Ancient Greeks' Knowledge

By Robert Sekuler

Today, well-trained acoustical consultants play an important and well-compensated role in many major architectural projects. People recognize that a building should not only be pleasing to the eye, but also to the ear. But long before there were textbooks and teachers of architectural acoustics, the ancient Greeks were clearly on the right track. After all, they somehow managed to develop theaters whose acoustics were superb. What lessons can we learn from those theaters? And what acoustical properties accounted for their renown?

Robert Shankman gave an excellent introduction to the history of architectural acoustics, including Greek theaters, in "The development of architectural acoustics," American Scientist, Shankman argued that the key elements for the success of a Greek theater were:

extremely low background noise (not near super highways)
acoustical aids used by the actors (actors wore masks that had mouthpieces built in; also actors often stood on resonating sound boxes while they declaimed)
during key moments the audience was very quiet (they appreciated the religious or political significance of the action)
sound-reflecting surfaces, usually a stone floor, were placed very near performers (reflections from the stone kept actors' voices from being lost as soon as the lines had been spoken)
the stage was elevated (this caused the actors' voices to radiate well over the entire audience; if the stage had been low, say below the first row of the audience, voices would have tended to be absorbed by the bodies in those first rows, making it hard to people toward the rear to hear)

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