Pre-restoration subjective acoustic comfort in the Goan church of Nossa Senhora do Pilar

This study at the Church of Nossa Senhora do Pilar, built in 1613 by the Spanish Capuchos Franciscan, investigates the acoustic effect of music on the subjective comfort of a listener in a wor-ship space. The results presented describe the effect of variations in the type of music rendered (in the form of live music from the cello, clarinet and the ensemble) from two music sources sites (the nave and the choir loft, of the church) on the subjective acoustic comfort of listeners in the church of Nossa Senhora do Pilar (a significant Catholic church of Goa, India). The subjective acoustic comfort of the listeners for different music types at the two music sources was measured through the Acoustic Comfort Impression Index (ACII). This index for subjective acoustic comfort was de-rived as a difference between desirable Subjective Acoustic Impressions such as of Intimacy, En-velopment, Reverberance, Loudness, Clarity, Directionality, Balance and undesirable Subjective Acoustic Impressions such as of Echoes and of Background Noise. The derived acoustic comfort impression index also took into account the requisite of reverential awe; intelligibility for sacred speech, music, singing and the sacred silence that characterizes a worship space. Although the sa-cred music rendered by the ensemble seems to have elicited better scores of Acoustical Comfort Impression Index (ACII) among the listeners, yet there is no significant difference between the means of the listeners acoustical comfort impressions by the ensemble, cello or clarinet (p = 0.43). Amongst the two music source locations, although the Acoustical Comfort Impression Index (ACII) seems to favor the choir loft location, the music rendered therein is only 80% significantly more effective than the music rendered from the nave floor location (p = 0.20).