Sound of Worship: A Handbook of Acoustics and Sound System Design for the Church

320 Pages·2010·3.51 MB·English

by  Douglas R. Jones

S O U N D O F W O R S H I P
A Handbook of Acoustics
and Sound System Design
for the Church
DOUGLAS R. JONES
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD
PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO
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Notices
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Douglas
Sound of worship : a handbook of acoustics and sound system design for the church / Douglas Jones.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-240-81339-4
1. Public worship. 2. Sound—Recording and reproducing. I. Title.
BV15.J66 2011
264—dc22 2010031032
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
For information on all Focal Press publications
visit our website at www.elsevierdirect.com
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Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
This work is dedicated to the memory of my father, the
Reverend Lyman H. Jones. Thanks Dad, for teaching me to love
God and the Church and to value hard work. Although my work
was very different from yours, thank you for your support and for
your pride in my accomplishments.
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS v
C ONTENTS
A cknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Chapter 1 The Sound of Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 The Early Roots of the Church: From AD 32 to AD 313 . . . . . . . . . 3
T he Christians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Early Church Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
T he Church Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
T he Time of Persecution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Chapter 3 The Formative Years of the Church: AD 313 to AD 1054 . . . . . . 19
Constantine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Early Ecumenical Councils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Jerome and Augustine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Council of Chalcedon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Rise of Monasticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
T he Church in Northern Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Section 1 CELEBRATORY WORSHIP
Chapter 4 The Celebratory Worship Style: Worship the Lord
in the Beauty of Holiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
T he Sacraments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Sacred Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
T he Worship Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Chapter 5 The Catholic – Orthodox Split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
T he Great Schism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
T he Crusades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
vi CONTENTS
Chapter 6 Catholic Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Response to the Reformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
V atican II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Chapter 7 The Acoustics of Celebratory Churches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4
Section 2 EVANGELICAL WORSHIP
Chapter 8 The Evangelical Style of Worship: So That All May Hear . . . . 81
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
T ypical Evangelical Worship Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
T ypical Architecture of Evangelical Style Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Historical Evolution of the Evangelical Worship Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Chapter 9 The Sixteenth Century Reformers: Luther, Zwingli,
and Calvin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
T he Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Early Protestant Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Martin Luther . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Ulrich Zwingli (1484 – 1531) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 02
John Calvin (1509 – 1564) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 04
Chapter 10 The Reformation in England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
W illiam Tyndale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Chapter 11 The Modern Evangelical Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
T he Baptist Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
T he Methodists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Chapter 12 Acoustics of the Evangelical Style Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
T he Acoustics of Preaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Intelligibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
CONTENTS vii
Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Reverberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Refl ecting/Focusing Surfaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Sound-System –F riendly Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
A coustics for Congregational Singing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
A coustics for Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Section 3 EXPERIENTIAL WORSHIP
Chapter 13 The Experiential Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
T he Pentecostal Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Chapter 14 The Pentecostals and the Charismatic
Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
T he Pentecostals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
T he Charismatic Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
A frican – American Churches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Chapter 15 Acoustics of the Experiential Style Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Music in Experiential Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
A coustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
T he Repurposed Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Section 4 COMMUNITY WORSHIP
Chapter 16 The Community Worship Style: Let Me Be as
Christ to You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
T ypical Community Worship Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Chapter 17 The Anabaptists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Menno Simons (1496 – 1561) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
viii CONTENTS
Chapter 18 The Acoustics of the Community Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
A rchitecture of the Community Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 91
Section 5 RESOURCES
Chapter 19 Introduction to Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Chapter 20 Elements of Church Sound Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Introduction: The Case For Systems Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Five Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Microphones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Consoles/Mixers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Signal Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
A mplifi ers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Loudspeaker Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Loudspeakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Chapter 21 Reverberation and Time Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Reverberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
T ime Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Reverberance (EDT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Clarity (C80) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
W armth (BR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Listener Envelopment (LEV) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Chapter 22 Noise and Isolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Noise Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
T ransmission Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Sound Transmission Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Impact Isolation Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
CONTENTS ix
Chapter 23 Intelligibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Subjective/Statistical Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Measurement Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Photo Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285