The research work started with a thorough study of each cathedral building included in the project, which aimed to document the architectural transformation of the interior of each building over the years paying attention to the relevant changes from an acoustic point of view. It also looks into the liturgical and cultural events held in each cathedral that temporally change their internal arrangement.
Then, acoustic measurements were carried out in Bristol cathedral (February 2019, March 2020), Ripon cathedral (February/March 2019), York Minster (May 2019) and Ely cathedral (July 2019). The same methodology was followed in the 4 cathedrals for the registration of their acoustic response (Room Impulse Responses, RIR) at selected positions, which were set taking into account their architectural features and tending to be representative to the diversity of events held in them. The RIR gathered during the measurement campaigns helped us to describe the acoustic field experienced in the cathedrals, focusing in different parts of each building (nave, choir, presbytery) and allowed us to evaluate how singular elements, such as the choir screen, influence the acoustics. Additionally, some of those signals serve to generate auralisations to emphasise the fact that the acoustics of each cathedral significantly changes depending on the part of the building. A sample of Gregorian chants and speeches were recorded in an anechoic chamber (January and July 2019) to be used in the auralisations.
3D simulation models of Ripon cathedral, York Minster's Chapter House, Ely cathedral's Lady chapel and Bristol cathedral's Chapter House were built and calibrated by using the measurement results. The model of Bristol cathedral is also under development. These models have been used not only to learn more about how the architectural features and the space arrangement of each space shapes its acoustics nowadays, but also as a starting point to create the historical models that have been used to assess their acoustic behaviour at different points in history.
CATHEDRAL ACOUSTICS has been disseminated through a great variety of scientific and public events. The first dissemination activity was our participation on a roundtable at the international Workshop on Early Modern Global Soundscapes held at the University of York (January 2019). A tutorial followed by a technical tour on cathedral acoustics and sonic heritage were given at AES DUBLIN 2019 (March 2019). First project’s results were disseminated through a conference paper and a poster presentation on Bristol cathedral acoustics at Inter.noise 2019 in Madrid (June 2019). A talk to highlight the acoustics as an important part of cathedral’s intangible heritage was given at the Centre for Digital Heritage Conference at York (June 2019). A paper on the preliminary study of the acoustics of Ripon cathedral was part of a session on the acoustics of heritage buildings at ICA 2019, held in Aachen. A journal paper on the acoustics of the York Minster’s Chapter House was published in Acoustics, as part of the special issue "Historical Acoustics: Relationships between People and Sound over Time”, in January 2020. Regarding dissemination outside academia and public engagement, we participated in the Festival of Ideas 2019 - Discovery Zone (June 2019) with an activity designed to show how different spaces modify sound. On July 2019, I run an academic session on sound and acoustics as part of the York Experience Summer School, which was a magnificent opportunity to communicate the importance of MSC actions and share my personal experience as a MSC fellow. We created a short virtual game "Cathedrals' Treasures" for the York Researchers Night (February 2020) to show the concept of reverberation and the importance of heritage acoustics to children. This game was also shared online as part of the Festival of Ideas 2020-Discovery zone (June 2020), together with a short presentation. Last but not least, we wrote an entry on Cathedral Acoustics for the blog of the international research network on Early Modern Soundscapes.
