Acoustical and Organ Design for Church Auditoriums

Abstract

The acoustical design of a church auditorium is of equal importance to that of the architectural design. It is essential, then, that the acoustical design follow the principles of projecting sound from the source to the listeners with maximum fidelity both for the listeners and for the performers. Church acoustics has varied from the dead, low reverberent type at one extreme to the excessively reverberant type at the other extreme. In between these extremes there is a range of good listening conditions for music and speech, for all types of liturgy. Longer reverberant times than usual are recommended for small and medium size auditoriums. The enhancement effect of reverberation on musical tones is shown to be related to the optimum reverberation characteristic. A new design of church auditorium is submitted which is interesting in its novelty, and is still practical from a modern architectural point of view. Organ design has passed through extremes such as the pure romantic and the baroque. Either in its extreme is undesirable for general church use. Space requirements for organs and some principles of organ design including the design of mixtures to meet any reasonable acoustic condition are given. This paper is given to stress the musical point of view of church design to the acoustician and architect so that extremes in acoustics will be avoided in the future.