and start moving just as he’s hitting the ball. If you’re letting the smack of the ball on the walls affect you somehow, you’re doing something wrong.