Acoustics of Worship Spaces

Abstract

Experience in the last several years has indicated that worship environments can have both high speech intelligibility and high reverberation time. This may be accomplished by architectural means in some situations, but often electronic reinforcement systems are required. There are six basic types of such systems: (1) central, (2) dual central, (3) overhead distributed, (4) pewback, (5) overhead directional distributed, and (6) column distributed, each suited to a specific architectural-acoustical problem. With regard to music, relationships between the choir, organ, and congregation are equally important in the high-reverberation-time cathedral-like spaces and the smaller, more intimate environments. Many aspects important in the over-all design will be discussed and examples will be given.

Re-Creating Performing Environment for Polychoral Music

“…However, little information about the acoustics for choral music has appeared in the acoustical literature while much can be found for instrumental music. Guidelines about locating the choir and organ in church for best acoustics have been summarized by Klepper in 1983Klepper in (1983. Best location for the organ and choir is behind the altar, on the front wall or upstage chancel wall, facing the congregation, or in a reasonably high rear balcony or gallery.…”