Optimum organ acoustics reconciled with other hall uses

Providing optimum acoustics for a large musical instrument, the organ, to insure good sound distribution and proper times of arrival for performer and audience is a formidable task, involving consideration of reverberation times over the frequency range, initial time delay gaps, early to reverberant ratios, and energy frequency balance. To coordinate these parameters for the organ and also maintain them near optimum for chamber groups, orchestras, and choruses, adds further complications. Some guidelines in architechtual design are presented, and examples drawn from buildings built over a period of 36 years are shown, with the improtant role of adjustability, in suspended sound‐reflecting panels, stage‐enclosure elements, stage floors on elevators, and even the organ itself, emphasized. One important example using electronics for music is shown, and provision of high‐speech intelligibility through sound systems is also summarized for each example. The case studies are from work performed by the acoustical...