   
Acoustics of Early Churches© Robert Sekuler and Randolph Blake 1996 Shankman describes how the acoustics of early churches influenced the development of the religious services held therein. Because the first Christian churches were made of stone, their hard surfaces created echoes and reverberations. As a result, any church music had to be played or sung very slowly in order to be understood. Ultimately, according to Shankman, speaking gave way to chanting --Gregorian chants and slow choral works. The poor acoustics of those churches may well have made the visual spectacle of the service more important than its sound dimension (what the congregation saw was more important than what words they heard). -->
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