Old churches have bad acoustics
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Said the microphoned pastor where I was filling in on Sunday.


    The churches were long and dark, so nobody could see what was going on.

    The acoustics were terrible so nobody understood. Plus, even by the 5th century, Latin was dead.

    Thank God things are different now.


    Then we continued on with the My Little Pony Mass.

    (This is a true story)


    Oh, but he lamented the loss of Corpus Christi processions, and the awe and wonder they inspired in him as a kid.

    (Offertory was contemporary piece called "How Beautiful" ... the whole experience was poetically, disturbingly uncomfortable)



    I watched some of the mass from our local cathedral on YouTube later that day. Awe and wonder seem an accurate description of the SAME RITE they celebrated.

    Too bad about that LONG CHURCH and the BAD ACOUSTICS though...
  • Reval
    Posts: 186
    Hm. At least your broadcast Mass is from the cathedral. Ours is from the local university chapel, with rotating priests. The only time I have seen it, the music is awful, "folksy" with only guitars.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Can you say "cognitive dissonance"?
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    Oh really? Long churches with bad acoustics?

    image
    Benedict XVI Retreat Centre's Chapel.

    image
    With the 3-stop Walker organ in the West Gallery
    8' Open Diapason to Tenor G (Bottom 7 notes grooved to Stopt Diapason)
    8' Stopt Diapason (full compass)
    4' Principal (full compass)

    The Chapel seats about 140 people in the nave, and about 25 people in the Gallery

    The acoustic is such that my college's chaplain, a softly-spoken man with a very gentle voice, can be heard clear as a bell in all parts of the church, and the 3-stop organ makes quite a powerful noise with the 8' and 4' Diapason ranks drawn and the shutters fully open. It would take 50 opera singers to overpower it in that acoustic.

    If anything, a long nave is good for a church because it gives you a lovely natural reverb which makes for some awesome music during liturgical worship.
    Thanked by 3M. Jackson Osborn Ben CHGiffen
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    I have asked the architect to keep a set of drawings prepared for a similar building to seat up about 350 people in the nave just in case my local parish church burns down. The old Hammond C3 hasn't seen a technician in 20 years and frankly, I'm surprised given the condition of the internal wiring that it hasn't burst into flames.
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    I'll be doing a uni student retreat there in a few weeks, and the main repertoire of music will consist of Simple Gregorian Chants, English Plainchant, Traditional Hymns and Simple Organ Voluntaries.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    A hammond, you say?
    Well, if the church burns down be sure the hammond is in it!

    (One of the most pleasurable stories I was ever told was told me many years ago by an organ technician with Wicks who had been in the navy, in the Pacific, during WWII. After the war there were hundreds of no longer needed hammond field organs around. They were put aboard ships and dumped at sea.)
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    no longer needed hammond field organs


    Isn't that redundant?
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700

    I watched some of the mass from our local cathedral on YouTube later that day. Awe and wonder seem an accurate description of the SAME RITE they celebrated.


    Thank you for your kind words... I feel bad that Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament got cut off the broadcast after the procession, though. The 90 minute time frame with a good length (and quality!) homily, procession, etc... is difficult to manage. And perhaps I should have nixed the polyphonic Tantum Ergo at the last moment, chanted it, and gotten Benediction on TV.... next year. Live television is a challenge.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    #livetvproblems
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Yes, there are many who for some reason think that microphones and a high quality sound system are absolutely non-negotiables in the church. Anyone proclaiming any kind of text must use a microphone or else "nobody will understand." (in quotes because it's inevitably the excuse or explanation you get as for why microphones are absolutely essential). Technology in place of training.
    Thanked by 1Ben
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    In my parish in either form (OF/EF), the celebrant very rarely wears a microphone. The only time voices are miced is from the ambo (and if the gooseneck weren't already there, he probably wouldn't use it), and when a solo cantor is singing while playing the organ.

    Other than that, all the celebrant's prayers are completely unmiced. For the first time in a while, I sat in the pews (instead of acting as MC) and I knew it was easy enough to hear since what he doesn't sing, he projects well, but I was still surprised at just how easy it is to hear.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Just in case anyone needed proof, here's a link to a performance by Ensemble Gilles Binchois under the direction of Vellard. Old church, great acoustics, NO MICS. Good performance if you didn't need the proof, so it's a great video either way.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11A4wqv8_wo
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • DavidWilde
    Posts: 11
    We had a parish priest (quite a few years ago now) who took the view that microphones are non-negotiable (although our parish church has a very nice natural acoustic). He wanted the choir to sing a Taize style piece with various choir members singing solo verses. He insisted (despite our protestations that it was unnecessary) that we use the one hand-held microphone, with a sort of "pass the parcel" between verses as the microphone was passed around the choir for the next soloist to use.
    A little later, he got his comeuppance. The middle-aged leader of the parish folk group also believed that a microphone was non-negotiable. The day came when for some reason it was found at the last minute before Mass that one microphone only could be used. The priest took the executive decision that it was more important for the congregation to hear him than the leader of the folk group, and ordered the sacristan to turn off the folk group's microphone. During the first hymn the folk group realised that they were not miked, and the leader came storming down the stairs from the loft demanding the microphone...
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    celebrant's prayers are completely unmiced.

    Ben, you'll have to tell me what he did to eradicate the rodents' distractive behaviors. We have had an infestation of the little buggers around our tabernacle that they have no less than ten traps flanking it from all points. We're not having much success.

    Oh, and in the parlance of our time an unamplified voice is an unmic'd voice. ;-)
    Thanked by 3gregp Ben eft94530
  • Mike Shawaluk
    Posts: 58
     
    Thanked by 1eft94530
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    an unamplified voice is an unmic'd voice


    Yah, and when I was a boy, it was "un-miked."
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Dad, when you were a boy, orators in dry acoustics used megaphones, and old folk's had little curved cones with large bells at the end attached to their ears!
    I was there, I think it was during a Rudy Vallee or Paul Whiteman show, when Mike felt humiliated, embarrassed and oppressed because someone said "I wish the singer had a Mike."
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