Replies

"Live" and "Dead" are acoustical terms. I'm not aware of any specifically ecclesiastical terms for those properties. Until the advent of the Modern Hideous school of church architecture, the was probably no such thing as a really acoustically dead church. By "room" do you mean the interior of the church as a whole? (Sanctuary and Nave combined?) There's probably a specific term for that, but I'd have to look it up.

Please don't take my comments as flames against you. I've suffered through some really awful "music ministries" over the years.

AB

By "room" do you mean the interior of the church as a whole? (Sanctuary and Nave combined?)

Yes. And the transcepts, if there are any. An open narthex, overflow or organ loft, window casements, side chapels - anything that opens into the nave where sound can travel.

Please don't take my comments as flames against you. I've suffered through some really awful "music ministries" over the years.

Oh, I'm not. Believe me, anyone with even just a rudimentary knowledge of real music is in the same boat. The big problem is the good stuff isn't taught unless you go looking for it.