These clips were chosen to highlight how much of the religious tradition of church is an auditory experience. Even during moments of prayer and reflection, the church is never actually silent. These clips also highlight how sound in the age of recorded and broadcast church is different from traditional in person service. There is a struggle to achieve the inclusive experience and sonic dominance effects of a in in person church experience while extra care must be given to the technology involved and the way the service is conducted for internet platforms. There are a lot of different microphones and recorders that must be active during the service to achieve a smooth service and seamlessly capture and transpose the audio into the appropriate digital format.
There is often a variety of people speaking, different singers, and different instruments involved in the performance and sometimes several of these players producing sound simultaneously. Each of these levels must carefully set to achieve even transitions in what we hear (e.g. singing → talking voice, yelling → low talking). There are also event specific considerations for why an individual may use a specific microphone or sound system over another. These decisions can be influenced by personal preference, flexibility, and varying proximity that allows for rejection of noise and feedback. This is demonstrated in the clips where on one Sunday the preacher is using a handheld(dynamic) microphone and in the other, a headset (condenser) microphone on Communion Sunday so that he can be hands-free. In addition to these two types of microphones, there are a ton of other condenser microphones (e.g Shotgun/Boom mics) that could be found in service either for instruments, backup vocalists, or recording with a variety of pick up patterns.
Finally, what I found most interesting was the overall acoustic space of this very large church building and the weight of background noise in contributing to the experience. While not necessarily a cathedral, the space is designed for a very specific purpose. There are also both good and bad background noises associated with church that are highlighted in these clips. Some good types of noise captured would be clapping, call and response, shouting, background music. While unfavorable sounds would be a baby crying, room space & reverberation, talking, excess movement. It is intriguing that we can hear both good and bad noises, but only some of them actually cause a disturbance. Do we have selective hearing Or is this the power of ambient noise and the power of sound in creating an experience and space in time? Nonetheless, audio in the church provides a great example of sound in spatial context as discussed by David Byrne