Acoustics of Voice and Music in Jewish Worship Spaces

Abstract

The history of Jewish worship space, the organization, and some of the customs of Jewish worship are discussed. Thevarious strands of Jewish worship are presented as they relate to the worship space and its acoustics. The architectural andacoustic features of the various types of Jewish worship spaces and how these relate to the tradition are then presented.The difficulties and possibilities in using sound reinforcement in Jewish worship spaces are noted. Finally, the noiseissues are discussed from the viewpoint of signal-to-noise ratios for speech intelligibility. The intent is to provide a backgroundfor thorough acoustical analysis