The organ as a teaching resource in architectural acoustics

The study of architectural acoustics must include an acquisition by students with limited or no musical background of a range of knowledge beginning with the harmonic structure of sound and its effect on timbre and continuing through an awareness of the ways, for better or worse, the architectural enclosure creates a reverberant field that affects various attributes such as blend, clarity, and fullness of tone and completes the musical sound that is heard. Aural experiences are essential if the student is to understand fully musical sound and the role of an architectural enclosure in its proper audition. The organ is an ideal instrument for demonstrations that give this experience. A series of live and recorded demonstrations using the organ is described which have been used over several years to show the relationship between music and architectural acoustics.