10 WALLACE CLEMENT WARE SABINE— HALL [MBMon * t v£xx£ 



Turning to Europe we find the musical scale most rapidly developing among the stone-dwelling people along 

 the shores of the Mediterranean. The development of the scale and its increased use kept pace with the increased 

 size of the dwellings and temples. It showed above all in their religious worship, as their temples and churches 

 reached cathedral size. The reverberation which accompanied the lofty and magnificent architecture increased 

 until even the spoken service became intoned in the Gregorian chant. It is not going beyond the bounds of 

 reason to say that in those churches in Europe, which are housed in magnificent cathedrals, the Catholic, the 

 Lutheran, and Protestant Episcopal, the form of worship is in part determined by their acoustical conditions. 



The passages thus far quoted from Sabine's writings say little about the form of auditoriums 

 or the position of absorbing or reflecting surfaces, and they might lead one to think these matters 

 unimportant. This would be a serious mistake. When he came to deal with an auditorium so 

 irregular in shape as a modern theater, with boxes and two or three deep galleries, under the 

 requirement that words spoken on the stage should be easily heard everywhere, the problem was 

 not merely, or perhaps mainly, that of reverberation. It was necessary to consider whether the 

 details of shape and surface, actual or proposed, were such as to kill off the sound by "inter- 

 ference" in certain places or to confuse it by an echo. 



This problem was not difficult, though it was laborious, for Sabine, when he was consulted in 

 advance of the construction, as he was in the case of the Little Theater in New York City or 

 the Scollay Square Theater in Boston. 



As to the plan of the New Theater in New York, his advice was asked only after construction 

 of the building. The architects had undertaken the task of making a very large auditorium 

 suitable for both opera and drama, and, naturally, had not been entirely successful. Sabine 

 advised certain changes of position of boxes and foyer chairs and recommended lowering the 

 ceiling. The minor changes proposed were made, but instead of lowering the ceiling, the archi- 

 tects suspended beneath it a large oval canopy, 70 by 40 feet, with good effect. 



Concerning open-air theaters, Sabine remarks, after observing that the presence of an 

 audience diminishes reverberation: 



But in the Greek theatre, occupied or unoccupied, ruined or in its original form, there was very little rever- 

 beration. In fact, this was its merit. On the other hand, the very fact that there was little reverberation is 

 significant that there was very slight architectural reenforcement of the voice. One might well be unconvinced 

 by such a priori considerations were there not excellent evidence that these theatres were not wholly acceptable 

 acoustically even in their day, and for drama written for and more or less adapted to them. Excellent evidence 

 that there was insufficient consonance " is to be found in the megaphone mouthpieces used at times in both 

 the tragic and the comic masks, and in the proposal by Vitruvius to use resonant vases to strengthen the voice. 



Apparently the acoustical difficulties presented by churches, though often serious, are not 

 usually so hard to deal with as those found in theaters, perhaps because church audiences are 

 not so insistent as theater audiences on hearing every word that is uttered. The first of the 

 following passage describes one interesting church case: 



Among a number of interesting problems in advance of construction, the firm of McKim, Mead & White 

 has brought some interesting problems in correction, of which three will serve admirably as examples because 

 of their unusual directness. The first is that of the Congregational Church in Naugatuck, Connecticut. . . . 

 When built its ceiling was cylindrical, as now, but smooth. Its curvature was such as to focus a voice from the 

 platform upon the audience — not at a point, but along a focal line, for a cylindrical mirror is astigmatic. The 

 difficulty was evident with the speaking, but may be described more effectually with reference to the singing. 

 The position of the choir was behind the preacher and across the main axis of the church. On one line in the 

 audience, crossing the church obliquely from right to left, the soprano voice could be heard coming even more 

 sharply from the ceiling than directly from the singer. The alto starting nearer the axis of the church had for 

 its focus a line crossing the church less obliquely. The phenomena were similar for the tenor and the bass voices, 

 but with focal lines crossing the church obliquely in opposite directions. The difficulty was in a very large 

 measure remedied by coffering the ceiling, . . . both the old and the new ceiling being of plaster. 



The hall of the House of Representatives in the Rhode Island State capitol illustrated another type of 

 difficulty. In considering this hall it is necessary to bear in mind that the problem is an essentially different 

 one from that of a church or lecture-room. In these the speaking is from a raised platform and a fixed posi- 

 tion. In a legislative assembly the speaking is in the main from the floor, and may be from any part of the 

 floor. 



In this legislative hall Sabine diagnosed the trouble as an effect not very different from an 

 echo, due to reflection first from wall to wall and then from ceiling to audience. 



11 Sabine takes this word from Vitruvius, Be Architectura, Liber V, Cap. VH1. It means action by which the voice is "supported and 

 strengthened." 



