Church Sound/Lighting Reading Material Needed

[HolyPhish]

Hello Blue-Roomers

 

 

Background:

 

I am studying Applied Theology at Regents Theological College and have been asked to examine, analyse and critique 3 different congregations attitudes and behaviour in certain areas of church.

 

Due to my background in technical stuff I would like to focus on how the technical side of church aids and enhances (or not) the worship experience of the congregation.

 

 

However before I embark on this topic I would like to see what resources are available and have turned to my favourite forum for help with suggestions of stuff to read.

 

 

 

 

I am currently looking for books/articles/journals that have chapters or are indeed dedicated to looking at sound and lighting within a church context.

 

I have currently got (or aquiring) copies of:

 

Gibson B, The Ultimate Sound Operator's Handbook

Eiche JF, Guide to Sound Systems for Worship

As well as having access to host of books on theatre sound, lighting tech and how set up systems.

 

 

My main questions are:

 

1) Are there any other directly related texts within a church context?

2) Are there books with chapters dedicated to use of sound/lights in church/places of worship?

3) Are there any books which you consider foundational to the role of sound/lighting in any context that I should read?

 

 

Thank You for your time

 

 

HolyPhish

[paulears]

Quite a few American origin magazines and websites, as sound is a huge thing for them at the moment. A google search of

 

worship magazine pa system

 

brings back many I've seen and read but loads I'd not heard of at all.

 

I suspect it's moving far too fast for books to keep up. It's obviously spreading here too.

 

When I was thinking about buying a Behringer, I watched all the tutorials on youtube - and ones from churches vastly outnumber the rest!.

 

EDIT

By coincidence this link just popped into my email inbox.

http://view.ehpub.net/?j=fec21c747663007e&m=fe9215707361027e7d&ls=fe571672726c06747011&l=ff5a137873&s=fe5e1570756c037e7c11&jb=ffcf14&ju=fe6115747c6504747617&r=0

[Stuart91]

 

I have currently got (or aquiring) copies of:

 

Gibson B, The Ultimate Sound Operator's Handbook

 

You may also want to take a look at Ray Rayburn's comments on that book.

 

 

Most of the books that I've read have concentrated more on the practical skills required, and things like team dynamics. I can't recall any that cover the "theology of tech" to coin a phrase. They all address the "how" rather than the "why".

 

In a sense this is a process that churches have pursued through the centuries, pipe organs and stained glass windows are essentially earlier expressions of the same intention. There might be some interesting comparisons that can be drawn if you want to take your research down that direction.

[revbobuk]

I'm sure you have already included the folks at tfwm - they've got much more on the way of UK connections than most of the US publications, and would be worth a conversation.

[HolyPhish]

Covering the 'how' is useful. All I need is reference-able material to work with. I imagine somewhere there is a quick paragraph on 'the role of a sound engineer' which will be enough within my essay with all the other sources that I'm using.

 

I just need to have enough to show I have officially researched (on paper) a topic that I have been taught through years practically.

 

Thank you for your help so far

[cedd]

Not directly related to what you're looking for, but you may find some useful stuff coming from well known Christian musicians and leaders. I'm pretty sure Matt Redman wrote "When the Music Fades" with this kind of thing on his mind. You may find some useful quotes from him, I'm pretty sure he's written some books. Mike Pilavachi has also spoken on the subject at Soul Survivor (though I forget if it was a seminar or the main venue, I had 30 teenagers to keep an eye on and was a bit distracted!) - basically talking about a night at Soul Survivor when they switched everything off and just went acoustic.

 

I actually nearly wrote a blog on this myself for the Missing Generation site I write for. As a Sound Engineer and also a Christian I was going to ask some questions about how far we can justifiably go to "improve" a "performance" (both in quotation marks because I'm not entirely convinced everybody thinks what we do is an improvement, and I'm not sold on the idea of leading worship being a performance either). Lighting, audio processing, click tracks, visuals - all things I was going to think about. I wrote the thing and then realised it was far too niche for the site, and that I didn't actually have any answers to the questions! So it never got published. Happy to email a copy over to you though Dani. If I publish it, can you quote from it? :-)

[indyld]

I expect that the OP is aware of this (and perhaps was looking for print/journals etc. in this area) but Mike Sessler at Church Tech Arts writes not only on "how to" tech in worship but often aligns his faith with what he feels is his core mission as a TD and how production fits into the bigger picture. Reckon he'd do you an interview, too.

[david.elsbury]

Slightly OT :

http://www.weblogcartoons.com/cc/ew-large/sound-desk-operator.gif

[Simon Lewis]

Eiche's book is in many ways a subset of the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. As mentioned above, Gibson's book has inaccuracies.

 

You may wish to look at:

 

Sound of Worship

 

A Handbook of Acoustics and Sound System Design for the Church

By Douglas Jones

 

 

Sound, Lighting and Video: A Resource for Worship

By Brad Herring

 

both by Focal Press.

 

 

Books on Architectural Acoustics will often carry a section on design for churches (usually tradtitional designs with RT60 measured in days, but also acknowledging the emergence of contemporary worship forms and the requirements for these). Long, Egan, Marshal (and possibly Beranek, but he deals more with concert halls). Any technical papers on churches by Acoustic Dimensions or Glenn Leembruggen at Acoustic Directions may well be worth reading, I cannot recommend Joe de Buglio's book.

 

I suspect that there will be other theses that look at technology and worship. I have one somewhere on my home PC... You might wish to join Church Sound Check and ask there as well.

 

 

Simon Lewis

 

 

[jonathan859]

From a lighting and visual perspective Camron Ware at http://visualworshiper.com/blog has some interesting content, especially on the WHY, as does Stephen Proctor at http://illuminate.us/ . Both have ideas and opinions on using technology in worship.

[bruce]

.... and don't forget Jim Brown's "Why Churches Buy Three Sound Systems, and How You Can Buy Only One"

 

http://audiosystemsgroup.com/3Times.pdf

[Snailtrail]

Some useful reading on the subject at Sunday Mag. US based but lots of contributions from different angles, how, why, who.

[Jivemaster]

The trouble is that "Worship" in a Christian sense is as different as BCP services for 10 to 30, and a full AV spectacular for 2000 - 10,000. The same AV installation doesn't suit both.

 

Compare a small parish church with KICC at the O2, there needs are so different you cannot find oner solution fitting both.

[HolyPhish]

Hello

 

 

Thank you for all your responses and replies.

 

 

 

I researched all areas suggested and gained some quality sources for my essay.

 

 

I essentially focussed my essay on the sound guys being 'left out' of community in church and compared how different churches treat their sound teams.

 

 

It was very illuminating and a fun paper to write.

 

 

 

Thank you for your help

 

 

 

Topic Closed.