Past, Present & Future Memory Informed by Reverberation Characteristics of Worship & Performance Spaces

Among the components that contribute to the acoustical architecture of a worship space are reverberation characteristics. These characteristics affect both the spoken word and music and thus have an impact on the experience of worship. The scope of this project covers the reverberation characteristics of two contrasting worship spaces and shows how they affected the responses of fifteen participants to selected pieces of choral music that were recorded in those spaces.

The results suggested that reverberation characteristics were a dominant player in the listening experience and by extension in the experience of worship. The research project concluded that clergy, musicians and others (notably architects and church designers) are challenged to use existing reverberation characteristics more creatively and to factor reverberation characteristics into the design of planned new worship spaces.