Reverberation and chant
  • Voce
    Posts: 16
    I was reading the comments in the English Propers blog entry and came upon these two comments:

    "Another point: unless one has a church with at least 3 seconds reverb when the room is comfortably FULL, unaccompanied chant is going to fall FLAT."

    "This is a point well taken, Bud. In my own parish we are lucky to have more than a one second reverb, and a small schola singing a cappella is... well, let me say it is very different from one singing in a lively space. So we conventionally sing with a very light and sparse organ accompaniment. I base this on how Fontgambault does their accompaniment. It never overpowers, but supports the voice."

    The first comment concerns me. We are in the process of planning and assembling a chant schola for our parish. We don't have much of what I would consider reverb in our church building, which seats perhaps 600 and is layed out in a T shape. The floors are stone, the walls plaster and the ceiling looks like plaster, so I don't know why the sound seems dead--maybe it is the cloth on the seats. At present we have singers--modern hymns material--who are positioned up at the front near the altar, along with a piano and a small electronic organ, and they use a couple of hanging mikes to project the sound of the choir. I dislike miked singing, and am not sure how a chant schola would sound. We had been thinking of unplugging the mikes and setting up in the back pews when having a chanted mass...it doesn't seem proper to be up at the front with chant, somehow. And we had hoped to do the chant without the crutch of an organ. But the above comment has me thinking. Do people in acoustically dead churches use the mikes and amps to add a little reverb? Might anyone be able to share experiences on this?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    I use digital reverb on the organ but have not tried it on vocals as you need a good effects processor to do so. My struggle with the whole matter is that it is synthetic. They should just build churches as a church should be built. We are musicians and should not have to correct errant acoustics.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    I would try it in your space and see (hear) how it sounds, rather than conjecturing.
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    Since we have reverb available on our mixer, I decided to give it a try. I did it for about 5 Masses and then stopped using it, it just seemed to make the singing muddier. But give it a try.

    Preferably, you would have a few people out in the congregation to give you an honest assessment of what they heard. It sounds totally different from where the schola is.
  • Adam Bartlett
    Posts: 533
    Voce: I think that this is one of the most critical issues that is threatening the sacred music movement. You can talk until your blue in the face about the beauty of Gregorian chant, but until you sing it in a church successfully and with great effect, all the talk is meaningless. And one of the most unfortunate circumstances of our situation is that many churches built in the last 40 years have 20 foot ceilings with acoustic tile and carpet. I don't care if the Tallis Scholars are the choir in residence at one of these modern churches–they are not going to sound like they do in their recordings done in Santa Maria Maggiore, if even close!

    So the reality is that the acoustic space is one of the critical parts of the sacred music instrument. If you lack it (like my parish does, though we're in a much better situation than many!) I think that there are workarounds that can improve things. A very light and sparse organ accompaniment can help fill the void when it comes to singing chant. I would discourage the use of digital reverb. Mics can be used lightly, but we need to avoid close micing singers–even if the old folks say "we can't hear anything..." They're just going to have to get used to not having the music blaring.

    Please don't be discouraged in your quest! But certainly if you were in a historic church your task would be considerably easier. Fortunately church building is returning to creating spaces that are conducive to a cappella singing. This will be an essential part of a wholesale return of chant to Catholic liturgy!
  • BachLover2BachLover2
    Posts: 330
    there's no question that the ugly churches make it had for humans to pray and reflect and this is very sad
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Removed.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Noel, RSS is available on Roland and other top line live-digital mixing consoles.
    But going down that road of electronic sound modeling seems counter-intuitive, to me.
  • awruff
    Posts: 94
    I second everything Adam Bartlett wrote.
    It is amazing how beautiful chant is in the right acoustic - or how it falls flat in inadequate spaces.
    Fr. Anthony, OSB
  • Voce
    Posts: 16
    Thank you all very much for your comments. It looks like dead acoustics IS a real problem. We're still moving forward with the schola idea. We'll have to think carefully about how to position the group...and we'll think about using the organ (it would be a lot better if it were a pipe organ!). I'll also check to see if there are acoustic engineers around who might advise for our building.

    This is worth some checking while we are in the planning and organizing stage....will try to get a few singers in the church when it is empty to experiment sans mikes. Anyone have a used stone Gothic church for sale?
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    The upholstered seats aren't that much of a problem - after all, people are often seated on them, and winter clothing will present much more in the way of cubic feet of cloth to absorb sound.

    I suspect your ceiling was designed to reduce the reverb. Which is a tragic design choice in a church - it's professional malpractice so far as I am concerned (just my personal opinion, not a legal one).

    As for choir placement, I am less concerned about what documents invite as a norm and more about finding out empirically where outside the predella area the schola will sound best: the schola can't begin to do its ministry until it is sited in a way that offers the best amelioration for the dead acoustic problem.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Upholstered seats absorb sound so when people stand in winter garb, the amount of sound that is absorbed - during the singing of the ordinary or during the communion procession - is doubled.
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